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£14.99
Published
7 April 2026
Hardback
9781917532136
Ebook
9781917532143
Press Release
Coming soon.
By Don Watson:

 

‘Lucid, inform­at­ive and thor­ough…admir­ably bal­anced and nuanced…warmly recom­men­ded for any­one with an interest in one of the most fas­cin­at­ing (for good and bad) nations in his­tory’ DARRAGH McMANUS, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, IRELAND

‘Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…’ In the 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s unalienable rights have often been thwarted by slavery, war and depression. Today the USA may not always seem the shining city on a hill dreamed of by so many, but it is unquestionably the world’s most powerful nation – a source both of fear and wonder, inspiration and mockery.

With elegance and wit, Don Watson dissects the ignominies and triumphs of American history. He traces the course of liberty and justice alongside violence and oppression, showing how a country at war with itself in the 1860s became the leader of the free world less than a century later – and the unquiet, riven nation of today.

This is the concise, indispensable and fair-minded story of the world’s greatest superpower.

Old Street Publishing The Shortest History of the United States of America

‘Lucid, inform­at­ive and thor­ough…admir­ably bal­anced and nuanced…warmly recom­men­ded for any­one with an interest in one of the most fas­cin­at­ing (for good and bad) nations in his­tory’ DARRAGH McMANUS, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, IRELAND

‘Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…’ In the 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s unalienable rights have often been thwarted by slavery, war and depression. Today the USA may not always seem the shining city on a hill dreamed of by so many, but it is unquestionably the world’s most powerful nation – a source both of fear and wonder, inspiration and mockery.

With elegance and wit, Don Watson dissects the ignominies and triumphs of American history. He traces the course of liberty and justice alongside violence and oppression, showing how a country at war with itself in the 1860s became the leader of the free world less than a century later – and the unquiet, riven nation of today.

This is the concise, indispensable and fair-minded story of the world’s greatest superpower.

 14.99
 
 

'Don Watson's Shortest History of the United States is a masterpiece of concision and analysis that extracts the DNA from the body politic and locates both the resilience and the pathologies in its genes.
Nothing else I have read explains the sources of our current dilemmas as a nation more astutely. Every American should read it; it should be on the curriculum of every high school.' —Judith Thurman

 
 
  • ‘Don Watson, who has written extensively on the US, provides an insightful and clear account of the country, its founding ideas and the people who have tested ‘‘the truth of those ideas'
    —The Age
  • 'Among its strengths are Watson’s clear-eyed, outsider’s take on the messianic impulse that has characterised so much US history, which also means a welcome emphasis on the nation’s rotten founding of settler-colonialism'
    —Clare Corbould, Australian Book Review
  • ’Dazzlingly eloquent and perceptive; it is the Tocqueville of damaged but persistent and enduring dreams. As a star of the epigram he’s right up there with Tocqueville, and as a story-teller he loses nothing to Theroux’
    —Thomas Keneally on American Journeys
  • ‘The best book by an outsider about America – forever’
    —David Sedaris on American Journeys
  • 'A brilliant, original work'
    —Neal Ascherson, TLS, on Caledonia Australis
  • 'A truly magnificent achievement'
    —Peter Carey on The Passion of Private White
 
 
Don Watson

DON WATSON is the author of many acclaimed and prize-winning books, among them Caledonia Australis, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart and American Journeys.