America Again

America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t

By Stephen Colbert

3 Out of 5 covers

I greatly enjoy Stephen Colbert as a satirist.  The multi-level commentary on American society and politics on The Colbert Report helps keep me informed. And his first book, I Am American (and So Can You), was a excellent exploration and indictment of American culture.  This volume does not live up to those expectations. 

Each chapter takes a look at something that is considered wrong or broken in our country, ranging from jobs to elections to food.  But there is something tired about the satire this time, whether it be that these topics have been regularly dealt with on his own show or that sometimes the comedy never rises above pointing a finger and saying “how silly is that!”

I think one of the issues is the topicality.  By the time this book was published, several of these topics had been discusses ad nauseum on all sorts of news channels so that there was nothing fresh to be said.  And some of the topics were nearing the end of their cycle of topicality. 

At least it moves fairly quickly through every topic so that if I did get bored or disagree, I just had to wait a few paragraphs for a new topic.  With all the pictures and graphs included, this all made it like a text version of Colbert’s show.  Which can be considered a good and bad thing, depending on your tolerance for that sort of display.  But in the end it reads like an average episode rather than using the full satirical license to explore the topics.