Helfand persuades us that scrapbooks are far more than mere curiosities. She connects them to broader themes that spark ideas and our imagination.-George Miles, Yale University -- George Miles Anyone can make a scrapbook, and it sometimes seems that everyone has. From this most democratic of art forms, Jessica Helfand has created a national self-portrait of remarkable breadth, depth and beauty.-Michael Bierut, author of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design and partner at Pentagram -- Michael Bierut The history of scrapbooking long predates the recent explosion of interest in this hugely popular hobby. Jessica Helfand uses her subtle curatorial eye and her sharp critical perspective to shed light on this indigenous creative discourse. This book will be an invaluable inspiration to anyone practicing the art of scrapbooking today, as well as to anyone fascinated with American visual history, photography, and popular culture.-Ellen Lupton, Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution -- Ellen Lupton Helfand's richly detailed account integrates the chronology of scrapbooks within philosophies of public and individual memory. In her scholarly and engaging work, readers are presented with moments of delight recorded by various people as they made their own way towards remembering themselves.-Susan Tucker, Curator of Books and Records at the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, Tulane University, and co-editor, The Scrapbook in American Life -- Susan Tucker Wow: what a cool, gorgeous, entrancing, brilliant, mysterious book! The scrapbook fragments-these beautifully presented time capsules of so many bygone times and places and lives-are deeply fascinating, but the effect of the whole is as moving and sublime as fiction. Scrapbooks: An American History is close to perfect.-Kurt Andersen, host of National Public Radio's Studio 360 and author, Heyday -- Kurt Andersen Scrapbooks are a shared American art form, transcending race and class and gender, fragments of memory that, pasted, taped, and glued into a whole, define the heritage of a family, like a patchwork coat of arms. Jessica Helfand's delightfully charming and informative book is filled with captivating stories about the generations of family members on whose shoulders each of us stands. Pity the family that has no inherited scrap books; pity the reader who does not own this astonishingly delightful book. This is a book that defines our common American heritage, and it is long overdue.-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice Magazine Choice Scrapbooks: An American History, by Jessica Helfand, is a handsome, oversized and extra-illustrated volume in the traditional shape of a scrapbook. It is the first serious history of an American phenomenon.-Richard H. Dillon, The California Territorial Quarterly -- Richard H. Dillon The California Territorial Quarterly