Overview

This Is America: Portrait of a Nation at 250 offers a bold, eye-opening journey into the cultural DNA of the United States. Drawing on three decades of research, thousands of miles of travel, and more than 160 interviews, sociologist Gad Yair uncovers the deep cultural codes that define America at its 250th anniversary. From Puritan sermons to presidential speeches, from the frontier to the stars, from Black Lives Matter protests to school shooting memorials, Yair reveals how history and culture quietly shape everyday American life. He shows how the American Dream coexists with illusion, how rights fuel both unity and conflict, why paranoia thrives, and how capitalism and faith remain twin engines of national destiny. Standing in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, and Jean Baudrillard, Yair delivers a contemporary cultural portrait that is as analytical as it is alive. Blending sociology with vivid storytelling, he brings readers face to face with America's contradictions: freedom and inequality, belonging and loneliness, pragmatism and idealism. Richly illustrated with the author's own photographs, This Is America is both a scholarly contribution and a captivating narrative-an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to understand the United States as it enters its 250th year.

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Gad Yair is Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. An internationally recognized scholar of culture, education, and national identity, he has published widely on the cultural codes that shape societies. Drawing on decades of research and over 160 interviews with Israelis and Americans, Yair offers a fresh, penetrating look at the forces that define the United States in its 250th year.

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