His survey begins with William Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation," an Old-Testament-style narrative of exile and salvation in which the wilderness of the New World is both desert and promised land.
Reading Mr. Parini's descriptions of these 13 books feels like watching a time-lapse film of cultural evolution – with the perennial motifs of American life changing colors and sprouting the odd appendage over the course of two centuries. His selections make it possible to see Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," largely written in a Benzedrine-fueled three-week burst in 1951, as an extended riff on the themes of exploration and westward discovery first expressed in "The Journals of Lewis and Clark." Thoreau's "Walden" looks like a spiritual riposte to the materialism that Benjamin Franklin took for granted in his "Autobiography," while Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" puts Franklin's practical-minded expediency to cynical use. Works as different as Benjamin Spock's "Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care" and Betty Friedan's "Feminine Mystique" share an interest in retooling postwar domestic life that fits comfortably alongside Thoreau's effort to dodge the life of quiet desperation he saw most of his contemporaries leading.
“Every nation has a founding myth, or myths: stories that talk of bright but challenging beginnings, portraying the drama of self-definition and establishment. “
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)
Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-98)
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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