The Americans

"Boorstins achievement is to compel us to see again, ranged in order, the whole mass of attitudes and mechanisms that arise from American difference, and to display his material so abundantly and ingeniously that we see aspects of the nations' past as if for the first time." -- Marcus Cunliffe, Book Week

"This is the history of a nation 'beginning again and again, under men's very eyes. I can only repeat that this is a fine book -- controversial certainly, but a courageous, learned and most exciting work." -- George Dangerfield, The New York Times Book Review

"This exceptionally good book ... abounds in concrete, entertaining details, and in bright, original ideas about those fascinating people, us." -- The New Yorker

The nation was beginning not at one time or place, but again an again, under men's very eyes. Americans were forming new communities and reforming old communities all over the world expanse of the western world.

Daniel J. Boorstin was the author of The Americans, a trilogy (The Colonial Experience; The National Experience, and The Democratic Experience) that won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1989, he received the National Book Award for lifetime contribution to literature. He was the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and for twelve years served as the Librarian of Congress. He died in 2004.