My name is Hugh Paret. I was a corporation lawyer, but by no means a typical one, the choice of my profession being merely incidental, and due, as will be seen, to the accident of environment. The book I am about to write might aptly be called The Autobiography of a Romanticist. In that sense, if in no other, I have been a typical American, regarding my country as the happy hunting-ground of enlightened self-interest, as a function of my desires. Whether or not I have completely got rid of this romantic virus I must leave to those the aim of whose existence is to eradicate it from our literature and our life. A somewhat Augean task!
"In this absorbing volume . . . the greatest Englishman of the twentieth century paints with surpassing elegance his portrait of American history and American character. This is a good book to read-and a book to savor."
--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
"This excellent volume gives the gist of all Winston Churchill's writings and observations about American history. It is a wonderful read for Americans, and tells them a great deal about their country, which many of them do not know and ought to know."
--Paul Johnson, author of A History of the American People
"A fresh and vigorous accoun