AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

A photographic homage to the natural and cultural treasures of the U.S.

This magnificent collection of images was culled from the “more than 20 million photographs from the extensive National Geographic archives and spans more than 100 years of the country’s history.” In the foreword, Harvard historian and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore, whose 2018 book, These Truths, was an excellent one-volume history of the U.S., reflects on the life and travels of American writer and professor Katharine Lee Bates, the author of the lyrics to the titular song, which contains “echoes of Whitman.” Organized by region—the West and Pacific, East and Mid-Atlantic, South & Caribbean, and Midwest and Central Plains—the collection also includes tributes from prominent citizens from a wide variety of backgrounds, including Barack Obama (“what’s best in me, and what’s best in my message, is consistent with the tradition of Hawaii”), Cal Ripken Jr., Benicio Del Toro, Maya Rudolph, Jewel, John Mellencamp, James Earl Jones, and Tom Brokaw (South Dakota was where I was born and where I’ll be buried”). The consistently high-quality, striking photos are as diverse as the country’s citizenry: aurora borealis shining over a snow-covered Alaskan highway; scientists scaling a 3,200-year-old tree in Sequoia National Park; bison and elk roaming the frozen ranges of Wyoming; farmers harvesting wheat in Kansas; children enjoying a fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park; massive waves crashing on the rocks next to Maine’s oldest lighthouse; Martin Luther King Jr. standing with other civil rights leaders during the 1963 March on Washington; blues legend B.B. King playing in a small club in Mississippi; and Mexican American students standing for the Pledge of Allegiance in Brownsville, Texas. This outstanding collection meets the high standards that readers have come to expect from National Geographic, providing a wonderful representation of the country’s rich and diverse culture, heritage, and landscape.

A stunning celebration of a country’s beauty.