American Places

Description

Join William Zinsser as he visits sixteen of our nation's most treasured historic sites — unlearning cliched assumptions and rediscovering fundamental truths about America. American Places — and the ideals that Zinsser discovers these places represent — will never go out of fashion. "Speaking across the centuries with stone and symbol, narrative and myth, America's iconic places remind us of our anchoring principles and best intentions. 'This is where we started and what we believed and who we hoped to become,' these places say. At least that's what they said to me." "Niagara Falls existed only in the attic of my mind where collective memory is stored: scraps of songs about honeymooning couples, vistas by painters who tried to get the plummeting waters to hold still, film clips of Marilyn Monroe running for her life in Niagara, odds and ends of lore about stuntmen who died going over the falls, and always, somewhere among the scraps, a boat...