American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane
by Walter Isaacson
Published by: Simon & Schuster, November 24, 2009
Genre: Nonfiction | Biography & Memoir, History & Culture
Page Count: 304
Audiobook Length: 10 hours
Audiobook Narrator: Cotter Smith
ISBN: 9781439183458
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Publisher’s Description
One of America’s most versatile writers, the author of bestselling biographies such as Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, has assembled a gallery of portraits of (mostly) Americans that celebrate genius, talent, and versatility, and traces his own education as a writer and biographer.
In this collection of essays, the brilliant, acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson reflects on lessons to be learned from Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and other interesting characters he has chronicled both as biographer and journalist. The people he writes about have awesome intelligence, but that is not the secret to their success. They had qualities that were even more rare, such as imagination and true curiosity.
Isaacson also reflects on how he became a writer, the lessons he learned from various people he met, and the challenges for journalism in the digital age.
He also offers loving tributes to his hometown of New Orleans, which offers many of the ingredients for a creative culture, and to the Louisiana novelist Walker Percy, who was an early mentor. In an anecdotal and personal way, Isaacson describes the joys of writing and the way that tales about the lives of fascinating people can enlighten our own lives.
About the Author
Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023.
Our full biography and bibliography for Walter Isaacson can be found here.