A very short history of the united States...

along with a Big Picture...and very illuminating.

Myself, I see history in a one-word definition:
FAILURE. Not just failure but failure on two
fronts which were properly elucidated by two 18th
century giants, the historian Edward Gibbon and,
of all people, the philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel.

Edward Gibbon in a most eloquent manner sees the
subject of history as "…little more than the
register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes
of mankind"?

While Hegel being perfectly consistent with his
philosophical ideals say: "What experience and
history teach is this-that people and governments
never have learned anything from history, or
acted on principles deduced from it."

Full article.