Two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, BBC correspondent Alistair Cooke bought himself a used Lincoln Zephyr and set out from Washington on a long solo drive. The country that had just granted him citizenship was stirring to life: Factories were reopening. Families were pulling up roots to chase down the new wartime jobs. Farmers were seeding every available acre to feed a suddenly insatiable market. It was, in short, a great time for a little-known young reporter to start conversations with innumerable strangers by simply asking, 'œHow's business?'
Sixty years later, we're all lucky that Cooke's account of his travels has resurfaced, said William Grimes in The New York Times. While many Americans knew him best as the 'œurbane' host of Masterpiece Theatre, Cooke was also a 'œsuperb' print reporter 'œwith a sharp, skeptical eye and a stylish pen.' Even if his publisher was right in deciding that this almost comprehensive portrait of wartime America wouldn't have attracted many war-weary readers in 1946, it 'œfeels very fresh now.' Not only does it reintroduce us to a bygone landscape of drugstores and soda fountains, empty parkways and virgin beaches. It lets us hear in its everyday voices the imprint of regional cultures, the optimism of the moment, and even 'œthe casual cruelties of racism.' Hats off to the assistant who stumbled across the manuscript shortly before Cooke's 2004 death.
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