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| American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville | 
 enlarge | Author: Bernard-henri Levy
Creator: Charlotte Mandell
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (55 reviews)
Sales Rank: 45543
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0812974719
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780812974713
ASIN: 0812974719
Publication Date: April 10, 2007
Release Date: April 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What does it mean to be an American, and what can America be today? To answer these questions, celebrated philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Levy 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, Levy 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 Tocqueville?s 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 novelist?s eye and a philosopher?s 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, Levy fills his book with a tapestry of American voices?some 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 world?s desire to worship, earn, and live as one wishes?a 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.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 50 more reviews...
 Tartarin in the US July 4, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
As a French citizen who likes the USA, I am not a supporter of Bags Of Wind. BHL has for a long time decided to stop thinking. "American Vertigo" is another expression of the wind which blows in the brain of this pedantic writer.
I totally agree with the good criticism written by William Grimes "A Modern-Day Tocqueville Finds an Uncertain America", February 4, 2006 in the New-York Times. I quote an extract of this relevant analysis.
"Mr. Levy is, in some ways, a good traveling companion. He takes a keen interest in American politics, and he loves American literature. His voyage of discovery owes as much to Jack Kerouac or Walt Whitman as it does to Tocqueville, a writer whom, he notes in his preface, he barely knew before setting out. But because he lives almost entirely inside his head, he does a remarkably poor job at communicating the sights, sounds and smells of American life. There are many moments, riding in the car with him, that you want to tell him to shut up for five minutes and take a good look at what's out the window.
He is lazy. Tocqueville, faced with the bewildering logic of American politics and American habits, rolled up his sleeves and tried to account for what he saw. Mr. Levy dashes off a few lines, shrugs his shoulders and tosses out rhetorical questions. Some are long and involved, others quite brief, like the "Who knows ?" that caps his musings on the inner life of President Bush. At least half of the provocative questions that make up "American Vertigo" should have been written down as homework assignments for the author rather than lobbed in the face of the reader. He does not bother to chase down elusive facts, like who finances Medicaid. Instead, he wraps them in an "I'm told," or "it's said that."
 Nice surprise. April 15, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The book is very well written, concise and not not becoming destructed by theoretical excursions. The fact that philosophy ala BHL is not ex cathedra discurse but field research gives freshness and sharp observations to the reader. Avoiding to polarize between "uncivilized americans" and civilized europeans credits BHL with objectivity and wide spectrum of participation from every day life up to intellectuals, politicians and even Hollywood opinions. Good contribution to bridge the gaps of recent years between USA and Europe away from chronical antiamericanism syndrom
 A star French dilletante publishes his little travel notes? April 12, 2007
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
For the best review of this one, check the NY Times.
"You meet Sharon Stone and John Kerry and a woman who once weighed 488 pounds and an obese couple carrying rifles, but there's nobody here whom you recognize. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke. Nobody does much work. Nobody sits and eats and enjoys their food. You've lived all your life in America, never attended a megachurch or a brothel, don't own guns, are non-Amish, and it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title."
".... every 10 pages or so, Levy walks into a wall. About Old Glory, for example. Someone has told him about the rules for proper handling of the flag, and from these (the flag must not be allowed to touch the ground, must be disposed of by burning) he has invented an American flag fetish, a national obsession, a cult of flag worship." MYTimes
As far I can tell, Levy is a "self-styled" philosopher and a boring writer, except to the French who treat him like a film star. It makes you wonder about the French. I have known some who are fine people; but this man makes me recall the English indictment: "France; a lovely country. Too bad about the people." Too bad their taste in writers isn't as good as their taste in food and fashion!
Good Travel Writing, Heavy Ending March 2, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This was a treadmill book for me but it probably shouldn't have been, it got pretty heavy at the end. The author is a French philosopher who travelled throughout the United States for several months, loosely following in the steps of fellow Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. He starts in the East and really covers a lot of ground, going all the way to California, then heading south and ending back up on the east coast.
The first part of the book reads like a politically-savvy travelogue and it's the part I liked best. I liked reading about the country from such a different perspective. Levy is struck by all the kitschy museums he finds on his travels, and he seeks out interesting political figures (Tom Daschle, Russell Means) and places (Savannah, Georgia, New Orleans) to visit and write about.
The end of the book is Levy's philosophical and political analysis of the state of the U.S. as he sees it, and whether he feels anything can be done to change the negative things that are going on here and the negative way the country is being viewed at this time. This was the part I shouldn't have read on the treadmill, a lot of it was pretty deep and over my head. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend the first section of it.
Interesting Critique on U.S. Culture January 3, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is great as an introspective into the American Cultural Landscape. It opened my eyes on things within our culture I never thought about as being unique or different. Bernard has his own opinions on various topics and they are woven throughout the book, but I was pleasantly surprised that his opinions did not take away from the content. If you like reading about our country with a different set of eyes this book is for you. It is an easy read and one you can put down and take up again after a few days since it is written in a journal style format.
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