Ocean State Libraries

"This is not the republic of my imagination," Charles Dickens noted ruefully of his 1842 visit to the United States. His American Notes forms a stinging reproof of the country's embrace of slavery, its corrupt press and woeful sanitary conditions, and its citizens' offensive manners. Written with the author's customary observational powers and incisive wit, this volume offers a fascinating glimpse of 19th-century America. Dickens was not entirely...

"Presents a fiftieth anniversary edition of journalist John Gunther's account of what he learned traveling throughout the United States in the 1940s about the country's people, places, politics, and ideals."--

A Japanese American man recounts his grandfather's journey to America which he later also undertakes, and the feelings of being torn by a love for two different countries.

Ever since October 1967, when he set off in a battered motor home to explore America and talk to its people, Charles Kuralt has been one of our premier chroniclers -- a man who has helped us see and celebrate our country in a way we never had before. After retiring from CBS News in 1994, he set out to spend a perfect year in America -- traveling to his twelve favorite American places, in just the right month for a visit to each. With his well-known...

An emigrant French aristocrat-turned-farmer, Jean de Crèvecoeur was granted New York citizenship in 1765 and became a landowner in Orange County. There, he wrote about his farming experiences and interpreted the nation's development in a series of charming and keenly observant essay-length letters about life in the Early Republic. A Baedeker of American culture for Old World readers, the book painted a vivid portrait of the young country, not only...

A tour of key historic sites in America where incidents of political violence have occurred reveals lesser-known points of interest pertaining to each and shares information about how history has been shaped by popular culture and tourism.

An enduring portrait of America's virtues and vices as seen by one of England's greatest thinkers. After losing his brother in the Great War, a troubled and depressed G. K. Chesterton accepts an invitation to join a lecture tour that will take him across the United States for the first time. Part travelogue, part exploration of the American experiment, What I Saw in America begins with a man of letters trying to reconcile his faith with the atrocities...

Master bread baker Peter Reinhart follows the origins of pizza from Italy to the States, capturing the stories behind the greatest artisanal pizzas of the Old World and the New.
Beginning his journey in Genoa, Reinhart scours the countryside in search of the fabled focaccia col formaggio. He next heads to Rome to sample the famed seven-foot-long pizza al taglio, and then to Naples for the archetypal pizza napoletana....

“An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” —Los Angeles Times
From the award-winning author of Orwell's Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown
Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships...