Beautiful Country Burn Again, Ben Fountain
Beautiful Country Burn Again, Ben Fountain
3 Rating(s)
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Beautiful Country Burn Again
Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution

Author: Ben Fountain

Narrator: Ron Butler

Unabridged: 14 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 09/25/2018


Synopsis

In a sweeping work of reportage set over the course of 2016, New York Times bestselling author Ben Fountain recounts a surreal year of politics and an exploration of the third American existential crisis Twice before in its history, the United States has been faced with a crisis so severe it was forced to reinvent itself in order to survive: first, the struggle over slavery, culminating in the Civil War, and the second, the Great Depression, which led to President Roosevelt’s New Deal and the establishment of America as a social-democratic state. In a sequence of essays that excavate the past while laying bare the political upheaval of 2016, Ben Fountain argues that the United States may be facing a third existential crisis, one that will require a “burning” of the old order as America attempts to remake itself.Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s southern strategy, to our weaponized new conception of American exceptionalism, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump.In an urgent and deeply incisive voice, Ben Fountain has fused history and the present day to paint a startling portrait of the state of our nation.  Beautiful Country Burn Again is a searing indictment of how we came to this point, and where we may be headed.

About Ben Fountain

Ben Fountain was born in Chapel Hill and grew up in the tobacco country of eastern North Carolina. A former practicing attorney, he is the author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Billy Lynn was adapted into a feature film directed by three-time Oscar winner Ang Lee, and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. His series of essays published in The Guardian on the 2016 U.S. presidential election was subsequently nominated by the editors of The Guardian for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife of 32 years, Sharon Fountain.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Randy on July 08, 2018

Ben Fountain, author of the excellent, prize-winning novel "Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk," takes us back to the absolute clusterfuck of the presidential campaign year of 2016. A gifted wordsmith who combines the detailed observational qualities of Tom Wolfe (minus the tons of exclamation marks),......more

Goodreads review by David on December 17, 2018

Ben Fountain, at the behest of The Guardian, is sent out on the campaign trail in the lead-up to the 2016 US Presidential election and finds himself at the Quicken Loans Arena for the Republican National Convention. Here he finds stern warnings against tennis balls. Tennis balls are definitely not a......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on September 17, 2018

POLITICS/GOVERNMENT Ben Fountain Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution Ecco Books Hardcover, 978-0-0626-8884-2 (also available as an e-book, audiobook, and large-print paperback), 448 pgs., $27.99 September 25, 2018 “Nautonomy: the asymmetrical production and distribution of l......more

Goodreads review by Mrs. Danvers on November 18, 2018

Beautifully written with a clear eye and commitment to facts. Also, we're fucked and I'm super depressed now.......more

Goodreads review by Camille on December 24, 2018

I did enjoy this book, although I think the cover has some false advertising. This book is really an analysis of the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, putting into context with historical background. The first hundred pages or so were just the author describing four rallies he went to prior to the......more