This book is essentially a cut-and-paste job from a variety of sources, dutifully acknowledged. It features the recollections of a number of prominent writers, mainly Pulitzer Prize winners, which serve to mitigate a sense of selective come-into-the-parlour voyeurism surrounding names such as Walt Disney, John Huston, Augustus Saint Gaudens and, inevitably, JFK and Bill Clinton. Its assertions are sometimes questionable, as for example: "The Great Communicator: Ronald Reagan was hardly the first Irish American to make it to the White House, but he is perhaps the only president who could match JFK for charisma." Perhaps - but not on this side of the Atlantic.
The book's main attraction lies in the less well-known biographies featured. Rachel Carson, the biologist, is a good example - born on a Pennsylvanian farm in 1907, where her "Irish-American mother, Maria McLean Carson, taught her a love and respect for the land". Her seminal book, Silent Spring (1962), did much to foster environmental awareness internationally - and the rise of the green movement - in revealing the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use. The book was viciously attacked by the chemical industry, but its findings were vindicated by subsequent government inquiries. Ironically, Carson developed cancer and heart disease and died at the age of 57.
Mayo-born Paul O'Dwyer's story is relatively well-known. His inclusion here is important as testimony to the physical and moral courage he displayed - and the opprobrium he earned - in standing up for civil rights and the underdog: from the McCarthy witch-hunts in the early days of the Cold War right through the race riots of the 1960s, as well as his stand against the war in Vietnam and espousal of Cothrom na Feinne for his fellow nationalists in Northern Ireland.
Maureen Connolly (Little Mo), was the first woman - and, at 18, the youngest tennis player - to win the Grand Slam, Wimbledon and the French, Australian and US Opens, in 1953. A horse riding accident in the summer of 1954 ended her tennis career prematurely. She died from cancer on the eve of Wimbledon in 1968, aged 34.
Best among the "Pulitzer" offerings is a piece from the veteran New York journalist, Jimmy Breslin, first published in 1977. It describes the three-day riots in Manhattan in 1863 when Irish rioters, "sons of the Famine", killed 18 blacks: "And suddenly, inevitably, as the water of a wave turns to white, the word races through the crowd: `Niggers!' " It's important too, to keep in mind the not-so great.
One surprising omission from a book, the raison d'etre of which seems to be name-dropping, is Kevin Roche, the celebrated architect who designed the Ford Foundation in Manhattan but failed more recently in his attempt to alter the skyline of his native Dublin with the Spencer Dock project.
Colman Cassidy is an Irish Times journalist