As we enter the final week of our celebration of National Poetry Month, I am very happy to announce that our next book club selection is Who Stole the American Dream? by Hedrick Smith.
Hedrick Smith is a bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, and Emmy Award–winning producer. He has written five best selling books, including The Russians and The Power Game. As a reporter at The New York Times, Smith shared a Pulitzer for the Pentagon Papers series and won a Pulitzer for his international reporting from Russia in 1971–1974. in addition, Smith has been a producer for PBS’ Frontline.
In Who Stole the American Dream?, Hedrick Smith analyzes what happened to the American dream over the last four decades, how it is our economy has crumbled and we have become so divided as a country.
I met Hedrick in February in NH, when both he and Jackie Salit, the President of IndependentVoting.org spoke at the NH Rebellion We the People Convention. Hedrick is an outspoken advocate for structural political reforms from campaign finance reform, to ending gerrymandering and top two nonpartisan elections.
It was a pleasure to hear him speak and I know we will greatly enjoy reading and exploring his book. Our book club conversation with Hedrick will be on Sunday, June 19th. I am looking forward to it!
You can get your copy of Who Stole the American Dream? on Amazon, at your local bookseller or library. It is available in hardcover, paperback or on Kindle.
Let me leave you with an excerpt from the Prologue:
A House Divided: Two Americas
Over the past three decades, we have become Two Americas. We are no longer one large American family with shared prosperity and shared political and economic power, as we were in the decades following World War II. Today, no common enemy unites us as a nation. No common enterprise like settling the West or rockeing to the moon inspires us as a people.
We are today a sharply divided country–divided by power, money, and ideology. Our politics have become rancorous and polarized, our political leaders unable to resolve the most basic problems. Constant conflict had replaced a sense of common purpose and the pursuit of the common welfare. Not just in Washington, but across the nation, the fault lines that divide us run deep, and they are profoundly self-destructive, unless we can find our way to some new unity and consensus.
Abraham Lincoln gave us fair warning. “A house divided against itself, ” Lincoln said, “cannot stand.”
Americans sense that something is profoundly wrong–that we have done off track as a nation. Many skilled observers write about this, but it is hard to grasp exactly how we arrived at our present predicament or how to respond–how to go about healing America’s dangerous divide. The causes do not lie in the last election or the one before that. They predate the financial collapse of 2008. The timeline to our modern national quagmire lies embedded in the longer arc of our history, and that history, from 1971 to the present, is the focus of this book.”
Politics for the People Conference Call
with Hedrick Smith
Sunday, June 19th at 7 pm EST
Call in number (641) 715-3605
Access code 767775#
Who Stole the American Dream? is an outstanding selection. If I could wave a magic wand and initiate a civics class for every senior in our high schools, this book would be required reading. Ditto for all of our judges, legislators, governors, and their staff members. Presidential candidates? Well, the wand isn’t that magic yet. The conference call will surely be a “can’t miss” experience.