Today’s review is about THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND by Beverly Gage. It’s a nonfiction book about U.S. history in the format of a road trip across the country.
Author: Beverly Gage
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publish Date: April 7, 2026
Print Length: 352
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This Land Is Your Land Synopsis
Synopsis
Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage takes the ultimate road trip into the American past.
Ride along with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn—and fight—about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.
The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon—or live up to—those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history—to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it—in the places where it happened.
Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country. Toss the book in the back seat—or listen on audio with the windows down—and join the journey.
This Land Is Your Land Review
I received a free, digital, advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. My review is my own and reflects my honest opinion about this book.
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND by Beverly Gage takes a road trip through the USA to visit places where citizens, residents, and international visitors learn about American history. It follows the author as she visits various attractions across the country. The book is more or less arranged by state visited.
The book starts off strong with Gage stating that U.S. history is, essentially, not all rainbows and butterflies. She doesn’t shy away from showcasing what actually happened when taking into account history from Native Americans and enslaved people. I was interested in the format of visiting each tourist stop with the author. However, when I reached one third of the way into the book, I decided to not finish this advanced copy.
The first couple of chapters, which cover Virginia and Pennsylvania, are well written and mostly engaging. It’s also possible I thought as such since I live in Virginia and therefore the broad history is more familiar to me. However, the subsequent chapters about Texas and New York were quite dry, particularly that of Texas. New York focuses some on some figures central to women’s suffrage, but even then it felt like that point wasn’t driven home very directly. The only reason I sort of followed that historical storyline was because I’d been through that area several years ago.
Since the synopsis and opening chapter emphasize the road trip nature of this book, I expected it to be more approachable. As someone who has never gravitated toward reading history, I need something written in a more narrative and engaging style to stay invested. I thought I would get that since a roadtrip sounds fairly informal. Unfortunately, it quickly got too dry for me. This isn’t a bad book, but it didn’t hold my interest. I think someone who regularly reads history might be able to get more into THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND than I could.
Rating: N/A
Content warnings: N/A
Reading format: Kindle e-book
If you liked this book, you might enjoy Mailman by Stephen Grant.
This really sounded like fun, but “dry” is not a word I want to hear when we’re talking about history. Sorry this didn’t work out!
Same! I’m disappointed that it came off as too dry for me. It’d probably work well for a regular history buff, though!
That’s disappointing. I was intrigued by this but I definitely don’t want a dry tone in a book that sounds as though it should be fairly informal.
I know, I’m disappointed, too! I was hoping for something more engaging, like the narrative style of Killers of the Flower Moon or something. That’s unfortunately one of the only ways I can get into historical nonfiction.
I think non fiction needs to be engaging unless it’s a more scholarly work. Otherwise why would anyone read it?
I saw this cover quite a bit over the past couple of months but never looked at any reviews. Too bad this wound up being dry! What a shame since, like you said, with the roadtrip background it sounds like it could’ve been more fun.
Yea, the synopsis really leaned into the road trip framing, but 2 of the 4 chapters I read were a bit of a drag for me, personally.
Too bad! It sounds like it could have been really interesting, but from what you’ve said, I think the writing style wouldn’t work for me either.