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The American Future

Review by Niall Ferguson

Published: October 3 2008 21:34 | Last updated: October 3 2008 21:34

The American Future: A History
By Simon Schama
The Bodley Head £20, 400 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16

I wasn’t on the flatboard before the truck roared off; I lurched, a rider grabbed me, and I sat down. Somebody passed a bottle of rotgut, the bottom of it. I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical air of Nebraska. ‘Whooee, here we go!’ yelled a kid in a baseball cap, and they gunned up the truck to 70 and passed everybody on the road. ‘We been riding this sonofabitch since Des Moines. These guys never stop.’”

Female American immigrants sew an American flag during the first world war

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