Reizen zonder John

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The celebrated Dutch journalist follows John Steinbeck around America, 50 years on from the journey (in 1960) that became Travels With Charley . Steinbeck, great chronicler of the ordinary American working man, at 57 and with his great novels published, felt at odds with 'this monster of a land', and set out to reacquaint himself with his home country at a time of huge change and boundless opportunity. Mak, with a European's eye, follows his route, searching for what has changed and what remains of Steinbeck's world, half a century on. Mak is at once a sharp-eyed journalist and hugely imaginative historian - in a conversational, elegant style, he sets out to define America in the early twenty-first century, retelling the stories of ordinary people he meets - fisherman, farmers, teachers - as he did in In Europe .