Professor Wilfred M. McClay’s Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story is a groundbreaking approach to telling our national story to the modern audience of young Americans. Encompassing the broad arc of American history, the ultimate takeaway from this text is that America, despite occasional deviations from her founding ideals, is the crowning achievement of the Western project, and the last remaining hope for its future.

McClay’s narrative style, which reads more like a novel than a typical history textbook, conveys the American story with both fairness and fondness, imbuing the reader with a sense of the totality of the American experiment. During a time when the American story has been cast as one of exploitation and squalor, McClay’s account is not only more truthful, but also more inspiring, to students and recreational readers alike.