To lead the world

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Walter Prescott Webb

The Great Frontier represents a daring attempt to interpret the settlement of the American West in the global context of the expansion of European civilization between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Webb's boom hypothesis, the expansion of Europe's Great Frontier into the Western Hemisphere energized a static society and made possible the development of such fundamental institutions of the modern era as individualism, capitalism, and political democracy. Webb contends that the closing of the global frontier at the end of the nineteenth century, with the end of easily available empty land and readily exploited natural resources, was responsible for the crises and violence of the twentieth century and boded ill for the future of the United States's treasured democracy.

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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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Arthur Hertzberg

"Internationally known historian and rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, challenges us to reexamine the case for the legitimacy of the state of Israel from a secular point of view. He argues that the religious blinders of absolute thinking and hatred have obscured our vision. In this time of great turmoil in the Mideast, when conflict represents a potential nuclear threat to the region and to the world, it is an argument that is more relevant and urgent than ever." "Charting a pragmatic middle path between the Israeli right wing and critics like Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, Hertzberg chronicles the conflict between the original secular vision of Israel and the illusions that came in the subsequent riptide of Israeli triumphalism and the myths of messianism. The deep need of the Israeli people for both power and security has created a paradox, one that can only be solved when the deeper question of legitimacy is addressed in a clear-eyed, secular fashion, away from the growing threat of clashing right wings and religious violence. Hertzberg calls us to go back to the future, to the original idea behind the founding of Israel - that a people persecuted, marginalized, and murdered under state sanction need a safe land, a place to be independent and free." "Between the growing religiously motivated blindness of the right wing (Arab, Jewish, and American Christian), and the one-sided blindness of the Western liberal intelligentsia, it has become difficult to see the future. Hertzberg calls on the United States to use its power and influence to help recover the original Zionist intent and settle the questions of legitimacy and coexistence for both Israelis and Palestinians."--Jacket.

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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.