Chicago is one of America's most iconic, historic, and fascinating cities, as well as a major travel destination. For Alex Kotlowitz, an accidental Chicagoan, it is the perfect perch from which to peer into America's heart. It's a place, as one historian has said, of "messy vitalities," a stwe of contradictions: coarse yet gentle, idealistic yet restrained, grappling with it's promise, alternately sure and unsure of itself.