A review by bookish1ifedeb
The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand for by David McCullough

3.0

This collection of speeches given by author David McCullough over a span of twenty-five years touch on many of the subjects and themes in the author's numerous books. All are about American history, and the people who participated in the development of our nation. They serve as a reminder of our unusual origins and the remarkable men and women who made it possible, and fought to sustain it in the early years of the nation. McCullough is largely optimistic about the basic decency and patriotism that has held us together as a nation through dark days; but you can hear in the most recent speeches his concern that we are bending away from the foundations on which the nation was built, and need once more to pull back to the central values that made the United States possible. Worth a read for the capsule history embedded in each speech, but also to call us back to what matters--a sense of who we are as Americans, and what we want to stand for in the future.