14 h 19 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the journey that changes how you see your country begins without crossing an ocean?
In Abroad at Home, Julian Street turns a travel writer’s eye on the United States. The New York journalist takes to the road by motor car with artist Wallace Morgan. Big cities, small towns and the land between become an invitation to look at familiar places like a stranger.
This is America in the early motoring age, when uneven roads and long distances make a cross-country journey uncertain. Street approaches Chicago, New Orleans and other cities as personalities, each with its own pride, habits and blind spots. His curiosity and wry humor keep the journey open to surprise.
What you’ll discover
- Fresh eyes on home Follow Street’s invitation to seek the interest nearby rather than assume adventure lies overseas.
- The uncertain open road Discover a country where travel by motor car takes planning over long distances and uneven roads.
- Cities with distinct personalities Explore Chicago and New Orleans through their local pride, habits and revealing blind spots.
- A light, wry companion Enjoy a journalist’s quick humor and willingness to be surprised by his own neighbors.
- Then beside now Consider early twentieth-century America through one Northeastern writer’s eyes, with room for your own comparisons.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy train journeys, American history, witty portraits of people and places, and the pleasure of seeing a country through a traveler's amused and affectionate eyes.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Travel best as a roving guest
- Cities have characters, and boosters shout them
- Detroit shows what energy and one model can do
- Small towns advertise, and visitors learn to laugh
- Chicago is a city of extremes he loves
- Missouri mixes decay, poker, and Mark Twain
- Kansas City opens the West and Kansas surprises
- Colorado answers with mountains and strange hosts
- Salt Lake, San Francisco, and the road home
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- Large print hardcover
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Abroad at Home
by Julian Street · 1914
Julian Street and an artist friend cross a continent by train, noting places that catch their eye.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you see if you crossed a whole country with no goal but curiosity? The writer Julian Street boards a train at Grand Central Station with an artist friend and heads west, taking each town as it comes.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Travel best as a roving guest
Street opens with a complaint. Americans rush everywhere with a purpose and never wander. On trips abroad they see sights through guides and think canned thoughts from guidebooks. He wants to travel at home as a guest of chance, with no mission to expose or praise anything.
He persuades a publisher to send him, and he chooses an artist friend as his companion. Their first morning shows the method. A telegram tells Street he is about to discover the United States, and he hates the idea. On the train from Grand Central, he and his friend study fellow passengers, among them a bore who recites railway accident figures and a young woman across the aisle who glances at them from behind a magazine.
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What is Abroad at Home about?
It is Julian Street's humorous account of a long train trip across the United States, visiting cities from Buffalo to San Francisco and describing their people, buildings, businesses, and habits.
Who is the traveling companion?
He is an artist friend whom Street names only as his companion. His drawings, gloomy jokes, and wandering luggage run through the book.
Is Abroad at Home a true story?
Yes. It is a travel narrative based on a real trip, though Street plays freely with comic exaggeration.
The author
Julian Street
1879–1947 · American writer
Julian Street was an American writer, born in Chicago in 1879. He wrote travel books, short stories, and plays. His travel book Abroad at Home appeared in 1914, and Mysterious Japan in 1921. He died in Lakeville, Connecticut, in 1947.
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