Leaving America

"Leaving America is an important reexamination of one of the most central stories in the history of American culture-the story of the immigrant coming to the Promised Land. While millions still come to American and millions more still wish to do so, there is an important counterflow of emigration from America to distant parts of the planet. This book focuses on modern American expatriates as a significant, and heretofore largely ignored, counterpoint phenomenon every bit as central to understanding modern America as is the image of a nation of immigrants. The greatest irony in America today may well be that while argument and discord prevail in the edifice of American democracy about diversity, economic justice, equality, and the Iraq War, many of the most thoughtful citizens have already left the building."--Jacket.