The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, collectively called the Charters of Freedom, are central to American freedom and independence, and to the book, "The Charters of Freedom: 'A New World Is at Hand'" (D Giles Limited/Antique Collectors' Club, $29.95). The Charters and other documents -- from King George III's proclamation to suppress the colonists' rebellion (1775) to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., are also on view in the book's color photos and described in text by Stacey Bredhoff of the National Archives. The book chronicles the events and ideas that led to the creation of the documents, and the impact the documents have had on U.S. history, including the Louisiana Purchase, Civil War and abolition of slavery. Sprinkled throughout are quotes by America's founders and leaders, including Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony Among 90 color illustrations are maps, paintings, engravings and photos depicting historic events and key figures, and photos of the Rotunda of the National Archives, where the Charters have been newly encased. Also shown are the Rotunda's two murals, each 14-by-35 feet, painted by Barry Faulkner in the mid-1930s. One depicts Thomas Jefferson handing a draft of the Declaration of Independence to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress; and in the other, James Madison offers the final draft to George Washington, president of the Constitutional Convention. Freedom doesn't come without a price. In "America's Battlegrounds: Walk in the Footsteps of America's Bravest" (Reader's Digest, $24.95), Richard Sauers takes readers through 200 years of historic battles -- from the American Revolution to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- in visits to battlefields, forts and monuments. Among the stops are sites of battles fought on U.S. soil, including those of the Civil War, and those against American Indians and the British; and monuments to wars Americans fought in Europe, the South Pacific, Korea and Vietnam. Sites range from Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Mass., where local militiamen assembled to oppose a British advance during the American Revolution, to the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, where the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II. Text describes the events that led to each battle and introduces its key players. Accompanying the word story are 250 illustrations, most in color, including paintings, photos and maps. The massive "Atlas of the Civil War" (Oxford University Press, $85) appears capable of answering just about any question that might arise about the War Between the States. Authors Steven E. Woodworth and Kenneth J. Winkle compiled the atlas under the direction of James M. McPherson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who provides the book's foreword. The 400-page volume covers every significant battle and military campaign while considering the social, economic and political developments of the period. There are five sections, one for each year of the war -- from 1861, "The Coming of War," to 1865, "Triumph, Tragedy and Reconstruction." Each section is introduced by McPherson. Archival photographs, drawings, paintings, cartoons and artifacts are among the many illustrations, as are 200 color maps, including about 40 specially commissioned 3-D maps of terrain and troop movements. Appendixes provide a list of major battle sites, glossary, chronology and index. America has some colorful landscapes, all right, but in "Beyond Light: American Landscapes" (Merrell, $75), photos by Robert Werling show that they can be beautiful in black and white, too. This 11-by-14-inch volume contains 80 photos of the American West -- mostly California, Oregon, Arizona and Alaska, but with Hawaii, North Carolina and even Canada thrown in for good measure. The photos represent more than three decades of work by the California-born Werling, whose dramatic images in stark contrasts bring to mind the work of Ansel Adams, under whom he studied. Birch trunks of various diameters stand straight and tall in a grove in Alaska; snow covers the ground and the leafless limbs of oaks in Yosemite, Calif.; and in Arizona, a saguaro resembles a huge hand saluting the moon above. A white horse in the foreground is the only sign of life as clouds of an approaching thunderstorm fill the Canada sky. And a huge white cloud hovers over the mountains of the Eastern Sierra Nevada in California, where the only sign of the presence of man is the simple post-and-wire fence in the foreground. A tour of America, from Maine to Montana, and from Manhattan to Main Street, takes off in "Robert Farber: American Mood" (Merrell, $49.95), a collection of 90 photos, some in color, from Farber's 30 years of travel and observations. In the open