An American Century

Set amid the flow of the great events, trends, facts and fads of the 20th century, An American Century is a non-fiction, historical novel that tells the story of an American family and the history of the United States of America in our time. It recounts the lives of three generations of the Bleucher family: Oscar and Lilly, Paul and Josephine, and Jack and Kathy, as well as others. Follow their exploits during the Progressive Era, from the Klondike Gold Rush to the San Francisco Earthquake, to life on a Blackfeet Indian reservation, through the Great War and the Red Scare, the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition, the Crash and the Great Depression, and World War II. Readers will also relive the Fabulous Fifties, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Swinging Sixties, the Vietnam War and Resistance, the Age of Reagan, and the Gulf War and Globalization, until the climax on September 11, 2001. An American Century features scenes with such historical figures as Henry Luce, Lucky Luciano, Allen Dulles, John F. Kennedy, Clare Boothe Luce, Ronald Reagan, Arthur Schlesinger and John Kennedy Jr., and offers a fact-based but ultimately little-known theory of the Kennedy assassination, the mystery of the century. Blending the art of modern storytelling with historically accurate details, it is a novel of love and war and peace, ambition and pride and loss, courage and despair and hope, as well as the tender moments that are important in every life. Fans of literature set in history will love An American Century, the epic saga of a good family and the chronicle of a great empire, illuminating one hundred years of Americana. About the Author: John W. Kirshon is a journalist, writer and editor with more than 30 years of experience at The New York Times, the Associated Press, and CBS News. He was the executive editor of Chronicle of the 20th Century and the editor-in-chief of Chronicle of America, both bestselling, illustrated history books. He grew up in Larchmont and Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York, and was motivated to write An American Century in order to place the story of a representative family within the context of contemporary history, and enlighten those who seek a more confidential knowledge of the social history of the United States in the 20th century, answering the question: How did we get from where we were then to where we are now? He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and is inspired to write by the current events of daily journalism and long-term trends of history. Publisher's website: http://www.sbpra.com/JohnWKirshon