Around America: A Tour of Our Magnificent Coastline

America has nearly five thousand miles of coastline. What would it be like to travel from the islands of Maine to the stepping-stones of the Florida Keys; from the cliffs of the Pacific Northwest to the beaches of southern California; and around the Gulf Coast, where our major rivers reach the sea?

Here we travel with Walter Cronkite, our trusted guide. At Maine’s eastern tip, we find a British warship captured during the Revolution by the citizens of Machias, wielding pitchforks because they had no muskets. We visit islands along Texas’s coastline, exploring a sanctuary for migratory birds. And we visit Fort Ross, on California’s Redwood Coast, a replica of the 1812 Russian settlement begun as a fur trading post, with dreams of expanding the Russian empire.

In this compelling travelogue we can almost hear Cronkite talking, his smooth cadences spinning stories about the coastline he loves.