Americana, Hampton Sides
Americana, Hampton Sides
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
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Americana
Dispatches from the New Frontier

Author: Hampton Sides

Narrator: Kris Koscheski

Unabridged: 17 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/15/2016

Synopsis

For more than fifteen years, bestselling author and historian Hampton Sides has traveled widely across the continent exploring the America that lurks just behind the scrim of our mainstream culture.

In these two dozen pieces, collected here for the first time, Sides gives us a fresh, alluring, and at times startling America brimming with fascinating subcultures and bizarre characters who could live nowhere else. Following Sides, we crash the redwood retreat of an apparent cabal of fabulously powerful military-industrialists, drop in on the Indy 500 of bass fishing, and join a giant techno-rave at the lip of the Grand Canyon. We meet a diverse gallery of American visionaries—from the impossibly perky founder of Tupperware to Indian radical Russell Means to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. We retrace the route of the historic Bataan Death March with veterans from Sides's acclaimed World War II epic, Ghost Soldiers. Americana gives us a sparkling mosaic of our country today, in all its wild and poignant charm.

About Hampton Sides

A native of Memphis, Hampton Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the international bestseller Ghost Soldiers, which was the basis for the 2005 Miramax film The Great Raid. Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA Award for nonfiction and the 2002 Discover Award from Barnes & Noble, and his magazine work has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. Hampton is also the author of Americana and Stomping Grounds. A graduate of Yale with a B.A. in history, he lives in New Mexico with his wife, Anne, and their three sons.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on June 21, 2010

My Friend Nicole passed this book my way and it was absolutely fantastic. Hampton Side’s “Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier” is comprised of thirty chapters, each reflecting on a different American subculture or perspective. The stories each vary drastically in tone, some taking more of a......more

Goodreads review by Martha on June 10, 2018

He is my favorite writer of nonfiction. These essays cover a lot of ground and a lot of the world. He writes about fascinating people and places.......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on April 10, 2020

This book may be dated but the author is a master at capturing the essence of a good story. I found that a little historical perspective actually added to my enjoyment of the read.......more

Goodreads review by Ken on October 02, 2023

I read this years ago when I was a newspaper reporter and gave it four stars, perhaps because I was more used to the triage journalism I did as a bureau reporter in Northeast Arkansas in cranking out fast copy than writing 5,000 word pieces that ran a month later. Flash forward 15-some years. I was l......more

Goodreads review by Walter on January 21, 2016

Americana by Hampton Sides is easy to read and interesting. The volume is composed of 30 short, non-fiction, people pieces. Each article offers a snippet of the kaleidoscope of the American character. Sides has a talent at choosing intriguing topics. Some of the topics are satirical, but, not with m......more

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