Notes on a Foreign Country

Suzy Hansen's book is part memoir, part reportage, part intellectual self-interrogation. Living in Turkey, she begins to question the assumptions about America and the world she absorbed while growing up. The result is a searching account of national identity, privilege, foreign policy, and self-deception. Hansen writes with candor and intelligence, willing to expose her own blind spots as part of the larger argument. The book is particularly strong on the emotional and moral disorientation that comes from seeing one's country from elsewhere. It is not a detached geopolitical study, but a lived encounter with the limits of American self-understanding. Hansen also writes beautifully about Istanbul and about the texture of being a foreigner. The prose is thoughtful, elegant, and often bracing. This is a book about unlearning as much as learning. A smart, necessary meditation on America from outside its usual frame.