"September 11, 2002, began a new era in the United States of America. The attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., and the courage exhibited in those cities and in the skies over Pennsylvania, changed forever the way Americans viewed their security and their country's place in the world.

Shortly after the fateful day, the editors of LIFE created a book on the attacks and their immediate aftermath. The goal of that volume, ONE NATION : America Remembers September 11, 2001, was to be a photographic and narrative record of the day, and the book was praised in reviews and editorials. This volume aspires to pick up where that book left off. In the tradition of classic LIFE picture stories, the patriotism--and the tension--that has swept the country is memorably evoked. A small church spared by the calamity of Ground Zero finds its missionary cause. The legacy of a pilot from a rural town endures on his farm, which continues to yield produce for the poor. LIFE revisits several survivors of September 11 whose stories were told in ONE NATION, and finds both anxiety and resilience.

President George W. Bush contributes a moving introduction to THE AMERICAN SPIRIT, which also includes essays by David McCullough, Melissa Fay Greene, James Bradley, and others. Gordon Parks provides new poetry and photography. Other noted photographers include Harry Benson, Joe McNally, James Salzano, Abigail Seymour, Steve Simon, Shannon Stapleton, David Turnley, and Denis Waugh. The singular record of Gregg Brown, who documented the recovery of the World Trade Center site for eight months, is presented her for the first time.

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT is about a country's bold effort to rise to the challenges of this new era. It is a volume that will resonate for generations to come."

WEST POINT HONOR ROLL

THE FATHER-Sylvanus Thayer, appointed in 1817 as the fourth superintendent of West Point, who established the first real academic standards and a formal structure that prevailed well into the twentieth century.

THE ENGINEER-Eleazar Derby Wood, who drove British forces from Fort Erie at the cost of his life in the War of 1812.

THE OUTSIDER-Henry O. Flipper, who in 1877 became the first black man to graduate, was wrongfully court-martialed and driven from the army on racist grounds, and died before receiving a presidential pardon a century later.

THE PATRIOT-Nicholas S. H. Krawciw, who was born in the Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. from postwar Germany with the dream of attending West Point.

THE FAMILY MAN-Dave Ramsay, who sent poignant letters and tapes to his wife back home before his fighter-bomber crashed on a Vietnam night mission.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF VALOR

When America must be defended, the men of West Point are there. From the War of 1812 to the twenty-first-century fight against terrorism at home and abroad, in the heat of battle and in the face of certain death, they give ever-renewed meaning to the West Point motto, "Duty, Honor, Country." They range from the celebrated, like Robert E. Lee and Douglas MacArthur, to the unsung, including Patrick H. O'Rorke, who stunned the Confederates at Little Round Top with a ferocious and gallant charge that stopped their advance; Russell P. Reeder, Jr., who led his regiment ashore at Normandy and valiantly fought German forces before losing a leg; and Joseph G. Clemons, Jr., who commanded an infantry company that held off the enemy on Pork Chop Hill in Korea. They-and many more-were all West Point warriors, men who led America's soldiers through this nation's wars and who protect us to this day with selfless sacrifice and unbounded bravery.

WEST POINT WARRIORS

September 11, 2001, will be eternally frozen in our memories. Where we were; what we thought; what we felt; what we heard; and especially what we saw will stay with us forever. It was a day -- defined for each of us in an instant -- that we will share with our children and our grandchildren in the years to come. In words and images -- and on a full-length DVD -- What We Saw captures those moments.

Dan Rather's Introduction sets the stage for an introspective look at the catastrophic events of September 11. What We Saw follows a day that started out like any other but ended in silence and sorrow -- from the first interviews by phone with eyewitnesses to a plane crashing into Tower 1 of the World Trade Center to the Towers of Light tribute, six months later.

As the world came to a halt that September morning, Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS News worked tirelessly to provide detailed, accurate coverage of that day and the days that followed. Not only are the events that shook America's biggest city and its capital closely documented, but the tragedies that occurred elsewhere are also examined, from the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to the repercussions felt in a small New Jersey commuter town.

