'American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,' by Bernard-Henri Lévy - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,' by Bernard-Henri Lévy - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Any American with a big urge to write a book explaining France to the French should read this book first, to get a sense of the hazards involved. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French writer with a spatter-paint prose style and the grandiosity of a college sophomore; he rambled around this country at the behest of The Atlantic Monthly and now has worked up his notes into a sort of book. It is the classic Freaks, Fatties, Fanatics & Faux Culture Excursion beloved of European journalists for the past 50 years, with stops at Las Vegas to visit a lap-dancing club and a brothel; Beverly Hills; Dealey Plaza in Dallas; Bourbon Street in New Orleans; Graceland; a gun show in Fort Worth; a 'partner-swapping club' in San Francisco with a drag queen with mammoth silicone breasts; the Iowa State Fair ('a festival of American kitsch'); Sun City ('gilded apartheid for the old');a stock car race; the Mall of America; Mount Rushmore; a couple of evangelical megachurches; the Mormons of Salt Lake; some Amish; the 2004 national political conventions; Alcatraz - you get the idea."