No longer exiles

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Christine Wicker

Evangelical Christianity in America is dying. The great evangelical movements of today are not a vanguard. They are a remnant, unraveling at every edge. Conversions. Baptisms. Membership. Retention. Participation. Giving. Attendance. Impact upon the culture at large. All are down and dropping. When veteran religion reporter Christine Wicker set out to investigate the evangelical movement, her intention was to forge through the stereotypes and shed new light on this highly divisive religious group. But the story soon morphed into an entirely new and shocking tale of discovery, as Wicker's research unearthed much more than she originally bargained for.Everywhere Wicker traveled she heard whispers of diminishing statistics, failed campaigns, and empty churches. Even as evangelical forces trumpet their purported political and social victories on the national and local fronts, insiders are anguishing over their significant losses and preparing to rebuild for the future. The idea that evangelicals represent and speak for Christianity in America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and zealous religious leaders who understand the weaknesses of the nation's media and exploit them brilliantly.With her trademark vivid, firsthand reporting, Christine Wicker takes us deep inside the world of evangelicals, exposing the surprising statistics and details of this unexpected fall. Wicker shows us how the virtues of evangelicals are killing them as surely as their vices and that, to fully comprehend how and why this is happening, we'll need to understand both.

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Robert S. Taylor

How can citizens best protect themselves from the arbitrary power of abusive spouses, tyrannical bosses, and corrupt politicians? 'Exit Left' makes the case that in each of these three spheres the answer is the same: exit. By promoting open and competitive markets and providing the information and financial resources necessary to enable exit, the book argues that this can empower people's voices and offer them an escape from abuse and exploitation. This will advance a conception of freedom, viz. freedom as non-domination (FND), which is central to contemporary republican thought. Neo-republicans have typically promoted FND through constitutional means (separation of powers, judicial review, the rule of law, and federalism) and participatory ones (democratic elections and oversight), but this book focuses on economic means, ones that have been neglected by contemporary republicans but were commonly invoked in the older, commercial-republican tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith. Just as Philip Pettit and other neo-republicans have revived and revised classical republicanism, so this book will do the same for commercial republicanism. This revival will enlarge republican practice by encouraging greater use of market mechanisms, even as it hews closely to existing republican theory.

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Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt

With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." As literary theorists deconstruct scientific "texts" and feminists condemn scientific "patriarchy," they argue, principles and practices that underlie 300 years of scientific achievement come under attack from scholars with little actual knowledge of science. Gross and Levitt explore the origins and history of the trend and examine examples of "science bashing" from an array of currently fashionable viewpoints - postmodernism, feminism, radical environmentalism, multiculturalism, and AIDS activism. They find the origins of antiscience attitudes not only in modern discontents but also in a long tradition of Romantic unhappiness with Rationalism. Their concerns, however, are clearly for the present and the future. They question how far the university community should go in validating nonscientific judgments of science. And they warn that the long-term consequences of these trends - for science education and for public judgment of scientific issues - may be infinitely more serious than the "political correctness" wars currently being waged on university campuses

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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr

What is the key to the American enigma? We cannot escape history; and in The Cycles of American History, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, shows how our past shapes our present and foretells our future. In lucid and compelling prose, he confronts the major themes of the American experience: what the United States as an experiment in self-government is all about; the thirty-year rhythm of our politics; the American way in foreign affairs; the question of American imperialism; the origins and significance of the Cold War; government and the free market in American economic growth; the decay of the political parties; the aftermath of the imperial presidency; the crucial role of leadership in democracy. - Jacket flap.