cubicles that are the terraces of a Florida motel, empty patio chairs sit like knickknacks on a display shelf. A shaft of sunlight makes two old sinks look whiter than they have in years in a washroom in New York, while in a Kingman, Ariz., hotel lobby, an old red-and-yellow art deco scale offers weight and horoscope for only 5 cents. Alongside Route 66 in Arizona, three cars from the 1940s and 1950s rest side by side, their glory days long past. Another old car, a 1959 Cadillac shot in Phoenix, is shown only by its prominent tail fin; prominent, too, but vertically so, is the lighthouse at Cape May, N.J. A section at the back of the book offers a thumbnail image of each photo, with Farber's comments and technical specifications. Some of the fruits of Harry Benson's 40 years as a photographer for American magazines are seen in "Harry Benson's America" (Abrams, $40). This collection of 200 photos, some in color, portray the famous, the infamous and the never famous -- actors and athletes, farmers and filmmakers, politicians and police officers. Appearing are the Beatles, Bob Hope, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Charles, both Presidents Bush, first lady Rosalynn Carter and first daughter Amy, Donald Trump, and Donny and Marie Osmond. And everyday Americans -- on the street, at home, on the subway, in the Great Outdoors, and even in prison. In one photo, actress Darryl Hannah seems lost in thought as she sits on the floor surrounded by stuffed animals, while in another, actress Jodie Foster smiles, apparently enjoying her Beverly Hills flower garden. Martha Stewart relaxes on a pile of hay outside her Connecticut home, while Geraldine Ferraro relaxes on the beach at St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. And along a railroad track somewhere between New York and Washington, ordinary citizens have gathered with a large U.S. flag to wait for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train to pass. There's nothing unusual about color photos. But color photos from more than 60 years ago is a different story. "Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-43" (Abrams/The Library of Congress, $35) is an album of 175 color images from an era when color photography was new and uncommon -- and relatively expensive. During the period, the Farm Security Administration and its successor, the Office of War Information, recorded everyday American life throughout the country in many thousands of black-and-white photos, as well as in 1,616 color ones. The images selected for this book visit farms and cities, small towns and factories in 31 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In San Augustine, Texas, a young schoolgirl bravely rolls up her sleeve, about to receive a typhoid inoculation from a physician. Locals gather outdoors under an American flag at a Fourth of July celebration in St. Helena Island, S.C. A cafe on a street corner in downtown Dillon, Mont., boasts air conditioning; while on another corner many miles away sits the rural-looking Shulman's market, with its metal Pepsi-Cola thermometer out front, in early-1940s Washington, D.C. And with war underway, a woman assembles a section of a bomber wing at a plant in Long Beach, Calif. In "Shards of America" (Quantuck Lane Press/Norton, $25), Phil Bergerson aims his lens at walls, storefronts, billboards, fields and roadsides to capture slices of life in some of America's shabbier corners. Its 120 color photos offer cultural vignettes in posters, graffiti, artifacts, newspaper headlines, paper signs and neon signs, often in worn, broken, makeshift or vandalized settings. A Nativity scene, two American flags, a "wanted" poster for Osama bin Laden, and a notary public sign compete for attention in a New York shop window; while in a storefront in Wichita, Texas, there hangs a white T shirt whose crude lettering advises women not to tolerate physical abuse. Along the road in Maine, a cartoon of a scantily clad young woman informs motorists that the Disco Bar is 1 kilometer to the left, while in Roswell, N.M., a cutout of a pink-and-green alien creature points the curious toward a UFO landing site. They're eerie, they're heartbreaking -- and they're intriguing. They're the images of abandoned farms, schools, houses, businesses and vehicles -- neglected and needy, dilapidated and decayed -- in "Ghosts in the Wilderness: Abandoned America" (AAPPL-Sterling, $60). Husband-and-wife Tony and Eva Worobiec traveled throughout rural America, mostly in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, during a six-year period taking photos of the remnants of life as it used to be. Their photos in black-and-white (Tony) and color (Eva) are accompanied by remarks from locals who recall better times for themselves, friends and neighbors. <

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