American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions Book

ISBN 0743240863 - Manufactured in the United States of America (and oh boy was that good to find in this book, of all my recent reads!). I want to love this book because it's about America, a country that I love, and Americans, a people that I... think highly of, in general. But LOVE just isn't happening with this book. I'm in like with it, though.

Chris Matthews lays out a very loving, inspirational and wholly positive view of America and Americans, with "Ten Grand American Notions". These include our love of, and desire to be, "The Reluctant Warrior" and the way we love to cheer for "The Underdog". Using short vignettes about famous figures, both historical and modern, and a little pop culture, by introducing some of America's best loved movies, Matthews makes his case well.

The book is a tough one for me, so I'll rattle off the flaws first. It seems obvious, given the publication date, that this book was sped to press in response to September 11, 1001. While Chris is not, by any means, the only person to rush to put out a "Yay, America!" book after the attacks, I can't help feeling a bit of distaste whenever I come across one, by anyone. In addition, the rush becomes more obvious when you take the time to read, something the editor apparently couldn't manage to do. Typos abound, some of them possibly due to the use of a spellcheck program, which allowed "In short, he was playing for keeps." to become "In shot, he was playing for keeps.", among other stupid, preventable errors. (another, which I found hilarious but I've been told may be "accurate", was regarding the Bush v Gore election, where Matthews asks "So why didn't he [Gore] eat Bush's lunch?" In my neck of the woods, that would be "why didn't he eat Bush for lunch?")

On the positive side, there's nothing here that is partisan. Matthews, generally a conservative Democrat, keeps his modern politics out of it and chooses politically diverse people to represent his "notions". Particularly well written, to my surprise, was the section regarding Bush's coming into his own as a president in the days after the attacks. Tomorrow, Chris will wake up a Democrat, but for the duration of this book, he's just an American who loves his country and loves the history of it, too. The vignettes he chose are not presented as events that shaped America, they're told to flesh out the list of very American notions he offers. This means that some people appear in several chapters, as they personify more than one American character type. George Washington, John McCain, Oprah Winfrey, Rocky Balboa... the list is varied, but they all have things in common, one above all: they're Americans.

Worth perusing for the reminder that, under everything else, we're all Americans and we all love our country. Maybe not worth a spot on the keeper shelf, though.

- AnnaLovesBooks