Among the contributors are Jules Naudet, a French filmmaker who was working on a documentary about New York City firefighters when his subjects were called into service that September morning; Newsweek's Anna Quindlen, whose thoughts turn to a young family likely headed on vacation aboard United Airlines Flight 175, The New Republic's David Grann, who captures the feeling of hopelessness felt by the families searching for missing loved ones; and CBS's Ed Bradley, who describes the volunteers who flocked to Manhattan with an overwhelming desire to help.

Each moment of September 11 and its aftermath is portrayed with candor and honesty by the CBS News correspondents, photographers, camera operators, and journalists who were there. What We Saw is an invaluable documentary of a day that changed our world forever.

The events of September 11th 2001 are etched on the minds of people all over the globe. This book examines the fate of Flight 93. Believed to be heading for Washington DC, the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania miles away from its target. Jere Longman, a New York Times journalist, reconstructs the story of the flight on a technical level, as well as on a personal level, profiling the passengers, the captain, the co-pilots and the hijackers. It pays special tribute to four men in particular: Mark Bingham, Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick and Todd Beamer. From calls made to their loved ones, we know that these men had learned of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and had formed a plan to overcome the terrorists to prevent another such disaster. Bringing together all available material, including interviews with eye witnesses, phone calls, the captain's tape and the plane's black box, Longman reveals what went on aboard the fated plane.

Astute, even-handed and keenly intelligent, THE NATURAL is the only book to read if you want to understand exactly what happened during Bill Clinton's presidency, and how the decisions made during his tenure affect all of us today. We see how The White House functioned on the inside, how it dealt with the manoeuvres of Congress and the Gingrich revolution, and who held power and made the decisions during the endless crises that beset the administration. Klein's access to the White House over the years as a journalist gave him a prime spot from which to view every crucial event, both political and personal, and in the case of Monica Lewinsky both, and he sets then forth in an insightful, readable and completely engrossing manner. THE NATURAL is stern in its criticism and convincing with its praise, and will cause endless debate. It is a book that anyone interested in contemporary politics, in the functioning of the largest democracy in the world, whose decisions affect us all, should read.

In many ways George W. Bush did not seem built for the presidency or the paces necessary to win it. He was a laid-back good-time guy with little appetite and limited talent for formal oratory, someone who often projected affability more easily than authority. He was a homebody who seemed to prefer surroundings and situations that were utterly familiar to those that were risky and unpredictable. His interests could be narrow and his efforts to expand them only fitful.

But he got there, and after September 11, 2001, confronted a challenge more daunting than many of his predecessors had faced. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush was left with the responsibility to lead Americans through a time of unusual anxiety and uncertainty, to inspire and reassure them. Could he do it?

In Ambling Into History, Frank Bruni, who covered Bush's presidential campaign and first eight months in the White House for the New York Times, mines the countless hours during which he observed and interacted with Bush to explore that question, and to present sides of Bush that readers have never encountered. He looks to small moments for big truths, going behind the scenes and offering fresh insights into Bush's oft-chronicled weaknesses, sometimes overlooked strengths, and his journey-alternately earnest and reluctant-from an innate levity to a newfound gravity.

Bruni also takes readers on his own trip through the strange maze of presidential politics, wryly chronicling life in the insular "bubble" of political reporting and its frequently dispiriting effect on the coverage that politicians get. It is a candid, eloquent, and illuminating adventure that shows why Newsweek called Bruni "probably the most influential" reporter on the Bush beat.

The highly acclaimed Band of Brothers, the story of the toughest fighting unit in WWII that has become the TV event of 2001 with a major BBC miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg. They fought on Utah Beach, in Arnhem, Bastogne, the Bulge; they spearheaded the Rhine offensive and took possession of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden. Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. Band of Brothers is the account of the men of this remarkable unit who fought, went hungry, froze, and died, a company that took 150 percent casualties and considered the Purple Heart a badge of office. Drawing on hours of interviews with survivors as well as the soldiers' journals and letters, Stephen Ambrose tells the stories, often in the men's own words, of these American heroes.

