The Best American Essays of the Century

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful overview of America in the 20th century.
Review: Unlike the collection of short stories published last year, the editors did not have to limit themselves to essays printed in specific publications, leaving them able to pick the cream of the crop. But they aren't just well written pieces of non-fiction from some of the greatest writers like Tom Wolfe, Lewis Thomas, or Cynthia Ozick. Arranged in chronological order, they give a great sense of where we were as a country and how we've developed in the past hundred years. The only flaw is that many of the pieces, such as Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and Maya Angelou's excerpt from "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" will be familiar to most readers, but it's worth it to have these essays bound in one collection.