This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the lively arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, communications, graffiti...everything and anything indigenous that can be captured in print. The Glory and the Dream chronicles the progress of life in the United States, from the time William Manchester and his generation reached the beginning of awareness in the desperate summer of '32 to President Nixon's Second Inaugural Address and the opening scenes of Watergate. Masterfully compressing four crowded decades of our history, Manchester relives the epic, significant, or just memorable events that befell the generation of Americans whose lives pivoted between the America before and the America after the Second World War. THE GLORY AND THE DREAM: A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF AMERICA 1932-1972 is history at its most detailed and finest. It covers an incredible array of the "major events, sensational happenings, and news-making personalities from the Great Depression through the second inauguration of Richard M. Nixon." By no means, a stark, dry collection of minutiae, Manchester breathes life into the great periods of America's growth. "Manchester has an uncanny ability to give his readers an almost tactile sense of the past and to make them feel. 'So that's how it was!'" (Christian Science Monitor)