Vartan Gregorian Książki

Features information organized into twenty-seven subject areas, including the Earth, fine arts, literature, etiquette, computers, and religions.

"The freer we are … the stronger we are," writes David Halberstam in this probing compilation of original essays which distill the essence of America, an evergreen subject rendered even more timely by recent world events that highlight cultural clashes and prompt us not just to reconsider foreign attitudes and aspirations but to think anew about our own.Each chapter explores fundamental qualities, concepts and accomplishments that shape the American the sheer size of our country; the legendary events of our history; the heroes, villains, and icons of our national mythology; our enduring dream of a meritocratic society; and the unmistakable spirit that defines us both to ourselves and the rest of the world. Halberstam's keen observations introduce richly varied contributions by distinguished and eloquent commentators like Russell Baker, Ben Bradlee, James Fallows, Cynthia Gorney, Vartan Gregorian, and Janet Maslin, among others, who consider everything from Manifest Destiny to the McCarthy hearings and from Paul Revere's midnight gallop to John Wayne's classic cowboy riding tall through the American Century. Inspiring, enlightening, and enhanced by more than 300 photographs and illustrations, this wide-ranging collection provides thought-provoking, often surprising insights into how today's America took shape, who we are as a nation now, and where our country is headed.From the Trade Paperback edition.

In this humorous, learned, and moving memoir, Vartan Gregorian recounts his journey from an impoverished childhood as a Christian Armenian in Muslim Tabriz to cultured citizen of the world.Gregorian's odyssey begins in an obscure poor quarter of a provincial city (thought by some to be the location of the Garden of Eden). Childhood centered on his brilliant, beloved, illiterate grandmother who taught him so much, the beauty of Church, school, American movies, and the larger world he read about in his borrowed books.From there, he continues on to a Beirut lycée, Stanford University, and the presidencies of the New York Public Library, Brown University, and Carnegie Corporation.Like Jimmy Carter in An Hour Before Daylight , and in the tradition of Nabokov, Jill Ker Conway, and V. S. Naipaul, he tells us that education is an openness to everything and describes his public and private life as one education after another. This is a love story about life.