By host Tom Ashbrook:
In 1831, a young Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young United States, peered into its boisterous character, and wrote “Democracy in America,” the classic early yardstick of the country’s self-understanding.
In 2003 — on the far side of Franco-American meltdown and “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” — French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy was invited to repeat Tocqueville’s exercise.
Levy went to prisons and churches, Guantanamo and Las Vegas, a swingers club and the Iowa State Fair — and wrote “American Vertigo.” He calls it an honest song of praise but prairie home pundit Garrison Keillor hates it.
In the footsteps of Toqueville, Bernard-Henri Levy talks about “American Vertigo.”
Guests:
Bernard-Henri Levy, philosopher, journalist and author of “American Vertigo”
