I am in the process of working on a new approach to an American History textbook on the collegiate level, which will tell a much broader story that includes not just wars, presidents and social history, but a significant amount of economics, political science, intellectual history et al. The first volume actually begins in 1400 and ends in 1500 -- just eight years after Columbus lands on San Salvador, accidentally sort-of discovering the Americas. It's necessary because students today have no idea of the world into which this country was born. The individual segments are told in present tense (for the purpose of immediacy) and are each limited to 10 numbered paragraphs of no more than about 1,500 words total (so that students might actually read them). So here is the segment on Sir Arnold Savage, the man who engineered the principle that taxation was only legit when approved by the people and their representatives ... in 1404. Because it is the second segment on English history in ...