You all know Brian Kahn as the voice of public radio’s Home Ground, the award-winning interview program. It’s an awesome show, and one of its stated goals is to “emphasize shared values – the often-overlooked ‘common ground’ of diverse community interests.” In Rediscovering America: A 21st-Century Journey, we join Brian on a marathon trip across America in search of what sometimes separates--and ultimately connects -- us all.
Brian writes with a powerful and passionate voice. Because of that, and our deep admiration for his previous book, Real Common Sense, Drumlummon leapt at the opportunity to publish Rediscovering America: A 21st-Century Journey. At a time where we face very serious choices, this book provides intimate and penetrating look who where we are as a people and country. And Brian tells the story masterfully.
The book’s origin is noteworthy: During a trip to Moscow Brian was invited to accompany the Russian TV journalist Vladimir Pozner and an 11-person Russian film crew on a 50-day round-trip drive across the United States, following the path two Soviet journalists took during the Great Depression. As with the initial journey, the new adventure aimed to show the Russian audience what America and Americans were really like. Brian was asked by Pozner to serve as the American co-host, helping to select and interview people they encountered.
As it turned out, one of the people who learned the most about America was Brian himself.
Rediscovering America: A 21st-Century Journey is the intimate, appalling, inspiring travelogue of that trip, a fascinating record of the landscape and people encountered, a diverse and enlightening spectrum of the American people who compose the living fabric of our country. Kahn’s book is a poignant, deeply felt, and often surprising saga that reveals true humanity at every stop along the way, both the beauty and brutality of our nation’s life. This is a book you’ll have trouble putting down, and the kind you’ll be thinking about for some time.
Drumlummon Institute is proud to bring Brian’s story to a wide reading audience. Come along on the journey, and join Brian Kahn as he rediscovers what America is all about.
About the Author:
Brian Kahn’s background includes work as U.C. Berkeley boxing coach, President of the California Fish and Game Commission, Director of the Montana Nature Conservancy, documentary filmmaker. An attorney, journalist and author, since 1996 he has hosted award-winning Home Ground Radio, aired on 30+ public and private radio stations in the Rocky Mountain West. He is winner of the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.
In 1986 Kahn wrote and produced the documentary film, “A THOUSAND CRANES”, depicting Soviet-American efforts to save the Siberian crane from extinction. A parable about the threat of nuclear war to human survival, and narrated by Joanne Woodward, the film won significant awards, was televised internationally, and screened at the Smithsonian Institution and United Nations.
He is author/collaborator of five books, including. PARTING WITH ILLUSIONS, by Vladimir Pozner (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990)--10 weeks on the NYT bestseller list. REAL COMMON SENSE: Using Our Founding Values to Reclaim Our Nation (Seven Stories Press N.Y.) Brian provided typing and legal services for Labrador retriever Tess of Helena for her ground-breaking TRAINING PEOPLE: How to Bring out the Best in Your Human (Chronicle Books, S.F.) The book has been highly praised by dogs, and severely criticized by cats. Rediscovering America –A 21st Century Journey, is scheduled for U.S. publication September 2019.
