I keep seeing the phrase being used over and over again, and am left to wonder how many people actually know from whence it came. How many here have actually read the book? How many understand what the author's literary life's work was that caused the Nobel committee to make him the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received it in 1930, and his Nobel lecture can be read here (for those of you with patience and curiousity):

http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1930/lewis-lecture.html

What the author had to say about the United States and American literature those 72 years ago, most certainly is relevant to where we stand today.

What I find so very odd, though, is that there is no Sinclair Lewis for our times. That we need one is, of course, no secret.