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    America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s
    America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s
    America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s
    Ebook321 pages7 hours

    America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s

    By Alistair Cooke

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    About this ebook

    The definitive survey of Alistair Cooke’s brilliant career as a newspaperman

    Few journalists have covered the American scene as thoroughly as Alistair Cooke did. In addition to presenting the Sunday-night Letter from America broadcasts for the BBC, Cooke was the Guardian’s chief US correspondent for more than a quarter century, filing daily dispatches about the former colonies for his British readers.

    Selected and introduced by Professor Ronald A. Wells, the pieces in America Observed showcase the full range of Cooke’s omnivorous interests and impressive reportorial skills. From baseball to Billy Graham, Harry S. Truman to Chappaquiddick, he depicts the defining characters and events of the American century with elegance and insight. “The Untravelled Road” is a poignant and perceptive snapshot of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. “The Legend of Gary Cooper” eloquently summarizes the unlikely career of America’s leading man, and “A Woman of Integrity” delivers the news of Marilyn Monroe’s death with empathy and honesty. “The Ghastly Sixties” is a concise, candid, and ultimately inspirational chronicle of that turbulent decade.

    Remarkably prescient and endlessly entertaining, the journalism collected here is some of the twentieth century’s finest.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateAug 19, 2014
    ISBN9781497639959
    America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s
    Author

    Alistair Cooke

    Alistair Cooke, KBE (1908–2004), was a legendary British American journalist, television host, and radio broadcaster. He was born in Lancashire, England, and after graduating from the University of Cambridge, was hired as a journalist for the BBC. He rose to prominence for his London Letter reports, broadcast on NBC Radio in America during the 1930s. Cooke immigrated to the United States in 1937. In 1946, he began a tradition that would last nearly six decades—his Letter from America radio appearances on the BBC. Cooke was also beloved as the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre for twenty-one years. He wrote many books, both collections of his Letters from America and other projects. After his death, the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism was established to support students from the United Kingdom seeking to study in the United States, and vice versa.

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    • 4/5
      Sharply written, if somewhat dated. This collection, drawing upon articles Cooke wrote for the Guardian, relies very heavily upon then-current events, so many of the more topical essays have lost some relevance. The book is arranged chronologically, and the closer I got to finishing it, the more I found myself disagreeing with Cooke's assessments of the '60s (where he's indistinguishable from any other grouch damning the hippies and radicals). Mostly, though, Cooke is an intelligent, wry observer, and this is a good one to check out for fans of Cooke's TV work.

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