The Americanization of Edward Bok is an autobiography, told in the third person, that shares the life of a little Dutch boy unceremoniously set down in America unable to make himself understood or even to know what persons were saying; his education extremely limited, practically negligible; and yet, by some curious decree of fate, he was destined to write to the largest body of readers ever addressed by an American editor - the circulation of the magazine he edited running into figures previously unheard of in periodical literature. How all this came about, how such a boy, with every disadvantage to overcome, was able, apparently, to "make good" - this possesses an interest and for some, perhaps, a value which, after all, is the only reason for any book.
