Eyes of the Nation is a magnificent one-volume pictorial and narrative history of the United States with more than five hundred exceptional illustrations, many reproduced here for the first time. Never before has Americas past been made so intriguingly accessible, both to the eyes and to the mind. Eyes of the Nation features seven chapters of lucid historical commentary by the distinguished historian Alan Brinkley.

A bountiful narrative-in-pictures is drawn from the millions of maps, prints, photographs, posters, manuscripts, motion pictures, and other treasures in the special collections of the Library of Congress. The book proceeds from the first encounter of Europeans and Indians, through colonial days and the founding of the nation, industrialization and westward expansion, and the transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through to the present day.

The brilliant art selections of Vincent Virga and the Librarys curators, provide every stage of the nations development, every swerve of its fortunes, assumes arresting visual form. Each chapter is introduced by an essay by the National Book Award winning historian, Alan Brinkley.

Vincent Virga has been called America's foremost picture editor. He has researched, edited, and designed picture sections for more than 250 books, as well as the full-length photo essay The Eighties.

Alan Brinkley is Provost and Professor of History at Columbia University.