Remembering is a biblical command.
Throughout Scripture, God's people are called to remember His works. Israel remembered the Exodus. The church remembers Christ's death and resurrection every Sunday at the Lord's Table. We remember because memory cultivates gratitude, humility, and faithfulness.
Now, the United States is not Israel. But nations have stories too, and those stories are worth remembering. Understanding our past helps us appreciate what we've inherited and equips us to steward it faithfully for those who come after us.
I love my country, and the more I learn about her, the more I appreciate both her achievements and her struggles. Every nation's history is marked by virtue and vice, and ours is no exception. Slavery. Indian removal. Abortion. Unjust wars. Political corruption. The list goes on. These failures remind us that no people escape the effects of the Fall. Christians should neither ignore them nor excuse them.
But that is far from the whole story.
America is a remarkable experiment in constitutional government, religious liberty, local self-government, and ordered freedom. Generation after generation, ordinary citizens have built churches, schools, businesses, communities, and families. In doing so, they have strengthened this nation and blessed countless others around the world. But such a legacy did not appear overnight. It emerged over centuries through conviction, sacrifice, conflict, repentance, and providence. To understand America well, we must understand its history.
As I prepared to reflect on America's semiquincentennial, I turned to American History by Thomas S. Kidd. One of today's leading evangelical historians, Kidd demonstrates an uncommon ability to tell the nation's story with both historical breadth and careful balance. His account is neither hagiography nor cynicism but an honest telling of America's triumphs and failures.
Kidd does not present the past as a parade of flawless heroes. Neither does he reduce it to an endless catalogue of oppression. Instead, he allows historical figures to be what they really were: ordinary people capable of remarkable courage and serious failure at the same time.
One of the book's greatest strengths is the attention Kidd gives to religion. My high school history textbooks only mentioned Christianity only when it was politically controversial. Kidd knows better. He recognizes that faith has been one of the defining forces in American history. From the colonial period and the Great Awakenings to abolition, westward expansion, the Civil War, immigration, and the Civil Rights Movement, he demonstrates how religious conviction shaped both individuals and institutions.
Yet Kidd does not give Christians a free pass. He highlights the profound influence of Christianity through education, missions, charitable work, and social reform, while also confronting the times when professing believers defended injustice, compromised their convictions, or failed to live consistently with the faith they professed. That willingness to tell the whole story is what makes the book so trustworthy.
I also appreciated how Kidd weaves together the major movements of American history with the lives of ordinary people. The familiar figures are there, but so are Native Americans, immigrants, women, children, enslaved people, pastors, missionaries, and countless others whose stories are often overlooked. The result is a history that feels like real life.
Reading this book reminded me that history is far more than a collection of dates and battles. It is the story of a people, tracing the development of institutions, the power of ideas, and the ways previous generations wrestled with many of the same questions we continue to face today.
As Christians, we should care about those stories.
Consider the pattern of the Old Testament. Parents were commanded to teach their children the mighty works God had done in generations past. Memorial stones, annual feasts, and songs of remembrance were never intended to become empty rituals. They existed to cultivate gratitude, strengthen faith, and call God's people to renewed obedience. When the children of Israel asked, "What do these stones mean?" their parents had an answer ready: “The LORD is faithful. You can trust Him.”
That pattern also shapes the way I think about our nation's history. One day, I hope to read this book with my children. I want them to understand both the blessings we have inherited and the sins whose consequences still echo through our history. I want them to appreciate the sacrifices that secured many of the freedoms we now enjoy while recognizing the injustices that demanded courage, repentance, and reform. By knowing the past, I pray they will be better equipped to live faithfully in their own generation and leave a richer inheritance for those who come after them.
Christians should be able to speak honestly about their country. We know that every nation is composed of sinners and stands in need of God's grace. Gratitude does not require us to sanitize the past, nor does honesty require us to despise it. We can confess our national sins, give thanks for God's providential kindness, and seek the welfare of the nation where He has placed us.
Thomas Kidd has written an outstanding introduction to the American story. It is thoughtful, balanced, accessible, and deeply informed. If we hope to love our country wisely, we must first seek to understand it honestly.
As America celebrates her 250th birthday, that seems like a good place to begin.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Early American Encounters
Chapter 2 England and Its Colonies
Chapter 3 A Maturing Colonial Society
Chapter 4 The Coming of Independence
Chapter 5 The American Revolution and the Constitution
Chapter 6 The Early National Period
Chapter 7 A Growing Republic
Chapter 8 The Age of Andrew Jackson
Chapter 9 The American West
Chapter 10 Learning and Belief in Antebellum America
Chapter 11 The Crisis of the 1850s
Chapter 12 Secession and the Coming of the Civil War
Chapter 13 The Civil War Begins
Chapter 14 To Appomattox Courthouse
Chapter 15 Reconstruction
Chapter 16 Reforging the Nation
Chapter 17 The Gilded Age
Chapter 18 Populism and Empire
Chapter 19 The Progressive Era
Chapter 20 World War I
Chapter 21 The Roaring Twenties
Chapter 22 The Great Depression and the New Deal
Chapter 23 World War II
Chapter 24 The Cold War
Chapter 25 The 1950s
Chapter 26 Civil Rights and the Great Society
Chapter 27 Nixon, Watergate, and Carter
Chapter 28 Reagan’s America
Chapter 29 George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and a Changing America
Chapter 30 The Age of Terrorism