Publisher's Synopsis
At its beginning America could have followed four different paths in becoming a nation. Each path would result in a totally different culture. The path it chose, the Enlightenment, gave Americans the most freedom any people had ever enjoyed under a government. It also gave Americans the self-confidence to achieve what no other people had done. This book is a collection of stories about how this vision was established and the people who helped make this country what it is. There was only one place in colonial America where this vision could start--Pennsylvania. Although all the stories have Pennsylvania as the common element, nearly all have a national appeal. Here are some examples: in the Builders Section, there are stories about how a town was specially built for a European king and queen on the run, how oil was first successfully taken from the ground, how the steel industry became a reality, the creation of the first roller coaster, the first superhighway and the first modern suburb. In the next section are the stories of America's first family of traitors, the Arnolds, the Irish criminal syndicate in the 1880s, the final journey of Flight 93 on September 11; a section of doctors tells how America dealt with a modern-day plague that dwarfed the Black Death plague of the middle ages, how Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine; (3) in the Sports section, there are the stories of Little League Baseball's beginning, Joe Paterno's rise and fall, Golfer Arnold Palmer and Boxer Joe Frazier. Part 13 is about Myths and legends and their backstories and the final part is about Artists who changed America, such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Fallingwater, Dick Clark and American Bandstand, three generations of Wyeths. This book is about people who did something extraordinary and their personal stories.