This volume offers a dispassionate strategic examination of the Vietnam conflict that challenges the conventional wisdom that South Vietnam could not survive as an independent non-communist entity over the long term regardless of how the United States conducted its military-political effort in Indochina. In reality, the Vietnam War was far from an "unwinnable" war for the United States: the latter possessed enormous military, financial, and other advantages over its foes. However, US officials made a multitude of predictable, avoidable strategic mistakes over a long period of time and certain key figures displayed an inability even to understand the significance of their errors and learn from them. The book considers US strategic decision-making at a number of levels and shows how American errors created the military and political conditions that made North Vietnamese victory possible. If the United States had conducted its political-military effort in a fashion that did not negate its advantages - indeed, ifit had avoided only a small number of many strategic errors - the outcome of the Indochina conflict would likely have been very different.

A COMPELLING NEW EXAMINATION OF THE VIETNAM WAR BY VIETNAM MAGAZINE, AMERICA'S MOST DISTINGUISHED PUBLICATION ON THE VIETNAM WAR

Vietnam A Reader brings to life as never before the many complexities -- the people, battles and strategies -- that made this tragic, heroic chapter in America's history unique.

Vietnam A Reader goes beyond the day when the last shot was fired in anger and covers the period when America tried to forget the war and its veterans, the initially controversial Vietnam War Memorial and the ongoing process of reconciliation and healing that has occurred since its dedication.

The first volume of Edmund Morris's biography of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize. This second volume covers Roosevelt's years as American President. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most vibrant presidents of the USA. A naturalist, adventurer, soldier and politician, Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, when he was not quite 43 - the youngest president in the nation's history. He built himself from a frail, asthmatic boy to become one of the most charismatic presidents in history. Responsible for radical reform, and for ensuring the construction of the Panama Canal, Roosevelt steered the US more actively into world politics, and crusaded for conservation - adding enormously to the national forests in the West.

The complete history of Japan's attempt to carve out a vast empire from India to the south Pacific. Starting in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the author reveals how Japan planned to challenge the established colonial powers and why her forces were able to inflict such shattering defeats on the British and Americans in 1941-42. Vivid accounts of the world's greatest sea battles follow, as the US navy avenged Pearl Harbor at the battle of midway and drove across the Pacific to liberate the Philippines and destroy the Imperial Fleet.

Like many other young men during the Vietnam War, Ed Corlew enlisted in hopes of having some influence regarding assignment-safety and training. Instead he found himself in the dangerous door gunner position and, soon after, the crew chief aboard a CH-47 Chinook, 15 miles from the DMZ in 1967 and 1968. Assigned to the famed 1st Cavalry Division, Corlew was shot down three times: in the Battle of Hue, the Battle of Quang Tri, and the A Shau Valley. This memoir began both as a journal and as counselor-recommended therapy for PTSD. He earned four bronze service stars for his service (an estimated 1000 flying hours) during the war's bloodiest year, enduring enemy mortar and rocket attacks. Engaging, frank, and full of action, Corlew describes his many combat experiences as well as the emotional effects-all through the lens of his Christian faith.

The Vietnam War was a traumatic event for America and a lesson for Americans on the limits of power. For the Vietnamese, however, it was but one in a series of struggles against foreign domination. This fascinating study puts all of this in perspective by providing a comprehensive overview of warfare throughout Vietnamese history, from the early efforts of the Vietnamese to establish their own state and free themselves from Chinese domination, down through the Indo-China and Vietnam Wars, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, to the present.

Vietnam provides an overview of the causes, course, and effects of the numerous wars in Vietnamese history, many of them not generally known to Westerners, such as the Black Flag/Tonkin Wars and the Franco-Thai War. Concentrating on the period after the Second World War, it treats matters from the Vietnamese perspective as much as from the French and American, and seeks to clarify the missed opportunities and false perceptions that led to warfare. Encompassing overviews of socio-political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural issues, Vietnam provides an excellent introduction to Vietnamese history as well as an in-depth look at the long record of warfare in that country. It will prove essential reading for all students of twentieth-century American and Asian history.

