In this personal/political memoir, historian Anne Winkler-Morey chronicles her 12,000-mile bike trip around the contiguous United States. Over the fourteen months tour, she collects hundreds of stories of people and places. She discovers US regions that are unique in beauty and culture but similar in what ails them: unsustainable economies, gaping inequities, and people with crippling fears of those outside their borders. She explores the question, what makes us safe, concluding that the walls we construct make us more vulnerable. True security comes not from guns, armies, and patriotic slogans. Healing requires exposing our historical traumas, engaging in reparations, and building our commons.  Allegiance mixes the angst and hilarious misadventures of an unlikely bicyclist, poignant stories of the strangers she meets, and acute observations of a historian and social activist.

About the Author:

Anne Winkler-Morey has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and taught history and ethnic studies at colleges and Universities in the Twin Cities for three decades. In the 1980s she was the Director of the Central America Resource Center in Minneapolis and in 2010 she was instigator of the National Ethnic Studies Week. Her Minneapolis Interview Project includes 100 life stories with a social justice lens. She lives in Minneapolis with her spouse, David. In 2011-2012, they rode the contiguous perimeter of the United States. Allegiance to Winds and Waters: Bicycling the Political Divides of the United States is her story of that trip.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“It is hard to know whether to recommend reading this moving and intelligent book as I did–in one rapt sitting–or that it should be parceled out to savor longer. Allegiance to Winds and Waters succeeds as odyssey, as life story, as a showcase for its author’s skills as an historian, and as a loving appreciation of a land, if not a nation. It imparts the mechanics and travails of a life on the road, capturing the costs of governmental austerity and the daily practices of mutual aid.”  — David Roediger, American Studies, University of Kansas. Author of Wages of Whiteness. His most recent book is The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History.

 “An offbeat personal account of an adventure from sea to shining sea. The author’s left-leaning perspective and past study of political struggles give the work a distinctive flavor. Readers will keep turning pages…” —Kirkus Reviews (full review)

Winkler-Morey retells stories, respecting each giver, placing their testimonies in the context of peoples’ history and current politics.  The past and present illuminate each other. Allegiance to Winds and Waters shows us how our collective stories can heal us. — Ruth Voights, Professor Emeritus, Liberal Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Des

A narrative of those close, personal encounters within a nation in the midst of a deep, politically and morally divisive period.  If what we do matters, so is what we read.  This book is a prayer.  — Alex Kuo, American Book Award winner, author of a dozen books, including Cadenza (2021)

“Anne Winkler-Morey’s Allegiance to Winds and Waters recounts a bicycle journey around the United States at a time of deep political division. At its heart, the book is about meeting people where they live and learning from them. Winkler-Morey tells stories, invokes ghosts in her and our past, and explores the haunted places of our history. The hills the cyclists climb, thunderstorms they survive, the accidents that interrupt but also structure their journey serve as metaphors for the continuing struggles against inequality and for justice.  It’s also just a good read.” — Elizabeth Faue, History Professor, Wayne State University. Most recent book: Rethinking the American Labor Movement