“A hallmark, essential to an understanding of the civil-rights movement, Dr. King and 20th-century America .” -- Kirkus, Starred Review

By Elizabeth Hayes

Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author Taylor Branch concludes his magnificent history of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s heroic role at the center of it in AT CANAAN ’S EDGE: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (Simon & Schuster; February 1, 2006 ; $35.00). As Branch’s dramatic account demonstrates, King attained a stature akin to that of Lincoln—a commanding, prophetic figure who changed the legal and political structure of the nation while leading a victorious struggle for African-American rights, and who lifted the patriotic spirit of the entire United States toward our defining national purpose in freedom.

AT CANAAN’S EDGE, which can be read independently of its two preceding volumes in the trilogy, completes the Shakespearean epic begun in Parting the Waters (for which Branch won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award) and Pillar of Fire, both New York Times bestsellers.

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