Dispatches D1: In America

In America explores the US from the inside out and the outside in. Author Paul Theroux frames the subject with an essay: "Mind Blindness and the Decline of Hitchhiking." In "Of Turbans and Neckties," fabled New York Times correspondent John Kifner shows how Americans ignore history to their peril. Muzamil Jaleel, a wry and wise Kashmiri reporter, tours the country as a Sufi Muslim with questions to ask. Samantha Powers offers thoughts on American exemptionism. Antonin Kratochvil takes his critical eye from coast to coast, "In God's Country." And Gerald Scarfe, noted London Sunday Times political cartoonist for 40 years, contributes this issue's cartoon.