The nation founded by the people and for the people now has its history recounted through the people in the they-were-there chronicles of The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness America. This is America in the very words of those who made it—from ordinary citizens to the nation's greatest figures and writers, including George Washington, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Alistair Cooke, and hundreds of others. Jon E. Lewis has woven this country's epic history from numerous sources. He brings the past to life through the eyes of those who made it: Columbus's first impressions of the new continent, Paul Revere's ride, Lewis and Clark's trek to the Pacific, Mark Twain's prospecting during the Gold Rush, Willa Cather's homestead on the Great Plains, Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb, Lillian Hellman's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Neil Armstrong's moon landing, and much more. There are also accounts from the country's greatest writers, from Walt Whitman on Lincoln's assassination to John Steinbeck on the Dust Bowl. Perhaps most important, there are the words of ordinary Americans, including soldiers, cowboys and Native Americans, suffragettes and peace marchers, among others who united this country.