Designed to be read for pleasure as well as for information, this links facts, dates and events to reveal broad themes in, and ideas about, American history. This thematic and interpretive approach aims to bring out the relationships among topics separated not only geographically and in time but, in many encyclopaedias, by either alphabetical or chronological organization. The book contains more than 1000 entries compiled by nearly 400 historians, scholars, biographers and journalists.