This is the story of the "four faces" carved in granite in the Black Hills of South Dakota-the sculptures of Washington Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

How the memorial came into being, plagued from inception to completion by almost insuperable financial difficulties by engineering problems of the greatest magnitude, and by personality conflicts that threatened time after time to destroy it, makes a fascinating page in modern American history. The author has recounted events objectively, yet vividly and with all the warmth and humanity of the story itself.

The man who worked longest and hardest on the project was sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the temperamental genius who molded a mountain into a monument to his beloved America. The carving of the monument indeed represents the "most flamboyant attempt ever made by man to preserve his heritage for future generations." And countless thousands of Americans make their way to this "Shrine of Democracy" every year.