Excerpt from Half-Hours With American History, Vol. 1 OF histories of America there exists an abundant store, some of them attempting to cover the whole period, others limited in scope, while many are devoted to some single topic of the varied panorama of national life. Some of these works are noted for brilliancy of style, others for conscientiousness in research, others as being written by participants in the events described, while to still others quaintness of manner or antiquity of date gives a certain value. Yet few of them are without unevenness of quality, and in history as in general literature authors often appear to most advantage in select-ed extracts from their works, since no man can be always at his best. Led by this con sideration, the editor has deemed it desirable to add to his half-hours with the Best American Authors a com panion work of half-hours with American History, which he hopes may be found to have a special value of its own. The subject is certainly one of the highest in terest and importance, while many of the works from which selections have been made are beyond the reach of general readers, and often too voluminous for the taste and leisure of others than students of history.. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.