Reporting America by Alistair Cooke

Reporting America Reviews

• 
  Texbritreader

  For those Americans of a certain age Alistair Cooke was the face of Masterpiece Theater and unfortunately that is probably what he is best remembered for, but Cooke was also a respected journalist who spent over 60 years chronicling the United States for readers and listeners back in his English homeland.
  
  With his newspaper column for the Guardian and his BBC radio presentation, Letter From America, he both described and interpreted America for the British public. This chronological collection of essays, culled from both sources, is framed by a thoughtful and honest introduction by his daughter Susan Cooke Kittredge.
  
  The most pleasant aspect of the work was the sense of time travel you experience when you read about historical events before they are history. Like published letters or journals, although not private, these pieces reflect perspectives on events that are usually lost with the passage of time, as a consensus of historical interpretation develops.
  
  The pieces also reveal the minor prejudices and casual condescensions that were taken for granted in the mid 20th century. Cooke's essays about African Americans reveal the liberal face of pervasive societal racism as he talks about blacks with a paternalistic tone that jumps off the page now. And he reveals a growing conservatism as the Vietnam War and it's student protesters arrive on the scene, a traditionalism which will continue as the decades pass. Yet he remains a largely likable and observant reporter and I enjoyed my trip through time with him.
• 
  Paul

  I've read this book over quite a long time reading his letters occasionally from his early, post-war letters in 1946, until his last letter in 2004, which in this collection was a reflection entitled "Was Saddam A Threat?"
  I need to read the full biography of Alistair Cooke to gain a clearer perspective, but in this volume of letters, his daughter (a Minister in the United Methodist Church in Maryland) draws a picture of her Father. which is tender, but warts and all, to some extent.
  His postscript provides an incisive analysis of modern America, in which he draws upon Gibbons' "Rise & Fall" of the Roman Empire, focusing upon a number of areas, social and economic, but perhaps mostly its moral decline.
  Reading again about the Clinton's, reminded me afresh of just how brazenly immoral and yet completely unembarassed the President was. The response of the American people was, perhaps, equally shocking. Alistair Cooke's indictment of them was that of Gibbons' - namely that the people are surprisingly indifferent to the utterly shocking conduct of the Emperor, so long as he continued to repair the roads and remit taxes.
  The sheer longevity and insight of Alastair Cooke as a reporter deserves our reading of his reflections on America, in order that we might be men and women who know our times.
• 
  Carolyn Lochhead

  It's interesting to read contemporary perspectives on days and weeks that are now fixed in history, like JFK's assassination or the Cuban missile crisis. Alistair Cooke was writing about these events as they happened and without the hindsight that I've always been able to bring to them, and his detailed, unfussy reporting brings his topics alive. Unsurprisingly, he seems to grow increasingly curmudgeonly over the years, and it's hard to enjoy all of the pieces in this book, but I liked dipping in and out of it.
• 
  Mickey Wyte

  Many only know of Alistair Cooke as the long time host of Masterpiece Theatre and do not know he was a major journalist and radio broadcaster. His Letter From America was broadcast worldwide on the BBC continuousy for 59 years. In this book, whch is a compilation of from Cooke's varried writing for the Guadian Newspaper, Letter From America and other sources you will find an American story told from a astitute observer.
• 
  Sally

  Fascinating to read stories from the time, when the eventual result of history was not known. The format of the 'letters' was good for this - bite sized chunks of history from a long span. Good to dip in and out of and get a sense of US history.
• 
  David Sheets

  Cooke's daughter pulls together a fascinating collection of the British journalist's historically relevant articles to paint a vivid picture of the man and the nation he adored exploring.