Chasing the Red, White, and Blue: A Journey in Tocqueville's Footsteps Through Contemporary America Hardcover - 2001

From the publisher

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville his journey to America, traveling from New York to the frontier city of Flint, Michigan, down the Ohio River Valley and into Mississippi, then turning east through the Old South and concluding in Washington, D.C. His journey spawned the classic "Democracy in America," the book that defined "equality of opportunity" as the wellspring national character.
At the end of the twentieth century, journalist David Cohen made that same journey, with one new destination--the frontier of Silicon Valley in California. "Chasing the Red, White, and Blue" is his account: a thought-provoking inquiry into the lives of Americans today. Talking with people at every level of society--from Manhattan real estate brokers and Washington lobbyists to supermarket clerks and illegal aliens--Cohen finds equality elusive and the poor increasingly adrift from American society. But he also finds hope alive in the most unexpected of places. Just as "Democracy in America" took the measure of our young republic, "Chasing the Red, White, and Blue" portrays a much-changed America on the cusp of a new millennium: still united by our passion for democracy, yet divided by our prejudices.

About the author