Invisible Giants Fifty Americans Who Shaped the Nation but Missed the History Books

History records the accomplishments of individuals. For successivegenerations of Americans, iconic figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Susan B.Anthony, Thomas Edison, and Emily Dickinson have been household names and rolemodels, inspiring us all by the lessons their lives teach us. But some greatAmericans, just as worthy, never attain this recognition. Because history is asfallible as the people who record it, many of those who shaped the nation andits future have receded from public memory. In celebration of these lives-and todemonstrate the lasting power history's giants have over their successors-OxfordUniversity Press recently asked fifty accomplished personalities from a diverserange of industries and interests to each select a person from the 24-volumeAmerican National Biography that they felt deserved more attention. Thebiographies of these forgotten figures appear alongside the often-personalcomments of their selectors in Invisible Giants, a varied and lively collectionof portraits celebrating history's forgotten and fading heroes.In Invisible Giants we discover the man who inspired Sherwin Nuland to become adoctor, the writer Jacques Barzun considers America's first cultural critic, andthe woman who taught Tina Brown to bare her teeth. We learn of the poetryrecited to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as a boy, the magazine Helen Gurley Brownrequired every one of her editors to subscribe to, and the book Andy Rooneydeems "better than the Bible and easier to understand." Whether encounteringthese figures for the first time or uncovering surprising details in the livesyou thought you knew, today's public thinkers guide us on a journey into thedeep folds of our rich biographical tapestry.Edited by Mark Carnes and published with the American Council of LearnedSocieties, Invisible Giants introduces one of the nation's most treasuredresources--The American National Biography--to a broad audience by presentingthe architects of our country's past through the eyes of the architects of itsfuture.Invisible Giants includes: James Agee (Sven Birkets)Jessie Daniel Ames (Alan Brinkley)Rodger Nash Baldwin (Richard Avedon)Bela Bartok (John Simon)Sterling Brown (Sharon Olds)John Jay Chapman (Jacques Barzun)John England (Andrew Greeley)Oliver Evans (Harold Evans)Dorothy Fields (David Lehman)Charles Grandison Finney (Edmund Morgan)Arthur Goldberg (Alan Dershowitz)Adolphus Washington Greely (Simon Winchester)Charles Tomlinson Griffes (Wayne Koestenbaum)William Halsted (Sherwin Nuland)Fannie Lou Hamer (Gloria Steinem)Handsome Lake (Wilma Mankiller)Herman Haupt (James McPherson)DuBois Heyward (Stephen Sondheim)Henry Hornbostel (Michael Graves)James Gibbons Huneker (Gary Giddins)Libbie Henrietta Hyman (Steven Jay Gould)Christopher Isherwood (Armistead Maupin)Walter Lippmann (Andy Rooney)Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (Rita Dove)Bronislava Nijinska (Joan Acocella)Albert Jay Nock (William F. Buckley, Jr.)Fairfield Porter (Hilton Kramer)Dawn Powell (Fran Lebowitz)Bayard Rustin (Evan Wolfson)Sequoyah (William Least Heat-Moon)James McCune Smith (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)Joseph Smith (Harold Bloom)Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Tina Brown)Dewitt Wallace (Helen Gurley Brown)

Mark C. Carnes is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History at Barnard College. In addition to his scholarly works and serving as General Editor of the American National Biography, he is the editor of numerous innovative books bringing together diverse groups of people to discuss history, including Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies and Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America's Past. He lives in the Hudson Valley, New York.