Alistair Cooke's America

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. It is now regarded as a classic, an irresistably readable guide to what has made the oldest democracy work and survive through 200 years.

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 soldiers who fought for independence and tycoons who built fortunes. From the Mayflower to the goldrush, 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.