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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Ax Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

Nick Kristoff and Cheryl Wudon are two of America's most lettered journalists.

They received the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1990 for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests as China correspondence for the New York Times.

Nick Kristoff is, of course, the long-time columnist for the New York Times.

He won a Pulitzer Prize for his commentary there too, but now they've turned their attention closer to home with a book called Tightrope, Americans Reaching for Hope.

And it's a really personal examination of what's happened to the middle class in many of the small towns of America, including the one in which Kristoff grew up.

Kristoff and Wudon, who were married, came to the Institute of Politics a few weeks ago for a live recording of the Ax Files to discuss their journey, this book, and the state of our nation.

Nick Kristoff and Cheryl Wudon, welcome to the Institute of Politics.

In keeping with the time I'm going to hand my questions to the Chief Justice, and he will ask them for you. No, not really.

In this very, very powerful book, Tightrope, you're talking about the journey of Americans and small towns and rural areas and inner cities, and forgotten places all over this country.

But I want to talk about your stories. Nick, first of all, let me start with you. Like myself, you're the son of an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who had his own parrowing journey to get here. Why don't you share a little of that?

Yeah, my dad's family. They were Armenians who were living, it was actually kind of funny.

My dad would describe him, if you asked his or she would say he was from Romania, his sister would say she was Armenian, and his brother would say he's Polish.

And my dad spoke to his brother when he would call and Polish, and it was sister, which you would call, in Romanian.

And they were very mixed up family, and the flag would change periodically overhead. And then in 1940, the area, which was at that time Romania, was seized by the Soviet Union.

The family was meanwhile busy spying for the free Polish government, as part of a network, sending information back to London. And so the family ended up being very, as people ended up getting executed by either the Nazis or the Soviets.

My dad. He was in prison for...

He was in a... he fled. He was in a concentration camp in Yugoslavia for a while, and eventually made his way to France. And decided that France was not a place that had a future for a Slavic immigrant.

And began to dream about coming to the US, and eventually made it, not speaking English.

His name, when he came over here, was Vladislav Kristoffovich.

Kristoffovich.

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