Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, diplomats, music legends and sports giants explore the grand American experiment in democracy, culture, innovation and ideas, revealing the setbacks, suffering, invention, ingenuity, and social movements that continue to shape our vision of what America is—and what it can be. 100,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, diplomats, music legends and sports giants explore the grand American experiment in democracy, culture, innovation and ideas, revealing the setbacks, suffering, invention, ingenuity, and social movements that continue to shape our vision of what America is--and what it can be. - (Baker & Taylor)

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER

The capstone book in a trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of How to Lead and The American Story and host of Bloomberg TV’s The David Rubenstein Show—American icons and historians on the ever-evolving American experiment, featuring Ken Burns, Madeleine Albright, Wynton Marsalis, Billie Jean King, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and many more.

In this lively collection of conversations—the third in a series from David Rubenstein—some of our nations’ greatest minds explore the inspiring story of America as a grand experiment in democracy, culture, innovation, and ideas.

-Jill Lepore on the promise of America
-Madeleine Albright on the American immigrant
-Ken Burns on war
-Henry Louis Gates Jr. on reconstruction
-Elaine Weiss on suffrage
-John Meacham on civil rights
-Walter Isaacson on innovation
-David McCullough on the Wright Brothers
-John Barry on pandemics and public health
-Wynton Marsalis on music
-Billie Jean King on sports
-Rita Moreno on film

Exploring the diverse make-up of our country’s DNA through interviews with Pulitzer Prize–winning historians, diplomats, music legends, and sports giants, The American Experiment captures the dynamic arc of a young country reinventing itself in real-time. Through these enlightening conversations, the American spirit comes alive, revealing the setbacks, suffering, invention, ingenuity, and social movements that continue to shape our vision of what America is—and what it can be. - (Simon and Schuster)

David M. Rubenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Invest, How to Lead, The American Experiment, and The American Story. He is cofounder and cochairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private equity firms. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago. He is an original signer of The Giving Pledge and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award. The host of PBS’s History with David Rubenstein, Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein, and The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS, he lives in the Washington, DC, area. - (Simon and Schuster)

Library Journal Reviews

Novelist/historian Ackroyd's Innovation wraps up his long-running history of England, starting with the Boer War, then moving through the Bloomsbury Group, World War II, the rise of Labour, and the Swinging Sixties to Tony Blair and the Millennial Dome (30,000-copy first printing). The Washington Post's senior style editor, Argetsinger offers a 100-year retrospective of the Miss America pageant in There She Was (100,000-copy first printing). A specialist in early modern European history at the University of Bristol, Mexican historian Cervantes is also a descendant of a conquistador, and in The Conquistadores (originally scheduled for Nov. 2020), he takes a new approach to the Spanish conquest of the Americas that neither celebrates its adventurism nor condemns it as intentionally cruel. Great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, CNN anchor Cooper joins with novelist/historian Howe to tell the story of his famous—and famously disputatious—family in The Vanderbilts (300,000-copy first printing). Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, Cuban-born, American-raised Ferrer assays 500 years of history as she highlights the ties binding Cuba and America. From Frankel, a former executive editor at Foreign Policy magazine, Into the Forest chronicles the Rabinowitz family's escape from a German killing squad in 1942 Poland and subsequent survival for two years in the Bialowieza Forest, followed by immigration to America (60,000-copy first printing). With Lee, three-time Lincoln Prize winner Guelzo profiles the many contradictions of the Confederate general. Rubinstein follows up the New York Times best-selling How To Lead and The American Story with The American Experiment, more conversations on American culture and ideas with the likes of Jill Lepore, David McCullough, and Rita Moreno as interlocutors (100,00-copy first printing). In The Afghanistan Papers, Whitlock, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, examines the longest war in American history and how three successive administrations consistently misrepresented it to the American people (125,000-copy first printing).