American Greats

The greats featured in these pages represent the editors' opinions. The book offers-in eighty-one essays illustrated with more than 250 images-a gathering of ideas, people, places, and things that they believe help define America's greatness. There's no jingoism in these pages but there is idealism and an appreciation for the nation at its best. In an age when cynicism and irony so often take center stage in American culture, the editors encourage the reader to contemplate these choices and then to think about their own examples of American Greats.

American Greats offers compelling evidence of the courage and character, invention and resilience, that help define this nation. It's about action and, therefore, character. It celebrates what the late Commissioner of Baseball, Bart Giamatti, described as "that compound whose mix forms the American character-of moral energy and pragmatic efficiency, optimism and guile, respect for law, admiration for the maverick, and love of the underdog." This book, finally, is about the never-ending American story: possibility.