| Introduction | |
| Editor's note | |
| The 1940s | |
| The immigrant strain | p. 3 |
| Damon Runyon's America | p. 8 |
| Roughing it | p. 13 |
| Joe Louis | p. 18 |
| Washington, D.C. | p. 23 |
| The fall of New England | p. 32 |
| Letter to an intending immigrant | p. 40 |
| The 1950s | |
| The summer bachelor | p. 47 |
| It's a democracy, isn't it? | p. 52 |
| The European's America | p. 57 |
| Getting away from it all | p. 62 |
| The court and the Negro | p. 67 |
| The colonel of the plains | p. 73 |
| HLM : RIP | p. 78 |
| The road to Churchill Downs | p. 85 |
| Politics and the human animal | p. 92 |
| General Marshall | p. 96 |
| The 1960s | |
| Beizbol | p. 105 |
| Robert Frost | p. 109 |
| The father | p. 115 |
| The assassination | p. 121 |
| LBJ | p. 126 |
| Has the world gone to pot? | p. 131 |
| John McLaren's folly | p. 136 |
| The well-dressed American, man! | p. 142 |
| A lonely man | p. 147 |
| Vietnam | p. 151 |
| A bad night in Los Angeles | p. 159 |
| Making a home of a house | p. 165 |
| Telling one country about another | p. 170 |
| Pegler | p. 178 |
| 'Eternal vigilance' - by whom? | p. 184 |
| The 1970s | |
| The letter from Long Island | p. 191 |
| Give thanks, for what? | p. 196 |
| The duke | p. 201 |
| The end of the affair | p. 206 |
| I'm all right, Jack | p. 210 |
| No cabinet officers need apply | p. 215 |
| Christmas in Vermont | p. 219 |
| Mr. Olmsted's park | p. 223 |
| The retiring kind | p. 228 |
| Two for the road | p. 234 |
| The spy that came down in the cold | p. 239 |
| A letter from Long Island | p. 244 |
| The presidential ear | p. 248 |
| The 1980s | |
| Bringing up baby | p. 255 |
| Attempted assassination of President Reagan | p. 259 |
| The Fourth of July | p. 263 |
| Old man Reagan | p. 268 |
| Inaugurals - on and off | p. 272 |
| Memories of 11 November | p. 277 |
| Miss much - no regret | p. 281 |
| Expert witness | p. 286 |
| The drugs blight | p. 290 |
| Time to retire | p. 295 |
| Martin Luther King - the black Washington | p. 299 |
| Fred Astaire | p. 304 |
| Origins of American slang | p. 308 |
| Mayor Koch at work | p. 312 |
| Hurricanes | p. 316 |
| Chaplin - the last word | p. 321 |
| San Francisco earthquake | p. 325 |
| The 1990s | |
| Presidential ghosts | p. 333 |
| The end of the eighties - great or greedy? | p. 337 |
| Fighting in what? | p. 341 |
| Riots in Los Angeles | p. 347 |
| White House style | p. 351 |
| The Irish in New York City | p. 354 |
| 'Give me your tired, your poor ...' | p. 358 |
| Thirtieth anniversary of Kennedy assassination | p. 362 |
| Boston | p. 366 |
| Trick or treat | p. 371 |
| Fiftieth anniversary of VE Day | p. 375 |
| O. J. - the verdict | p. 379 |
| The old rocking chair | p. 383 |
| Silver Watergate | p. 388 |
| The end of civilization | p. 392 |
| The Kennedy missile tapes | p. 396 |
| The evolution of the grand jury | p. 401 |
| The president will address the nation | p. 405 |
| New words for objects new and old | p. 410 |
| Loneliness, male companionship and the hunt | p. 415 |
| Park Avenue's colourful Christmas | p. 420 |
| 2000-2004 | |
| The death of the old media | p. 427 |
| Running mates and carpetbaggers | p. 430 |
| The day of judgement | p. 435 |
| The origin of the continental blow-out | p. 439 |
| America's day of terror | p. 442 |
| America on standby | p. 446 |
| The stars and stripes | p. 450 |
| Messiah at Christmas | p. 454 |
| Ringing the changes | p. 458 |
| Arise, Sir Rudolph | p. 462 |
| The day the money stopped | p. 466 |
| Memory of a true great | p. 470 |
| The last of the old-time gangsters | p. 474 |
| Farewell to San Francisco | p. 478 |
| Remembering a dear friend | p. 483 |
| Meeting the stars | p. 487 |
| The Pledge of Allegiance | p. 491 |
| Towering glass and steel | p. 494 |
| Charlie Addams | p. 498 |
| The democrats' growing confidence | p. 501 |
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