"The current climate of partisan fury is not new, and ...Meacham shows us how what Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and others, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King,...

At a moment of crisis over our national identity, journalist Dan Rather reflects on what it means to be an American. He reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us, from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion to service; the institutions that sustain us, such as public education; and the traits that helped form our young country, such as...

Along with completely original material, this new collection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short fiction, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play Coronado. By turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these powerful tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths-and reveal that the truth awaiting us there is not what we...

"In this tender, beautiful letter to his daughters, President Barack Obama has written a moving tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation. From the artistry of Georgia O'Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington, President Obama sees the traits of these heroes within his own children, and within all of America's children"--Book jacket.

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao's Cultural Revolution. Despite all...

From Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, star of NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, and the New York Times bestselling author of Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think comes this celebration of the American Spirit. Fiercely independent, in love with freedom, convinced we can make it, we are like no other people on earth. We are a people reluctant to fight who become ferocious warriors when threatened or attacked. We are suspicious of governmental...

Touching on subjects ranging from the Fourth of July to the Bill of Rights, a patriotic and diversity-minded celebration of what makes America great explores how, in spite of differences, Americans share unifying common beliefs about qualities ranging from love and creativity to conservation and optimism.

"In a country as vast as the United States, place looms large. Steven Moore, a former soldier, writes about place, explicitly rural places, in a way that transcends specificity and speaks to the universal: whether the Midwest, Appalachia, or remote West, what Moore has to say about rural places speaks to anyone who has driven a lonely road at night, with nothing but darkness as a cushion between them and the emptiness that surrounds. Place and how...