From revolution to civil rights, Hollywood and the Gilded Age The extraordinary story of the United States, a nation that contains multitudes When Britain's thirteen American colonies declared their independence on 4 July 1776, the United States of America was born. But it was hardly united. In this superbly written book, Don Watson traces how the central conflicts of the United States – those over freedom, race, frontiers, enterprise, religion and violence – play out throughits history: a country at war with itself in the 1860s, the leader of the free world less than a hundred years later, and a nation beset by wild division and turmoil in the twenty-first century. This is a story full of character and humour, told with great learning and insight – a perfect introduction to America, past and present.