Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America
by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel
Gotham | October 2011 | ISBN-10: 159240670X | ePUB/PDF | 336 pages | 11/24 mb 
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Patchwork-Nation-Surprising-America/dp/159240670X
PDF conversion is mine.


The astounding diversity among the 300 million citizens of the U.S. defies easy labels of red and blue states, Republicans or Democrats. Journalist Chinni and scholar Gimpel draw on two years of research and interviews to offer regional portraits of the U.S. that drill down to a deeper look at political, social, economic, and cultural perspectives than the red and blue labels. Using data from the nation’s 3,141 counties to get a flavor of local perspectives, they looked at typical demographics of race, education, income, religion, and politics and identified 12 different community types based on “common experiences and shared realities.” Their categories: boomtowns, campus and careers, emptying nests, Evangelical epicenters, immigration nation, industrial metropolis, military bastions, minority central, monied burbs, Mormon outposts, service-worker centers, and tractor country. The first part of the book examines the characteristics of each type of county, while the second compares the types and how their characteristics drive economics, politics, and culture. The authors’ data is almost as fascinating as their conversations with people living within the defined regions.

About the Author
Dante Chinni is the director of the Patchwork Nation project, a Knight Foundation-funded journalism collaboration that studies politics, socio-economics and culture in a time of change. Chinni's first book "Our Patchwork Nation" from Gotham, an imprint of Penguin, was published October 1, 2010.
Based in Washington, D.C., Chinni has been covering politics and the media for more than a decade. He has worked as senior associate at the Project for Excellence in Journalism and has written for publications including The Economist, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Washington Post Magazine. A native of Detroit and a graduate of Michigan State University, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Christina, and their two children.