Reporting America: The Life of the Nation 1946 - 2004 - Softcover

Cooke, Alistair

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141033177 ISBN 13: 9780141033174

Publisher: Penguin, 2010

Synopsis

Reporting America is a magnificent collection of Alistair Cooke's key dispatches on the key moments, movements, men and women of post-war America.

Alistair Cooke was the greatest, and most humane, of all modern reporters and interpreters of America, his adopted country, to his native Britain and to the world.

Starting with his first broadcast 'Letter from America' on embarking in 1946 for America on a ship filled with tearful GI brides, here are the stories of a nation: Korea, the McCarthy witch hunts, Civil Rights, JFK, the moon landings, the moving eye-witness account of Robert Kennedy's assassination, Nixon's resignation and Clinton's scandals, right up to the attacks of September 11th and the war in Iraq.

Also containing Cook's observations on the great, good and downright bad, and on the views of the ordinary people he met, as well as his daughter Susan's memories of her father, Reporting America is a tribute to an extraordinary man and the country he loved.

'The voice of America ... Here was a man who made intelligent, honest sense of decades of assassinations, scandals, elections, boom times and broken dreams ... an indispensable record of twentieth-century American culture'
  Peter Kimpton, Observer

'Vintage Cooke'
  David Dimbleby

'A rich picture of America, so vivid ... the fresh first pressing of history'
  James Naughtie, Sunday Telegraph

Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. The Guardian's Senior Correspondent in New York for twenty-five years and the host of groundbreaking cultural programmes on American television and of the BBC series America, Cooke was, however, best known both at home and abroad for his weekly BBC broadcast Letter from America, which reported on fifty-eight years of US life, was heard over five continents and totalled 2,869 broadcasts before his retirement in February 2004, far and away the longest-running radio series in broadcasting history.

About this title

Review:

'Cooke has guided listeners through the momentous events and everyday foibles of the United States since President Truman's time, like a friendly uncle across the pond.'
-- The Times

'Here was a man who made intelligent, honest sense of decades of assassinations, scandals, elections, boom times and broken dreams. This volume, celebrating the centenary of his birth last week, provides an indispensable record of 20th-century American culture.' -- Observer

About the Author:

Alistair Cooke enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. Born in Manchester in 1908 and educated at the universities of Cambridge, Yale and Harvard, he was the Guardian's Senior Correspondent in New York for twenty-five years and the host of groundbreaking cultural programmes on American television and of the BBC series America. He was best known both at home and abroad for his weekly BBC broadcast Letter from America, which reported on fifty-eight years of US life, was heard over five continents and totalled 2,869 broadcasts before his retirement in February 2004, far and away the longest-running radio series in broadcasting history.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0141033177
• ISBN 13: 9780141033174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464