Chronicling America during the turbulent period from 1906 to 1917, John Jakes captures the lives of the men and women who colored a nation's future. American dreams follows the children of the German-immigrant Crown family first introduced in Homeland: actress Fritzi Crown, a woman of formidable ambition and fierce independence, as she travels from the tawdry haunts of Broadway to California and its silent pictures, meeting the giants and pioneers of the industry Griffith, Pickford, Chaplin, and others ... Carl Crown, the wanderer seeking new thrills in the fast-paced world of car racing and aviation, whose wanderlust takes him from Detroit and an encounter with Henry Ford to the Mexican Revolution, and ultimately to the war-torn skies over France during World War I ... and Paul Crown, idealistic movie maker and famous newsreel cameraman, who finds his destiny filming the devastation and horror of World War I.