The Reconstruction of America. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Reconstruction of America

Somewhere in America this Sunday, in a small wooden church, a meek and grateful congregation will hold their heads and worn songbooks high and proudly tell about the old, old story.
Somewhere in America this week, in an elementary school classroom, a teacher standing near an American flag will proudly tell her young students the story of our nation's founding, how the many institutions and freedoms they know about today or will soon encounter were once mere ideas, the subjects of great debates, and then a declaration, and then a war.
Americans invented, and constantly reinvent, the unique aspects of our spiritual, government, and secular institutions. From the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence to the first amendment to the Constitution, our founders recognized the preeminent place our Creator and the free exercise of religion must hold in a nation that protects individual liberties.
We know that both inside and outside our great nation there are many consumed with the passions of jealousy, cynicism, pessimism, and evil, hard at work to tear down the institutions, culture, and freedoms that the great majority of Americans live, fight, and die for every day.
This book is an effort to reconstruct the great heroes, icons, and institutions of America. To tell a story of the people, places, and ideas that inspire us, make us smile, and make us cry, yet remind us of the inherent goodness of our country.
Our nation, like her citizens, is a living symbol of something bigger than itself. It is a nation and a people that project across the oceans the limitless potential of mankind, yet remain humbled by an innate spirit of thanksgiving.

STEVE PENLEY was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended the University of Georgia and the School of Visual Arts in New York. His art has appeared in galleries in Atlanta, Washington DC, and New York, and in public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. He received a 2000 Georgia Author of the Year Award for his first book, Penley.