"Henry Wallace is the most important, and certainly the most fascinating, almost-president in American history. As FDR's third-term vice president, and a hero to many progressives, he lost his place on the 1944 Democratic ticket in a wild open convention, as a result of which Harry Truman became president on FDR's death. Books, films, and even plays have since portrayed the circumstances surrounding Wallace's defeat as corrupt, and the results catastrophic....

"Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are among the most well-known and beloved figures in American popular music in the past half-century. The two, friends over many decades, have often been compared. But in this study, cultural historian Jim Cullen systematically traces the uncanny parallels in their lives. Here are two people who were born in the same year-one east of New York City on Long Island, the other west of New York City in suburban New Jersey....