Beverly Gage takes us on a journey through the forgotten and lesser-known parts of American history. Engaging, humorous, and rigorously researched, this book is a modern classic and almost unputdownable. Highly recommended.

I received an ARC of this book from Simon & Schuster (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

I love history. Fun fact about me: before working in healthcare tech marketing, I spent several years as managing editor of American Spirit, the magazine of the Daughters of the American Revolution. That experience gave me a deep appreciation for understanding our nation’s past and how much it still shapes where we are today.

This book truly feels like a road trip through America’s story, and I loved that Gage doesn’t just hit the big, well-known sites. She also doesn’t shy away from hard topics—slavery, America’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, and the complex questions around monuments and “celebrating” people with very complicated legacies. I appreciated how thoughtfully and honestly those conversations were handled.

I read this one slowly because I was learning so much and actually wanted it to sink in. By the end, though, I kind of felt like I could absolutely crush an American history category on Jeopardy. 😅

Honestly, this book made me want to plan a historical road trip for fall break (apologies in advance to my 8-year-old, who will be deeply unimpressed). As we head toward America’s 250th birthday, this felt like a timely reminder that we can look honestly at our past—the highs and the lows—and still care deeply about where this country is headed.

🚙 Fun side note: Gage keeps referring to her “trusty Subaru,” but it breaks down two or three times on her travels… so this book may have quietly talked me out of ever buying one. 🚗😅

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As a history teacher, I’m always looking for fresh ways to engage with the past, and this book was an absolute delight. Rather than sticking to the usual landmarks, Beverly Gage highlights lesser-known museums and sites while still weaving in major moments from American history. It felt like taking a thoughtful, eye-opening road trip through the country—one that reminded me why I love teaching history in the first place. Informative, engaging, and inspiring, this is a great read for anyone who enjoys learning through travel and unexpected discoveries.

I have always been a history buff, and I especially love to read anything to do with American history. What I loved about this book was how Beverly Gage did not just go to all the old "tried and true" places from American history; she traveled off the beaten path to show us museums and historical sites that maybe one would not know about. Yet, in doing this, she also touched on many important events in American history. It was a road trip that I loved taking within the covers of a book! From the chapter where I learned about the Trail of Tears National Park to the one where I learned about the Phil Collins collection of Alamo memorabilia, this book was a fun road trip! I hope to use it for some of my next adventures, and I recommend many places to my daughter, who is doing a cross-country drive in a couple of weeks. And always remember, as Gage said, in the epilogue: "Plan ahead, but not too much....it's the wrong turns and unexpected places where you learn the most." The journey is what matters! Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This Land Is Your Land by Beverly Gage isa book we need right now. In this brief tome, Gage takes the reader through a few of America's historical highlights, some that don't often make the tour. With a the lens of the historian that Gage is, she enlightens the reader with engaging prose and deftly reminds the reader how important it is to know your history. Hence why in this time when Dear Leader Tr*mp and his cabal of ignorant racists are doing their best to eradicate history, knowing our history is more important than ever. I appreciated the hopeful tone of Gage's book. Thank you to #netgalley and #simonandshuster for the opportunity to preview this book.

The author takes the approach of touring certain National Parks/Monuments in chronological order beginning with the founding of our country. She is very forthright in discussing both the good, the conflicted and the bad that took place at each location. She is a firm believer in that we should not eliminate controversial items from public display as they reinforce how far we have come as a nation. Overall, a good read and I recommend it to history buffs.

I received a free arc of this book courtesy to Net Galley and the Publisher in exchange for a review. I also posted it to Goodreads and Amazon.

Part reflection, part investigation, This Land Is Your Land takes us on a journey through America’s pivotal moments. Each chapter is carefully crafted; Gage takes note of what happened, finds evidence to illustrate the history completely, and urges readers to reflect on what it means for the America of today and tomorrow. As an immigrant to this country, this piece helped me understand just how this country was founded. More than that, its impact on today and why my friends in college felt so strongly about certain names, events, and places.

As with the theme of this book, I am compelled now to embark on my own journey to witness history for myself. With the 250th anniversary of the States coming up, I find it more pressing than ever to be cognizant of how this country was built and consider how we’re going to keep innovating in the next 250 years. A must read for all Americans.

This book was a delight to read, it is not a heavy history book, but it is deeply informative. The title represents the book well. I really enjoyed how this book was organized! It focused on a particular area and period of time per chapter, but it so smoothly works its way chronologically through history from one chapter to the next, going from one part of the country to another seamlessly. She covers so many notable events and ones that you may not have studied or remembered. It was an easy narrative to read but still packed full of information. This is also a timely book, coming up to America's 250th anniversary, so it is a good reminder of where we have come, what has happened throughout our history, to better think about where we want to go. This book avoids politics (appropriately so, it's just about reporting what happened, you can form your own opinions), the end emphasizes the need for each of us to remember that "this is our land", this is the only land we have, we have to live together here, so how do we want to move forward? Overall it was a positive book, leaving you feel more knowledgeable and empowered and proud.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC; these opinions are my own.

"Lyndon Johnson once described American history as 'the excitement of becoming — always becoming, trying, probing, failing, resting, and trying again.'"

Even without knowing anything else, this cover pulled me in instantly. But before requesting this book, I did a little research to try and figure out what it would be. "A road trip through U.S. history," as the subtitle proclaims, but that can mean a lot of different things. I wasn't interested in reading and promoting a book that sanitized and glorified this country's past. Thankfully this book isn't that at all!

