The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the
waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat,
producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel
writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial
caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people
who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting
coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in
Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from
America's capitals ot power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for
its lost past. Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory
is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.