“But the times were not placid. The ramshackle government by which former colonies tried to organize their Atlantic seaboard was so ridiculously inefficient that it seemed about to collapse from any one of many weaknesses: the inability to impose or collect taxes; the lack of a strong court system; a pathetic weakness in the face of likely invasions from Europe; and the absence of an effective way to settle internal arguments among the states. Since everyone who loved America recognized these weaknesses, her enemies must have seen them too.”
In the year of his eightieth birthday, and the two-hundredth anniversary of our Constitution, James A. Michener contributes a short novel of great impact. Major Norman Starr, attached to the National Security Council, is told that he will shortly be called before a congressional committee. Through a tense, reflective weekend, the officer talks over the situation with his wife and a streetwise Washington lawyer-and begins to think back to the long line of Americans from whom he is descended.
New York: Random House, 1987. First edition, second printing. Hardcover. Octavo. 176 pages. Dust jacket in good condition and in protector. Boards clean with no signs of wear. Binding tight and square. Pages clear. Inscription on half title page. Clean, crisp copy.
