An insightful, timely examination of the fragility of America's commitment to democracy, by cultural analyst Slater (How I Saved the World, 1985, etc.). In many ways an expansion of his classic The Pursuit of Loneliness (1970), this is powerful and provocative on its own terms. Starting with the optimistic assertion that authoritarianism is finally relinquishing its five-thousand-year choke-hold on social structures worldwide, Slater argues that the democratic spirit gaining ground elsewhere is still vigorously resisted here at home. Through systematic oppression, the encouragement of public apathy and submissiveness, the deflection of public resentment, and especially the withholding of critical information, America's founding ideals have been subverted, with the erosion clearly accelerated in the last decade, to the point where militarism and macho sensibilities have taken over in shaping the American presence in the world. Democracy is the wave of the future for Slater, however, so to him the prevailing ``might makes right'' sensibility in post-WW II US foreign policy, a perfect expression of the authoritarian agenda, can be viewed as a read-guard action sure to fail when the American people awaken (or are awakened) to their civic responsibilities. Heavily indebted to the pioneering work of Mary Parker Follett in defining modern democracy, an impressive array of historical, sociological, and statistical arguments are deployed to convey the serious nature of the dilemma our culture faces, but course- corrections are provided so that the prognosis is distinctly upbeat. Persuasive, comprehensive, and precious at this historical moment.
Pub Date: May 30, 1991
ISBN: 0-8070-4304-4
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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