Discover the inspiring, unknown, against-all-odds story of how the classic animated holiday special A Charlie Brown Christmas almost never made it on to television.
Professor and cultural historian Michael Keane reveals much in this nostalgia-inducing book packed with original research and interviews. Keane compellingly shows that the ultimate broadcast of the Christmas special-given its incredibly tight five-month production schedule and the decidedly unfavorable reception it received by the skeptical network executives who first screened it-was nothing short of a miracle. Keane explains why the show, despite its technical shortcomings, has become an uplifting and enduring triumph embraced by millions of families every Christmas season, even more than fifty years after its premiere.
This gripping and joyful behind-the-scenes story of how the creators of A Charlie Brown Christmas struggled to bring the program to life will also help readers (and loyal fans) understand how America's favorite Christmas special changed our popular culture forever. Keane masterfully weaves the momentous events of 1965 (the turbulent year of the program's production) into his story, providing critical context for a profound new understanding of the program's famous climactic scene, Linus's spot-lit soliloquy answering the question repeatedly posed by Charlie Brown-"Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"
"There is no question of personal courage in this war," Colonel Patton's commanding officer told him on the eve of battle in 1918. "It is a business proposition where every man must be in his place and performing his part." No one in the history of warfare was less likely to follow that advice than George S. Patton Jr. His place was in front of his men, and he paid the price, when he lay bleeding to death in a bomb crater in France. Patton's survival that day at the end of World War I was nothing short of miraculous. It confirmed the powerful sense of destiny that guided him through three decades of war and made him a military legend - "Old Blood and Guts," an impossible mixture of irascibility and courage, profanity and profound religious faith, tactical impulsiveness and strategic genius. Blood and guts were indeed a large part of what made Patton Patton. Descended from an illustrious line of warriors, he was acutely conscious of the martial heritage in his blood. He met every challenge of his life with determination and guts. He demanded the same from his men, and he usually got it. But as Michael Keane shows in this masterly portrait, the foundation of Patton's character was his vivid awareness of the presence and providence of God. Patton's Christian faith was idiosyncratic, even unorthodox, but his habit of prayer was as simple, trusting, and constant as a monk's. A singular combination of virtues and flaws, Patton has been venerated and despised but rarely understood. In Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer, Michael Keane penetrates the fog of legend and reveals as compelling a human character as any in American history.
