The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness America: Over 350 Eyewitness Accounts of American History in the Making, 1492-2002 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786711671 ISBN 13: 9780786711673

Publisher: Running Press, 2003

Synopsis

The nation founded by the people and for the people now has its history recounted through the people in the they-were-there chronicles of The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness America. This is America in the very words of those who made it—from ordinary citizens to the nation's greatest figures and writers, including George Washington, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Alistair Cooke, and hundreds of others. Jon E. Lewis has woven this country's epic history from numerous sources. He brings the past to life through the eyes of those who made it: Columbus's first impressions of the new continent, Paul Revere's ride, Lewis and Clark's trek to the Pacific, Mark Twain's prospecting during the Gold Rush, Willa Cather's homestead on the Great Plains, Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb, Lillian Hellman's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Neil Armstrong's moon landing, and much more. There are also accounts from the country's greatest writers, from Walt Whitman on Lincoln's assassination to John Steinbeck on the Dust Bowl. Perhaps most important, there are the words of ordinary Americans, including soldiers, cowboys and Native Americans, suffragettes and peace marchers, among others who united this country.

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Reviews

This superb anthology of first-hand narratives spans American history from Columbus's voyages to the September 11th attacks. The variety of voices, culled from published and unpublished memoirs, newspapers, letters, oral histories and even NASA transcripts, is remarkable. Some pieces are by literary notables: there is Frederick Douglass's account of his frustrated ambitions under slavery, a Western picaresque by Mark Twain, a D-Day dispatch from Ernest Hemingway, and Lillian Hellman's recollection of her appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Major historical junctures often appear at offbeat angles, as in John Adams's gossipy account of the committee work that went into the Declaration of Independence. Just as engaging are the stories of unsung people in prosaic settings: Jamestown settlers scrabbling for food, a new immigrant agog at the bounty and informality of 19th-century America, a war-time "Rosie the Riveter" fighting for equality in a sexist workplace, retailers hawking Star Wars memorabilia after the Phantom Menace opening. Lewis, a historian and author of The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History, has arranged the material in chronological order and provides a timeline and brief historical overviews. There is the occasional sloppy bit, such as when he writes that 8,000 soldiers died in Pickett's Charge, when most historians put confirmed deaths for the entire Battle of Gettysburg at a similar number (many more, of course, were wounded or missing). But his wide-ranging selection of vivid and insightful testimonies makes a wonderful reference work for students and an absorbing browse for everyone else.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Running Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786711671
• ISBN 13: 9780786711673
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544
• Editor: Lewis Jon E.