Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States

I recall reading some of these articles in the Guardian but some I clearly missed such as the original article on Claudette Colvin as Rosa Parks’ predecessor. This was a revelation, not just that there was a predecessor to Rosa Parks but in how badly she was treated by almost everyone.

This is just a collection of Gary Younges columns that he has written over the years put into a book. They are freely available elsewhere. There is no bespoke content for this bok. The columns of course have common themes, but theres no attempt to give some overarching structure. It really is just a load of his columns. As much as I love Mr Younge's work, this left me a little disappointed.

Great condition

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.

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