Creative Action Network

What Really Makes America Great from the Creative Action Network is an eye-opening collection of posters around the these of what really makes America great.

Perhaps the greatest strength of this volume is the variety of both styles and responses. The responses, thematically, could be from people almost all across the social and political spectrum. From progressive ideas to things as straightforward as farming. In other words, these things that have made America great long before a nameless naysayer claimed America wasn't great work as a rich tapestry, not as a bunch of isolated threads. Taken together we have a strong diverse country that is, or at least strives to be, great. It is when these are separated out then set against one another that there is a breakdown, as in the current illegitimate regime.

Unless the idea of some people focusing on different strengths than what you focus on bothers you, I would recommend this to everyone. If you think only what you believe makes America great is what matters, well, you'll enjoy this as much as you enjoy watching different people enjoying life, you won't.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mere)

This book kind of snuck up on me. At first I thought it was just one more high level overview of various National Parks. But the more I read the more I became smitten with the wonderful posters created to commemorate the "See America" campaign by the Work Projects Administration of the 1920s. This is actually a wonderful modern collaboration between the National Parks Conservation Association and a group of artists assembled by the Creative Action Network. I would be proud to hang many of these posters on my walls. I think I will have to add a few of these sites to my bucket list. Highly recommended for all lovers of the outdoors and anyone who is skeptical of the power of the arts to inspire.… (mere)