“Thanks to rapid deindustrialization, poor-quality education, and other indices of poverty and inequality, parts of the United States were in the same need of regeneration and redevelopment as low- and middle-income countries in the former Eastern bloc. Like Russia, the United States is a vast continent-sized power. Individual states are the size of most European countries. For anyone traveling across America, the socioeconomic as well as the geographic and demographic diversity is inescapable.”

Hill’s simile dramatizes her point while underscoring the theme of the work: Despite their differences, the US and Russia are actually quite similar. Comparing the declining centers of industry and forgotten cities in America’s heartland to the former Eastern bloc may offend American readers, but Hill wants to provoke readers into this realization.

“Education in all its forms—from elementary to secondary to further education and professional training—is the beating heart of the infrastructure of opportunity. It has the potential to define and redefine who you are and who you will be. For me, it was everything.”

Hill’s personification of education as the “heart of opportunity” shows what a vital role she believes education plays in positive change and social mobility. Without a strong heart, a body cannot function, and without equal access to quality education, neither does society.

“For me, the year abroad in Moscow was a surprisingly easy transition despite the language and cultural differences and learning to navigate a big city for the first time. The dreaded determinative questions of ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘What does your father do?’ met with instant approval. I was from a world-famous coal-mining area and my dad had been a miner. I was a standard-bearer of the working class. This gave me cachet in the Soviet Union. People could relate to me and my family story.”

This reversal of Hill’s original story about the questions she faced as a child in England injects humor into the book. The answers that used to earn her instant disdain from English people who judged her as less worthy for her background now gave her credibility with folks in the Soviet Union.