History, as David Reynolds notes in opening his new book, is often told with a predetermined endpoint in mind: “Because we know how things turned out, we tend to write accounts of the past that highlight the path to the present” (xvii). Prior to the 2008 US presidential election, sweeping narratives of American history tended to follow a fairly standard line – top-down, chronological studies, taking in the major reference points of the American tale with a slight nod here and there to emerging historical models. Essentially, though, their endpoint was strikingly close to Francis Fukyama's infamous incantation at the end of the 1980s that ‘history’ had come to an end with the ultimate triumph of liberal capitalist democracy over communism. America emerges from many of these existing studies as a powerful, prosperous nation – albeit one with ongoing problems in need of resolution – which is a testimony to the power of the American dream.

Barack Obama's victory in November 2008, however, changed the endpoint of the American story. Suddenly, an African American was President while his closest competitor for his party's nomination had been a woman; the archetypal narratives of American history were clearly being challenged by this rapid shift in political and social dynamics. Such an obvious juncture seemed to provide a perfect moment for a new master narrative of American history – one that embraces these new endpoints (or starting points, as the case may be) and which incorporates advances in social, diplomatic, political and gender history that have been developing in the last twenty years. In America, Empire of Liberty, David Reynolds takes on this task and has put together a masterly account of American history that sets a new standard in terms of its breadth, its clarity and its conclusions. Reynolds not only writes an American tale that culminates with the election of Obama and the global economic downturn, he also incorporates a range of social groups – African Americans, women, Native Americans, Latinos – that have typically been disenfranchised by existing works.

From the beginning, Reynolds is clear that this is a personal history of America. It would be impossible, he notes, to include everything that has happened or read everything that has been written about those events. His success in achieving his aim – a personal history that manages to be inclusive and important – comes about largely due to his analytical framework, which outlines three broad themes by which to view American history: empire, liberty and faith. These three themes cut to the heart of the American tale and to the American mindset. It is the crossover between them, though, that provides the most innovative streak to Reynolds's argument. As he notes at the end of the book:

Examining these themes across American history – and, in particular, the way that they are interlinked – provides new explanations as to why the US has always been so contradictory and why its history has been so eventful. The gradual disintegration of the nation in the lead-up to the Civil War, for example, or the widening split in US society on religious grounds over the last thirty years, provide perfect illustrations of how these interwoven ideological themes have exerted a profound influence on the nation's development.

Inevitably with a work of this type, there are grumbles over omissions or sections that work less successfully than others. One obvious case in point is the sections on the 1920s. Though they cover all the major events, the reader is left with a sense that there could have been more discussion of what, in hindsight, is a crucial period: the run-up to the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression, coupled with fluctuating social trends, would all have benefited from some more in-depth analysis and explication. Moreover, this would have made for a smoother transition between the chapter on the Progressives and that on Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. A further problem – perhaps surprisingly, given Reynolds's background as a diplomatic historian par excellence – is the chapter on Vietnam. Admittedly, squeezing the sheer weight of information regarding this topic into one chapter is a tall order, particularly given the fact that it covers some thirty years of escalating involvement and five presidencies. Nevertheless, the resultant chapter has a tendency to veer toward straightforward narrative that is not in evidence in much of the rest of the book. A final example is Hurricane Katrina, which does not make an appearance in the book despite its importance as a contemporary illustration of the state of American society and the malfunctioning nature of the Bush administration.

Such critiques are unavoidable in a work of such scope, and fortunately do not serve to detract from the book's significant achievements. Those achievements, furthermore, can be identified in two sections that illustrate both the book's successes and the reasons why America has remained a topic of immense fascination for historians. The first is the chapter on the 1970s, which serves as an exemplar of Reynolds's model and of the richness that utilizing differing historical methods can bring to the subject. Beginning with the fallout over Vietnam and the recognition of inherent limits on American power, chapter 16 of the book provides an exhilarating account of the 1970s – moving from debates over détente, economic dislocations, the battle over Roe v. Wade, the emergence of the “Silent Majority,” and the development of an activist Christian right. Its fusion of diplomatic, political, economic, legal, social and cultural history, moreover, combines to present an overview of the decade that superbly details the fissures in America that have essentially remained in place over the last thirty years.

The second example is more surprising. Amid all the tales of tension, high drama and intrigue – ranging from the Wars of Independence, through the push toward the Pacific, the Civil War and the emergence of a modernized and industrial America – it is the discussion of the presidential election in the year 2000 that strikes a real chord. For while the events surrounding the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the development of a War on Terror remain raw, emblazoned on the memory of anyone with a passing interest in America, they have also served to obscure the events of the 2000 election. That contest, which saw Al Gore pitched into political battle with George W. Bush, challenged the very foundations of American democracy. The outcome – which involved legal disputes, allegations of voting irregularities and a spat in the Supreme Court which saw the justices voting along party lines – would have threatened the constitutional well-being of many countries. In Britain, for instance, it is not too difficult to imagine the impact that a similar set of events would have on the parliamentary system. The events surrounding the 2000 election, Reynolds argues, were the culmination of schisms in American society that can be traced back to the 1960s; it was a period of unremitting rancour and extremist opinions. Yet, in the face of all this, America regenerated itself: the 2008 election, in fact, reinvigorated electoral politics in a way that had seemed unimaginable four years earlier. Herein lies the essential lesson of this “new” American history. America's capacity to reimagine itself and to absorb the most trying of historical lessons has created a new endpoint for the current American tale. This, as Reynolds finishes his exceptional book by noting, is a “history that matters if we want to get a bearing on where this youthful old country may be going in the future” (584).