Alistair Cooke's America - Couverture souple

Now regarded as a classic, Alistair Cooke's America is an intimate portrait of the nation, and an irresistibly readable guide to what has made this powerful democracy work and survive through the years. For over sixty years Alistair Cooke wrote and broadcast on every facet of American life with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his 'personal history' of America, the bestselling book that accompanied his legendary television series, with full colour photos alongside the text. Beginning with the controversial discovery of America, Alistair Cooke writes with engaging wit and wisdom about the explorers who put their new-found land on the map, the pioneers who tamed the Wild West, the soldier who fought for independence and the tycoons who built fortunes. From the Mayflower to the gold rush, the Jazz Age to Pearl Harbor, with portraits of figures as varied as Buffalo Bill, John D. Rockefeller and Martin Luther King, here is the American story in all its triumphs and failures, grandeurs and tragedies. 'Cooke was the special relationship'
  Daily Mail 'Civilized, literate, rational, graceful, humane'
  New York Magazine Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. The Guardian's Senior Correspondent in New York for twenty-five years and the host of groundbreaking cultural programmes on American television and of the BBC series America, Cooke was, however, best known both at home and abroad for his weekly BBC broadcast Letter from America, which reported on fifty-eight years of US life, was heard over five continents and totalled 2,869 broadcasts before his retirement in February 2004, far and away the longest-running radio series in broadcasting history.

Classics stand the test of time, and Alistair Cooke's history of America is a classic. Nearly three decades have passed since the original edition of America—based on journalist-historian Cooke's extraordinarily popular thirteen-part television series—sold more than a million copies. Yet Cooke's view of America's dynamic past and its impact upon the always-changing present continues to provide striking insights into the singular character of a nation. Those thirty years since award-winning America first rose to the top of best-seller lists have themselves wrought further dramatic changes. Presidents have been impeached, economies have toppled, empires have collapsed, and towers have fallen. In light of such events, Cooke has written for this new edition a compelling introduction and final chapter that bring his story of America up to date with the wisdom of the inimitably grand old man of correspondents. And what a story this book tells. From the discovery of America by European explorers to modern times; from the fighters for independence to the pioneers who tamed the West; from the slaves who fled to freedom to the huddled masses that sought a new life in the New World. And through it all, Cooke describes the essential forces that make America work so vitally. Updated in light of the September 11th tragedy, this new edition is complimented with full-color illustrations throughout. "The first and maybe the finest, tribute to the nation."—Newsweek "A panoramic book, traveling fast and high, and the view it gives of our land and its people is exhilarating."—Atlantic Monthly