In Pennsylvania, the "back to the city" movement causes a conflict of cultures. In Indiana, an old tradition of butchering turtles for church picnics evokes both pride and loathing among residents. In New York, folk-art exhibits raise choruses of adoration and protest. America stocks its shelves with mass-produced goods but fills its imagination with handmade folk objects. These are a few of the examples Simon Bronner uses to illustrate the ways Americans...