Tales of a New America

by Robert B. Reich

An analysis of four political myths demonstrates how current political thinking fails to accommodate the economic realities of an interdependent global economy and points the way toward a new public philosophy

Genres: Politics, Economics

290 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Robert Bernard Reich is an American politician, academic, and political commentator. He served as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Reich is a former Harvard University professor and the former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. Mr. Reich is also on the board of directors of Tutor.com. He is a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security. He is an occasional political commentator, notably on Hardball with Chris Matthews, This Week with George Stephanopoulos and CNBC's Kudlow & Company.

Reviews

[Shelhorowitzgreenmkt]

In some ways eerily prescient, and in some very dated, Reich's mid-80s work criticizes both liberals and conservatives. Known today as one of America's most prominent liberals, in this book he seeks a third stream: a compassionate alliance of business and government that also recognizes the need for those receiving compassion to be productive.

The chapter on gridlock is the best explanation I've seen for what has gone wrong in business and government in the past few decades and may have inspired Bill Clinton to appoint Reich as his Secretary of Labor.

[Juli]

From a colleague, March 2014:

Just attended a talk at the GEO conference on "Master Narratives: The Stories that Move Americans", where Andy Goodman argued that "if you're in the changing-the-world business, then you're in the changing-stories business", and that "if you're telling stories to change minds, then you have to know what stories are already in those minds." He also suggested 4 great books that describe the narratives that dominate the American 'psyche.'

This is book 1 of 4.