Table of contents : 1. Columbus, the Indians, and human progress -- 2. Drawing the color line -- 3. Persons of mean and vile condition -- 4. Tyranny is tyranny -- 5. A kind of revolution -- 6. The intimately oppressed -- 7. As long as grass grows or water runs -- 8. We take nothing by conquest, thank God -- 9. Slavery without submission, emancipation without freedom -- 10. The other civil war -- 11. Robber barons and rebels -- 12. The empire and the people -- 13. The socialist challenge -- 14. War is the health of the state -- 15. Self-help in hard times -- 16. A people's war? -- 17. "Or does it explode?" -- 18. The impossible victory: Vietnam -- 19. Surprises -- 20. The seventies: under control? -- 21. Carter-Reagan-Bush: the bipartisan consensus -- 22. The unreported resistance -- 23. The coming revolt of the guards -- 24. The Clinton presidency -- 25. The 2000 election and the "war on terrorism" -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index.