St. Louis-based writer and expert in authoritarian states, Sarah Kendzior, has been called "a political heavyweight" and "a Cassandra in Trumpland." In 2015, she collected the essays she reported for Al Jazeera and published them as The View from Flyover Country, which became an ebook bestseller and garnered praise from readers around the world. Now, The View from Flyover Country is being released in print with an updated introduction and epilogue that reflect on the ways that the Trump presidency was the certain result of the realities first captured in Kendzior's essays.
A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in America's overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, racism, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary reading for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion.
Interesting Yet Oblivious To Own Criticisms. This is an interesting collection of essays written between 2012 and 2014, with an epilogue in 2017 after the election of Donald Trump to the White House. It presents a stark view of Middle America, but one that many, even on the coasts, will identify with. Kendzior even accurately identifies that the problems she notes had existed for quite some time and were proving little if any better after several years of "Hope and Change"... but then decries the efforts of Trump to even pay lip service (which is all he ever did) to these issues and people. Still, as a time capsule of what at least one writer was thinking of various developments of the era, this is an interesting book and a worthy read. But if you're listening to the Audible, speed it up to around 1.5x to make it less of a lullaby. Recommended.
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3 November, 2020:
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