Take a picture. Looked its a piece of folk art and the book comes out coming out of d ordinary ence of americans. But g in battered shape its a flag. I thought it was interesting for the cover. On the did you decide title and why . I was visiting the homestead reynolds with dean price, one of the main characters in the book. And we were standing there all of the fallowed farmland in that part of the tobacco hat used to be farms. He was imagining a future in fallow land this the be rejuvenated for purpose of making energy and out of canola and sophia and other crops. He said there could be an go back to ere we 19th ing more like the century with each town and its own energy as it as it happened before the industrial age. The unwinding which i never heard in that complex stuck with me. Prices eloquent voice. Me was it said to something more about the teacher. It resonated in my sense about things that used to hold americans together. Structures, institutions, social ties have frayed, hav
Its not a policy book. It does not tell you the ten things wrong with america and how to fix them. Its more like a novel in nonfiction form and it has some poetry to it. Do you remember the day or the moment . It was in baghdad with my friend who was in with the new york times. We were looking at a couple of contractors out of a green zone, cafe after eating cheese burgers. He turned to me and said, you know, were just not that good anymore. And it really struck me, with full force. I knew exactly what he meant. I didnt know how or why our institutions kept failing there. Every Domestic Institution that we counted on were domestic banks, the auto manufacturers, seemed to be in a state of collapse. Then theres a big story of generationlong process of the corrosion of our institutions, the institutions that used to support the aspirations of ordinary people like dean price. It no longer works. People feel more and more alone. A big subject. It doesnt come all at once. It really began for