All men find comfort and reassurance in knowing how their civilization developed and where in the grand arrangement of events it stands at the moment. But we Americans at this juncture in the 20th Century have a particular need to take our historical bearings. Prodigious changes have set their seal upon our generation. The convulsions of two World Wars cracked and finally shattered the wall of isolation behind which our countrymen had taken shelter for so long. For the first time since the 18th Century, we are again face-to-face with the rest of the world. We see now what was for so long hidden from view: we are permanently "entangled" with the family of man. Acknowledging this to ourselves once more-a process paradoxically difficult for a nation of immigrants-has given us a chance to place our history in a fresh perspective. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Life History of the United States: Prehistory to 1774: The New World (Morris Richard)