**A landmark collection by New York Times journalist Dan Barry,
selected from a decade of his distinctive "This Land" columns and
presenting a powerful but rarely seen portrait of America.
**In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and on the eve of a national
recession, New York Times writer Dan Barry launched a column about
America: not the one populated only by cable-news pundits, but the
America defined and redefined by those who clean the hotel rooms, tend
the beet fields, endure disasters both natural and manmade. As the name
of the president changed from Bush to Obama to Trump, Barry was
crisscrossing the country, filing deeply moving stories from the tiniest
dot on the American map to the city that calls itself the Capital of the
World.
Complemented by the select images of award-winning Times photographers,
these narrative and visual snapshots of American life create a majestic
tapestry of our shared experience, capturing how our nation is at once
flawed and exceptional, paralyzed and ascendant, as cruel and violent as
it can be gentle and benevolent.