As Harrison Salisbury wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "James Michener is as much an American institution as the Fourth of July or apple pie." Michener wrote short stories, essays, poems, and art histories, but he was best known as the author of lengthy novels (replete with factual information) often published to mark times of national turmoil or celebration. Herbert Mitgang explained in Saturday Review that "Michener presents what he conceives would help the reading public to understand a subject, a lifestyle, or a country" in his novels. Very often Michener's novels follow a handful of fictional families as their bloodlines stretch through the ages and family members affect the course of history; historical figures make appearances as well. Some critics, uncomfortable labeling Michener's large tomes "novels" or "historical fiction," have searched for other ways to characterize his work. Pearl K. Bell of Commentary wrote in a review of...