The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

Find This Book

"How have we come to feel that neither the government nor the private sector works as it should and that the shrinking middle class has few prospects of recovering its former glory? Through profiles of several Americans, from a factory worker to an Internet billionaire, Packer, staff writer for the New Yorker, offers a broad and compelling perspective on a nation in crisis. Packer focuses on the lives of a North Carolina evangelist, son of a tobacco farmer, pondering the new economy of the rural South; a Youngstown, Ohio, factory worker struggling to survive the decline of the manufacturing sector; a Washington lobbyist confronting the distance between his ideals and the realities of the nation's capital; and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur pondering the role of e-commerce in a radically changing economy. Interspersed throughout are profiles of leading economic, political, and cultural figures, including Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, Raymond Carver, Sam Walton, and Jay-Z. Also sprinkled throughout are alarming headlines, news bites, song lyrics, and slogans that capture the unsettling feeling that the nation and its people are adrift. Packer offers an illuminating, in-depth, sometimes frightening view of the complexities of decline and the enduring hope for recovery ( Booklist,)

The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

Find  This Book

"Representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil society--these are the four pillars of West European and North American societies. It was these institutions, rather than any geographical or climatic advantages, that set the West on the path to global dominance beginning around 1500. In our time, however, these institutions have deteriorated in disturbing ways. Our democracies have broken the contract between the generations by heaping IOUs on our children and grandchildren. Our markets are hindered by overcomplex regulations that debilitate the political and economic processes they were created to support; the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers. And civil society has degenerated into uncivil society, where we lazily expect all of our problems to be solved by the state.
It is institutional degeneration, in other words, that lies behind economic stagnation and the geopolitical decline that comes with it. With characteristic verve and historical insight, Ferguson analyzes not only the causes of this stagnation but also its profound consequences.
"The Great Degeneration "is an incisive indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy and China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, our society is squandering the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the breakdown of our civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform."  (Publisher Description)

Obamacare Survival Guide: The Affordable Care ACT and What It Means to You and Your Healthcare

Find This Book

"With almost 500 provisions, the extremely complex Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148)--popularly referred to as "Obamacare"--goes beyond the controversial individual mandate, small business incentive, Medicaid expansion, and insurance exchanges that are commonly discussed. However, in this title journalist Tate ignores or barely acknowledges other provisions such as the prohibition against discrimination on assisted suicide and provider payment options. Though he claims to go ."..beyond the sound bites and headlines to provide a detailed analysis of what it will mean for...American healthcare consumers," a number of Tate's repetitive statements sound biased against the Act or appear to emphasize the negative effect it may have on specific programs such as Medicare. Many statements remain undocumented by footnotes, endnotes, text notes, or bibliography, and others are one-sided. For example, stating that "healthcare costs in the United States have risen since ObamaCare's passage...," Tate fails to acknowledge that health care costs also rose significantly prior to the passage of this legislation. On the positive side, the implementation time line is particularly helpful and tables scattered throughout the book provide a nicely organized before-and-after display. Unfortunately, several tables appear to be incorrectly named and few are discussed within the text. For example Tables 7-4 and 7-5 bear identical titles, offer conflicting data, and are not discussed within text or captions. However, the material, including the tables, is well indexed. VERDICT While this work is timely, there are a number of similar books available, some of which are better designed for reference use. This one is best suited for a public library circulating collection that has additional titles that pick up other aspects of the new health care legislation.-"  (Library Journal)

The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

Find This Book

"A veteran author, journalist and commentator chronicles the campaign that assured President Barack Obama a second term and cemented a consensus among Americans stretching back to the New Deal. The 2012 election was neither the referendum on the president and the ailing economy as the GOP had hoped, nor simply a choice between the president and his opponent as Obama had wished. Rather, Bloomberg View columnist Alter (The Promise: President Obama, Year One, 2011, etc.) insists, it was a judgment on the Republicans and their mean-spirited billionaire backers, right-wing media cheerleaders, proponents of voter suppression and "clown car" of primary candidates. As he explores the many infirmities and outrages of the president's opponents and details Obama's many virtues, it's clear that, for the author, the "center" of our politics lies decidedly to the left. This obvious bias impairs his analysis throughout, prompting him too often to offer opinion and speculation as fact. For example, he insists the vitriol directed toward the president exceeds anything in our recent history and claims that the president's contempt for his opponent accounted for his lackluster first debate performance. He goes so far as to wonder if maybe the president threw the debate "because he wanted the game to be a little more challenging?" When he sticks to straight reporting, however, Alter shines. In always fluid, sometimes arresting prose, he tells the inside story of the bartender who surreptitiously taped Romney's infamous 47 percent remark, offers sharp miniportraits of numerous campaign operatives, and brilliantly deconstructs the "Big Data" component of Obama's Chicago headquarters, describing their technological innovations and smooth manipulation of social media that set a new standard for future campaigns. The president's supporters and, really, all political junkies will love this. Republicans, not so much."  (Kirkus Reviews)

Motherhood, Rescheduled: The New Frontier of Egg Freezing and the Women Who Tried It

Find This Book

"Freelance journalist Richards chronicles how five single women attempted to take charge of their own fertility. The author challenges the "cultural stereotype of...Clock Tickers"--women who have reached their mid-30s without becoming mothers. Some of these women are now buying time by freezing their eggs. They have failed to find the right partner, frequently postponing marriage to pursue a higher education and a career. While menopause is not yet an issue, the viability of their eggs, with respect to quality and quantity, is increasingly problematic. Egg-freezing technology was initially developed in the 1980s for cancer patients facing radiation treatment, and it is now coming into use for storing donor eggs as a means of obviating moral consideration about freezing embryos. Although over the years the technology has improved and the potential success rate is now higher (although it is still only 30 percent), the results are best for eggs harvested from women under age 35. In alternating chapters, Richards takes up the thread of her own story and that of four other women in similar situations: their decision to freeze their eggs as a precaution; the search for a potential husband who shares their desire for children; dealing with the physical and financial cost of the procedure; and successes and failures of pregnancy after implantation. She writes movingly about the vicissitudes of online dating and the pain of the breakup of a loving relationship with an ambivalent partner, as well as the anguish many women feel when contemplating a childless future. For a childless woman, Richards writes, egg freezing is "an act of love for her future family," even though older motherhood is not the most desirable option. A page-turner in which each of the stories is different but compelling"  (Kirkus Reviews)