The story of 1776, the year of our nation's birth, became so enmeshed in shadow-play rituals that we no longer could sense its immediacy or its significance. That changed with David McCullough's full-bodied narrative history 1776. With this 2005 book, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner did for George Washington (and surprisingly, George III) what he had done for John Adams, Harry Truman, and Theodore Roosevelt. In the process, he set the grassroots fervency of the outnumbered colonists against the mighty United Kingdom, the world's only superpower. Now in this sumptuous illustrated edition, 1776 captures history even more viscerally at its most human level. Stirring words and images of America at its most heroic and imperiled year.