Books News

The American Future

By Jessica Schneider May 25, 2009, 10:36 GMT

Acclaimed historian and award-winning author Simon Schama offers an essential historical perspective on the crucial 2008 presidential election and its importance for reclaiming America\'s original ideal. It\'s not business as usual. Cultural hostilities more irreconcilable than any since the Civil War have divided America in two. In November 2008, the American people elected a new president, feeling more anxious about the future of the nation ...more

“The American Future: A History” is the latest by Simon Schama.

PW notes: “Schama's wide-ranging narratives wander between contemporary reportage (For a minute or two after the photo op, George Bush was left to his own devices and came my way) and fluent, richly literate history. He's alive to irony and hypocrisy in the American story—Mexicans of the 1820s, he notes, shuddered at the uncouth Yankee immigrants flooding into Texas—but Schama is optimistic that the nation's perennial openness and complexity can see it through the storm clouds ahead.”

The NYT reviewer mentions that: “The modern reportage is pretty thin, and as you are reading these passages your main interest is in figuring out how he is going to segue from the present, which is his service to the publishing industry, to the past, where his real talent lies.”

Published by Ecco, the book finishes at 419 pages.

The NYT not only provides a review, but the first chapter as well.