In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, there appears to be a lot of disagreement among the public. To understand the disagreement, consider the following six books that provide detailed analysis of the issues and their context. These books cover everything from the Declaration of Independence to the evolution of conservative politics starting with the Reagan era to the cultural foundations of the United States. Add to that the opioid drug epidemic, which began in 1996 with the sale of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, and economics amid concerns about the cost of living. Despite our differences, can America achieve a sense of “we the people”? That’s the question that needs to be answered before the Nov. 5 election.
These Truths – History of the United States by Jill Report (2018)
Jill Lepore, a history professor at Harvard University and a contributor to The New Yorker magazine, draws from the Declaration of Independence in the title of her comprehensive and fascinating history of the United States. We are endowed with certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ” Covering the period from the 16th century to 2018, the book tells “the story of a multiethnic nation at its founding and its people who sought to find a way to make these truths a reality.” John S. Gardner writes in the Guardian. “No country before or since has been so disturbed by conflict and wealth.” As Andrew Sullivan writes in his review for the New York Times:. “Never before has a nation been defined as a nation of strangers and travelers, whose society is constantly flooded with waves of immigrants…Never has a people been so passionate about both slavery and freedom.” The Truth is a civics book that is perfect for today’s times. The New York Times’ Best Books of 2018 says that this is not a story of “relentless progress,” but that “reason and faith, black and white, immigrant and native, industry and agriculture ripple through the story.” However, it is a story of conflict and contradiction.” It’s far from complete. ”
Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Pearlstein (2020)
Pearlstein’s four-volume chronicle of the rise of conservatism in the United States concludes with a colorful narrative history. Pearlstein begins with the Gerald Ford/Jimmy Carter presidential campaign. Mr. Reagan, an unsuccessful primary candidate, refused to cooperate with Ford, setting the stage for his victory over Mr. Carter four years later. “It’s all here – the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, the Billy Brothers, the Panama Canal Treaty, California’s Proposition 13 property tax cuts, supply-side economics, ‘killer rabbits’, direct mail, Ford Pinto , Ted Kennedy, Three Mile Island, Malaise and 100 other events and stories that defined this turbulent era,” by John S. Gardner writing in the Guardian. Reaganland is “essentially a sociopolitical history, focusing on the movements and causes that intensely animated national debate and the impact that major social changes, such as women’s rights, had on American life.” Next, read Max Boot’s new biography, “Reagan,” which focuses on the relationship between Reagan and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis by James Davison Hunter (2024)
In Culture Wars (1991), Hunter coined the term to describe the division between two opposing factions within the United States. “American democracy is in crisis,” he writes in his new book, Democracy and Solidarity. He examines two and a half centuries of American political culture and identifies the cultural roots of the crisis: the promise that all men are created equal and the practices that exclude broad swaths of humanity. “Hunter is this country’s leading cultural historian.” David Brooks writes in the New York Times. “He reminds us that the political life of a country is built on a cultural foundation. Each society has its own way of seeing the world, its own ideas about what is right and wrong. It has its own fundamental assumptions, its own vision of a better world that gives direction and purpose to national life.” ” American culture, which often achieved unity through opposition to common enemies and affirmation of common goals, “has broken down at its deepest level,” Hunter writes.
