The Big Sort

Journalist Bill Bishop, a multiple award-winner for his reporting, looks at how Americans have been dividing themselves in recent decades. Instead of separating by region or state, people have been clustering into like-minded communities at the scale of individual cities and even single neighborhoods. Using a wealth of demographic evidence, Bishop shows how residents increasingly choose where to live, and which media to follow, according to their lifestyles and convictions.

The outcome is a country where people have grown so insular that they struggle to understand neighbors who live only a few miles away. Bishop explores how this pattern took hold and what it could mean for the nation's future. He opens with portraits of contemporary daily life and then broadens the picture with history, economics, and the changing shape of American politics.