Our America: A Photographic History by Ken Burns

"A rich and moving chronicle for our very present." —Julio Ortega, New York Times Book ReviewThe United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America's Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater.

Much interest currently revolves around happiness in America, so much so that one could reasonably argue that there is a “happiness movement” afoot. The wide range of arenas in which happiness intersects reflects the subject’s centrality in everyday life in America these past one hundred years. Happiness in America charts the course of happiness within American culture over the past century, and concludes that most Americans have not had success becoming appreciably happier people despite considerable efforts to do so.