Simon Schama

It spans the millennia and the continents - from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers...

Taking eight famous painters and their great masterpieces, this book takes you back to the intense moment in history when these works were conceived and born. In each case the artist is backed into a corner, and given a chance to confound his rivals, enemies and critics.

Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution and its aftermath, 'Rough Crossings' is the gripping, astonishing epic of the struggle for freedom by tens of thousands of slaves who believed that their future as free men and women was bound up with staying British, not becoming American.

Inspired by his research into the reality of the General Wolfe's death at Quebec, Schama is drawn towards the case of a gruesome murder in the family of Wolfe's chronicler, Francis Parkman. What Schama reveals however is a history of stories.

In November 2008 the United States of America will elect a new president. But the imminent collapse of 20 years of Republican conservatism means the country is already conducting an intense self-examination about the trajectory of its history. This book provides a timely & masterful history of this, the world's most controversial superpower.