A Story in Photographs

Editorial reviews

“This exceptional collection meets the high standards readers have come to expect from National Geographic, providing a wonderful representation of the country’s rich and diverse culture, heritage, and landscape. An impressive celebration of the beauty of a country.” – Kirkus

“These are not just beautiful images; they are momentary encapsulations of people, wildlife, environment and emotions at their core.” – Book list

“This generous collection of more than 250 National Geographic Society photographs, inspired, as Jill Lepore points out in the foreword, by the poem ‘America the Beautiful’, captures the splendor of all 50 states, as well as six US territories. The images are organized into four regions: ‘The Western Pacific’, where snow-covered trees are found in Yellowstone National Park and the Golden Gate Bridge in California is shown at sunset; ‘The Mid-Atlantic East’, where the Building Chrysler looks out over New York City and cascades over Elakala Falls in West Virginia; ‘The South Caribbean’, where you see a view of the valleys in Puerto Rico from the opening of Cueva Ventana and the waves crash against a pier in the Outer Banks, North Carolina; and ‘The Central Midwest Plains’, where a rainbow arches over a wheat field in Kansas and tourists swing on tilted glass to marvel at the v view from Chicago’s 360 Observation Deck. Celebrities (and some academics) provide short but poignant comments about their connection. in every state, such as James Earl Jones in Michigan, ‘a place where a child can find his true voice’ and Tara Westover in Idaho, who notes that ‘home is not so much a place as a lens through which we perceive world.’ This is a rewarding visual journey. “Publishers Weekly

About the Author

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, one of the world’s leading nonfiction publishers, has published more than 1,700 titles, with categories such as history, travel, nature, photography, space, science, health, biography, and memoirs. A portion of their proceeds is used to fund exploration, conservation, and education through ongoing contributions to the work of the National Geographic Society.

JILL LEPORE (foreword) is the David Woods Kemper’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. She has been writing for The New Yorker since 2005 and is also a host of The Last Archive podcast. As a prolific and extensive essayist, Lepore writes on American history, law, literature, and politics. She won the Bancroft Prize for her book The Name of War and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in history for The Story of America, which was also shortlisted for the PEN Literary Award for Essay Art. Her other award-winning books include Book of Ages, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, and These Truths: A History of the United States. Her book If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future comes out this year.