A vivid, surprising portrait of the civic and economic reinvention taking place in America, town by town and generally out of view of the national media. A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.
The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but itis also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
Travel with Matt and Karen as they float down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. In September 2016, they experienced the trip of a lifetime with fourteen friends and a crew of ten while traveling in wooden dories through the canyon. Dories...
About a quarter century ago, a previously unknown writer named William Least Heat-Moon wrote a book called Blue Highways. Acclaimed as a classic, it was a travel book like no other. Quirky, discursive, endlessly curious, Heat-Moon had embarked on a...
Narrator: William Least Heat-Moon Published: 10/29/2008
In the 1970s, Madeleine Blais's in-laws purchased a vacation house on Martha's Vineyard for the exorbitant sum of $80,000. 2.2 miles down a poorly marked, one lane dirt road, the house was better termed a shack—it had no electricity, no modern...
Letters from Hawaii contains a collection of letters Mark Twain wrote for a newspaper publication. From a long, turbulent journey to the island, to his encounters with the islanders and the myriad englishmen who have taken up residence on the island...
TRAVEL THROUGH A PIVOTAL TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY Jeff Shaara, America’s premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of a Civil War battlefield every American should visit: Petersburg. Shaara explores the history, the people, an...
Winchester, Virginia is an emblematic American town. When John Lingan first traveled there, it was to seek out Jim McCoy: local honky-tonk owner and the DJ who first gave airtime to a brassy-voiced singer known as Patsy Cline, setting her on a cours...
TRAVEL THROUGH A PIVOTAL TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY Jeff Shaara, America’s premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of a Civil War battlefield every American should visit: The Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Shaara explores the hi...
TRAVEL THROUGH A PIVOTAL TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORYJeff Shaara, America’s premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of a Civil War battlefield every American should visit: Gettysburg. Shaara explores the history, the people, and...
A cross-country hitchhiking journey with America's most beloved weirdoJohn Waters is putting his life on the line. Armed with wit, a pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads "I'm Not Psycho," he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore ...
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