A portrait of New York City, drawn by describing the interconnected lives of dozens of people - bankers, chefs, bums, cabdrivers and others. Written in an impressionistic style, with vivid descriptions and bursts of overheard conversation, it has more in common with films than traditional novels.

Here, from the legendary author John Dos Passos and American Heritage, are portraits of three men critical to the early history of the United States: Aaron Burr, whose political skills carried him to the threshold of the White House but was ultimately indicted for treason; Lafayette, a hero of the American Revolution who could not apply his ideals to a France sliding into terror; and Robert Morris, whose skills as a financier aided the new nation but led to his own ruin.

The story in "Three Soldiers" is set during World War I and follows the experiences of the three main characters, John Andrews, Dan Fuselli, and Chris Chrisfield. The narrative explores their journeys, their reactions to the horrors of war, and their struggles to reconcile their personal beliefs with the harsh realities of combat.John Dos Passos was part of the Lost Generation of writers and is known for his innovative narrative techniques. "Three Soldiers" is an example of his early work ...

Manhattan Transfer, considered to be one of Dos Passos' most important works, describes the development of urban life in New York City from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age as told through a series of overlapping individual stories, primarily, of four people living in Manhattan from the 1890s to the late 1920s. The book attacks the consumerism and social indifference of contemporary urban life, portraying a Manhattan that is merciless yet teeming with energy and restlessness. The book shows ...

"It is not simply that [Dos Passos] has a keen eye for people, but that he has a keen eye for so many different kinds of people."— The New York TimesMarking the end of "one of the most ambitious projects that an American novelist has ever undertaken" ( Time), The Big Money brings us back to America after the Great War, a nation on the upswing. Industrialism booms. The stock market surges. Lindbergh takes his solo flight. Henry Ford makes automobil...

Before John Dos Passos enjoys fame as a chronicler and critic of American society, he wins recognition for command of aesthetics. Orient Express, a memoir of the author's travels through Eastern Europe, the Near East, and the Middle East, focuses on sights, sounds, and smells rather than plot or character. Dos Passos applies his instincts as a painter to mountain ranges and grimy alleyways, finding beauty everywhere.His tour extends from Tiflis, Georgia, to Erivan, Armenia,...

The first in John Dos Passos's acclaimed USA trilogy—a “linguistically adventurous national portrait for a precarious age—his, and ours” (The New Yorker).John Dos Passos's USA trilogy (comprising The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money), named one of the best books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library, is a grand, kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation, buzzing with history and life on every page.Told in stories and "news...

Considered by many to be John Dos Passos's greatest work, Manhattan Transfer is an "expressionistic picture of New York" (New York Times) in the 1920s that reveals the lives of wealthy power brokers and struggling immigrants alike. From Fourteenth Street to the Bowery, Delmonico's to the underbelly of the city waterfront, Dos Passos chronicles the lives of characters struggling to become a part of modernity before they are destroyed by it.More than ninety years af...

This gorgeous new paperback edition collects the three volumes of John Dos Passos’s acclaimed U.S.A. trilogy, a foundational work of 20th-century American literature named one of the best books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library, and a "linguistically adventurous national portrait for a precarious age—his, and ours" (The New Yorker).The U.S.A. trilogy, comprised of the novels The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big M...

John Dos Passos’ ground breaking novel Manhattan Transfer is a landmark literary achievement. The book attacks the consumerism and social indifference of contemporary American urban life, portraying a Manhattan that is merciless yet teeming with energy, restlessness, and possibilities that too few will ultimately share. Manhattan Transfer was inspired in part by James Joyce's Ulysses and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. In it we meet a large ensemble cast of characters who are struggling, fai...

Manhattan Transfer is an American novel by John Dos Passos published in 1925. It focuses on the development of urban life in New York City from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age as told through a series of overlapping individual stories. It is considered to be one of Dos Passos' most important works. The book attacks the consumerism and social indifference of contemporary urban life, portraying a Manhattan that is merciless yet teeming with energy and restlessness. The novel tells the stories...

John Dos Passos's literary response to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, The Grand Design critiques the gargantuan growth of bureaucracy in Washington during the Great Depression and World War II. The satiric novel conveys the author's frustration with federal overreach and the hollow rhetoric that sells it to the people."War is a time of Caesars," writes Dos Passos as he laments the death of idealistic, intelligent enterprises at the desks of elitist administrators. A...