From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy, a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our children. Why, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us? In this comprehensive book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. masterfully analyzes how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why. He argues...

Ethical leadership, steeped in integrity and fairness, matters. The future of our nation and our world depends upon the quality of America's character. In this absorbing look at our contemporary society and government, former Indiana congresswoman, Jill Long Thompson, persuasively argues that we all have a meaningful role to play in shaping America's character and future. The citizenry, as well as their elected officials, are responsible for protecting...

A look at the decline of civic engagement, and how, nonpartisan organizations like the League of Women Voters can help save and promote democracy. Throughout our history, civic associations have enabled democracy through citizen training, education, and responsible advocacy. But, Americans have increasingly withdrawn from such civic activity, and most associations that remain lack public accountability, local presence, and active membership. In...

What happens when a few conglomerates dominate all major aspects of mass media, from newspapers and magazines to radio and broadcast television? After all the hype about the democratizing power of the internet, is this new technology living up to its promise? Since the publication of this prescient work, which won Harvard's Goldsmith Book Prize and the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the concentration of media power and the resultant "hypercommercialization...

This volume offers readers a concise and accessible introduction to the ideas of Noam Chomsky, described by the New York Time as "arguably the most important intellectual alive." In these recent, wide-ranging interviews, conducted for Truthout by C. J. Polychroniou, Chomsky discusses his views on the "war on terror" and the rise of neoliberalism, the refugee crisis and cracks in the European Union, prospects for a just peace in Israel/Palestine,...

He invented the wood-burning stove and the lightning rod, he wrote Poor Richard's Almanac and The Way to Wealth, and he traveled the world as a diplomat. But it was in politics that Benjamin Franklin made his greatest impact. Franklin's political writings are full of fascinating reflections on human nature, on the character of good leadership, and on why government is such a messy and problematic business. Drawing together threads in Franklin's writings,...