American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville

(Paperback)

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What does it mean to be an American, and what can America be today To answer these questions, celebrated philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lvy spent a year traveling throughout the country in the footsteps of another great Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America remains the most influential book ever written about our country.
The result is American Vertigo, a fascinating, wholly fresh look at a country we sometimes only think we know. From Rikers Island to Chicago mega-churches, from Muslim communities in Detroit to an Amish enclave in Iowa, Lvy investigates issues at the heart of our democracy: the special nature of American patriotism, the coexistence of freedom and religion (including the religion of baseball), the prison system, the return of ideology and the health of our political institutions, and much more. He revisits and updates Tocquevilles most important beliefs, such as the dangers posed by the tyranny of the majority, explores what Europe and America have to learn from each other, and interprets what he sees with a novelists eye and a philosophers depth.
Through powerful interview-based portraits across the spectrum of the American people, from prison guards to clergymen, from Norman Mailer to Barack Obama, from Sharon Stone to Richard Holbrooke, Lvy fills his book with a tapestry of American voicessome wise, some shocking. Both the grandeur and the hellish dimensions of American life are unflinchingly explored. And big themes emerge throughout, from the crucial choices America
faces today to the underlying reality that, unlike the Old World, America remains the fulfillment of the worlds desire to worship, earn, and live as one wishesa place, despite all, where inclusion remains not just an ideal but an actual practice.
At a time when Americans are anxious about how the world perceives them and, indeed, keen to make sense of themselves, a brilliant and sympathetic foreign observer has arrived to help us begin a new conversation about the meaning of America.

Reviews

Bernard-Henry Lvy does nothing that goes unnoticed. He is an intellectual adventurer who brings publicity to unfashionable political causes.
The New York Times

Author Bio

Bernard-Henry Lvy is a philosopher, journalist, activist, and filmmaker. He was hailed by Vanity Fair magazine as Superman and prophet: we have no equivalent in the United States. Among his dozens of books are Barbarism with a Human Face and Who Killed Daniel Pearl His writing has appeared in a wide range of publications throughout Europe and the United States. His films include the documentaries Bosna! and A Day in the Death of Sarajevo. Lvy is co-founder of the antiracist group SOS Racism and has served on diplomatic missions for the French government.