The book inspired and gave its name to a 1948 Broadway musical revue, Inside U.S.A., that was very loosely based on the book. [19]

Inside U.S.A. was the fourth in a series of highly successful "Inside" books written by Gunther. The series began in 1936 with Inside Europe, based on Gunther's experience as a journalist in Europe and described as "a cross between reportage and armchair travel literature." [1] The book sold over 500,000 copies. It was followed by Inside Asia in 1939 and Inside Latin America in 1941. [1] [2] Cuthbertson, Ken (1992). Inside: The Biography of John Gunther. Bonus Books. pp. 5–8. ISBN 978-0929387703. Gunther intended to write a companion book, to be titled Inside Washington, focused on the nation-scale problems, personalities, and institutions of the U.S. He never completed the second book, because of the amount that would be required and because he could not decide how best to coordinate the publication timing with the quadrennial cycle of presidential elections. A revised edition of Inside U.S.A. was released in 1951. [5] He later continued his "Inside" series with three more books: Inside Africa in 1955, Inside Russia Today in 1958, and Inside Europe Today in 1961. [2] A 50th anniversary edition of Inside U.S.A. was published in 1997 ( ISBN 978-1-56584-358-5). [20] He submitted a chapter at time to his publishers, and he constantly revised galley proofs, to keep his narrative current, up to the last moment before the book went to press. (The same procedure was used for the “Inside” books that fol lowed.) a b c d e f Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (April 1997). "A Man from Mars". The Atlantic Monthly. 279 (4): 113–118.As an emotional catharsis, Mr. Gunther wrote a moving private memoir of the battle the Gunthers — father, mother and son—fought against death. The tender, terrifying account of the ordeal so impressed friends that they urged it be published for the inspiration of families facing similar tragedy. The vignette, “Death Be Not Proud,” the profits from which went to children's cancer re search, was probably Mr. Gun ther's most vividly memorable work. Nebraska. “Some early villages were so small that, for a time, each had only one church; Catholics and Protestants worshiped in the same room, with half the pews facing an altar at one end, half a pulpit at the other.” At Agadir in Morocco, reports Peter Kolosimo, the French captain Lafanechere "discovered a complete arsenal of hunting weapons including five hundred double-edged axes weighing seventeen and a half pounds, i.e. twenty times as heavy as would be convenient for modern man. Apart from the question of weight, to handle the axe at all one would need to have hands of a size appropriate to a giant with a stature of at least 13 feet." 2 (See Australian Giants; La Tene; South American Giants) It was, however, when the Gunthers reached the Union of South Africa that they faced the most violent and difficult interracial situation on the whole continent. The present government is “grounded in part at least on three of the most unpleasant, of human characteristics — fear, bigotry, and intolerance. It is based without qualification on the principle of unmitigated white supremacy (i.e., suppression of four-fifths of the people of the country) and it is in some respects the ugliest government I have ever encountered in the free world.”

Gunther wrote without euphemism. His metaphors were precise, his descriptions unflinching. The effect of that first surgery was akin to the “explosion of a .45-caliber bullet,” a doctor told him. He made use of a clinical vocabulary, translating the language of the medical case report: Papilledema, he explained, was swelling of the optic nerve; a ventriculogram required drilling holes through the skull. The surgeons left Johnny’s skull open so that the tumor wouldn’t be driven inward; the flap of scalp that covered the soft spot was the size of a man’s hand. When the tumor began to grow again, a few months after the remission began, the surgeon excavated more than four inches into the brain, unable to find healthy tissue.The making of the “Inside” books was phenomenally hard work, and Mr. Gunther did al most all of it himself. In reply to his asking a group of Philadelphians “what, if anything, descendants of Benjamin Franklin might be doing in Philadelphia these days,” “one answer was (I report it literally): ‘We consider Mr. Franklin to have been of a somewhat shady family.’”