Nation Into State

“Who’d have thought we could learn so much from the traces that American patriotism has left on the symbolic landscape? A fecund imagination, instinctive recognition of the crucial datum, apparently inexhaustable energy, the temerity to speculate when data run dry — all these attributes of Zelinsky’s work come together here to make for a fascinating and thought-provoking book.” — John Shelton Reed, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Zelinsky is one of the most intelligent, lively, far-ranging, provocative, and creative writers investigating the American scene over the past generation or so. His book is a fresh and worthy addition to a large but very uneven literature on an intrinsically important but intractable topic.” — Donald Meinig, Syracuse University