A thoughtful, original and frequently hilarious look at the curious American superpower.
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"Gary younge is an excellent journalist - a critical writer at a critical time" -- Andrea Levy
About the Author
Gary Younge is the New York Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian, and a frequent contributor to The Nation. He was the recipient of the Washington Post's Lawrence Stern Fellowship in 1996, and his previous book, No Place Like Home, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. He lives in New York City.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having recently moved to North America this book has really helped me understand what I have got in to and what is just over the border and coming this way! This is a series of intelligent and insightful articles on American culture, attitudes towards race, war and foreign policy. While occasionally falling in to the trap of making easy generalizations (a case of genuine anger and political theory combining to trip him up in the face of more grey colored realities) Gary Young successfully gets to grips with the real complexities of what makes America what it is and what factors have shaped its attitudes towards the rest of us on the planet! By the end of the book I didn't feel any more reassured about American foreign policy than I did when I started but at least I felt a little bit more educated as to why America is really the way it is! Worth reading by anyone remotely interested in the world we live in and with any sort of general left wing/liberal perspective.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Djrusa
Format:Paperback
Books by Liberal Britons on the US tend to start with a thinly held negative bias toward the US and then the author searches for examples to support their prejudices . This is no exception. Some "insights" that Americans can be smart sometimes (wow! Who knew) but that was thrown in more to make the writer seem fair than anything else. British readers who want to feel smug and superior should enjoy it. Want to find out more about real America look else ware
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best British columnist on the US, and funny
1 Feb 2008
By Bad Cat
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Younge is one of the finest columnists writing in English today (in the British _Guardian_, the most trusted news source in the UK, over the BBC), and one of the best analysts of the US. His take, as a "black Briton," has enough distance to get all the historical, social, economic connections that we Americans usually miss, and enough compassion for the underdog to be compelling and persuasive. The comparisons with his native UK are fascinating, unexpected, and often very funny.
My favorite bit is his description of preparing for his first US visit. The much-trashed American book "The Bell Curve" had estimated that blacks were 15 IQ points lower than others, but then friends had told him that Americans mentally add 20 IQ points to anyone who speaks with a British accent. So he'd still come out 5 points ahead in their perceptions.
My favorite bit is his description of preparing for his first US visit. The much-trashed American book "The Bell Curve" had estimated that blacks were 15 IQ points lower than others, but then friends had told him that Americans mentally add 20 IQ points to anyone who speaks with a British accent. So he'd still come out 5 points ahead in their perceptions.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I grok it
27 Nov 2006
By GG
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Well written, apposite, cogent.
And face it, there are 300 million Americans- it's not surprising some of them are very very strange.
And that's even outside the Beltway!
And face it, there are 300 million Americans- it's not surprising some of them are very very strange.
And that's even outside the Beltway!
2 of 38 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
You watch to many movies my friend, Hollywood is not real.
12 Dec 2009
By M. C. S. Apostol
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Mr. Younge is both ignorant of REAL red blooded Americans and a camp follower of the pro-socialist inept coward Obama. The politics in the USA right now reflect years of apathy by the people too busy working to pay attention to what those not working had time to organize, such as ACORN. However the TEA Party movement and similar groups rising to the task will soon throw out all the internationalists and politically correct liberals only too willing to take the money earned by hard working people and small businesses and hand it over to the do nothing crowd to buy votes.
I came from a humble beginning, but I believe in freedom and capitalism, not socialism.
Contrary to the massive generalizations that describe Republicans as white, frustrated, rural rednecks on the verge of rebellion or spontaneous combustion, I am none of the above.
I am not white, I am well traveled and educated, I live in a large metropolitan city on the East Coast, I earn a relatively substantial wage (all by the way characteristics that liberals like to believe they have a monopoly on)
I came from a humble beginning, but I believe in freedom and capitalism, not socialism.
Contrary to the massive generalizations that describe Republicans as white, frustrated, rural rednecks on the verge of rebellion or spontaneous combustion, I am none of the above.
I am not white, I am well traveled and educated, I live in a large metropolitan city on the East Coast, I earn a relatively substantial wage (all by the way characteristics that liberals like to believe they have a monopoly on)
›
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3.7 out of 5 stars
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