Knopf

Freedom is at the heart of the American identity, shaping both personal lives and political values. The ideal of authoring one's own life has inspired the country's best and worst moments--courage and emancipation, but also fear, delusion, and pointless war.

Selected reviews of Being America are featured below:

Tuesday, February 18, 2003 We in America tend to think of ourselves as the world's universal nation. "Being French is an affectation, being Russian a perversion, being from the world's poor regions a deprivation; but being American is just being human.... [W]e secretly believe that everyone is born American, but that certain people become something else due to bad upbringing," writes social critic Jedediah Purdy in… more