The View from Flyover Country

Dispatches from the Forgotten America

By: Sarah Kendzior

Narrated by: Sarah Kendzior

NEW YORK TIMES and MIBA BESTSELLER

From the St. Louis–based journalist often credited with first predicting Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

"A collection of sharp-edged, humanistic pieces about the American heartland...Passionate pieces that repeatedly assail the inability of many to empathize and to humanize." — Kirkus

In 2015, Sarah Kendzior collected the essays she reported for Al Jazeera and published them as The View from Flyover Country, which became an ebook bestseller and garnered praise from readers around the world. Now, The View from Flyover Country is being released in print with an updated introduction and epilogue that reflect on the ways that the Trump presidency was the certain result of the realities first captured in Kendzior’s essays.

A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in America’s overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, race relations, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary reading for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion.

“Please put everything aside and try to get ahold of Sarah Kendzior’s collected essays, The View from Flyover Country. I have rarely come across writing that is as urgent and beautifully expressed. What makes Kendzior’s writing so truly important is [that] it . . . documents where the problem lies, by somebody who lives there.”—The Wire

“Sarah Kendzior is as harsh and tenacious a critic of the Trump administration as you’ll find. She isn’t some new kid on the political block or a controversy machine. . . .Rather she is a widely published journalist and anthropologist who has spent much of her life studying authoritarianism.” —Columbia Tribune

©2018 Sarah Kendzior (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

An NPR Best Book of the Year 2018

"Not a screed, this is a thoughtfully researched commentary, and Kendzior's narration matches that spirit." —AudioFile

"Both prescient and honest...seeing the roots of the arguments that now dominate cable news is both fascinating and a little bit haunting in retrospect." —NPR

“Kendzior’s writing, while often concise and clever like this, is just as often backed by statistics, attributions or an illustrative profile…Though her message is alarming, it is softened with compassion.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Stark and necessary

I came by Kendzior's work via her Twitter and have been shaken by how prescient her assessments and predictions of the current US political machinations were. Her career as an academic studying authoritarian and autocratic regimes has given her a unique perspective on what's occurring daily.

I'd wished for some time that this book be available on audio and was not disappointed. Thoughtful and eloquent, it reads almost as an autopsy on the American socioeconomic realities that led to our current condition. A must read, in my opinion.

Searing

The cataracts fall from our eyes. Sarah’s description of our country’s economic landscape is so vivid one can’t help but see where we have arrived and who we have become

An impactful curation of poetic, insightful essays

Kendzior's articles and essays are each excellent on their own, but their curation and combination in this book combines her body of public writings into a coherent thesis on the neglected economic pressures that ultimately shape the lives of modern Americans, particularly those who do not live in elite coastal cities. As inspiring as it is eye-opening, this is a genuinely enriching book, even this many years after the writing's initial publication.

Excellent primer on how we got here.

If you, like me, are struggling to understand how the United States ended up electing an unfit authoritarian to the highest office in the land, Sarah Kendzior's book is an excellent resource. Sarah is an expert on authoritarian regimes, and has witnessed first hand the erosion of the social compact in the Midwest. It's the perfect combination to give her deep insight into current US socioeconomics.

Clarity

Sarah Kendzior has a way off penetrating the noise and the fog of our time to lay out just what was going on in the United States a half decade after the Financial Crisis. For me, it was a reflection of what was also happening in my surroundings and to my brother and to my mother. Everybody should read all her stuff.

Very Well Written

This book should be required in high school and college. It’s very informative and well written. I highly recommend it.

Great Observations!

While I enjoyed this book, and empathized with the author, I believe she should have had someone else narrate. I feel there should have been more emotion in the narration. I understood anger, angst, frustration, and despair, but I didn't feel as a more emotive narrator could have presented.

Excellent

I made my daughter read this book before she left for college so she could know about the pot holes in the road leading to success.

It’s priceless.

A Cassandra the people have heard

Kendzior put her finger on the pulse of our nation years ago, diagnosing us with ailments many of us did not see and did not wish to see. Her observations are even more pressing now. I enjoyed the more episodic format her essays gave because it feels like she is reporting on the ground in our America of today when she might have written the words seven years ago. I'm glad she has not abandoned her writing and speaking in recent years.

View from flyover country

Sarah Kendzior is brilliant as always. This is a collection of essays, so be prepared for it to read as such. She will keep you thinking and provide you with new insight and knowledge