AMERICA IS BORN and AMERICA GROWS UP told the story of our country from its early beginnings to World War I. This final volume, which deals with the crucial period from 1917 to the present, brilliantly concludes Mr. Johnson's distinguished history of America.

The fierce controversies of those years have not yet been resolved. Did Wilson's anguished, uncompromising battle for the League of Nations defeat its own purpose? Did Roosevelt's society-shaking New Deal weaken or strengthen the structure of American democracy? Did Truman's decision to drop the atom bomb shadow the earth with a mushroom cloud from which it will never emerge? Only a man of Mr. Johnson's intelligence and integrity could examine these overwhelming questions and evaluate them with justice.

This book illuminates the underlying causes of events, the reasons why men acted as they did, the circumstances which brought America the power to wreck the world or save it. It will give young Americans a rich understanding of their country and a glimpse of the wisdom and courage the future demands.

Many dramatic black-and-white illustrations by Leonard Everett Fisher.

From the dust jacket