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Amazon.com Review

Product Description

This is my America, from my heart, and by my heart. I give it now to my children and grandchildren, and to yours, so they will always know what it was like in America when people were free.

Since the publication of her bestselling memoir, Going Rogue, in 2009, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has traveled the country extensively. She has visited cities and towns in almost every state, dropped in on military bases, given talks and speeches to small groups and at massive rallies. Throughout her travels, she has been privileged to meet thousands of Americans—ordinary men and women who have shared with her their hopes and dreams, their love of country, and their fears about what lies ahead. Governor Palin, inspired by these encounters, celebrates in her new book the enduring strengths and virtues that have made this country a beacon of liberty and hope for the rest of the world.

America by Heart is a highly personal testament to her deep love of country, her strong roots in faith, and her profound appreciation of family. Ranging widely over American history, culture, and current affairs, Governor Palin reflects on the key values that have been such an essential part of her own life and that continue to inform her vision of America’s future. The book also includes brief readings from classic and contemporary texts that have moved and inspired her, as well as portraits of Americans, both famous and obscure, whom she admires.

Informed by Palin’s own principles and deepest feelings, graced with intimate memories, this remarkable book gives us a close-up view of an extraordinary woman who is not afraid to speak out and defend the American values in which she so deeply believes.

A Look Inside America by Heart
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(Photo © Shealah Craighead) After an interview near the Statue of Liberty
(Photo © Shealah Craighead)

(Photo © Shealah Craighead)

From

If Palin’s first book, Going Rogue (2009), was about settling scores, this one is designed, as the subtitle implies, to show a thoughtful Sarah, albeit one strident in her beliefs. Pulling quotes from a dizzying array of Americans (Lincoln, Helen Keller, John Adams, Harriet Tubman, and even silent Calvin Coolidge), Palin wants readers to know that the U.S. is still the greatest country on earth—or would be if we could just rid ourselves of politicians like Barack Obama who don’t believe in American exceptionalism. (To make her point, she quotes Dash in the movie The Incredibles: if everyone is special, no one is.) Obama comes in for his fair share of shots, which makes this seem like the opening salvo in the 2012 campaign, but in its entirety, it’s more about Palin’s observations on the culture wars, often with a political subtext. Throughout, she seems lacking in a useful kind of ammo: irony. She derides American Idol for promoting talentless kids (while her daughter, Bristol, hoofs past her shelf life on Dancing with the so-called Stars). She extols the way Mr. Smith Goes to Washington depicts a senatorial filibuster, yet her own party, during the Obama administration, has debased the filibuster to a point where the Senate now shuns debate and avoids legislating. She celebrates the fight for Alaskan statehood, though her husband was a member of a secessionist party. But if irony isn’t Palin’s strong suit, sticking to her guns is: virtually every anecdote or reflection connects somehow to the themes of love of family and/or country (or, to be more precise, Palin’s view of those virtues). This book won’t make any new fans for the former governor, but it probably won’t add to “the haters” (Bristol’s term for those who deride her dancing), either. Proponents will see her as the strong, savvy Mama Grizzly, and detractors will find her to be simplistic and, in the words she used to describe those American Idol no-talents, “self-esteem enhanced.” --Ilene Cooper