A recent unexpected celebrity endorsement is just the latest in a string of successes for Yale’s Icons of America series, which presents brief, lively volumes on our nation’s major cultural touchstones. Past works have covered the Empire State Building, Gone with the Wind, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech

For those unfamiliar with the Icons series, we’ve dug up a pair of YouTube clips highlighting how entertaining—and sometimes prescient—these books can be. The first features Josh Ozersky, author of The Hamburger, in an ABC Frontline piece on the booming business of the burger in the midst of the current recession. Watch as Ozersky and the anchor revel in the humble decadence of America’s favorite sandwich:

The second clip comes from a reading Steve Fraser, the author of Wall Street, and Ozersky attended together at McNally Jackson Bookstore in New York. The camera work may be a little shaky, but, in light of the current economic situation, Fraser’s insights (in June 2008, no less!) are deadly accurate: