John Jakes, variously called the "godfather of the historical novel," "the people's author," and "America's history teacher," is the acknowledged contemporary master of the family saga. Best known as the creator of the Kent Family Chronicles (1974-1980),...

John Jakes was a prolific but obscure writer for some twenty years, until his "American Bicentennial" series of historical novels captured the public's imagination and made him famous. Jakes had published his first work while he was still a high school s...

THE DREAM CATCHER is hot, and that leaves some Native Americans understandably cold. Considered a sacred object in their culture, the web-like dream catcher - which is supposed to hang above a baby's cradle to trap nightmares and let good dreams into the...

IN ATLANTA Monday, President Bush spoke of a "homeownership gap"; he spotlighted his administration's plans for lowering the barriers to African American and Hispanic homeownership. This is a worthy effort, first laid out in the budget he submitted to Congress back in February. It...

Recently, Parade Magazine published a feature that posed the question "Is the American Dream Still Possible?" Eighty percent of the respondents to an October 2005 survey of 2,200 middle-income Americans believe that it is possible to achieve the American Dream despite the fact that 66...

An Indonesian whose family sold property and cars to pay his tuition, a boy who played soccer on a potholed street in Lima and an aspiring architect from Mumbai _ dreams and struggles brought them together in a small Virginia college town.An American tragedy carried...