America at Risk: Threats to Liberal Self-Government in an Age of Uncertainty

by Robert Faulkner (Editor), Prof. Susan M. Shell (Editor)

America at Risk gathers original essays by a distinguished and bipartisan group of writers and intellectuals to address a question that matters to Americans of every political persuasion: what are some of the greatest dangers facing America today? The answers, which range from dwindling political participation to rising poverty, and religion to empire, add up to a valuable and timely portrait of a particular moment in the history of American ideas. While the opinions are many, there is a central theme in the book: the corrosion of the liberal constitutional order that has long guided the country at home and abroad. The authors write about the demonstrably important dangers the United States faces while also breaking the usual academic boundaries: there are chapters on the family, religious polarization, immigration, and the economy, as well as on governmental and partisan issues. America at Risk is required reading for all Americans alarmed about the future of their country. Contributors Robert Faulkner is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Susan Shell is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. " America at Risk goes well beyond the usual diagnoses of issues debated in public life like immigration, war, and debt, to consider the Republic’s founding principles, and the ways in which they have been displaced by newer thoughts and habits in contemporary America. A critical book for understanding our present condition."
—Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies "In this penetrating book, the nation’s finest social and political thinkers from across the spectrum take a careful and no-holds-barred look at the dangers facing the American political system. The conclusions are more unsettling than reassuring---but that is because they are honest and real."
—Norm Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute "In the midst of overwrought pundits, irate soccer moms, and outraged bloggers, it is difficult to distinguish genuine dangers from false alarms and special pleading. This book enables us to do so, in a way that helps us to actually think about, not just feel anxious about, threats to those features of American society that are worth cherishing. The authors range in ideology and expertise, but they are uniformly judicious, incisive, and informative. This is a fascinating book about issues that the political system usually ignores or exaggerates."
—Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2009

Reviews

[University of Michigan Press]

America at Risk gathers original essays by a distinguished and bipartisan group of writers and intellectuals to address a question that matters to Americans of every political persuasion: what are some of the greatest dangers facing America today? The answers, which range from dwindling political participation to rising poverty, and religion to empire, add up to a valuable and timely portrait of a particular moment in the history of American ideas.

While the opinions are many, there is a central theme in the book: the corrosion of the liberal constitutional order that has long guided the country at home and abroad. The authors write about the demonstrably important dangers the United States faces while also breaking the usual academic boundaries: there are chapters on the family, religious polarization, immigration, and the economy, as well as on governmental and partisan issues.

America at Risk is required reading for all Americans alarmed about the future of their country.

[Blake Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents a series of essays by experts in their respective fields. The book's introduction claims that the essays were selected due to their non-partisan nature, but a better claim would be that the book presents some non-partisan views of the problems facing the United States alongside some thinly-veiled partisan perspectives.

That being said, this book is an excellent collection of essays detailing the numerous problems facing the U.S. I felt that I learned a lot about subjects that were both new and old to me. Since it was compiled in 2009, it is fair to say that the essays are relevant to some of the current problems facing the country and well as some skeletons that we've yet to address.

I enjoyed this book for what it was, a diverse collection of the problems facing the U.S. by (occasionally unbiased) experts in their respective fields.