We Americans: Who We Are, Where We've Been - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792270053 ISBN 13: 9780792270058

Publisher: National Geographic, 1999

Synopsis

The fight for independence and the devastating Civil War. The Baby Boom and the birth of the computer age. Gold rushes and oil gushes. Through engaging text and lavish images, We Americans follows the day-to-day lives of the people and events that shaped our nation, with a focus on the country's unprecedented mix of immigrants and how they transformed this nation. We Americans features 14 essays by best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and 300 illustrations and rarely published archival photographs, artwork, and maps, plus a 200-year timeline and an index.

About this title

From Booklist:

Patriotism presides over this gallery of historical images. National Geo enlisted eminent historians and writers (including David Herbert Donald and William Least Heat-Moon) to give context to the pictures. The book, built to browse, presents numerous iconic images, such as Missouri painter George Caleb Bingham's The County Election (1851). All of the images express the malleable concept of Americanism. Rockwellian photographs of family (e.g., pioneers and the Amish) begin the volume. The ensuing imagery unfolds eclectically, depicting George Washington's false teeth, early Coca-Cola ads, or Vietnam-era POW/MIA bracelets. One essayist, the director of the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, explains that the unifying concept was to present history by linking tangible relics to major historic events. Indeed, when viewers turn to the text, they find discussions of the Revolution, the Civil War, the Depression, and World War II as well as cultural revolutions wrought by the film industry, the civil rights movement, television, and interstate highways. A colorful basketful of items for the recreational historian. Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: National Geographic
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0792270053
• ISBN 13: 9780792270058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Allen Thomas B., Hyman Charles O.