This book is not heavy-duty history, but Crichton does an elegant job of describing the spirit of the times in America in 1900.

Crichton picks out several threads and follows their development throughout the year. She includes, among other interesting stories, the presidential election between President William McKinley and Democratic challenger William Jennings Bryan; the elevation of a reluctant Teddy Roosevelt to the Vice Presidency; the Boxer Rebellion in China; the blossoming literary career and awkward love life of Jack London; the horrible disasters and living conditions that afflicted coal miners; the miners' first major triumph in a long struggle for fair wages and safe working conditions; the quixotic poltical career of Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay; the struggles between financier J.P. Morgan, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and oil baron John D. Rockefeller; the Paris exposition; the accomplishments of black Americans Scott Joplin, W.E.B. Dubois, and Paul Laurence Dunbar; the cruelty of the South's emerging Jim Crow laws; the military entanglement in the Philippines, which foreshadowed America's later experience in Vietnam; the careful research of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk; and the triumph of Count Zeppelin at Lake Constance.

The books is only 305 pages long, and the picture that Crichton paints is somewhat impressionistic. But her prose is highly readable, and the stories that she tells are very engaging, unfolding like the subplots in a complex novel. This is a book that can be read quickly and with pleasure in just a couple of sittings.

Although 1900 was clearly a vibrant time, Crichton's book will be a tonic for those who pine for the "good old days" that never really happened. The treatment of workers, blacks, immigrants and others in 1900 was simply appalling. Conditions became so bad in San Francisco's Chinatown that the bubonic plague broke out, killing 32 people and leading to a federal quarantine of the city. Living conditions in America in 1900 must have been similar to those in the Third World today, relieved only by hope for a better future.

Each chapter of America 1900 ends with a few clippings from contemporary newspapers. One of the most interesting in light of current events is a March 10, 1900 statement by the Ameer of Afghanistan, who denounced the Russians and proclaimed that "a war with the Afghans would mean a general rising of all Islam . . . . " Sometimes, it seems, the more things change the more they stay the same.

For those interested in how the 19th century turned into the 20th in America, I strongly recommend Volume I of Mark Sullivan's Our Times, which was first published in 1926 and covers the same period as Crichton's book in more detail.

Their faces look out at us, without fear, full of hope, confidence, and pride in a new dawn for the greatest nation on earth. We lament the travails of the laboring men and women but rejoice at their new-found strength in union; recoil at the sometimes brutal imperialism in Christian & military guise for civilizing the 'Asiatics'; cheer the jousts of Bryan & TR, while the stolid but comforting McKinley campaigns on his front porch. Everywhere there is a let's-get-on-with-it spirit - the Declaration is read aloud at July 4th picnics,and though there are tragedies such as Galveston and in the Utah mines, we know somehow we'll pull through since this is indeed Our Time. So it was in 1900 and would be so for our century -- See the accompanying video narrated by David McCullough's richly American commentary!

I've always had a "mental-block" when reading or hearing about history, it just never "seemed real" and was always a series of years and dates and names. I'm 37 years old and this is the FIRST TIME I was "thrown" back to the year 1900, I was absolutely intrigued and fascinated with this book, and I "lived" with the people month by month. It wasn't at all a history book - Judy Crichton brought all the people and events alive for us. On a camping trip this weekend, I just kept telling my friends all the fascinating tidbits of 1900! I just wish she'd write about 1800 & 1700 etc. so I can finally RELATE to that time and people.