This is a powerhouse of a book.

The crux of the book is that to understand the future we must look to the past. What we get is a series of interlocking biographies and episodes that illustrate, perfectly, one of Schama’s viewpoints about the history of the American ethos. We drift and rush through time and space, following the election campaign of Obama to the clearing out of the Cherokee. Though at times his prose is too flowery, the jump too great, Schama has the knack of bringing you along with him – of disorientating you and then putting you right back on his track.

The book and the stories therein are divided into four sections. War, Fervor, Internationalism and Wealth– the four horses of the American struggle. Fervour here interlocks the American experience of faith, racism and slavery – all ways in which to divide people into categories. Schama ends with now and the concerns of the day, plus the hopes of the new flowering of democracy after its decade of slumber. Thus we see in the final chapters the success story of water management in Las Vegas (and the flip side of the forced migration of Indians to barren desert). We see the oil magnate turning to production of wind farms. Most of all, just under the surface of every page is the figure of Obama. The hope of a nation and also of history is on those shoulders.

Unlike Schama’s documentaries and arguably his more heavy handed history books (like the History of Britain series) this is a punchy book. It accompanies a TV series but also is the book of the filming. Thus the locations and stories are led often by where the director wants to film that day. This human perspective, along with the timescale imposed by the election of Obama is what sets this book apart. It reads like a better, less moral but deeper version of Audacity of Hope. The best answer we have so far of what America does, or should stand for.

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