The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
by Naomi Wolf
List Price:
Our Price: $5.36
You Save: $8.59 (62%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.91 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Naomi WolfEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-05
ISBN: 1933392797
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Book Reviews of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
Book Review: An Extraordinarily Important Book
Summary: 5 Stars
To put the matter bluntly, this "pamphlet" should be required reading in every school in this country; it should be read aloud on every street corner; it should be handed out, gratis, to every American citizen. Naomi Wolf's arguments, despite the few foolish naysayers among the reviewers here, are undeniable. Her case that a "fascist turn" is occurring in America is well-researched and, sad to say, terribly accurate. Indeed, the measured urgency of the writing is itself indicative of the quality of the mind that produced it: the demagogues of the ideology Wolf's book exposes---people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter---have never presented arguments half so cohesive, so trenchant, so free of affectation, so humane, and so fundamentally AMERICAN in the sense that the Founders themselves would have wished the term to be taken.
But this book should not be mistaken for an end in itself. What matters is whether or not it is a successful a catalyst in a notoriously apathetic country, among a citizenry deadened by multimedia information overload. It is almost regrettable that there are so many persons publishing so many books at the moment, distracting our gaze from these issues at the very core of our "way of life" (to use a phrase politicians have coopted in awful ways for a long time now). Wolf's book succeeds only if it induces, first of all, a very serious and focused effort on the part of every citizen who reads it to study in detail the persons and events who (and which) led to the foundation of this nation. There are wonderful editions of the Founding Fathers' works available in every library and in bookstores everywhere. Our Constitution and other major writings are available everywhere. (The same, incidentally, may be said for terrifying modern pieces of legislation like the Patriot Act.) We simply have no excuse not to inform ourselves with all possible diligence. It will be important to recognize those instances in which American freedom has been threatened in the past, and to ascertain how and why these threats were averted, then look at the present moment, and force ourselves to face the scary question: will the unsettling changes of the present moments simply correct themselves too? Wolf herself points the way, but we owe it to ourselves and our country to follow to walk the difficult and intellectual path on which she sets us. What she knows, she knows by learning. We can accomplish nothing by taking her on faith. We need to take a more personal kind of responsibility now. If we remain ill-informed half-wits, we are ready prey for those who would harm us to further their own interests.
Before the Fathers are their great intellectual forebears: if you have not read Cicero or John Locke, for example, now would be a good time. (John Adams---whose life is right now reduced to a miniseries on HBO!!!---spoke of Cicero's *De officiis*, i.e., *On Duties*, in terms one usually reserves for religious texts.)
In addition to learning something about our country's prehistory, history and foundational principles, it will also be salubrious for us to read about dictatorships in other countries. I would argue that to the twentieth-century monstrosities Wolf discusses should be added a serious study of the nature and fate of democracy in Athens (fifth century B.C.E.); and perhaps even more importantly, we should look to the shift from Republican to Imperial Rome and the descent of Renaissance Florentine republicanism into despotism. Now more than ever it will do us good to reread Cicero; to read works like Ronald Syme's *The Roman Revolution*, Adrian Goldsworthy's recent biography of Julius Caesar, and *The Cambridge Ancient History* volumes on Rome; to challenge ourselves to trace out the difficult lines of thought set down in J.G.A. Pocock's *The Machiavellian Moment* and the historians who have followed in his wake, most notably, perhaps, Quentin Skinner. We are the more bound to do so because, to face a simple fact, we shall not be fortunate enough to be governed by ruthless but intelligent despot: we shall have no Augustus, no Lorenzo de' Medici, but a poisonous generation of semiliterate tyrants. George Bush is no Princeps. John McCain is no humanist. One is semiliterate, and both are shameless warmongers. Meanwhile, the delicate infrastructure of our governmental institutions continues to collapse. We need to understand the historical conditions and pressures that made our freedom possible, so as to be informed; and once informed, we need to ACT.