Stephen Ambrose is the acknowledged dean of the historians of World War II in Europe. In three highly acclaimed, bestselling volumes, he has told the story of the bravery, steadfastness, and ingenuity of the ordinary young men, the citizen soldiers, who fought the enemy to a standstill -- the band of brothers who endured together.

The very young men who flew the B-24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were yet another exceptional band of brothers, and, in The Wild Blue, Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship with the same vivid detail and affection.

Ambrose describes how the Army Air Forces recruited, trained, and then chose those few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war. These are the boys -- turned pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunners of the B-24s -- who suffered over 50 percent casualties.

With his remarkable gift for bringing alive the action and tension of combat, Ambrose carries us along in the crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous B-24s as their crews fought to the death through thick black smoke and deadly flak to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine. Twenty-two-year-old George McGovern, who was to become a United States senator and a presidential candidate, flew thirty-five combat missions (all the Army would allow) and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. We meet him and his mates, his co-pilot killed in action, and crews of other planes. Many went down in flames.

As Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldiers portrayed the bravery and ultimate victory of the American soldiers from Normandy on to Germany, The Wild Blue makes clear the contribution these young men of the Army Air Forces stationed in Italy made to the Allied victory.

Just after 5 A.M. on April 18, 1906, an earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale ripped through sleeping San Francisco, toppling buildings, exploding gas mains, and trapping thousands of citizens beneath tons of stone, broken wood, and twisted metal. Herds of cattle stampeded madly through the streets. The air reverberated with the panicked screams of the doomed and dying.

And then came the fires: hellish, gas-fueled conflagrations so hot that molten glass ran down gutters. A mother crushed the skull of her trapped son with a rock so he wouldn't burn alive. A couple defiantly went ahead with their wedding even as the flames closed in. Rats from boats that smuggled prostitute slaves into Chinatown began to spread bubonic plague through the city. With water mains destroyed, firemen could only stand and watch for three terrifying days as the fires consumed the remains left by the earthquake. Adding to the terror were soldiers, some drunk, who shot, bayoneted, or hanged in the street at least five hundred suspected looters and other often innocent victims. As many as ten thousand people died in the catastrophe.

Drawing on meticulous researched and eye-witness accounts, Dan Kurzman re-creates one of the most horrific events of the twentieth century. It is a breathtaking, magnificently composed pastiche of personal tragedies. Kurzman captures the fear and madness that raged through a hell unequaled in the peace-time history of this nation. Yet, amid the rubble and death, the author also uncovers extraordinary courage and humanity and honorable acts as noble as any ever celebrated.

More riveting than fiction but, incredibly, true, "Disaster is unforgettable history -- amasterful account of the calamitous demise and astonishing resurrection of an American city...and the triumph of a rough-and-tumble populace that refused to succumb to nature in its most merciless mood.

In this book, Barbara Leaming concentrates on the three White House years of Jackie Kennedy, wife of President John F Kennedy. At his election she was relatively unknown. By the time of his assassination in November 1963 she had redecorated the dowdy Presidential mansion which hadn't been refurbished since Eleanor Roosevelt first took up residence in the early 1930s. She had made foreign visits on behalf of the President. She had emerged, as it were, from the crysalis and became a force to be reckoned with. Using newly released sources in the US as well as making discoveries elsewhere including in Britain, she paints a portrait not only of Mrs Kennedy, but also of the President that is fresh and newly minted. She shows how Mrs Kennedy's friendship with the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, enhanced the 'Special Relationship' between the US and UK. The book includes never before published and revealing letters between Mrs Kennedy and Macmillan. Above all there isthe woman herself: how much did she know of her husband's philandering? What was their marriage like? All this and much more is the heart of Barbara Leaming's stunning new biography.

This unique collection of photographs and quotations is a celebration of the warmth, wisdom, and wit of Ronald Reagan, one of America's most beloved presidents. Through more than half a century of public life, he spoke with consistency and contagious optimism to the hearts and minds of American people, and his ability to inspire and persuade led to his reputation as "the Great Communicator." This volume is the consummate treasury of his insights and unwavering beliefs, carefully selected from thousands of speeches and public appearances. It is a spirited tribute to one of the twentieth century's greatest political leaders, whose captivating humor and enduring optimism helped shape a nation.

