The book includes 44 short but incisive pieces on the greatest bold Americans (you're right, no Tom Brokaw in there--it's Edward R. Murrow who ought to be in the next edition), including Walt Whitman, Bella Abzug, Woody Guthrie, Curtis Mayfield, Cesar Chavez, Fannie Lou Hamer, Noam Chomsky, Thelonious Monk and baseball's Bill Veeck and Curt Flood, too. And a glorious piece on someone from my very small list of favorite politicians, Paul Wellstone.
"American Rebels" has typos and goofy miscues--when Dylan's 'Love and Theft' (for some reason, he used quotation marks) album is mistakenly titled Love and Death, that's a small error. The big one is where Rachel Carson is said to have testified before congress about pesticides in June 1964. Farther in, the piece says she died from breast cancer in April 1964.
An explanation of what "American Rebels" is about says that Martin Luther King, Jr. was left out because so many Americans are familiar with him. So why is arguably the U.S.' most famous songwriter/artist--Dylan--included? All in all, though, it's a wonderful read.
A favorite moment: One of Will Rogers' quotes from the article on him: "Congress is going to start tinkering with the Ten Commandments just as soon as they can find somebody in Washington who has read them."