The Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer’s unprecedented sixty-year eyewitness account of the pivotal events that have defined modern American history.

Kennerly has photographed ten US presidents—from Johnson to Trump—covered twelve campaigns, and worked in more than one hundred countries. His images have appeared on over fifty major magazine covers, cementing his place among the most important photojournalists of our time.

This magnum opus gathers his most iconic work into a sweeping narrative of America’s most consequential era: from the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated to the battlefields of Vietnam; Watergate to Reagan’s and Gorbachev’s first summit; the Pentagon burning after 9/11 to Obama backstage on his first night as president; and Trump’s rise, defeat, and return. Through it all, Kennerly’s photographs remain as relevant today as ever.

Published as America marks its 250th birthday, this landmark book coincides with a major 60th-anniversary exhibition at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Fall 2026.

For students, historians, and anyone who values the power of photojournalism, this is the definitive volume—a must-have for every collection.

About The Author

David Hume Kennerly is an American photographer. He won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. He has photographed every American president since Lyndon B Johnson. He is the first presidential scholar at the University of Arizona. Jon Meacham is an American writer, reviewer, historian and presidential biographer. He is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor to Time magazine. He is the Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral since November 2021.