Showing results for "The Turning Point" in Americas

This lecture series takes you on a far-reaching journey around the globe - from China to the Americas to New Zealand - to shed light on how two dozen of the top discoveries, inventions, political upheavals, and ideas since 1400 have shaped the modern world. In just 24 thought-provoking lectures, you'll get the amazing story of how life as we know it developed. Starting in the early 15th century and culminating in the age of social media, you'll encounter astounding threads that weave through the centuries, joining these turning points in ways that may come as a revelation.

These 48 lectures are your chance to relive the most groundbreaking moments in the fascinating story of the United States. They offer you a different perspective on the sweeping narrative of U.S. history. Spanning the arrival of the first English colonists to the chaos of the Civil War to the birth of the computer age and beyond, this lecture series is a captivating and comprehensive tour of those particular moments in the story of America, after which the nation would never be the same again.

Arnold J. Toynbee, the most famous professional historian of the twentieth century, is widely quoted as having declared that “History is just one damn thing after another.” This book argues that history is not about “things” at all but is all about turning points—the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures on which the shape of a nation’s life—our lives—depends. It presents the 100 points at which America’s path decisively turned on its way to where we find ourselves today.

For generations of Americans, the word Antietam - the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland - held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America's single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation's future.

In this masterful, yet accessible narrative of America’s fight for liberty, John R. Maass identifies the five decisive events that secured independence for the 13 hard-pressed but determined colonies. These include not only the obvious military victories such as Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown but also the leadership and reforms that ensured Washington’s forces were capable of enduring the harsh conditions of the winter of 1778.