A report by the Chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress on the history and evolution of several of the United State's most evocative and patriotic songs --: "The Star-Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," "America," and "Yankee Doodle," with fascinating details on each of these works, and examination of many false popular legends about the various songs.

The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a prominent African in late 18th-century Britain, is quoted, anthologized and interpreted in dozens of books and articles. More than any single contemporary, Equiano speaks for the fate of millions of Africans in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. This study attempts to create a rounded portrait of the man behind the literary image, and to study Equiano in the context of Atlantic slavery.