Here: A Biography of the New American Continent

As the former bureau chief for The New York Times in both Canada and Mexico, Anthony DePalma is uniquely qualified to report on North America. Here is his "biography of a continent," a look at how Canada, the U.S., and Mexico have diverged politically and culturally despite their shared roots and similar backgrounds. Having lived in all three countries, DePalma has a keen eye for national tendencies, such as the difference between how Americans and Canadians view the border: "[Americans] see the border as joining Canada to the United States. For Canadians, it is the last line separating us from them." Even history, it seems, is influenced by latitude. He writes of meeting "Canadians who did not love their own history and Mexicans who were afraid of theirs. It helped me realize just how we Americans use our history; we create it and control it and continually conform it to our liking."

A first-rate journalist, DePalma offers many memorable anecdotes in Here. In one particularly bizarre episode, he describes interviewing a nearly incoherent Carlos Salinas in a dark shack where he was staging a hunger strike to protest the way he and his family were being treated by political opponents. Just three months earlier, Salinas had stepped down as one of the most powerful presidents in Mexican history. Now, he "looked like a vagrant and sounded like a mystic," with bottled Evian his only sustenance. "To appreciate what it represented for the people of Mexico," he writes, "imagine Bill Clinton showing up in Harlem one day and vowing not to eat or drink anything but Perrier water until everyone in Washington stopped saying mean things about him and Hillary."

The triple elections of 2000 marked "a significant turning point in continental America," according to DePalma. "The notion that what happens across the border doesn't matter has been disproved." In this fascinating look at the state of the continent, he has done much to dispel misunderstanding and ignorance between neighbors. --Shawn Carkonen