Drawing on a lifetime of journalistic encounters with the great and the famous, Alistair Cooke profiles the six extraordinary men who impressed him the most Over the course of his sixty-year career as a broadcaster, television host, and newspaper reporter, Alistair Cooke met many remarkable people of the twentieth century. This entertaining and insightful collection shares his unique, often startling personal vision of six key figures from the worlds of literature, entertainment, and politics. They are: Charlie Chaplin, whom Cooke befriended in Hollywood and who courted controversy in his politics and romances; the charming-yet-naive Edward VIII, whose love affair changed the course of World War II; Humphrey Bogart, the first antihero hero onscreen and a sensitive gentleman at home; H. L. Mencken, brilliant, inspirational, and deeply flawed; Adlai Stevenson, whom Cooke labeled the failed saint; and Bertrand Russell, who had the courage and the audacity to try to make the world a better place. The subjects of Six Men are united by the deep complexities of their characters. In balancing informed details of their lives with an objectivity set against the ever-changing landscape of their times, Six Men is a master course in the art of concise biography.

A defining collection from Alistair Cooke's legendary BBC Radio broadcasts, guiding us through nearly sixty years of changing life in the United States 'No one else succeeded in explaining to the English-speaking world ... the idiosyncrasies of a country at once so familiar, and yet so utterly foreign' Independent When Alistair Cooke retired in February 2004 he was acclaimed as one of the greatest broadcasters of all time. His Letter from America radio series, which began in 1946 and continued every week for fifty-eight years until his retirement, kept the world in touch with what was happening in America. Cooke's wry, humane and liberal style both informed and entertained his audience. The selection here, made largely by Cooke himself and supplemented by his literary executor, gives us the very best of these legendary broadcasts. It covers key moments from the assassination of Kennedy through to the Vietnam War and Watergate to 9/11, the Iraq War and anticipates the 2004 elections. It includes portraits of the great and the good from Charlie Chaplin to Martin Luther King, Jr, and topics as varied as civil rights, golf, jazz and the changing colours of a New England fall. Each Letter contributes to a captivating portrait of a nation - and of a man.

The first major biography of revered journalist Alistair Cooke, known to millions here as the host of Masterpiece Theatre, & to the world as the author of the weekly Letter from America.

“There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times.” —The Daily Telegraph 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.” This second collection of Cooke’s personally selected letters covers tumultuous events in American history such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. His analysis of the origins of the conflict in Vietnam is clear eyed and compelling, and in three thoughtful and incisive essays—on Brown v. Board of Education, the struggle to integrate the Deep South, and the riots in Watts—Cooke identifies the changing racial attitudes that defined the era. He reflects on the rise of drug use among college students and offers a paean to the beauty of Golden Gate Park. With characteristically incisive portraits of political and cultural figures such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Frost, H. L. Mencken, Charles Lindbergh, and John Glenn, Talk About America: 1951–1968 is rich with humor, compassion, and commitment. In this superb overview of an astonishing era in America’s twentieth century, Alistair Cooke is at the top of his game.

Above London. Visitors to England who marvel at this lush land on their first incoming flight now have a volume to treasure forever. Here are the famed gardens, the majestic estates, the granduer of centuries of architecture. Along with Robert Cameron's areial photographs Alistair Cooke's text is brimming with the raconteur's characteristic wit and insight. The pictorial essay begins at the Thames and follows the history of the beloved city well into the countryside.

Over the course of his distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, which spans more than sixty years, Alistair Cooke has known, interviewed, or reported on literally hundreds of the most influential men and women of the twentieth century. Here he has collected his memories of more than a score of them: they include actors and generals, statesmen and eccentrics, a poet, a jazzman, an intensely scholarly woman and a casually funny one, an architect, a publisher, and several politicians--all of whom, in Cooke's view, have left the world a better or more interesting place. Book jacket.

Alistair Cooke, then a Washington correspondent for the Guardian, recognized a great story to be told in investigating at first hand the effects of the Second World War on America and the daily lives of Americans as they adjusted to radically new circumstances. Within weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack, Cooke set off with a reporter’s zeal on a circuit of the entire country to see what the war had done to people. He talked to everyone he encountered on his extensive trip, from miners to lumberjacks, to war-profiteers, to day-laborers, to local politicians – even the unfortunate Japanese-Americans who had been rapidly interned in stark, desert camps. This unique travelogue celebrates an important American character and the indomitable spirit of a nation that was to inspire Cooke’s reports and broadcasts for some sixty years.

A new edition of Alistair Cooke's classic work, which has sold ore than 2 million copies to date. Full of Cooke's signature wit and wisdom, this is a lucid and illuminating history of the United States. Republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the classic BBC series.

One of the preeminent journalists of the twentieth century, Alistair Cooke has enjoyed a truly extraordinary career in print, radio, and television. Born into a working-class family and christened Alfred, Cooke swiftly broke free of his modest origins and became the foremost commentator on American life and politics, first for the British press and eventually for the entire world. Alistair Cooke: A Biography is both a fascinating record of one man's determination to reinvent himself and a lively and informative journey through the highways and byways of the twentieth century.

From Duke Ellington to Churchill Downs, championship golf to Greta Garbo, Alistair Cooke reports on the popular sports and entertainments he loved the most This delightful anthology, drawn from Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America BBC broadcasts as well as his reporting for the Guardian, showcases the legendary journalist’s wide range of sporting pleasures, which include golf, tennis, baseball, and horse racing, and records memorable fun he had with favorite movies, theater productions, and jazz performances. Included here are perceptive portraits of sports personalities such as Gabriela Sabatini, Arnold Palmer, and Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Cooke regarded as the best fighter in the history of boxing. “A Mountain Comes to Muhammad” captures Muhammad Ali in victory; “Come-Uppance for the ‘Onliest Champion’ ” portrays him in defeat. A “Revised (Soviet) History of Baseball” humorously details Russian misconceptions about America’s pastime, a.k.a. beizbol. In “The Road to Churchill Downs,” Cooke captures the sights and sounds of Kentucky’s crown jewel and delights in the joy that his young daughter, Susan, who appears with her father on the cover of this edition, takes in the sport of kings. Sharing the spotlight are celebrities of the Hollywood variety, including Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Groucho Marx, and Charlie Chaplin. Filled with Cooke’s infectious enthusiasm for fun and games of wide variety, the lighter side of the legendary journalist’s output will be enjoyed by devotees of popular culture.