He begins by uncovering an original eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party and demonstrates that it was provoked not by "taxation without representation" as is commonly suggested but by the specific actions of the East India Company, which represented the commericial interests of the British elite.Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America.It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster.

    The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

    

    In recent decades, however, we have seen the rise of a therapeutic ethic that views Americans as emotionally underdeveloped, psychically frail, and requiring the ministrations of mental health professionals. Today---with a book for every ailment, a lawsuit for every grievance and a TV show for every conceivable problem---we are at risk of degrading our native ability to cope with life's challenges.Drawing on established science and common sense, Christina Sommers and Dr. Sally Satel reveal how therapism and the burgeoning trauma industry have come to pervade our lives, with a host of troubling consequences, including:*The myth of stressed-out, homework-burdened, hyper-competitive, and depressed schoolchildren in need of therapy and medication*The loss of moral bearings in our approach to lying, crime, and addiction*The unasked-for grief counselors who descend on bereaved families, schools, and communities following a tragedyIntelligent, provocative, and wryly amusing, One Nation Under Therapy demonstrates that talking about problems is no substitute for confronting them.

    This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement."Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures--whether they be PTA, church, or political parties--have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe.Like defining works from the past, such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society, and like the works of C. Wright Mills and Betty Friedan, Putnam's Bowling Alone has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do.

    It is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society from a virtue to a vice. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge.Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of her colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. Anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were functions of American cultural heritage, not necessarily of democracy.

    No conversation about the dangers of technology and its unavoidable effects on society can begin without a careful reading of this book."A magnificent book . . . He goes through one human activity after another and shows how it has been technicized, rendered efficient, and diminished in the process."-Harper's"One of the most important books of the second half of the twentieth-century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that technology, which we continue to conceptualize as the servant of man, will overthrow everything that prevents the internal logic of its development, including humanity itself-unless we take necessary steps to move human society out of the environment that 'technique' is creating to meet its own needs."-The Nation"A description of the way in which technology has become completely autonomous and is in the process of taking over the traditional values of every society without exception, subverting and suppressing these values to produce at last a monolithic world culture in which all non-technological difference and variety are mere appearance."-Los Angeles Free Press

    VANCE, author of Hillbilly ElegyWhy would a son of immigrants call for tighter restrictions on immigration?For too long, liberals have suggested that only cruel, racist, or nativist bigots would want to restrict immigration. Anyone motivated by compassion and egalitarianism would choose open, or nearly-open, borders--or so the argument goes. Now, Reihan Salam, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants, turns this argument on its head. In this deeply researched but also deeply personal book, Salam shows why uncontrolled immigration is bad for everyone, including people like his family. Our current system has intensified the isolation of our native poor, and risks ghettoizing the children of poor immigrants. It ignores the challenges posed by the declining demand for less-skilled labor, even as it exacerbates ethnic inequality and deepens our political divides. If we continue on our current course, in which immigration policy serves wealthy insiders who profit from cheap labor, and cosmopolitan extremists attack the legitimacy of borders, the rise of a new ethnic underclass is inevitable. Even more so than now, class politics will be ethnic politics, and national unity will be impossible. Salam offers a solution, if we have the courage to break with the past and craft an immigration policy that serves our long-term national interests. Rejecting both militant multiculturalism and white identity politics, he argues that limiting total immigration and favoring skilled immigrants will combat rising inequality, balance diversity with assimilation, and foster a new nationalism that puts the interests of all Americans--native-born and foreign-born--first.

    Instead we are surrendering to populism, nationalism and other forms of tribalism. Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history--in 18th century England when we accidentally discovered the miracle of liberal democratic capitalism.As Americans we are doubly blessed that those radical ideas were written into the Constitution, laying the groundwork for our uniquely prosperous society: - Our rights come from God not from the government. - The government belongs to us; we do not belong to the government. - The individual is sovereign. We are all captains of our own souls. - The fruits of our labors belong to us.In the last few decades, these political virtues have been turned into vices. As we are increasingly taught to view our traditions as a system of oppression, exploitation and "white privilege," the principles of liberty and the rule of law are under attack from left and right.At a moment when authoritarianism, tribalism, identity politics, nationalism, and cults of personality are rotting our democracy from within, Goldberg exposes the West's suicidal tendencies on both sides of the ideological aisle. For the West to survive, we must renew our sense of gratitude for what our civilization has given us and rediscover the ideals that led us out of the bloody muck of the past - or back to the muck we will go.Suicide is painless, liberty takes work.

    Lasch’s identification of narcissism as not only an individual ailment but also a burgeoning social epidemic was groundbreaking. His diagnosis of American culture is even more relevant today, predicting the limitless expansion of the anxious and grasping narcissistic self into every part of American life.The Culture of Narcissism offers an astute and urgent analysis of what we need to know in these troubled times.

    A rash of art exhibitions, pop albums and coffee table books arrived on the scene, all desperate to recover England's lost national soul. But when we sweep away the patriotic stereotypes, we begin to see that England is a country that does not and perhaps should not exist in any essential sense.In this provocative text combining polemic and memoir, Alex Niven argues that the map of the British Isles should be torn apart completely as we look towards a time of radical political reform. Rejecting outdated nationalisms, Niven argues for a renovated model of culture and governance for the islands a fluid, dynamic version of regionalism preparing the way for a new dream archipelago .

    This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.

    The end result of this conversation, Dark hopes, will be a better understanding that there is a reality more important, more lasting, and more infinite than the cultures to which we belong, the reality of the kingdom of God.

    Drew on VH1, Dr. Drew Pinsky takes a hard look at the profound changes blogging, tweeting, tabloids, and reality TV are having on the American way of life. An important wake up call for every parent, co-written with Dr. S. Mark Young, The Mirror Effect is a groundbreaking exploration of celebrity narcissism and how it is damaging our culture and our children.

    Pornography infiltrates nearly every home. Homosexuality is accepted. Lust has been redefined. The family as an institution is questioned.We are reminded every day that assumptions about what is right and wrong, sexually, are different today than they were fifty–or even ten–years ago. Christian principles that formed the pattern for generations of American families are conspicuously absent. What happened and why? How do we respond to the dramatic shift in our culture’s perspective on sex? As one of today’s most influential thinkers, Dr. Albert Mohler addresses these critical topics in a thoughtful, cut-to-the-chase style in Desire and Deceit. As you follow Mohler’s guidance in applying biblical solutions to today’s most highly charged issues, you will be not only equipped but also inspired to speak the truth in a society hungry for answers.