Ten acclaimed documentary filmmakers present ten pivotal moments in American history and the often unexpected changes brought about by these events.

Uses personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents, and diaries, to unveil the creation of the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, and its spread across the American South.

"In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. The American experiment rests on three ideas--"these truths," Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, "on a dedication to inquiry, fearless and unflinching," writes Jill Lepore in a groundbreaking investigation...

Maddow shows how deeply militarized our culture has become--how the role of the national security sector has shape-shifted and grown over the past century to the point of being financially unsustainable and confused in mission.

Journalist Sam Quinones chronicles how, over the past 15 years, enterprising sugar cane farmers in a small county on the west coast of Mexico created a unique distribution system that brought black tar heroin -- the cheapest, most addictive form of the opiate, 2 to 3 times purer than its white powder cousin -- to the veins of people across the United States. Communities where heroin had never been seen before -- from Charlotte, North Carolina and...

In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Calvin Coolidge's improbable rise from a tiny town in New England up through Massachussetts politics. Coolidge's firm hand, devotion to principle, and hopeful outlook set the stage for prosperity and optimism for a decade.

Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in the American South and went on to write one of the most extraordinary slave narratives. First published pseudonymously in 1861,Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl describes Jacobs's treatment at the hands of her owners, her eventual escape to the North, and her perilous existence evading recapture as a fugitive slave. To save herself from sexual assault and protect her children she is forced to hide for seven years...

At a moment of crisis over our national identity, venerated journalist Dan Rather has emerged as a voice of reason and integrity, reflecting on-and writing passionately about-what it means to be an American. Now, with this collection of original essays, he reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us, from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion...

"O'Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation's most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O'Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face...