Centennial (novel)

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Centennial was a novel written by American author James Michener and published in 1974.

Centennial traces the history of the plains of northeast Colorado from prehistory until the early 1970s. Geographic details about the fictional town of Centennial and its surroundings indicate that the region is in modern-day Weld County. Since the novel was written, the Denver suburb of Centennial, Colorado has been incorporated, although its location is far from Michener's fictional town of the same name.

Many episodes in the book are loosely based on actual historical events in eastern Colorado and southeast Wyoming, which for novelistic reasons are brought to a single locale. For example "The Massacre"-is based on the Sand Creek Massacre which took place in Kiowa County, Colorado in 1864. Other parts of the book are loosely based on a family from Sterling, Colorado.

Centennial was made into a popular twelve-part television miniseries also entitled Centennial that aired on NBC from October 1978 through February 1979.

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Works by James A. Michener
Novels:

The Fires of Spring (1949) • Return to Paradise (1951) • The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1953) • The Floating World (1954) • Sayonara (1954) • The Bridge at Andau (1957) • Hawaii (1959) • Caravans (1963) • The Source (1965) • The Drifters (1971) • Centennial (1974) • Chesapeake (1978) • The Covenant (1980) • Space (1982) • Poland (1983) • Texas (1985) • Legacy (1987) • Alaska (1988) • Caribbean (1989) • Journey (1989) • The Novel (1991) • Mexico (1992) • Recessional (1994) • Matecumbe (2007)
Non Fiction:

The Future of the Social Studies (1939) • The Voice of Asia (1951) • Rascals in Paradise (1957) • Report of the Country Chairman (1961) • Iberia (1968) • Presidential Lottery (1969) • The Quality of Life (1970) • Kent State: What Happened and Why (1971) • Sports in America (1976) • About Centennial: Some Notes on the Novel (1978) • United States of America (1982) • Collectors, Forgers - And A Writer: A Memoir (1983) • All We Did Was Fly to the Moon (1985) • Six Days in Havana (1989) • Pilgrimage: A Memoir of Poland and Rome (1990) • The Eagle and The Raven (1990) • My Lost Mexico (1992) • The World is My Home (1992) • Writer's Handbook (1992) • Creatures of the Kingdom (1993) • Literary Reflections (1993) • William Penn (1994) • Ventures in Editing (1995) • Miracle in Seville (1995) • This Noble Land (1996) • A Century of Sonnets (1997)
Short story collections:

Tales of the South Pacific (1947) • Selected Writings of James Michener (1978)
Film, TV and
theatrical adaptations:
about Michener:

James A. Michener: A Biography (1985) • James A. Michener: A Bibliography (1996) • Michener: A Writer's Journey (2005)
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