The Pledge: A History of the Pledge of Allegiance

The cultural and political history of the Pledge of Allegiance, how it came to be, what it means to Americans, and why we have battled over it for generations

For more than a century, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance has been a central part of the American Experience. And perhaps because of its ubiquity, this simple flag salute has served not only as a unifying ritual but also as a lightning rod for bitter controversy.

Congress's 1954 decision to add under God to the Pledge has made it the focus of three U.S. Supreme Court cases and at least one other landmark appellate decision. The debate continues today, but along with it exists a widely held admiration and support for this simple affirmation of our shared patriotism.

As Jeffrey Owen Jones and Peter Meyer show in their illuminating history, this brief salute to the flag has had an almost magical power to galvanize people's deepest feelings and beliefs about who we are and ought to be as a nation. In that sense, the story of the Pledge of Allegiance is the story of America and the American people.

Author: Jeffrey Owen Jones, Peter Meyer
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Published: 10/12/2010
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.36h x 5.80w x 0.86d
ISBN: 9780312350024

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/28/2011
New York Times Book Review 10/17/2010 pg. 19

About the Author

JEFFREY OWEN JONES worked as an editor, television and film producer, journalist, and teacher. A graduate of Williams College and Middlebury College, he received an Emmy Award for his work in New York local public television and had been published in Smithsonian magazine. He died in 2007.

PETER MEYER is a former news editor of Life magazine and the author of numerous nonfiction books, including the critically acclaimed The Yale Murder, Death of Innocence, and Dark Obsession. Meyer has also won journalism awards from the University of Missouri and the Robert Kennedy Foundation for his reporting and writing for such national publications as Harper's Magazine, Vanity Fair, New York, Life, Time, and People. He is currently Contributing Editor at Education Next magazine and the Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

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