Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Introduction vii
4. Paul Cowan’s The Tribes of America 1
5. Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year 9
6. James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men 16
7. Paul Gallico’s Farewell to Sport 24
8. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 32
9. Walter Bernstein’s Keep Your Head Down 39
10. A. J. Liebling’s The Earl of Louisiana 46
11. Stanley Booth’s The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones 52
12. Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test 60
13. Palagummi Sainath’s Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts 67
14. Charles Raw, Bruce Page, & Godfrey Hodgson’s DO YOu Sincerely Want to Be Rich? 76
15. Michael Herr’s Dispatches 84
16. Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day 93
17. John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World 102
18. Marshall Frady’s Wallace 109
19. Rian Malan’s My Traitor’s Heart 117
20. Vincent Sheean’s Personal History 124
21. Norman Mailer’s THE Armies of the Night 132
22. William Manchester’s The Death of a President 139
23. Gabriel García Márquez’s The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor 147
24. Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem 155
25. Peter Fleming’s Brazilian Adventure 164
26. Betty MacDonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything 173
27. Contributors 183