EBOOK
About
What does it mean to think about Dallas, the city where JFK was shot, in relationship to Dallas, the show that just seventeen years later made "Who shot J. R." a national catchphrase? This collection of essays looks at seven diverse American places and reexamines them in the light of history, experience, and myth. Taking on topics from private streets, racism, and the St. Louis World's Fair to fracking for oil and digging for dinosaurs in North Dakota boomtowns, this book both warns about the dangers we face as a nation.
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Reviews
"Taken together, this travelogue of the familiar and the strange exposes multiple anxieties latent in the national subconscious: racial inequalities, the dread of disaster, the chase after short-term profits, the eroding meaning of home. McPherson's depth of research, the inventiveness of his prose, and his sensitivity to municipal undercurrents make this a first-rate work of social analysis."
Los Angeles Review of Books