And this last is the point Wolf makes the most winningly. The study of the downfalls of democracies, republics, and democratic republics alongside the study of dictatorships and police states has one practical lesson to teach above all others. That lesson is, to quote the old saying, that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." Anyone who reads this book and does not become active in the effort to save this country from those who would destroy it---to be shocked and disturbed sitting in one's armchair will not do, not now---will earn his or her share of the blame if Wolf's "fascist shift" continues unabated. Then all of us together will reap the whirlwind. If America becomes a dictatorship, AMERICANS will be to blame for it, for the fate of a democratic republic rests, in the first resort as in the last, in the hands of its people. If America plays Guitar Hero and fails to notice that our fundamental freedoms are everywhere under assault, it is because Americans no longer know or care about what words like "citizen" and "civic" mean. In the absence of these concepts, we are little better than Orwell's "proles."
There have always been prophets of disaster, we tell ourselves. Many, especially "conservative"-leaning Americans who somehow find it feasible to defend, say, Christianity, the Constitution of the United States of America, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and the activities at Guantanamo Bay all at the same time, will call Wolf "alarmist." Some have already wrong-headedly challenged her scholarship in a desperate effort to avoid confronting the hard truths she offers. But all of the terrifying legislation she cites is available for you to read. Whatever else she quotes is available to you. You may check her historical arguments, and indeed, you may find room for nuanced disagreement. But no sane and rational person will gainsay the central thrust of this extraordinary work. The questions for those of us who would call ourselves "patriots," in full knowledge of what this term MEANS in a FREE COUNTRY, are these: will we rise to defend our liberty, as those who founded this country did, at great risk to life and property? will we be citizens, not sheep? will we take time out from our self-centered little lives to DO something? or do we, in our apathy, sloth, and animal stupidity, deserve to confront the horrors we are doing so little to stop?
I can only urge my fellow Americans to read this book and resolve to perform those two inconvenient functions which constitute the duty and privilege of citizenship: TO THINK and TO ACT. This is still our country. For now.
Summary of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
Winner of the 2008 NAUTILUS SILVER AWARD in the category of Social Change/Activism
In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century?'s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.
In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us?-with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine?'s revolutionary pamphlets?-that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.
"Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,?" states Wolf.
Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots efforts to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.
The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate?-spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots?-to save our liberty and defend our nation.
Civil Rights & Liberties Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Civil Rights & Liberties Books
On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford World's Classics)by John Stuart Mill
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-06-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $44.17
Human Rights, Human Wrongs: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2001Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance Stateby Shane Harris
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2011-01-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Free Expression Is No Offenceby Lisa Appignanesi
PENGUIN; Published: 2005-11-24; Paperback; Book
Values for a Godless Ageby Francesca Klug
Penguin Books; Published: 2000-09-28; Paperback; Book
Letters from Burmaby Aung San Suu Kyi
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1998-01-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.52
Price in other shops:
Women, Politics, and American Societyby Nancy E. McGlen, Karen O'Connor
Prentice Hall College Div; Published: 1998-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $153.75
Human Rights and Global Diversityby R. Paul Churchill
Prentice Hall; Published: 2005-02-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.94
Price in other shops:
Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sourcesby Keith D. Miller
Free Pr; Published: 1992-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.59
Price in other shops:
William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great AntiSlave Trade Campby William Hague
HARPER PRESS; Published: 2007; Hardcover; Book
Similar Books and other products
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalismby Naomi Klein
Metropolitan Books; Published: 2007-09-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.30
Price in other shops:
State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administrationby James Risen
Free Press; Published: 2006-10-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.98
Price in other shops:
Voices of a People's History of the United Statesby Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove
Seven Stories Press; Published: 2009-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.48
Price in other shops:
The End of America: Director's CutVictor; Release date: 2009-01-20; DVD
Best price: $19.06
Price in other shops:
On Democracy (Yale Nota Bene)by Robert A. Dahl
Yale University Press; Published: 2000-08-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.58
Price in other shops:
Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schoolsby Ward Churchill
City Lights Publishers; Published: 2004-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.33
Price in other shops:
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionariesby Naomi Wolf
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2008-09-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.85
Price in other shops:
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Womenby Naomi Wolf
Harper Perennial; Published: 2002-09-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.51
Price in other shops:
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalismby Naomi Klein
Picador; Published: 2008-06-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.59
Price in other shops:
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionariesby Naomi Wolf
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2008-09-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.91
Price in other shops: