Encompassing more than one thousand primary sources and documents, a history of the United States presents an array of articles, speeches, letters, and court cases, ranging from the Declaration of Independence to the Starr Report.

The question of the (photographic) construction and representation of national identity is not limited to the ‘long 19th century’, but is a current issue in the post-colonial, post-global, digital world. The essays by international contributors aim at studying the relationship between photographic archives and the idea of nation, yet without focusing on single symbolic icons and instead considering the wider archival and sedimental dimension.