First published in 1948, this book provides insights into US politics and culture. The author set out from California and travelled to the Pacific Northwest, across the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains states, and what was then the immense agricultural expanse of the Midwest, up to New England, and the down the Atlantic Seaboard to the South and Southwest. His observations along the way - on topics such as race relations, labour, the Tennessee Valley Authority, farm life, the politics of the big cities - offer a portrait of American life half a century ago.