Letters To America

Following his bestselling memoir, It’s a Long Story, Willie Nelson now delivers his most intimate thoughts and stories in Willie Nelson's Letters to America. A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller! From his opening letter “Dear America” to his “Dear Willie” epilogue, Willie digs deep into his heart and soul--and his music catalog--to lift us up in difficult times, and to remind us of the endless promise and continuous obligations of all Americans--to themselves, to one another, and to their nation. In a series of letters straight from the heart, Willie sends his thanks and his thoughts to: Americans past, present, and future, his closest family members, andhis parents, sister, and children, his other family members his guitar “Trigger”, his hero Gene Autry, the US founding fathers, his personal heroes, from our founding fathers to the leaders of future generations and to young songwriters as well as leaders of our future generations. Willie’s letters are rounded out with the moving lyrics to some of his most famous and insightful songs, including “Let Me Be a Man,” “Family Bible,” “Summer of Roses,” “Me and Paul,” “A Horse called Music,” “Healing Hands of Time,” and “Yesterday's Wine.”

Like Alexis de Tocqueville a century earlier, Jean Cocteau offers a powerful reminder to Americans of their own potential—and issues In 1949, Jean Cocteau spent twenty days in New York, and began composing on the plane ride home this essay filled with the vivid impressions of his trip. With his unmistakable prose and graceful wit, he compares and contrasts French and American culture: the different values they place on art, literature, liberty, psychology, and dreams. Cocteau sees the incredibly buoyant hopes in America’s promise, while at the same time warning of the many ills that the nation will have to confront—its hypocrisy, sexism, racism, and hegemonic aspirations—in order to realize this potential. Never before translated into English, Letter to the Americans remains as timely and urgent as when it was first published in France over seventy years ago.

A remarkable collection of charming and eloquent letters that contain the seeds of Tocqueville’s later masterful account of American democracy Young Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States for the first time in May 1831, commissioned by the French government to study the American prison system. For the next nine months he and his companion, Gustave de Beaumont, traveled and observed not only prisons but also the political, economic, and social systems of the early republic. Along the way, they frequently reported back to friends and family members in France. This book presents the first translation of the complete letters Tocqueville wrote during that seminal journey, accompanied by excerpts from Beaumont’s correspondence that provide details or different perspectives on the places, people, and American life and attitudes the travelers encountered. These delightful letters provide an intimate portrait of the complicated, talented Tocqueville, who opened himself without prejudice to the world of Jacksonian America. Moreover, they contain many of the impressions and ideas that served as preliminary sketches for Democracy in America, his classic account of the American democratic system that remains an important reference work to this day. Accessible, witty, and charming, the letters Tocqueville penned while in America are of major interest to general readers, scholars, and students alike.

A collection of poems that explore the issues surrounding race relations in American society, told from the experience of Black, Native American, Asian, Arabic, Hispanic, and white cultures.

America is at a crossroads. Conflicting political and social perspectives reflect a need to collectively define our moral imperatives, clarify cultural values, and inspire meaningful change. In that patriotic spirit, hundreds of writers, artists, scientists, and political and community leaders have come together since the 2016 presidential election to offer their impassioned letters to America, in a project envisioned by the online journal Terrain.org and collected in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy.In the inaugural piece in Terrain.org's Letters to America series, Alison Hawthorne Deming writes, "Think of the great spirit of inventiveness the Earth calls forth after each major disturbance it suffers. Be artful, inventive, and just, my friends, but do not be silent." Joining Deming are renowned artists and thinkers including Seth Abramson, Jericho Brown, Francisco Cantú, Katrina Goldsaito, Kimiko Hahn, Jane Hirshfield, Pam Houston, Christopher Merrill, Kathryn Miles, Kathleen Dean Moore, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Naomi Shihab Nye, Elena Passarello, Dean Rader, Gary Soto, Pete Souza, Scott Warren, Debbie Weingarten, Scott Russell Sanders, Camille T. Dungy, Ellen Bass, Victoria Chang, Tarfia Faizullah, Blas Falconer, David Gessner, Brenda Hillman, Linda Hogan, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Karen An-hwei Lee, Lauret Savoy, Sandra Steingraber, Kim Stafford, Arthur Sze, Christian Wiman, Robert Wrigley, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Kurt Caswell and others. Dear America reflects the evolution of a moral panic that has emerged in the nation. More importantly, it is a timely congress of the personal and the political, a clarion call to find common ground and conflict resolution, all with a particular focus on the environment, social justice, and climate change. The diverse collection features personal essays, narrative journalism, poetry, and visual art from more than 130 contributors--many pieces never before published--all literary reactions to the times we live in, with a focus on civic action and social change as we approach future elections. As Scott Minar writes, we must remain steadfast and look to the future: "Despair can bring us very low, or it can make us smarter and stronger than we have ever been before."