As the idle rich thronged the palatial hotels of the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916, America was at its most self-confident. But the world's first industrial superpower was about to receive a series of terrifying shocks. Sharks, it was believed, were simply not man-eaters, so when a lone Great White shark, driven inshore by freak climatic conditions, began to develop a taste for human flesh, America went into total denial. Only after the most horrific attacks was the truth admitted - and an unprecedented national frenzy forced President Woodrow Wilson to mobilize the US Navy in an attempt to put nature back in its place. Combining biology, history and adventure, this is the first book on the events that pitted 20th-century technology against an ancient, mythic enemy and became the model for Peter Benchley's Jaws.

Accidental Soldier depicts Richard B. Schwartz's military experiences, first as an ROTC cadet at the University of Notre Dame and finally as an Army veteran teaching in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1959, Vietnam was little more than a word on a map; within ten years, Americans saw the Tet Offensive and their campuses in flames. Schwartz was at the ground zeroes of that time, teaching at the United States Military Academy from 1967-69 and then going to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, just after the Dow riots and before the bombing of Sterling Hall. The central portion of the book focuses upon Schwartz's experience at West Point, its cadets, officer corps and system of education. A sequel to his award-winning memoir, The Biggest City in America, Accidental Soldier reflects upon his military and academic experience through the perspective of an over forty-year teaching career, twenty-nine of which were spent as a dean at Wisconsin, Georgetown and the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Despite appearing on television sets nationwide and being written about and analysed in newspapers throughout the world for the past five years, prosecutor Ken Starr has remained a mystery. Now, two of America's premier investigative reporters in Truth at Any Cost take on the man intent on toppling the Clinton presidency and reveal, for the first time, what really took place inside the Office of the independent Counsel. From their fateful decision to pursue the Monica Lewinsky case to their eventual failure at the hands of the White House political machine, this is an uncompromised look at a man who became the casualty of his own mission.

More than thirty years after his death, Robert Kennedy remains a potent figure in American mythology, a man equally revered and reviled. In In Love with Night, Ronald Steel looks closely at his character, his achievements, and his failures, to shed new light on the Kennedy legend. He delves into the contradictions of Kennedy's public persona -- an ardent prosecutor who abused the law, a champion of civil rights who allowed the FBI to torment Martin Luther King, a fervent Cold Warrior who opposed the Vietnam War -- and he uncovers the private man who calculatingly built his own legend and died before he was truly tested. In this passionate exploration of an enduring political icon, Steel also illuminates the turbulent sixties and the process of legend-making in America.

"I had come to adore and respect the president like a second father. Reagan was once asked if he thought of me as another son. He thought a minute and said, 'Son, no. Brother, maybe.'"

A warm, personal portrait of Ronald Reagan, A Different Drummer brims with recollections from a relationship that has spanned more than three decades. Former aide and longtime family friend, Michael Deaver first met Ronald Reagan during his 1966 campaign for governor of California and later served him in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., as the president's deputy chief of staff. Whether it was traveling with Reagan on endless campaign flights, discussing the day-to-day issues in the Oval Office, or surviving the harrowing assassination attempt, Deaver worked with the former chief executive for twenty consecutive years. Now he offers his memories of Ronald Reagan as governor, president, and friend.

In 1964, after Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful bid for the presidency, the Republican Party found itself in disarray, and Michael Deaver, a young party operative, a "red meat conservative," was looking for a new party leader he could believe in. He threw his hat in with a former actor and General Electric spokesperson, a man who would later prove himself capable of joining the disparate elements of the Party and securing the nomination. In what would be the first of many underestimations, the Democratic Party eagerly takes on Reagan. He would not only go on to win the governorship of California, but he would serve two terms. In 1976 he was unable to unseat President Gerald Ford for the presidential nomination but, undeterred, he returned in 1980 and won a landslide victory, leading America to remarkable heights of prosperity and confidence.

