Homeland

Homeland is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maharidge’s biggest and most ambitious book yet, weaving together the disparate and contradictory strands of contemporary American society–common decency alongside race rage, the range of dissenting voices, and the roots of discontent that defy political affiliation. Here are American families who can no longer pay their medical bills, who’ve lost high-wage-earning jobs to NAFTA. And here are white supremacists who claim common ground with progressives. Maharidge’s approach is rigorously historical, creating a tapestry of today as it is lived in America, a self-portrait that is shockingly different from what we’re used to seeing and yet which rings of truth.

Dale Maharidge is among the very few American journalists attempting to describe the full range of the American experience. Together with Michael Williamson, who’s produced several other important books about the other America, including their first book together,
Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, based on a three-year journey through homeless encampments from coast to coast, and The Last Great American Hobo. Journey to Nowhere inspired Bruce Springsteen to write two of the songs on his album The Ghost of Tom Joad, including Youngstown, based on a conversation between Maharidge and two former steelworkers, and New Timer.
And Their Children After Them won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990. Maharidge has been a visiting professor of journalism at Columbia University and Stanford. Maharidge was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1998. He now lives in Northern California.

Michael Williamson is a photographer for the Washington Post with numerous honors including the World Press Photo and Nikon World Understanding Through Photography awards.