In A Short History of the United States, National Book Award winner Robert V. Remini offers a much-needed, concise history of our country. This accessible and lively volume contains the essential facts about the discovery, settlement, growth, and development of the American nation and its institutions, including the arrival and migration of Native Americans, the founding of a republic under the Constitution, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the outbreak of terrorism here and abroad, the Obama presidency, and everything in between.

It was Andrew Jackson’s military heroism that helped to usher him into the presidency. From the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 to the Indian Wars and his unorthodox presence in the White House, Jackson is one of the most fascinating figures in American history. Here is his life as told by the foremost Jackson historian of our time.

It has been said that if Henry Clay had been alive in 1860, there would have been no Civil War. Based on his performance in 1850, it may well be true. In that year, the United States faced one of the most dangerous crises in its history, having just acquired a huge parcel of land from the war with Mexico. Northern and Southern politicians fought over whether slavery should be legal on the new American soil. After a Northern congressman introduced a proviso to forbid slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico, Southerners threatened to secede from the Union. Only Henry Clay, America’s great compromiser, could keep the Union together, saving it from dissolution for ten crucial years.

In this masterful contribution to American history, Remini explores Henry Clay’s final and most important act of bipartisanship.

This book addresses a pivotal and overlooked moment in American history. In 1815, Britain’s crack troops, fresh from victories against Napoleon, were stunningly defeated near New Orleans by a ragtag army of citizen soldiers under the fledgling commander Andrew Jackson, whom they dubbed “Old Hickory.” It was this battle that first defined the United States as a military power to be reckoned with and an independent democracy here to stay.

The Battle of New Orleans sets its scenes with an almost unbelievably colorful cast of characters—a happenstance coalition of militiamen, regulars, untrained frontiersmen, free blacks, Indians, townspeople, and of course, Jackson himself. His glorious, improbable victory will catapult a once-poor, uneducated orphan boy into the White House and forge the beginning of a true nation.