Related Books: The Modern World

'Mr. Boorstin tells the story of the invention of a new democratic culture and the reorientation of the national character through countless little revolutions in economy, technology, and social rearrangements... Illuminated by reflections that are original, judicious and sagacious...' - Henry Steele Commager

I have learned a great deal about the USA in Professor Boorstin's new book. He knows this country of ours as few historians know it…I read his book with delight and gratitude.
— —Saul Bellow

 Publisher
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A study of the last 100 years of American history.

    John K. Hutchens - Book-of-the-Month-Club News  
A huge, fascinating omnibus of a book…an exhilarating adventure that carries us along the highways and byways of a national history like no other.
 

The Reader's Catalog
Ask the bartender (1855) to set 'em up (1851)! Do you want only a snifter (1848), or do you prefer a drink precisely measured by a jigger (1836)...? Ask for a long drink (1828), unless you prefer your whiskey straight (1862; the English word was neat). Would you like an eggnog (1775), a mint-julep (1809), or some kind of cobbler (1840), for example, a sherry cobbler (1841)?...The world-famous cocktail--destined to become one of the most prolific American inventions, linguistic or otherwise--came not from a later effete era, but from that same Gothic Age. Its first recorded use, in the Hudson, New York Balance (and Columbian Repository) on May 13, 1806, explained: "Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called bittered sling...it is said, also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else."