Our current topics are:
Lord North and the loss of the colonies
Law and Order
Charleston and slavery
Andrew Carnegie
The ‘new American empire
The great depression
Roosevelt
Vietnam
McCarthy
Henry Ford
Canada/America
Kennedy
John Muir and National Parks
Martin Luther King

(topics in red have already been given and the notes/slides/pictures are available by clicking on the topic)

Flags
Brenda showed a couple of the early flags of the Union in her presentation. There’s a (probably) complete timeline of the development of the flag here.

Overviews
Not a book list, but a couple of useful resources for getting an overview of the development of the United States:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_history
Quite a detailed timeline, with links to most of the events elsewhere in Wikipedia. To those of you suspicious of Wikipedia, all I’d say is that you won’t find a better resource for research. The caveats at the top of the entry are pro-forma. As you use Wikipedia more, you get a sense of what is good and very accurate. The academics look down their noses, but it works.
http://www.animatedatlas.com/movie-vers-e.html
A slightly old-fashioned feel to it, but this little animated show of the development of the states and the union I thought was fantastic and I learnt more in the ten minutes than I have from anywhere else. I’m tempted to get the full CD.