Social Civics

In this revelatory narrative covering the years 1967 to 2017, Steven Brill gives us a stunningly cogent picture of the broken system at the heart of our society. He shows us how, over the last half-century, America's core values - meritocracy, innovation, due process, free speech, and even democracy itself - have somehow managed to power its decline into dysfunction.

Most Americans are likely to encounter the effects of government malfeasance or neglect close to home—from their governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors. In fact, deals shrouded in darkness are regularly made at the state and local levels, often the result of closed-door discussions between governments and industry without any scrutiny whatsoever from the public.

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed.

Over the last two centuries, the US government has revoked citizenship to cast out its unwanted, suppress dissent, and deny civil rights to all considered "un-American" - whether due to their race, ethnicity, marriage partner, or beliefs. Drawing on the narratives of those who have struggled to be treated as full members of "We the People", law professor Amanda Frost exposes a hidden history of discrimination and xenophobia that continues to this day.

In a collection of original essays, the venerated television journalist, Dan Rather, celebrates our shared values and what matters most in our great country, and shows us what patriotism looks like. Writing about the institutions that sustain us, such as public libraries, public schools, and national parks; the values that have transformed us, such as the struggle for civil rights; and the drive toward science and innovation that has made the US great, Rather brings his experience on the frontlines of the world's biggest stories, and offers listeners a way forward.

In a time when Washington, DC and the country are more polarized than they have been for decades, John McCain is the rare public figure who has earned the respect of people on both sides of the aisle. He is a model for bipartisanship and political integrity. In his 40 years in politics, McCain has never been afraid to buck trends or ruffle a few feathers. His words are more important today than ever.

Tammy Duckworth takes listeners through the amazing - and amazingly true - stories from her incomparable life. In November of 2004, an Iraqi RPG blew through the cockpit of Tammy Duckworth's US Army Black Hawk helicopter. The explosion, which destroyed her legs and mangled her right arm, was a turning point in her life. But as Duckworth shows in Every Day Is a Gift, that moment was just one in a lifetime of extraordinary turns.

You can bring about positive, lasting change in the world, and you don’t have to be rich and famous or lead a big organization to do it. Global leadership icons and best-selling authors John C. Maxwell and Rob Hoskins provide the inspiring and practical roadmap to get started being the change you want to see - in your community and beyond.

Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America's small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order -the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities - underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans' anger, their culture must be explored more fully. Moving beyond simplistic depictions of the residents of America's heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation's political future.

From the author of the number-one New York Times best seller On Tyranny comes an impassioned condemnation of America's pandemic response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom.

You are no doubt a busy individual with a lot of things going on! It can be challenging to find the time to study in preparation for the uscis civic exam. However, the truth is that the US Citizenship test is a challenging test. It is normal to have some anxiety about taking this test. Thorough preparation cannot be overlooked. That is why the author James Goldsmith developed the US Citizenship Test Study Guide! It contains hundreds of practice questions and reviews all essential concepts found on the exam from all categories of the exam.

The buying and selling of citizenship has become a legitimate, thriving business in just a few years. Entrepreneurs are renouncing America and Europe in favor of tax havens in the Caribbean with the help of a cottage industry of lawyers, bankers, and consultants that specialize in expatriation. But as journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian discovered, the story of 21st century citizenship is bigger than millionaires buying their second or third passport.

Is this the America you want? If not, here's how to claim the power to change your country. We are in an age of epic political turbulence in America. Old hierarchies and institutions are collapsing. From the election of Donald Trump to the upending of the major political parties to the spread of grassroots movements like Black Lives Matter and $15 Now, people across the country and across the political spectrum are reclaiming power. Are you ready for this age of bottom-up citizen power?

Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us.

When he left Congress in 2017, Jason Chaffetz still thought elections could save us. For generations, conservatives have hoped that freedom-loving congressional majorities could turn back the tide and restore America’s liberties and prosperity. But now, he says, winning elections will not be enough.

From the email marketing director of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the co-founder of Run for Something comes an essential and inspiring guide that encourages and educates young progressives to run for local office, complete with contributions from elected officials and political operatives.

Looting - a crowd of people publicly, openly, and directly seizing goods - is one of the more extreme actions that can take place in the midst of social unrest. Even self-identified radicals distance themselves from looters, fearing that violent tactics reflect badly on the broader movement. But Vicky Osterweil argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution and improving life for the working class - not to mention the brazen messages these methods send to the police and the state.

In American Rule, Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. In this landmark book, scientist and psychologist Drew Westen shows how electorates vote not with their heads but with their hearts, and how the marketplace that matters most is the marketplace of emotion - filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory.

Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription.