The American Future
Author(s): Simon Schama
With eloquence, wit, passion, and irony, The American Future traces the history of an idea: that of our national destiny.A book of beautiful writing, peppered with wisecracks, slashed with rapier thrusts. Philadelphia Inquirer
A De Tocqueville for the 21st century, Simon Schama, NBCC Award winning author of Rough Crossings offers an essential, historical, long view analysis of the American character in The American Future. Shama examines four themeswar, race and faith, immigration, and custodianship of the landthrough the prism of the historic 2008 presidential election in a magnificent work that the Wall Street Journal calls a celebration of American resiliency.Niall Ferguson says, I hope Obama will have this book on his bedside table.
Review(s):
Schama is a genius of storytelling. . . . A historian who radiates such anticipated pleasure is a rare thing. We are lucky to have him.
It is a tribute to Mr. Schamas talent that he is able to make this work sound exciting, even inspiring. . . . The American Future is a success because Mr. Schama knows how to entwine past and present into a meaningful, continuous whole.
With eloquence, wit, passion and irony, The American Future traces the history of an idea: that of our national destiny. . . . Schamas is a book of beautiful writing, peppered with wisecracks, slashed with rapier thrusts.
Schama is a masterful stylist and storyteller.
A lively meditation on American history . . . Schamas wide-ranging narratives wander between contemporary reportage . . . and fluent, richly literate history.
It has its own particular charm . . . a fabulous jumble-sale, full of old treasures and recent acquisitions. Anyone interested in America will find in it something to their fancy.
As a literary endeavor, The American Future does live up to the authors lofty standards. Schama is, among other things, a nimble biographer…[and] a writer of gorgeous prose.
His historical narrative is excellent. . . . [Schama] writes beautifully about Americans of the past.
His specialty is finding interesting midlevel characters from the buried mounds of history and telling their stories. In the first great chunk of the book, he tells the stories of the Meigses…gripping portraits…Simon Schama the outstanding historian still survives.
I hope Obama will have this book on his bedside table. A more inspiring evocation of the spirit of liberal Americapast, present and futuredoes not exist.
ISBN:9780060539245
