The Americans: Letters from America 1969–1979

Alistair Cooke

Mac 2015 · Open Road Media

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“Reading [Cooke] is like spending an evening with him: you may have heard it all before, but never told with such grace and sparkle.” —The New York Times Book Review

As the voice of the BBC’s Letter from America for close to six decades, Alistair Cooke addressed several millions of listeners on five continents. They tuned in every Friday evening or Sunday morning to listen to his erudite and entertaining reports on life in the United States. According to Lord Hill of Luton, chairman of the BBC, Cooke had “a virtuosity approaching genius in talking about America in human terms.”

That virtuosity is displayed to great effect in this essential collection of Cooke’s letters, covering a momentous decade in American history.

Always entertaining, provocative, and enlightening, the master broadcaster reports on an extraordinarily diverse range of topics, from Vietnam, Watergate, and the constitutional definition of free speech to the jogging craze and the pleasures of a family Christmas in Vermont. He eulogizes Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, pays an affectionate and moving tribute to Duke Ellington, and treats readers to a night at the opera with Jimmy Carter.

Alistair Cooke was one of the twentieth century’s most influential reporters and, according to Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist James Reston, the “best story-teller in America.” This captivating collection includes some of Cooke’s most memorable insights into American history and culture.

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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.