Volume 51, Number 11 · June 24, 2004
Patriot Games
By Andrew Hacker
Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington
Simon and Schuster, 428 pp., $27.00
Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
by Robert B. Reich
Knopf, 257 pp., $24.00
On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense
by David Brooks
Simon and Schuster, 304 pp., $25.00
The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It
by Stanley B. Greenberg
St. Martin's, 400 pp., $25.95
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
by David K. Shipler
Knopf, 319 pp., $25.00
Samuel Huntington opens his book by declaring that he writes 'as a patriot,' a position that leads him to be 'deeply concerned about the unity and strength' of his country. He also fears that patriotism is an endangered sentiment. In fact, as Huntington presents it, l'amour patrie has long been an emotion identified with the right. Conservatives are more apt than liberals to pin flags on their lapels and place their hands on their hearts when the anthem is played. Yet for many of them the America they love has an explicit shape: an economy that accords primacy to profits and is willing to tolerate the inequalities that ensue; military might the rest of the world will fear; and an emphasis on religion, with its attendant constraints. Above all, they echo William Bennett in proclaiming the 'superior goodness of the American way of life.' So to be a patriot one must feel that the United States surpasses all other societies. (Don't even try to argue that the Finns might do things better.)
Review, 5036 words
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