The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America 1932-1972, in Two Volumes

xvi, 845; viii, 848-1697 pp. Complete in two hardcover volumes. "This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the lively arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, communications, graffiti...everything and anything indigenous that can be captured in print. The Glory and the Dream chronicles the progress of life in the United States, from the time William Manchester and his generation reached the beginning of awareness in the desperate summer of '32 to President Nixon's Second Inaugural Address and the opening scenes of Watergate. Masterfully compressing four crowded decades of our history, Manchester relives the epic, significant, or just memorable events that befell the generation of Americans whose lives pivoted between the America before and the America after the Second World War. THE GLORY AND THE DREAM: A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICA 1932-1972 is history at its most detailed and finest. It covers an incredible array of the "major events, sensational happenings, and news-making personalities from the Great Depression through the second inauguration of Richard M. Nixon." By no means, a stark, dry collection of minutiae, Manchester breathes life into the great periods of America's growth. "Manchester has an uncanny ability to give his readers an almost tactile sense of the past and to make them feel. 'So that's how it was!'" (Christian Science Monitor)" "Manchester grew up in Attleboro, Massachusetts. His father served in the United States Marine Corps during World War I. After his father's death, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, William Manchester likewise enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, though he was ordered back to college until called up. Although he expected to serve in Europe, Manchester ultimately found himself in the Pacific. He served on Guadalcanal after the Japanese defeat there, and experienced combat in the last major battle of the Pacific War, on Okinawa, where he was severely wounded by an exploding rocket. Manchester's wartime experiences formed the basis for his very personal account of the Pacific Theater, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. He wrote of World War II in several other books, including his second of a planned three part biography of Winston Churchill and a biography of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts in 1946 and a master's degree from the University of Missouri in 1947. He worked as a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman and The Baltimore Sun. He published his first book, a biography of H. L. Mencken based on his master's thesis, in 1951, then followed it up with a novel two years later. In 1955 Manchester became an editor for Wesleyan University and spent the rest of his career there, later becoming an adjunct professor of history and writer-in-residence there. His best-selling book, The Death of a President (1965) was a detailed account of the murder of Pres. John F. Kennedy, who was subject of an earlier book by Manchester. Manchester, who retraced Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald's movements before the assassination, concluded, based on his study of Oswald's psychology and their similar training as Marine sharpshooters, that Oswald acted alone. Manchester had the support of Robert and Jackie Kennedy, but later had a falling out with Robert Kennedy over Manchester's treatment of Pres. Lyndon Johnson. In his collection of essays Controversy (1977), Manchester detailed Kennedy (and, likely, Johnson's) attempts to suppress the book. He remarked that the generation coming of age in the 1950s were "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent,"[citation needed] helping to cement the generational moniker Silent Generation. Following the death of his wife in 1998, Manchester suffered two strokes. He announced, to the disappointment of many of his readers, that he would not be able to complete the previously planned third volume of his three part-biography of Churchill. According to this article, Vol. III, The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm is likely to be published posthumously, being finished by writer Paul Reid, a former feature writer of Cox Newspapers."