Alistair Cooke: The Essential Letters from America: The 1990s

Alistair Cooke's finest radio reportage from 1991-1999

Alistair Cooke was a radio legend, entertaining millions of listeners for over fifty years in his weekly Letter from America. It was the longest-running one-man series in radio history, and every show was a virtuoso performance. Wise and witty, informed yet informal, Cooke was the doyen of foreign correspondents.

This varied collection of Letters contains Cooke's broadcasts on such landmark events as the Gulf War, the terrible race riots in LA, the O. J. Simpson trial, Bill Clinton's election, and Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Cooke addresses topics close to his heart, such as sport – celebrating Joe DiMaggio and lamenting the threat to golf posed by commercialism and ungentlemanly behaviour – and muses on historic occasions such as the closure of the last American Woolworths store, the Commencement ceremony and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles eighty years earlier.

The Letters are set in their historical context with a specially commissioned script narrated by the BBC's award-winning American correspondent Matt Frei.

Whether the topics he explores are serious or humorous, Cooke's unique style of expression and analysis shines through in these classic broadcasts from one of the world's most famous letter writers and radio's greatest observer.