America 1900

In a book meant to accompany November's PBS documentary of the same name, distinguished writer and producer Crichton offers a vivid, beautifully illustrated account of the U.S. at the turn of the century. Crichton views the year--which included the emergence of the first billion-dollar corporation, the flood at Galveston and the election of New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt to the office of vice-president under the doomed William McKinley--from the perspective of a host of eloquent eyewitnesses. These include the struggling young novelist and socialist ideologue Jack London, the would-be poet Carl Sandburg (then a student at Lombard College in Galesburg, Ill.), high school junior Harry Truman (hoping for acceptance at West Point), and the tubercular poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (the darling of white readers who was dubbed ""the black Robert Burns"" by the press). Through the accounts of these and other participants, Crichton moves through a period in our history when there was great faith in technology, great prosperity and at the same time great (in fact, increasing) disparity between rich and poor. In short, Crichton insightfully reveals 1900--with all its conflicts, hopes and contradictions--as a surprisingly accurate reflection of our own bewildering age. Both Crichton's text and numerous images capture the mood of the era and smartly introduce general readers to a key epoch of the American experience. (Nov.) FYI: David Traxel's 1898: The Birth of the American Century (Knopf) was reviewed in Forecasts, April 6.