Have a Nice Day: How I Stopped Sneering and Learned to Love America

This title is about the real America: a nation more misunderstood than any other on Earth. It is a counter-blast to the lazy anti-Americanism that infects European thinking, an effort to answer the simple question, 'why is America so successful?'.

Justin Webb is the BBC's North American Editor and an occasional presenter of the Today Programme on UK radio. He has spent the last six years shaping and leading the BBC's coverage of the US and its neighbours. His previous career included stints as a roving foreign correspondent during which he reported from the first Gulf War, the war in Bosnia, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first democratic elections in South Africa, and even a coup in the Maldives. He lives in Washington DC with his family.

Forget everything you think you know about the USA. Forget George Bush. Put to one side the Iraq war. Avert your eyes from the overweight inhabitants of Kansas. This book is about the real USA: a nation more misunderstood than any other on earth. It is a counter-blast to the lazy anti-Americanism that infects European thinking, an effort to answer the simple question, 'why is America so successful?' without sneering at that success or claiming that it is illegitimate or unreal. Have a Nice Day does not shy away from the guns, racial divisions, and crazy preachers. But it puts the rough edges of American life in context, geographical and intellectual. With the election of a new president this year, America is making its next big move; at exactly the right time, this book claims, for the world to take a new look at the essence of America, at why Americans think as they do, and why they might just be right.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.