America Reborn: A Twentieth-Century Narrative in Twenty-six Lives

With the detailed expertise of a historian and the insight of a contemporary, Martin Walker presents a narrative of the outgoing American century through individual portraits of 26 of its most influential participants. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and concluding with Bill Clinton, Walker's portraits are less biographical than they are temporal; he brings to life particular moments in the 1900s that his subjects helped shape. For example, his narrative of William Boeing traces the history of American aviation from its origins to the present. After World War I, Boeing, Martin, Loughead, Northrop, and Douglas recognized the potential for commercial aviation, and the industry was born. Walker then outlines the shift into aerospace when President Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and the industry's present contraction into two conglomerates, competing with Europe's Airbus consortium.

Former bureau chief of The Guardian and author of several critically acclaimed books, Walker is a seasoned, skilled writer. His portraits read easily. Averaging 15 pages, they can be read individually or as part of the larger narrative. Each of them illustrates the "primacy of the individual" and the powerful "cult of the winner," unique characteristics of American society that lead the author to consider the 20th century the "American century" and America the cultural, economic, and political world leader. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack