First ed. published under title: The image; or, What happened to the American dream. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 263-294.

Historical survey of America's self-discovery in the years between the Revolution and the Civil War. Daniel J. Boorstin, one of America's great historians, focuses on American ingenuity and emergent nationalism in this middle book of the Americans trilogy, dealing with a period extending roughly from the Revolution to the Civil War. Like its two companion volumes, The National Experience is a sometimes quirky look at how certain patterns of living...

Tells the ongoing story of the progressive discovery by man of the nature of the observable world and universe.

Visit 204 works by 67 foreign-born painters, sculptors, architects and photographers celebrating the fact that in the past century, the U.S. offered sanctuary to the world's immigrants and refugees, and that, in turn, the artist-immigrants made major contributions to our cultural heritage.

When, in 1800, Congress purchased the first volumes for the Library of Congress, no one expected its modest acquisition to grow into a treasure-trove of 76 million objects! Less than one quarter of the collection is bound volumes. The Library also has almost every phonograph record made in the United States, the largest collection of motion pictures in America, more maps, globes, and charts, more Civil War photographs, more Stradivari violins, more...

Arguably the most beautifully decorated building in the United States, the Library of Congress building (now known as the Jefferson Building) reached its 100th anniversary in 1997 after an eighty million dollar restoration that returned it to its original state. At the turn of the century, Herbert Small, a newspaperman, wrote a guide to the building and its decoration. His text, edited by Henry Hope Reed, is reproduced here. It is preceded by introductory...