For over a quarter of a century as Chief American Correspondent of the 'Guardian', and throughout more than fifty years of broadcasting his 'Letter from America', Alistair Cooke knew, met, interviewed or reported on many of the most influential men and women of the twentieth century. Here he has collected his memories of a score or more of them. They include actors and generals, statesmen and eccentrics, a poet, a jazzman, and intensely scholarly woman and an hilariously funny one, a world famous architect, the man who "restored the fabric" of war-devastated Europe; three Presidents and several other politicians: all of whom, in Cooke's view have left the world a better or more interesting place.
