Book excerpt: This treasure of a book from Henry Allen, Pulitzer Prize winner and veteran feature writer and editor at the Washington Post, provides a vivid and captivating evocation of the social, cultural, and spiritual tenor of the twentieth century. Each of these ten chapters is a virtual time capsule written with keen intelligence, feeling, and an uncanny sense of the essential experiences of the era: the unexpected, idiosyncratic sights, sounds, occasions, and events that defined not just the time but the way we remember it. This is a book of myriad pleasures - a reminder of the richness and importance of the past.