Product Description

For years legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke brought America to the rest of the world with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his now classic and irresistibly readable 'personal history' of America, guiding us through centuries of changing life in the US. Beginning with his own arrival in America as a graduate in the 1930s, Alistair Cooke goes on to write about the explorers who put their new-found land on the map, the pioneers who tamed the Wild West, the soldiers who fought for independence and the tycoons who built fortunes. From the Mayflower to the gold rush, the jazz age to Pearl Harbour, 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. It is the defining portrait of a nation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279754 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
Alistair Cooke enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. Born in Manchester in 1908 and educated at the universities of Cambridge, Yale and Harvard, he was 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. He 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.

Customer Reviews

Poetry
There are some books that are just so informative that no library should be without them. There are some books that are written so well that it is a positive joy to read the text. There are some people who have such a way of looking at the world that you feel comfort hearing them speak. There are people who have seen so much that their opinion is something you seek.

All of these traits are combined in this volume that only Foote's Civil War trilogy can compare with. The small stories that are routinely missed (such as the origin of "the real McCoy) and the relevence of these ordinary people making extrodinary things happen are coupled with the tales of the extraordinary people who had their ordinary vices. (Franklin's advice to take an older mistress because they are both more discreet and more grateful) Both named and unnamed he tells their tale as it fits in the piece of this puzzle of America

Unlike much of history which seems to have an agenda, Cooke's masterpiece is classical, telling a story of grandur without fawning and of warts without lambasting. It is a grand overview rather than a list of presidents, wars and laws. He captures the essense of what is importnat. It is as if he wished to give a consice guide to his compatriots in England of what facinates him about this land that he eventually settled as did many in his story.

It captures what America and Americans are very well and would be an excellent guide to any person who wants to understand us. With so many Americans ignorant of their own history it would be an even better guide to todays college or high school students to make them understand this land of their birth and how it came to be what it is.

This book is 30 years old as I write this at the time he wrote this Cooke was in his 27th year of his Letter from America Broadcast for the BBC. When you finish this book you will find yourself wanting more. Have no fear Mr Cooke is now in his 57th year of his broadcasts telling the story of America 15 minutes at a time continues. Lets hope he dictates a sequel filling in these 30 years

What More Can One Say?
The first review above (A Customer - P. Ingemi?) reflects the quality of penmanship and historical research of a personal kind that is to be found in Cooke's America, so much so that there is little left for me to add. This is no dry retelling of American history, but is a personal journey in words, based on the accompanying 13 part television series (now released on dvd)broadcast in 1974. According to Cooke, his book is more substantial than the documentary series itself because of a lesser restraint on information, but over all each is an excellent complement to the other. If you have the book, but do not yet have the series on dvd, be well advised to buy it. It is both a sheer joy and a sad reflection of how great TV documentary series were once made.

Disappointingly dated
In many respects the first chapters of this book are simply wonderful, and condense everything up to the second world war into a very readable potted history of the states. Unfortunately the end of the book is now rather dated, and spoils what would otherwise have been a 5-star read. Still recommendable for the very interesting early history, though. A shame that there is no-one of a similar gravitas to pick up the work and bring it up to date.