Polishing America’s image in the eyes of its people
When George Bancroft was hunched over his table at the venerable Boston Athenæum in 1832, he wasn’t merely working on the critical scaffolding of his great work, “History of the United States of America.” That was certainly his task, but, as historian Colin Woodard makes clear in his compelling new book, “Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood,” there was a deeper force driving Bancroft: He wasn’t just writing history –
