The fife and drum of history mark the time of each passing day. And within their cadence, personalities, conflicts, discoveries, ideas, and nations peal and fade. American history is no different. From the starving time of Jamestown during the Winter of 1609, through the bloody argument of the Civil War, and to today, the United States is a tale best told one day at a time . . . Best-selling author and educator Dr. William J. Bennett is a master of the story that is the United States. And in The American Patriot's Almanac, Bennett distills the American drama into three hundred sixty-five entries-one for each day of the year. Fascinating in its detail and singular in its grasp of the big themes, Bennett's Almanac will make anyone a fan of history, assembling even some of the most obscure details. Even better, it will make of everyone a patriot.

From Publishers Weekly... Bennett, a secretary of education under President Reagan and author of The Book of Virtues, offers a new, improved history of America, one, he says, that will respark hope and a "conviction about American greatness and purpose" in readers. He believes current offerings do not "give Americans an opportunity to enjoy the story of their country, to take pleasure and pride in what we have done and become." To this end, Bennett methodically hits the expected patriotic high points (Lewis & Clark, the Gettysburg Address) and even, to its credit, a few low ones (Woodrow Wilson's racism, Teddy Roosevelt's unjust dismissal of black soldiers in the Brownsville judgment). America is best suited for a high school or home-schooled audience searching for a general, conservative-minded textbook.

In this unique compilation by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam, the key issues of what has shaped America are discussed in the essays of some of our nation's leading historians and writers, including Walter Cronkite, John Gregory Dunne, Louis Auchincloss, Joan Didion, and Mary Gordon.

Each chapter provides long-sought-after and often surprising answers to questions of how today's America emerged and where the country is headed. 300 photographs and illustrations.

The poems, songs, speeches, letters, and historical documents that Caroline Kennedy has chosen for this remarkable collection remind us of the foundations on which America was built. But they also ask us to examine what it truly means to be a "patriot," even if our assumptions are challenged along the way, because it is only by doing so that America can "truly be our own."

This handy, informative chronology of key events in our history sweeps from 45,000 B.C., when the first intrepid Asians crossed the Bering land bridge to populate North America, to the 21st century, which finds us the richest and most powerful country in the world—a prodigious, panoramic journey marked by more than 1,000 milestones and turning points, each explained in concise, lively detail. From Plymouth Rock to Pearl Harbor, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, from George Washington to George W. Bush, we learn what happened, who was involved, and why it's important.