American Vertigo

贝尔纳-亨利·莱维（BerTlard Henri Levy）是现今活跃于欧美文坛的作家、记者、活动家和电影制作人，著有《带着人脸的野蛮》和《谁杀了丹尼尔．珀尔》等，并曾摄制纪录片《波斯尼亚》和《萨拉热窝死亡的一天》。

出版者:Random House

作者:Bernard-Henri Levy

页数:308

出版时间:2006-01-24

价格:USD 24.95

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9781400064342

图书标签:托克维尔贝尔纳—亨利·列维（Bernard-Henri美国研究美国社会Lévy）

What does it mean to be an American, and what can America be today? To answer these questions, celebrated philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy 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, Lévy 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, Lévy 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.

读后感

这本书读来就如同我的纯粹一般，无聊至极。我的纯粹的无聊性是我从来都要忍受的，然而此书的无聊性却是我无法忍受的。这表现了我的狭隘和一般人的狭隘，对于自己怎么容忍辩护都不为过，而对于旁人，怎么讽刺挖苦指责都不为多。 然而，作为一本我认为作者大概也没有准备好而写就...  

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