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A Search for the American Character
Crown
May 2012
On Sale: May 15, 2012
288 pages
ISBN: 0307393755
EAN: 9780307393753
Kindle: B006E511ZI
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
WHAT IS IT THAT DRIVES THE SUCCESS OF AMERICA AND THE
IDENTITY OF ITS PEOPLE? ACCLAIMED WRITER AND CONTRIBUTING
EDITOR TO THIS AMERICAN LIFE JACK HITT THINKS IT’S BECAUSE
WE’RE ALL A BUNCH OF AMATEURS. America’s self-invented tinkerers are back at it in their
metaphorical garages—fiddling with everything from
solar-powered cars to space elevators. In Bunch of Amateurs,
Jack Hitt visits a number of different garages and has
written a fascinating book that looks at America’s current
batch of amateurs and their pursuits. From a tattooed young
woman in the Bay Area trying to splice a fish’s
glow-in-the-dark gene into common yogurt (all done in her
kitchen using salad spinners)
to a space fanatic on the brink of developing the next
generation of telescopes from his mobile home, Hitt not only
tells the stories of people in the grip of a passion but
argues that America’s history is bound up in a cycle of
amateur surges. Beginning with Ben Franklin’s kite and leading all the way
to the current TV hit American Idol, Hitt argues that the
nation’s
love of self-invented obsessives has always driven the
country to rediscover the true heart of the American dream.
Amateur pursuits are typically lamented as a world that just
passed until a Sergey Brin or Mark Zuckerberg steps out of
his garage (or dorm room) with the rare but crucial success
story. In Bunch of Amateurs, Hitt argues that America is now
poised to pioneer at another frontier that will lead, one
more time, to the newest version of the American dream.
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