“John Shaw, who has written about
music for various publications, attacks his subject with the enthusiasm of a
fan and the dedication of a scholar…Shaw has much to say about the lives and
careers of Berlin and Guthrie and about the musical traditions from which they emerged.
(He is particularly insightful about Guthrie’s debt to the country-music
pioneers the Carter Family)…When he sticks to his subject—as when he examines
the distinctly American strain of mysticism at the heart of both “God Bless
America” and “This Land Is Your Land”—Shaw can be entertaining and informative.”

“Engaging…Shaw wields an impressive
grasp of American musical history.”

“The juxtaposition of two of America’s most enduring national anthems. The beginning of this provocative history of Woody Guthrie’s persistent folk song and elementary school staple “This Land is Your Land” and Irving Berlin’s overly sentimental “God Bless America” is a visceral scene.”

“[Shaw] is particularly good at
nailing down the melodic ancestors for these great American anthems and for
tracing the various revisions Berlin and Guthrie made to their songs along the
way…This Land That I Love traverses,
in a relatively small number of pages, the whole canvas of America.”

“[Shaw] effectively connects [‘This Land Is Your Land’] to earlier
anthems…Ultimately, This Land That I Love
is about more than two songs or the two men who created them.”

“In telling the stories of those unofficial US national anthems…Shaw tells those of most of their predecessors, too, including the official one, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’…The recommended listening essay is full of fascination.

“Shaw…traces the similarities
between Berlin’s and Guthrie’s upbringings, comparing some of the forces that
may have led each writer to what would eventually become his most recognizable
song.”

“Within a frame of the deepest
familiarity, John Shaw rescues forgotten stories and excavates stories never
told before. The book is generous, open, questing, and blazingly incisive: with
a sentence, maybe two or three, he gets to the heart of such unsolved mysteries
as blackface, the concept of folk, or the loop of celebrity and history in
modern life.”

“John Shaw analyzes the songs ‘God
Bless America’ and ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and the men who wrote them, Irving
Berlin and Woody Guthrie. Occasionally, Traber Burns’ reading of the lyrics of
these familiar songs sounds a little bit odd; they should be sung, after all.
There’s also some discomforting dialect, since Berlin used racial and ethnic
themes in songs earlier in his career. Still, this is an engaging reading, with
particularly good voice work on historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt. It
brings listeners into the world that Berlin and Guthrie worked in. With the
additional examination of the earlier ‘Yankee Doodle,’ listeners get a good
look at the American psyche through music.”