What do you think?
National Geographic America the Beautiful
99 pages, Paperback
Published June 12, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
July 1, 2026
I had to wonder if some of this was written or edited by AI or if it's just that actual people are now writing in the same style as the AI because that's what they're reading and it's creating an infinite feedback loop. (I've certainly seen some cases of student writing that have been written by them and yet sounded like the AI paint by numbers writing style.) At any rate there were quite a few sentences here that showed the pattern and just felt a little hinky to me but I'll leave it at that.
The pictures are colorful and gorgeous so that's the real selling point here. So they didn't screw that up. The US is divided into 4 regions...well actually it's more like 8 regions that are coupled into pairs: (Midwest & Central Plains, West & Pacific, South & Caribbean, Northeast & Mid-Atlantic)
Each region gets an introductory essay that cites its virtues and what makes them so essential to the fabric of "America" then each state (and several territories, so good on them for really including everywhere that is part of the US) gets a couple of paragraphs, a photo, and an info box that includes their state nickname (e.g. "Nebraska: The Cornhusker State") which makes the whole thing feel like the roll call vote at a political party convention, the state capital, and then 2 other aspects of the state.
That last bit is where the OCD among us might feel a little miffed because what gets included in the 2 smorgasbord of choices is not uniform in any way so from one state we get the state bird and the motto and from another we get their state sandwich and state snack.
This leaves the question open as to what the similar things are from the other states. Does every state have an official state sock? I want to know.
It's 96 pages so I understand the reason for this selective doling out of information but it is frustrating given all the visual white space on the pages.
The title of the publication is "America the Beautiful" so don't expect serious historical critiques or nuances here. This is mostly a celebration of cool things.
This publication is also a perfect epitome of centrism because when it does try to introduce any nuance it does so in a way that is sure to alienate both the recalcitrant retrogrades (yeah, I said it and I'm not taking it back) who will be offended that it includes any hint of criticism of the past and it surely alienate those who value truth, honesty and a reckoning with the past and the present.
For instance here's part of the intro to the Midwest and Plains:
"The region is shaped by the indigenous peoples who first inhabited these lands, including the Blackfeet, Shawnee, Crow, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. However, these people were later displaced to reservations by European settlers who offered items such as metal-tipped arrows, metal tools, pots, pans, and cotton and wool cloth."
Oh, boy, there's so much wrong in that pair of sentences. "Displaced" is really doing some heavy lifting to describe what happened in the Midwest and Plains which by all accounts was the systematic destruction of whole groups of people. There's another word for that, isn't there?
But maybe more offensive than the mealy "displaced" is the insertion of the verb "offered" to the second part of the sentence. The indigenous get the passive voice: they were displaced. The settlers get the active voice: They offered... Makes it sound like something of an honest transaction. The indigenous "are displaced" and the "settlers offer" them a bounty of things. There are further examples of this kind of, er, literal whitewashing throughout the text.
It's useful to read these watered down versions to see just what is being presented to audiences and what will influence them. I know the point of this book is to present a generally positive picture which proclaims that even if things are difficult things are good because we're essentially good.
Also, check out the official state sandwich of Nebraska and the state snack of Ohio.
In the spirit of that I'll leave this on a funny note because the author/s clearly didn't do a deep proofcheck/factcheck on their research because they say that the famous Cadillac Ranch with the half-buried cars that people are encouraged to do art on is located on Frontage Road as if that is a proper name and not THE frontage road of the highway.
The pictures are colorful and gorgeous so that's the real selling point here. So they didn't screw that up. The US is divided into 4 regions...well actually it's more like 8 regions that are coupled into pairs: (Midwest & Central Plains, West & Pacific, South & Caribbean, Northeast & Mid-Atlantic)
Each region gets an introductory essay that cites its virtues and what makes them so essential to the fabric of "America" then each state (and several territories, so good on them for really including everywhere that is part of the US) gets a couple of paragraphs, a photo, and an info box that includes their state nickname (e.g. "Nebraska: The Cornhusker State") which makes the whole thing feel like the roll call vote at a political party convention, the state capital, and then 2 other aspects of the state.
That last bit is where the OCD among us might feel a little miffed because what gets included in the 2 smorgasbord of choices is not uniform in any way so from one state we get the state bird and the motto and from another we get their state sandwich and state snack.
This leaves the question open as to what the similar things are from the other states. Does every state have an official state sock? I want to know.
It's 96 pages so I understand the reason for this selective doling out of information but it is frustrating given all the visual white space on the pages.
The title of the publication is "America the Beautiful" so don't expect serious historical critiques or nuances here. This is mostly a celebration of cool things.
This publication is also a perfect epitome of centrism because when it does try to introduce any nuance it does so in a way that is sure to alienate both the recalcitrant retrogrades (yeah, I said it and I'm not taking it back) who will be offended that it includes any hint of criticism of the past and it surely alienate those who value truth, honesty and a reckoning with the past and the present.
For instance here's part of the intro to the Midwest and Plains:
"The region is shaped by the indigenous peoples who first inhabited these lands, including the Blackfeet, Shawnee, Crow, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. However, these people were later displaced to reservations by European settlers who offered items such as metal-tipped arrows, metal tools, pots, pans, and cotton and wool cloth."
Oh, boy, there's so much wrong in that pair of sentences. "Displaced" is really doing some heavy lifting to describe what happened in the Midwest and Plains which by all accounts was the systematic destruction of whole groups of people. There's another word for that, isn't there?
But maybe more offensive than the mealy "displaced" is the insertion of the verb "offered" to the second part of the sentence. The indigenous get the passive voice: they were displaced. The settlers get the active voice: They offered... Makes it sound like something of an honest transaction. The indigenous "are displaced" and the "settlers offer" them a bounty of things. There are further examples of this kind of, er, literal whitewashing throughout the text.
It's useful to read these watered down versions to see just what is being presented to audiences and what will influence them. I know the point of this book is to present a generally positive picture which proclaims that even if things are difficult things are good because we're essentially good.
Also, check out the official state sandwich of Nebraska and the state snack of Ohio.
In the spirit of that I'll leave this on a funny note because the author/s clearly didn't do a deep proofcheck/factcheck on their research because they say that the famous Cadillac Ranch with the half-buried cars that people are encouraged to do art on is located on Frontage Road as if that is a proper name and not THE frontage road of the highway.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review