In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years, Alistair Cooke reported on America, illuminating our country for a global audience. He was one of the most widely read and widely heard chroniclers of America—the Twentieth Century’s de Tocqueville. Cooke died in 2004, but shortly before he passed away a long-forgotten manuscript resurfaced in a closet in his New York apartment. It was a travelogue of America during the early days of World War II that had sat there for sixty years. Published to stellar reviews in 2006, though “somewhat past deadline,” Cooke’s is a “valentine to his adopted country by someone who loved it as well as anyone and knew it better than most” ( [Cleveland]). It is a unique artifact and a historical gem, “an unexpected and welcome discover in a time capsule.” ( ) A portrait frozen in time, the book offers a charming look at the war through small towns, big cities, and the American landscape as they once were. is also a brilliant piece of reportage, a historical gem that “affirms Cooke’s enduring place as a great twentieth-century reporter” ( ).