• About this Book
• About the Author
• Related Links

Written by Harold Evans

• Format: Trade Paperback, 736 pages
• Publisher: Knopf
• On Sale: October 24, 2000
• Price: $35.00
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70938-8 (0-375-70938-X)

about this book

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

With The American Century Harold Evans offers a thoughtful and provocative analysis of the great movements and events in America's rise to a position of political and cultural dominance.

In 1889, when the United States entered the second hundred years of its existence, it was by no means certain that a nation of such diverse peoples, manifold beliefs, and impossible ideals could survive its own exceptional experiment in democracy or manage to avoid a headlong slide into oblivion. Evans describes what happened to the democratic ideal amid the clash of personalities and the convulsions of great events. Here are assessments of the century's nineteen presidents, from Benjamin Harrison, who brought the Stars and Stripes into American life in 1889, to the movie star who waved it so vigorously a hundred years later. Here are the muckrakers who exposed the evils of rampant capitalism, and the women who fought to make a reality of the rhetoric of equality. Here are the robber barons--the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, and the Morgans--carving out great empires of unparalleled wealth, turning their millions into foundations for public benefit. Here are Al Capone and J. Edgar Hoover, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Ku Klux Klan, Joe McCarthy and Dwight Eisenhower. Here is the American heartland at peace (but on the wagon), America in two world wars, and at war with itself in the sixties.

Evans analyzes the central questions of the era. Among them: How did the tradition arise that government should not meddle in business? How did anti-colonial America become an imperial power? How much was democracy threatened by the influence of money? What was the nature of American isolationism? Why did Woodrow Wilson take the United States into World War I? What caused the Great Depression, and why did it last so long? Did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal succeed or fail? Did the protests of the sixties go too far? Was Vietnam a noble cause? Has the Watergate scandal been blown up out of all proportion? Who deserves the credit for the end of the Cold War?

PRAISE FOR The American Century:

“Teachers looking to challenge, provoke, and inspire their students should consider adopting Harold Evans’ The American Century. The writing is engaging and the argumentation astute; students can see a mind at work and a model of committed citizenship. Evans covers the sweep of his period (1889–1989) as thoroughly as any textbook, but with more passion and zest. His selection of ‘great questions’ for extended commentary is apt, and his reflections on specific events, accompanied by marvelous photographs, illuminate his major themes most effectively. America's role as a leader in the world; the contributions of the oppressed in preserving and enhancing American liberty; the impact of the individual in shaping society—all come to life at Evans’ hand. I have used The American Century for many years with advanced high school students; no other book succeeds as well in getting students to care so much about what they are learning.” —Burke R. Rogers, Ph.D., St. George’s School


“The 900 black-and-white photographs, deftly integrated into the text, offer a strong complement to the narrative. A handsome overview of America in recent times.” —Kirkus Reviews

“In a style at once trenchant and easygoing, Harold Evans leads us on a walk through the century now drawing to a close, taking us back over ground that far too many of us have let slip from our memories.” —Shelby Foote, author of The Civil War

“A sumptuous memory-book of an astonishing time. Like the crowded era it chronicles, The American Century is sometimes heroic, sometimes harrowing, but always compelling and relentlessly eventful. The brisk text breathes new life into even the best-remembered episodes, and the choice of historic photographs is superb.” —Geoffrey C. Ward, author of A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, and co-author of The Civil War

“Harold Evans, historian, gives us a riveting panorama of the story of the last century that shaped today’s America. Observations as insightful as de Tocqueville’s, matched with remarkable photos, tell the exciting story of who we are, how we got here, and where we might be headed. A book every family should have.” —General Colin L. Powell, U.S.A. (retired)

“This is history to enjoy, engagingly written, splendidly illustrated.” —Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright and Shining Lie

“A wide-ranging, politically detached view of the shaping events of the century. Excellent prose, with wonderful pictures. I much enjoyed it, as I think will all.” —John Kenneth Galbraith

“The American Century brilliantly captures the magnitude and complexities of the century itself. Harold Evans’s authoritative and vividly written book is not only history at its best, but it promises to serve as a guide to the future.” —Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History

“A great rich survey of the best and the worst of centuries: how it looked, how it sounded, how it killed, how it created. This lavish book gives us much to remember, and unflinchingly reminds us of what we'd rather forget.” —Edmund Morris, author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

“The American Century is a major and inspiring synthesis and overview of our history. The scope and breadth are very impressive. It is destined to become an indispensable feature in libraries across the country.” —Vartan Gregorian, Professor of History, Brown University, and President Emeritus, New York Public Library

“Harold Evans has set out to write what he calls ‘an accessible popular political history,’ and he has succeeded admirably.... Its individual chapters and subchapters are eminently readable, written in the liveliest historical prose I have come across in a long while.” —The New York Times Book Review