"Neil Baldwin enriches our understanding of America, and the part we might -- indeed must -- play in living its animating ideals. He identifies ten ideals that we think of as quintessentially American, and traces their origination in ten compelling individuals. He endows political bloviation, rhetoric and common slogans with the beating heart of human aspiration beset by doubt, challenged by circumstance, and withal renewed, by the people in trials beyond the imagination of the founders." -- Sir Harold Evans, author of They Made America " At a time when there is a lot of uninformed talk about American values, it' s important to reach back and understand what those values truly are. Neil Baldwin does it in this smart and thoughtful narrative by looking at ten examples, ranging from John Winthrop' s great sermon invoking a city on a hill, to the Marshall Plan, which saved the prospect of free-market democracy in Europe." -- Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life "In his new book, Neil Baldwin focuses on individuals who developed and promulgated ideas that helped shape the American ideal. These profiles. illuminate the galvanizing beliefs that unify Americans -- even as red and blue states battle over their interpretation.

"-- The Chicago Tribune - "Best of 2005""" "In "The American Revelation," Neil Baldwin gives us ten short, often eloquent profiles rather than a broad narrative. compelling."-- The Wall Street Journal - "Editor's Choice".