The Boston Globe called it "fantastic" and "one of those rare works that remind us what an endlessly surprising place the world is by revealing the drama concentrated in the past and present of one plant.
[6] In the Washington Independent Review of Books Cathy Alter wrote, "Taylor has a knack for taking unsung heroes and elevating them to star status," adding that Soul of a People was "a humane and seminal accounting of our country, not unlike Studs Terkel's Working.
"[7] Publishers Weekly called Taylor's 2012 collaboration with Mark Collins Jenkins, an illustrated National Geographic book about the War of 1812, "fascinating" and said the authors avoid cheerleading, "offering instead a captivating story.
"[10] In focusing the narrative on three families caught up in World War II when a seemingly innocuous substance, cork, gained strategic value in wartime, Taylor created an "absorbing account," wrote reviewer Brian Crim.
The most compelling part, Crim wrote, involved "how families of outsiders--immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Eastern Europe--demonstrated unbelievable resilience and ingenuity" in the face of hostility at home and abroad.
[17] Taylor was the lead writer and co-producer on the documentary film based on his book, Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story, which was broadcast on Smithsonian Channel in October 2009.
David Kipen in the Los Angeles Times called the film "a moving documentary," and quoted Taylor on the contrasts with the present: "We could try different models like start-ups with an eye for what might come out of this crisis.
"[22] In the Chicago Tribune, Chris Borrelli pointed out that President Franklin Roosevelt had established the WPA with an executive order, and that by the late 1930s about 75,000 Chicagoans were working for the federal agency.
"[30] In Washington City Paper, Mark Athitakis wrote that Taylor's skills included "tight, convincing dialogue, and an eye for apt metaphors within the places his characters inhabit.
During David's early childhood, William Taylor worked at NASA on projects to track Soviet space plans, survey the Moon's surface, and helped to design the Lunar Roving Vehicle.