DOCUMENTS THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE LIVE

Written in a conversational tone and with non-academic language, the book details each document’s creation, influence, importance, historical and social context, provenance and how it got to where it is now (if still extant), and connections to contemporary information, objects, technologies, and trends. After starting with a few examples from ancient and medieval history (e.g., the Gregorian calendar, the Rosetta Stone, and Arabic numerals), chapters go on to examine such as things as the deleted passage about slavery from the Declaration of Independence, the check for the Alaska Purchase, the Zimmerman Telegram, McCarthy’s "list," President Obama’s birth certificate, the 18½-minute gap in the Nixon tapes, and the Palm Beach County "butterfly ballot."