TO AMERICA

Stephen Ambrose reads the introduction in the breathy voice of old age. He's dead now, but Henry Strozier takes up the torch, reading the body of the text as a younger Ambrose might have done, forceful, confident, and charming. Part memoir and part history of the U.S., this is the last valentine from a historian who saw our nation's flaws, and got over them. Yes, slavery was wicked--gone now. Discrimination against recent immigrants was misguided, but we are getting over that as well. The twenty-first century, Ambrose hopes, will be ruled by one superpower, a mongrel state of many races, and many nationalities, displaying unexpected strength and unexpected kindness. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 03]