The Star Spangled Banner

The national anthem of the United States of America is probably one of the most recognizable tunes in the world. Yet few people outside the United States know the words, even fewer know what they mean or why they were written, and almost no-one knows that the tune itself was written almost 50 years before the words and that it was written in Britain.

The story of the creation of the anthem is a story of presidents and emperors, of admirals and generals, but mostly it is the story of a doctor and a lawyer. It is also the story of a war, or at least a part of one, a war that has been largely forgotten because it was a war within a greater war that rocked the very foundations of Europe.

This book tells the whole story of how the anthem came into being, from the very beginnings of the war, and the greater war that caused it, to the official recognition of The Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem of the United States of America. Also included as an appendix is original and previously unknown research conducted by the author for the US National Park Service. This now forms part of the official history of the writing of the anthem.

Dettagli