Review: The American Patriot’s Almanac: Daily Readings on America

Former Secretary of Education and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Bill Bennett serves up another feel-good collection of stories and anecdotes, similar in style but differing in focus from his 1993 book The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories.

The American Patriot’s Almanac: Daily Readings on America is a great collection of historical events of our country’s past. Each day, the reader is presented with a detailed story of one of those events, and following that, several others in summary in what is called the American History Parade. Today’s detailed story, for example, is about Martin Luther King Jr, who was born this day in 1929. The story tells of the day in 1956 when his house was bombed. His family was safe, but the gathering crowd was prepared to respond with violence. With calm, reassuring words, King urged the crowd to go home and respond not with violence, but to meet such hate with love…to do otherwise would hurt the movement.

He was right, and the rest–though difficult, though hard-fought–is history. And in a few short days, we will inaugurate a President who is the culmination of that history, and of those calming words spoken in 1956.

The book is a great reminder of this and 364 other things uniquely American.

Former Secretary of Education and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Bill Bennett serves up another feel-good collection of stories and anecdotes, similar in style but differing in focus from his 1993 book The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories. The American Patriot’s Almanac: Daily Readings on America is…