May 10, 2018
Some feel these are the worst of times, that we’re living in an
America fraught with political discord and governmental
dysfunction. But how bad is it in American towns? Writers James and
Deborah Fallows traveled 100,000 miles across the country to find
out. Using a single-engine prop airplane, the husband-wife team
visited dozens of towns from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to
Allentown, Pennsylvania. They interviewed civic leaders,
immigrants, educators, artists and more, turning their interviews
into a book, “Our Towns,” released this week by Pantheon Books.
James Fallows joins Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang in this episode to
discuss the book and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
James Fallows has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic
for more than 35 years, reporting from China, Japan, Southeast
Asia, Europe and across the United States. He is the author of
eleven previous books. His work also has appeared in many other
magazines and as public-radio commentaries since the 1980s. He has
won a National Book Award and a National Magazine Award. For two
years, he was President Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter. Deborah
Fallows is a linguist and writer who holds a Ph.D. in theoretical
linguistics and is the author of two previous books. She has
written for The Atlantic, National Geographic, Slate, The New York
Times and The Washington Monthly, and has worked at the Pew
Research Center, Oxygen Media and Georgetown University. She and
her husband have two sons and four grandchildren.