What do we learn when one great democracy looks at another? Alexis de Tocqueville's seminal Democracy in America answered the question 1800S. Today, India is the world's other great democracy, and maybe the answers are different.
Through stories large and small, this book shows us America as refracted through the eyes of an Indian who is critical but not intolerant, understanding but not starry-eyed. From gawking at wall murals by German World War II POWs in Texas to getting to know the bikers for Christ at the annual bike carnival in Sturgis, from charting the history of immigrant Icelanders to driving a fire truck in a quiet mountain town, D'Souza travels American roads, discovering old cultures and new concerns in one of the most revered and reviled nations in the world today.
More important, he explores the lessons in that process, for India and for readers everywhere, as he searches for meaning and nuance in ideas like patriotism and being liberal, in a country's sense of self.