Gage sets out to visit important places in U.S. history to consider what that history is, how our understanding of the figures involved has changed over time, why or what from those moments and people should be remembered, and what the modern version of those sites look like. For example, she covers the complicated legacies of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison when they were held up as figures of freedom and staunch enslavers and examines how their museum level homes have evolved (or not) in their interpretation of those legacies. She looks at Henry Ford's complicated juxtaposition of progress and tradition and does the same for Walt Disney.

History as a road trip is a fascinating pitch in general, and Gage does an excellent job balancing that approach. She considers the ways modern sites both showcase and hide tragic treatment of minorities, focusing most on the history of Black and Native Americans and how parts of that history are remember differently. U.S. history is a complicated thing, full of moments that celebrate and wound all at once. This is a book that honors that and encourages Americans to do the same as we learn from the past to make a better future.

I really enjoyed this book! I really liked the familiar way that Beverly Gage wrote the book, it was kind of conversational, yet informative. She is a history professor irl, so this book is definitely an approachable way to inform readers about different historical events, people, and places across the country.
The road trip is less one long car trip and more several different smaller road trips through different regions in America across a couple years. I like that she visited some lesser known regions, like upstate New York - home of the women's rights movement (Seneca Falls) and up in Detroit/Dearborn, Michigan. I am from the general area, so the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village hold some memories for me. I really enjoyed reading her take on and the history of these attractions/sites that I grew up with.
I am impressed at Beverly Gage's undertaking while dealing with bumps along the way - like the fact that she was being treated for breast cancer through some of the research of this book!! I would have really liked to read about places she could have gone to if not for car trouble or sickness. This book seems like a labor of love and I really appreciate that. I love books that talk about lesser known American history and this was a fantastic example of that.
This book is already on some lists of "most looked forward to non fiction books of 2026" for good reason. That's how I found it! I am so glad I stumbled upon it. I learned a lot about this country, it's lesser known places and people that I live in that I have seen a woefully small amount of. This Land is Your Land is definitely a five star read for me!

This Land is Your Land by Beverly Gage is an engaging and informative journey through American history told as a road trip to museums, historic sites, and roadside attractions across the country. Gage blends travel narrative with thoughtful reflection on key moments that shaped the nation and how we remember them. Her writing is clear and insightful, making history feel alive and meaningful rather than distant or dry. It is a rich and compelling read for anyone curious about the places and stories that define the US.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this e-ARC.

Pulitzer Prize winning Beverley Gage provides a near "straight line" history of America via the winding roads of the USA! This engaging and accessible read begins with Washington's 1789 trip to visit all of the then United States. With a bit of shuffling back and for one the timeline, each chapter leads us forward in the documentation of the American experience while visiting some of America's more notable landmarks--such as Independence Hall, Mount Vernon, the Alamo and Mount Rushmore--along with other visits to upstate New York in the mid-19th century a hotbed of experimentally utopian communities, women's suffrage, abolition and civil rights or Detroit to see the rise and fall of the industrial age.

Set to be published just ahead of the semiquincentennial of the United States, the tome provides a more balanced, albeit brief, overview of American history as opposed to the mythology we have often learned in our school textbooks.

A ★ ★ ★ ★ recommendation!

Thank you History in Five/Simon & Schuster for my advanced eARC via NetGalley. These thoughts are my own:

Humans have always found ways to interpret history, and to argue about their interpretations. As it seems that more and more our built systems (social media, news media, political structures) feed into the false dichotomy of "veneration or damnation" of history and the people who lived and made it. This book is an attempt--and I would argue that it is a successful one--to really engage with and try to understand the layers and nuances of those who lived and experienced it here in the United States. This is part travelogue and part history lesson, as Gage gets out there and sees history as it's being interpreted by and for people in 13 different places in what is now the continental USA. She intentionally frames the beginning and end of her study around the nation's Semiquincentennial celebration in 2026, though I see her making an effort (again, successfully) to engage with other narratives that begin and end at different points--history doesn't happen in a vacuum. Each chapter is set in a place and time of significance to the historical narrative, and as we accompany her on her zig-zagging road trip different perspectives emerge and join in. I particularly appreciated that she made this a "regular person's" road trip: she only went to places and participated in tours and other experiences that anyone could access, rather than getting special behind-the-scenes author treatment. This made her road trip all the easier to participate in vicariously, because (like any good experiment) it is replicable. And that's what impressed me most about the book too: how approachable the narrative is. I don't need to be a historian (or even someone from the US) to understand and appreciate what she shares here. I just need to be a person, experiencing my own perspective of history as I live it in my normal life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It's well-written, informative, entertaining, and maintains a balance of examining important moments in United States history with the negative actions and challenges central to our history as well.

As author Beverly Gage notes, this book comes ahead of the 250th anniversary of the USA, and the myriad of complicated feelings various Americans feel about that.

In 13 chapters, Gage explores American history chronologically, recounting her travels to places like Philadelphia, the Deep South, Chicago, Detroit, and California. Topics explored include the American Revolution, slavery, Indigenous relations, labor history, and technological innovation, among other things.

Ultimately, I loved the ending of the book, where Gage encourages readers that the USA has been in big messes before, grown from them, learned and progressed. She affirms that notion of change and progress is intrinsically linked to American Ideals, even if some people fight against that.

You can love your country and still face its past; you can celebrate and condemn it.