The premise of the book was very good. The author examined several statistical indexes across a range of topics to measure the perceived divide between rural and urban America. She followed up by interviewing several people from all over the country. She found that the differences are not as great as media pundits and politicians make out. Honest, open discussions between people would do a great deal to help people realize that we have more in common than we might think otherwise.

While she stated several times that her job was to listen and record rather than judge, her tone was a bit condescending from the beginning and got worse as the book continued. I think she tried to be open, but couldn't keep the superiority out of her narrative. I finally had to stop reading about 250 pages. ( )