At a time when America feels hopelessly divided, author and educator Grant Lichtman set out alone in a small RV, traveling for seven months and 20,000 miles on back roads from Native reservations and the farmlands of the Northern Prairie to ranchlands of the Southwest, Cajun parishes in Louisiana, border towns of the Rio Grande Valley, small towns in the Mississippi Delta, New England, the Rustbelt, Appalachia, the West Coast, and big city urban neighborhoods. He listened to people whose stories rarely reach the national stage: farmers, veterans, refugees, social workers, ranchers, small-town politicians, pastors, teachers, fisherfolk, artists, business leaders, and more.

The values, priorities, and themes that emerged were more unifying than dividing: Across the broad national spectrum of background, politics, and beliefs, Lichtman discovered a common longing for stronger community, meaningful human connection, honesty, hard work, mutual respect, and a renewed commitment to civility. When time-tested cultural knowledge and wisdom are at risk of being lost to sound-bite technologies, we are invited to not only witness our shared past, but learn from and preserve it.