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Summary
Summary
Former White House strategist and bestselling author Kevin Phillips discusses America's dangerous dependence on ever-expanding debt, fossil fuels, and religious ideals.
Summary
From America's premier political analyst and New York Times bestselling author of American Dynasty comes an explosive analysis of the axis of religion, politics, and fiscal imprudence that threatens to destroy the United States. Unabridged. 11 CDs.
Author Notes
Kevin Price Phillips (born November 30, 1940) has been a political commentator for more than thirty years. He was educated at the Bronx High School of Science, Colgate University, the University of Edinburgh and Harvard Law School. Phillips worked on Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968 and in the White House after the election.
His books include: Post-Conservative America (1982), The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (1990), Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle Class Prosperity (1993), Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich (2002), Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (2007), and 1775: A Good Year for Revolution (2012).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Scientists repeatedly prove the limited amount of fossil-based fuels left in the world and emphasize the environmental effects of using them. Yet many Republicans ignore science in the name of God while promoting a debt-driven consumer society. Debt, radical religion and fuel have been individual sources of expansion and destruction for many nations throughout history. Utilizing these precedents, Phillips provides detailed and troubling criticism of the United States' excessive dependence on and promotion of these three factors. Phillips predicts these practices will significantly diminish the power of the United States in international politics. In navigating this sometimes complicated book, Scott Brick delivers an outstanding performance. His command of the text will leave listeners believing that he wrote the book. His intensity matches the author's urgency while his emphasis proves a great value in determining the important information. Nonfiction audiobooks of this breadth often become cumbersome and daunting with information overload. But Brick leads his listeners with the gift of a master performer who knows his audience. While extras such as a time line, bibliography or character glossary could only improve this audiobook, the clarity of the text through the efforts of the author and narrator make it well worth the listen. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 13). (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
This former Republican strategist has written several books on the relationship between wealth and politics in this country, including the New York Times0 best-sellers Politics of Rich and Poor0 (1990) and Wealth and Democracy0 (2002). Phillips' abiding theme is given a workout again in his new book, with his major thesis spelled out on the first page of the preface: three demons threaten the continued well-being of the U.S. These are our "reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies," a "milieu of radicalized (and much too influential) religion," and a "reliance on borrowed money" (domestic and international debt, that is). His stiff--no harsh--words are aimed primarily at the Republican Party for allowing these three trends to have gotten out of control, but Democrats, without offering clear and tangible alternatives, are not let off the hook. The author's investigation into these three problems is set in a historical context as he posits the undeniable fact that all previous world economic powers have ultimately failed in continued strength (each one, however, believing "they were unique and that God was on their side"). Phillips is eloquent, absorbing, and frightening, and this book will follow its predecessors onto the best-seller lists. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2006 Booklist
Kirkus Review
A dazzling treatise on the collapse of Republican virtues under the fundamentalists and plutocrats united in the perfect storm of Bushism. Phillips (American Dynasty, 2004, etc.), the apostate former Republican strategist, once coined the term "Sun Belt" and envisioned the Southernization of American politics. He is now in the unhappy position of bearing witness to the birth of a Texas-fried, small-tent politics that blends religious orthodoxy and unwavering uncertainty in presidential infallibility with an economics predicated on indebtedness and extraction. The red state/blue state schism marks several old divides, he holds, one between "a preference for conspicuous consumption over energy efficiency and conservation," one between secularism and theocracy. Why would a good American encourage the latter? Well, a certain school holds that the Second Coming will not be triggered until theocratic rule is established in this most divinely favored of countries, after which, presumably, it will be up to the damned to sort through the ugly business of paying the debts and filling the tanks. Many of these divides are very old, Phillips observes, between "greater New England and the South"--save the polar reversal of the South now being Republican, the Northeast Democratic. As to the manifold manifestations of theocracy, few are subtle: Consider the Schiavo case, and unprecedented federal meddling in science education (with the executive's expressing a clear preference for so-called "intelligent design"), and the endless effort to undo various civil liberties. And the financialization of America? Again, writes Phillips, it's not subtle: "Never before have political leaders urged . . . large-scale indebtedness on American consumers to rally the economy," to say nothing of an economy based on servicing debt rather than making anything useful--and, of course, on ever-scarcer oil. Other credit-happy theocracies, like Inquisition Spain, went bankrupt, collapsed under their own weight, disappeared from influence and view. Phillips's historical essay/polemic is provocative, though plenty of folks in Houston--to say nothing of Washington--won't like it at all. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Why did Rome fall (and other empires since)? Global overambition, big debts, bigger resource problems, and militating religionists, argues the author of American Dynasty. Sound familiar? With a 15-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