Yet as one of the most successful and popular presidents in American history, Reagan remains a mystery even to biographers with total access. In A Different Drummer, Deaver writes of the Reagan he has known: a man who was shy and deplored talking about himself, who would rather spend a party talking to a laborer than policy wonks; a man whose convictions remained unchanged over the course of his life, who never used pollsters to decide his position on issues; a man whose idea of relaxation was riding a horse, fixing fence posts, and chopping wood until his muscles ached and his hands blistered. Reagan emerges in this impressionistic portrait as charismatic and unwaveringly optimistic, a devoted husband and dedicated leader, disciplined and tough. As Deaver points out in his introduction, "He worked eight years doing the toughest job on earth; crisscrossed the world; and survived an assassin's bullet, a devastating riding accident, cancer, and brain surgery all after he turned seventy."

Writing not only of their dizzying highs, Deaver also shares the lows, including the tough times that would test the strength of their friendship. Finally, he shares a poignant look at Reagan today as he battles Alzheimer's disease. It is Nancy Reagan's "finest hour," Deaver writes, a validation of the greatest love story he has ever known.

With anecdotes that are insightful, entertaining, intimate, and surprising, A Different Drummer sheds remarkable new light on an American icon admired by many and understood by few.

"Unheralded Victory" is a revisionist history of the Vietnam war, charting the defeat of the Viet Cong. It investigates why the popular image of the war then, as now, is that propagated by Hanoi's propoganda machine, and why US propaganda was so clumsy. Many myths are debunked: drug use among forces, "fragging", US morale: the author's account squares with the recollection of actual veterans. He also exposes a number of "eyewitnesses" - some active in the veterans' organizations who were never in Vietnam and whose false testimony has contributed to enduring myth of the "crazed 'Nam veteran" as portrayed in cinema and TV.;This detailed military history of the war also includes Australian battles in Vietnam.;An original military history, "Unheralded Victory" echoes some themes revisited in NATO's war on Serbia: how what gets reported can be more important than the events on the ground - especially if the frontline is a very dangerous place for a film crew.

In Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, accomplished foreign relations historian David F. Shmitz provides students of US history and the Vietnam era with an up-to-date analysis of Nixon's Vietnam policy in a brief and accessible book that addresses the main controversies of the Nixon years. President Richard Nixon's first presidential term oversaw the definitive crucible of the Vietnam War. Nixon came into office seeking the kind of decisive victory that had eluded President Johnson, and went about expanding the war, overtly and covertly, in order to uphold a policy of "containment," protect America's credibility, and defy the left's antiwar movement at home. Tactically, politically, Nixon's moves made sense. However, by 1971 the president was forced to significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat, and a resounding failure of American foreign relations. Schmitz addresses the main controversies of Nixon's Vietnam strategy, and in so doing manages to trace back the ways in which this most calculating and perceptive politician wound up resigning from office a fraud and failure. Finally, the book seeks to place the impact of Nixon's policies and decisions in the larger context of post-World War II American society, and analyzes the full costs of the Vietnam War that the nation feels to this day.

Though reticent in public, George Bush has openly shared his private thoughts in correspondence throughout his life. Fortunately, since the former president does not plan to write his autobiography, this collection of letters, diary entries, and memos, with his accompanying commentary, will fill that void. As he writes in his preface, "So what we have here are letters from the past and present. Letters that are light and hopefully amusing. Letters written when my heart was heavy or full of joy. Serious letters. Nutty letters. Caring and rejoicing letters...It's all about heartbeat."

Organized chronologically, the volume begins with eighteen-year-old George's letters to his parents during World War II, when, at the time he was commissioned, he was the youngest pilot in the Navy. Readers will gain insights into Bush's career highlights -- the oil business, his two terms in Congress, his ambassadorship to the U.N., his service as an envoy to China, his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, and of course, the vice presidency, the presidency, and the postpresidency. They will also observe a devoted husband, father, and American. Ranging from a love letter to Barbara and a letter to his mother about missing his daughter, Robin, after her death from leukemia to a letter to his children two weeks before Nixon's resignation to one written to them just before the beginning of Desert Storm, the writings are remarkable for their candor, humor, and poignancy.