Look Homeward, America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-porch AnarchistsIn Look Homeward, America, Bill Kauffman introduces us to the reactionary radicals, front-porch anarchists, and traditionalist rebels who give American culture and politics its pith, vim, and life. Blending history, memoir, digressive literariness, and polemic, Kauffman provides fresh portaiture of such American originals as Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, regionalist painter Grant Wood, farmer-writer Wendell Berry, publisher Henry Regnery, maverick U.S. senators Eugene McCarthy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and other Americans who can't--or shouldn't--be filed away in the usual boxes labeled "liberal" and "conservative." Ranging from Millard Fillmore to Easy Rider, from Robert Frost to Mother Jones, Kauffman limns an alternative America that draws its breath from local cultures, traditional liberties, small-scale institutions, and neighborliness. There is an America left that is worth saving: these are its paragons, its poets, its pantheon. |
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agrarian American artist asked become believe Berry better Bill called Carolyn Catholic Worker Church Chute City conservative critics culture dead death Debs Democratic Dorothy Day dream Empire Eugene fact farm father Federal Fillmore football Frank give hands hell Henry House human independent Iowa John Jones kill land later learned least liberals liberty live look Maine March McCarthy means mind Mother movement Moynihan never once organized Party patriot peace perhaps play poet political president Quaker radical reactionary reason regional Republican Robert rural Senate Smith social stand tell thing thought tion told town turn United vote Warsaw Washington women Wood writes wrote York young