Presents, in text and illustrations, an overview of the life and legend of the American cowboy.

Though barely known today, these are major historical stories, from Ziryab, an eighth-century black slave whose influence on music, cuisine, fashion, and manners still reverberates, to Cahokia, a twelfth-century city north of the Rio Grande, which at its zenith contained a population estimated to have been as high as 40,000 (more than any contemporary European city), to the worst peacetime maritime disaster ever, the explosion and sinking of the Sultana...

"A nation in need of hope, the most powerful rocket ever launched, and the first three men to break the bounds of Earth: Apollo 8 was headed to the moon. In 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth, America's rival in the Cold War claimed victory on a new frontier. The Space Race had begun, and the United States was losing. Closer to home, a decade of turbulence would soon have Americans reeling, with the...

Provides insight into how JFK used the new medium of television and the advances in color photography to further his ambitious agenda.