E. Kiffer, Unite associee de Biologie forestiere Universite Nancy, Faculte des Sciences , France. M. Morelet, Unite de recherches Ecosystemes forestiers INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agonomique).
Raskin and Spero present a powerful indictment of the seemingly inexorable march of the US toward becoming a national security state in the latter half of the 20th century and most dramatically since 9/11. America has always had a tendency toward triumphalism and militarism, but in recent decades, and particularly under the current administration, these tendencies have increasingly undercut the core values of democracy and personal freedom. The reader is led through the government's systematic rejection of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The authors decry unprecedented government secrecy and monitoring of the populace, increased poverty and economic disparity, and perpetual state of fear promoted by those in power--multiple attributes of a failed imperial state....[t]he authors' alternative vision of American democracy is visionary and serves as a useful foil for criticism of the existing state. Recommended. General readers and undergraduates. -Choice