Rights to Melissa Butcher’s first trade book have gone to Manchester University Press.
Designed as a cultural map of contemporary America, The Trouble With Freedom will enable readers to navigate through this morass of vitriol, conspiracy theory and argument, understanding how, why and in what direction America is changing.
In conversation with Americans across the country, from all walks of life, the book is extremely timely, produced in the midst of a raging culture war and the run up to the 2024 Presidential election. However, the issues are timeless and relevant not only to the USA but other countries like the UK, subject to similar processes of change and where comparable social divisions are evident. Written as narrative non-fiction with an ‘outsider’s eye’, in the style of ‘Alexis de Tocqueville in the 21st Century’, the book will appeal to audiences with an interest in social and current affairs, using a blend of original research, reporting and personal narrative.
Professor Melissa Butcher is a social and cultural geographer at Cumberland Lodge and Royal Holloway, University of London. She has produced to date two monographs (2003, 2011), five edited collections, over 30 academic journal articles, as well as numerous pieces of journalism. She has had regular invitations to present her work at public events including in the past the Bloomsbury Festival and the Dublin Science Museum.
Cull & Co. Literary Agency Ltd 