W. W. Norton presents Inventing America, a balanced new survey of American history by four outstanding historians. The text uses the theme of innovationthe impulse in American history to make it newto integrate the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of the American story. From the creation of a new nation and the invention of the corporation in the eighteenth century, through the vast changes wrought by early industry and the rise of cities in the nineteenth century, to the culture of jazz and the new nation-state of the twentieth century, the text draws together the many ways in which innovationand its limitshave marked American history.