Timeline of America: Sound Bytes from the Consumer Culture Book

Godzilla Stuffed into a Briefcase

Columbus takes a vacation to The Bahamas, and discovers the area to be a fun place. He tells all his other adventurous friends about it, and they decide they all need vacations, too. Soon everybody in The Old Country is loading up enough beer to make the trip and sailing to The Bahamas.

Hysterical events have surprised us, inventions have made us more comfortable, and recreational pursuits have all but dominated our lives. The story of America is told in a pair of Jekyll & Hyde Timelines. You will meet the good doctor inside. His mean, ugly brother will arrive in 2008.

This is a lot more than a pop culture trivia book, although no simpler phrase describes it. Ten timelines tell the story of America's development from the arrival of Columbus to the homeruns of Barry Bonds and the movie release of The Da Vinci Code. The story is separated into ten topics: events, comforts, cars, toys, movies, television, music, nerds, sports, and gossip. Like any competent trivia book, there is a test at the end, but this tale is about the quest, not the grail. This is a capsule history of the things that have defined us, and Godzilla doesn't like being so tightly restrained.