The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened
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Narrated by:
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Eric Jason Martin
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By:
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Bill McKibben
About this listen
2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
"Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben's lifetime."-AudioFile on The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
Bill McKibben—award-winning author, activist, educator—is fiercely curious.
“I’m curious about what went so suddenly sour with American patriotism, American faith, and American prosperity.”
Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing—knowing—that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth.
But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril.
And he is curious: What the hell happened?
In this revelatory cri de coeur, McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth—The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon—could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Co.
©2022 Bill McKibben (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison. This sparkling little diamond of a book illuminates the all-American boyhood and education of a radical Christian environmentalist in love with a broken world that, frankly speaking, may or may not exist at all a century from now. May McKibben's golden pen continue to flow swiftly and conquer—with both love and reason—the dangerous enemies of human civilization.“
—Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-8)
“Plainspoken, direct, conversational, and inspiring, Bill McKibben offers us generous insight into who he is and how he has been shaped by his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs. We see through inner and outer choices, struggles, and influences, why one of the world's most effective and humble leaders in the climate justice movement committed himself to an activist's life on behalf of a warming planet. The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon is more than a memoir, it is a bow to the power of social justice movements and a smart and savvy historical reflection on what has brought us to this crucible moment of climate collapse. Bill McKibben is an every-day hero who continues to show us not only what is possible, but necessary to our survival, the survival of our democracy, and all life in the places we call home.“ —Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing
“What went wrong with America in the 1970s? In this searching book, Bill McKibben wrestles with a generation that lost its way, and why, and how to find the way back.”
—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
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Story
In 1948 most White people in the North had no idea how unjust and unequal daily life was for the 10 million African Americans living in the South. But that suddenly changed after Ray Sprigle, a famous White journalist from Pittsburgh, went undercover and lived as a Black man in the Jim Crow South. Escorted through the South's parallel Black society by John Wesley Dobbs, a historic Black civil rights pioneer from Atlanta, Sprigle met with sharecroppers, local Black leaders, and families of lynching victims.
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Review review
- By bill steigerwald on 12-13-20
By: Bill Steigerwald, and others
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Strangers in Their Own Land
- Anger and Mourning on the American Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country - a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets.
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Performance undercuts thesis
- By married, one tall dog, one smelly dog on 01-02-17
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After America
- Get Ready for Armageddon
- By: Mark Steyn
- Narrated by: Mark Steyn
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In his giant New York Times best seller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Mark Steyn predicted collapse for the rest of the Western World. Now, he adds, America has caught up with Europe on the great rush to self-destruction. What will a world without American leadership look like? It won’t be pretty—not for you and not for your children. America’s decline won’t be gradual, like an aging Europe sipping espresso at a café until extinction. No, America’s decline will be a wrenching affair marked by violence and possibly secession.
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Facts
- By Peter on 11-11-11
By: Mark Steyn
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Moyers on Democracy
- By: Bill Moyers
- Narrated by: Bill Moyers
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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People know Bill Moyers mostly from his many years of path-breaking journalism on television. But he is also one of America's most sought-after public speakers. His appearances draw sell-out crowds across the country and are among the most reproduced on the Web. Richly insightful, and alive with a fierce, abiding love for our country, Moyers on Democracy is essential listening.
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You can't help but think critically
- By Ida F. on 09-29-09
By: Bill Moyers
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Sundown Towns
- A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
- By: James Loewen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Sundown Towns examines thousands of all-white American towns that were - and still are, in some instances - racially exclusive by design.
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Honest Reportage on American Racial's Shame
- By Anonymous User on 12-26-08
By: James Loewen
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The Big Sort
- Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart
- By: Bill Bishop, Robert G. Cushing
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2004, journalist Bill Bishop coined the term "the big sort". Armed with startling new demographic data, he made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities - not by region or by state but by city and even neighborhood. Over the past three decades, we have been choosing the neighborhoods (and churches and news shows) compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs.
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Build the Wall?
- By Amazon Customer on 01-23-19
By: Bill Bishop, and others
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The Forgotten
- How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America
- By: Ben Bradlee
- Narrated by: Kiff Vandenheuvel
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee, Jr., reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.
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Wow
- By Walter on 11-05-18
By: Ben Bradlee
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Harlem
- The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America
- By: Jonathan Gill
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Harlem is perhaps the most famous, iconic neighborhood in the United States. A bastion of freedom and the capital of black America, Harlem's 20th-century renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever. But this is only one of the many chapters in a wonderfully rich and varied history. In Harlem, historian Jonathan Gill presents the first complete chronicle of this remarkable place.
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Very Interesting.
- By Joyce Mirowski on 06-05-20
By: Jonathan Gill
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We Gon' Be Alright
- Notes on Race and Resegregation
- By: Jeff Chang
- Narrated by: Jeff Chang
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang (Can't Stop Won't Stop, Who We Be) takes an incisive and wide-ranging look at the recent tragedies and widespread protests that have shaken the country. Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing, and distinguished cultural criticism, We Gon' Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington, DC, and more.
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a conversation that needs to happen
- By Angie B on 03-11-17
By: Jeff Chang
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The Future Is History
- How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Masha Gessen
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.
