This is a big, illustrated book full of lengthy essays on a variety of topics, all pertaining to life in America.

From the Publisher:
In this essential new volume, Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, the bestselling authors of The Century, take readers on a journey through the United States, and into the great themes of American identity. In Search of America explores the most controversial and liveliest debates of the day, and then moves back in time to the earliest days of the countrys founding, to answer this central question: How have the ideals and principles on which the United States was founded served us—have they withstood the inexorable march of time?

In Search of America explores the basic ideals that drive and define the American character. Exquisitely designed, lavishly illustrated with photographs, and peppered with fascinating side trips, the volume offers a superb blend of eyewitness reporting informed by history. From the classrooms and courtrooms of Aiken, South Carolina, where evolution versus creationism is still being debated, to Salt Lake City, Utah, which exemplifies the new American frontier, the book ultimately demonstrates that though the principles of this great nation have at times been shaken, molded, adapted, and assaulted, remarkably, they endure.