America: The Last Best Hope

[TheMercenary]

The interviews were very interesting and thought provoking considering discussions we have about the meaning of the Constitution. The book sounds like an interesting read.

2 Part Interview:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.a...20080703b.html

William J. Bennett reacquaints America with its heritage in two volumes of America: The Last Best Hope.

While national test scores reveal that American students know startlingly little about their history, former U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett offers one of the most gripping and memorable versions of the American story in print. The two volumes of Bennett's New York Times bestselling epic, America: The Last Best Hope, cover Columbus's discovery of the New World in the fifteenth century to the fall of world communism in the twentieth. Now both volumes are available in a convenient and attractive slip case-complete with a bonus audio CD, "Remembering Ronald Reagan," featuring recollections and commentary by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Edwin Meese, and others.

Bill Bennett brings American history to life with stories such as:


the coup d'etat quelled by a pair of reading glasses
the U.S. senator nearly caned to death on the Senate floor
the presidential pardon for hundreds of Sioux warriors
one ex-president's race to finish his memoirs and the famous humorist who helped him
when Time magazine named Hitler man of the year
Eisenhower's bold actions documenting the horrors of the Holocaust
Nixon's comic opera uniforms for White House guards
Reagan's most famous example of just saying "No"

From heroism of the Revolution to the dire hours of the Civil War, from the progressive reforms of the early 1900s to the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, from the high drama of the Space Race to the gut-wrenching tension of the Cold War, Bennett slices through the cobwebs of time, memory, and prevailing cynicism to reinvigorate America with an informed patriotism.

Praise for America: The Last Best Hope

"This is the American history that Abraham Lincoln has long awaited."
-Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided

"Bennett has a gift for choosing the pithy, revealing anecdote and for providing fresh character sketches and critical analyses of the leading figures. This is an American history that adults will find refreshing and enlightening and that younger readers will find a darn good read."
-Michael Barone, US News & World Report

"A worthy and necessary book for our time."
-Michael J. Lewis, Commentary

"Bennett ... has a strong sense of narrative, a flair for anecdote and a lively style. And the American story really is a remarkable one, filled with its share of brilliant leaders and tragic mistakes. Bennett brings that story to life."
-Alan Wolfe, The Washington Post

"The role of history is to inform, inspire, and sometimes provoke us, which is why Bill Bennett's wonderfully readable book is so important. He puts our nation's triumphs, along with its lapses, into the context of a narrative about the progress of freedom. Every now and then it's useful to be reminded that we are a fortunate people, blessed with generations of leaders who repeatedly renewed the meaning of America."
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"The importance of America: The Last Best Hope probably exceeds anything Dr. Bennett has ever written, and it is more elegantly crafted and eminently readable than any comprehensive work of history I've read in a very long time. It's silly to compare great works of history to great novels, but this book truly is a page-turner."
-Brad Miner, American Compass

"This lively book acknowledges mistakes and shortcomings, yet patriotically asserts that the American experiment in democracy is still a success story."
-School Library Journal

"Bill Bennett's book will stand as perhaps the most important addition to American scholarship at this, the start of the new century.... With this book Bennett offers to Americans young and old an exciting and enjoyable history of what makes America

http://www.amazon.com/America-Last-B...5119428&sr=8-5

[HungLikeJesus]

I thought this was going to be about Ralph Hinkley.

[Cloud]

"in an attractive slip case, complete with bonus audio CD, remembering Ronald Reagan."

um, sorry, no. I remember Reagan just fine, thanks.

History, yes. Propaganda, no. Although how one ever tells them apart . . .

[TheMercenary]

The books and interviews are hardly propaganda. You obviously did not listen to them.

[Cloud]

nope, didn't. pretty much all history narratives are propaganda--you have to be very clever and skeptical in absorbing them.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You can't be, "very clever and skeptical in absorbing them", if you summarily dismiss and ignore them.

[Cloud]

No, you can't, but a 30-second review of a review and a media presentation won't help, either. I'll let you know what I think if I read the book. Merc, you too.

[TheMercenary]

It wasn't much of a media presentation of the book. It was a discussion about The Constitution and the people who framed it as well as a discussion about slavery, education, etc.