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The author is an international treasure
- By ThreeGems on 10-16-17
By: Masha Gessen
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The South Side
- A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation
- By: Natalie Y. Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago native Natalie Moore shines a light on contemporary segregation on the South Side of Chicago through reported essays, showing the lives of these communities through the stories of people who live in them. The South Side shows the important impact of Chicago's historic segregation and the ongoing policies that keep it that way.
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Eyeopening!
- By Ladybug on 09-07-16
By: Natalie Y. Moore
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Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right
- What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas
- By: Erica Grieder
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Texas may well be America’s most controversial state. Evangelicals dominate the halls of power, millions of its people live in poverty, and its death row is the busiest in the country. Skeptical outsiders have found much to be offended by in the state’s politics and attitude, and yet, according to journalist and Texan Erica Grieder, the United States has a great deal to learn from Texas. In Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right, Grieder traces the political history of a state that was always larger than life. From its rowdy beginnings, Texas has combined a long-standing suspicion of government intrusion with a passion for business.
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Loved this book!
- By ccarp on 06-04-14
By: Erica Grieder
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Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
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Reveals a Person Wise & Experienced & Literate
- By dbbks3 on 03-17-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
What listeners say about The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tara
- 12-14-23
A plea for community in an age of idealism.
As I prepared to retire after many decades of teaching, I remembered the many students that had shared the classroom with me and how almost all of them still believed in the “better angels of our nature” despite the rhetoric of hate and division that too many adults saw as good politics, I couldn’t help but feel that my generation had failed these young adults in some fundamental way,. However, while I recognized those failures, until I read this book, I didn’t realize that we had the opportunity to both help rekindle that idealism that once inspired us. Doing so would help pay our debt to future generations and reawaken the aspirations of our youth who chose to “dream of things that never were, and say why not.”
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- Mark Johnson
- 10-22-23
A constructive and educational look back on the reader’s life
And engagingly critical look at my times and what I might do about them in the ten or more years I hope to be given the grace to live.
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- M.Haberlen
- 10-22-23
Last chance for Baby Boomers!
McKibben has analyzed very ably, all the various strands running through recent US culture, strands, which have culminated in this moment of time, a time of crisis. He shows that many young people can no longer look optimistically into the future, as they are facing the disturbing reality of climate disaster, as well as racial and economic injustice around them. The author concludes that the generation which bears major responsibility for what has been happening politically up to this point, must now come to the rescue of the young, in order to effect last-minute, radical changes to save the future for their grandchildren: Baby Boomers, redeem yourselves, before it is too late!
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- Walter Bentley
- 02-25-23
A story for all to hear
This book was so well researched and well read. I enjoyed this book so much.Thank you Bill
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- Anonymous User
- 02-23-23
Hard to take - but many should read
I struggled through this book as the author recounts personal life experiences and relates them to historical events and episodes that have brought us to our present state of stark divisions, and dysfunction. It’s a recount of the processes we go through, and I’m reminded how humanity has evolved very little socially since Ancient Greece. The actor reading the audio version I listened to had a “Rod Serling” tone of eminent doom- which I didn’t like.
But still, I recommend reading this book. Unfortunately, those who might benefit most from the enlightenment it offers likely won’t read it.
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- Greg Marsello
- 06-30-22
Elders Take Notice
An inspiring and valuable resource that all elders should read ASAP. Full of relatable personal stories that baby boomers can learn from. A wake up call for a generation that must act for the future.
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- Charles H
- 07-27-22
The Flag, The Cross, and The Station Wagon
Excellent analysis of the major political themes in America over the author’s and my lifetime. Helpful and hopeful.
Thank you, Bill.
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- Tom
- 11-17-22
An Unreconstructed Liberal looks back
McKibben does a fine job of weaving together three of the major trends that led to American Society and perhaps Western Culture to edge of the cliff where it resides today.
In this sensitive memoir he mourns the passing of the Small Town Values that he grew up with in Lexington, Massachusetts. But it is not the mawkish account you might expect from a Right Wing Politician inventing a clarion call to “Bring back the Good Old Days”, Rather it asks important questions about how we got here to a place whose citizens worship Ignorance of the dangers of Climate Change, “Progress”, Growth at all costs, Malls, MegaChurches, and McMansions.
He points to Right-Turns the country took away from the Carter Seventies to the Reagan Eighties and some of the seminal speeches and political stances, particularly a SCOTUS Decision by Justice Lewis Powell that revolutionized changes in Big Business, Religion, and Politics motivations in a dangerous direction.
This last made a powerful impact on me. Every Baby Boomer should read this book.
Four Stars ****
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-16-23
Mind blowing
Do yourself a favor and open your mind up to rethinking the housing and climate issues by reading/listening to this book.
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- tess pechka
- 06-06-22
Heartbreakng
--------and FRUSTRATING. People are just ignoring this. Never mind grandchldren; our adult children will be horribly affected by this. I am old and have been working on this since the 70's. In the future, when our descendants read about our past two generations, when we KNEW what was coming, what will they feel? More importantly, how will they survive? i
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