Documenting America: Non-Fiction USA History

My historical-political series, looking at historical American documents, analyzing them, and tying them to an issue of today.

Documenting America: Lessons from the United States’ Historical Documents

Documenting AmericaThe United States is rich in documents, many which remain in obscurity, but which contain valuable information about the formation of this nation, while at the same time contain lessons for where we are right now. In this book, a number of these documents are quoted in large blocks, the importance of the document explained, and relevancy for America shown. The documents selected cover the 18th and 19th centuries. The colonial era, the run up to Independence, the formative years, and the rise to the beginning of being a great world power are all herein. Click here to see it at the Kindle store. And here to see it at the Smashwords store. And, for those of you who prefer to hold a paper book in your hands rather than an e-book, a paper version is available at Amazon.


Documenting America: Making The Constitution

The book in the Documenting America series covers the years from 1783 to 1789. The new nation was floundering, due to a weak central government and states that thought they were sovereign nations, only loosely joined together for a little bit of cooperation. Establishing themselves on the world stage of nations was proving difficult. The leaders who had won the Revolutionary War began talking about it, then doing something. A convention was held and a new Constitution written. Then they had to sell it to a people who were leery of strong governments. They had to explain how the Constitution provided checks on the government and guaranteed freedom within a united country.

Documenting America: Making the Constitution is available as a print book and e-book from Amazon, and as an e-book from Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and other retailers.


Documenting America: Civil War Edition

The temporary cover is almost exactly like the one I ended up using.
The temporary cover is almost exactly like the one I ended up using.

This book in the Documenting America series. It focuses on documents produced while the actual fighting was going on, from the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861 to just after Lee’s surrender in 1865. In twenty-nine chapters, each looking at a different event, sometimes with multiple documents, the book follows the same format as the others in the series: a document is excerpted; its historical context is discussed, then a lesson is pulled from it that can be applied to an issue the U.S.A. faces today. The book is much more than battles. The politics of the time, economic conditions, and how the issues of that day affected the churches are all discussed.

DA:CWE is available at Amazon and Smashwords.


Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents – Homeschool Edition

Taking my earlier volume, I have added questions and some short essays for the homeschool student to complete. I see this as a high school elective, not as a history text. A homeschooled high schooler who is interested in US history should find this book to be of interest. The book is available on Kindle and Smashwords, and is distributed by Smashwords to most e-reader platforms. A print book is also available at Amazon. In addition, I have completed a short document for the homeschool instructor, providing answers to questions and some additional information on how assignments might be made. This is available for free just by sending me an e-mail to norman_d_gutter at yahoo dot com.

Author | Engineer