This book tells the stories of individual Americans, some well-known, and some not, who strove to understand their nation and its place in the world in the interwar years. David Mayers splits these individuals into 'seekers' and 'partisans'; primarily disillusioned idealists, both on the left and right, they left America to explore and be part of a different world. Among those featured are John Robinson, a Black aviator who in 1935 led the Ethiopian air force against the Italian invasion; Agnes Smedley, who joined the Chinese communists during the Sino-Japanese war; eminent Black civil rights theorist W.E.B. Du Bois; Helen Keller, an advocate of the seeing and hearing-impaired; architect Philip Johnson; and Ezra Pound, a lauded poet who championed Mussolini, and many others. The lives and stories of this diverse group sheds light on the contested nature of American ambitions, aims, and national purpose and insightfully destabilizes what it means to be 'American.'