Columbus, the Indians, and human progress -- Drawing the color line -- Persons of mean and vile condition -- Tyranny is tyranny -- A kind of revolution -- The intimately oppressed -- As long as grass grows or water runs -- We take nothing by conquest, thank God -- Slavery without submission, emancipation without freedom -- The other civil war -- Robber barons and rebels -- The empire and the people -- The socialist challenge -- War is the health of the state -- Self-help in hard times -- A people's war? -- "Or does it explode?" -- The impossible victory: Vietnam -- Surprises -- The seventies: under control? -- Carter-Reagan-Bush: the bipartisan consensus -- The unreported resistance -- The coming revolt of the guards -- The Clinton presidency -- The 2000 election and the "war on terrorism."