6 books to help you understand the United States and its politics

From the pursuit of happiness to the economy, here are some books that provide context, insight, and perspective on the United States in the lead-up to the election.

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, there appears to be a lot of disagreement among the public. To understand the disagreement, consider the following six books that provide detailed analysis of the issues and their context. These books cover everything from the Declaration of Independence to the evolution of conservative politics starting with the Reagan era to the cultural foundations of the United States. Add to that the opioid drug epidemic, which began in 1996 with the sale of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, and economics amid concerns about the cost of living. Despite our differences, can America achieve a sense of “we the people”? That’s the question that needs to be answered before the Nov. 5 election.

Jill Lepore, a history professor at Harvard University and a contributor to The New Yorker magazine, draws from the Declaration of Independence in the title of her comprehensive and fascinating history of the United States. We are endowed with certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The book, which covers the period from the 16th century to 2018, is “the story of a multi-ethnic nation at its founding and its people who tried to find a way to make ‘these truths’ come true,” said John S. Gardner writes in the Guardian. “No nation before or since has been so roiled by conflict and wealth,” wrote Andrew Sullivan in a review for the New York Times. “Never before has a nation been defined as a nation of strangers and travelers, whose society is constantly flooded with waves of immigrants…Never has a people been so passionate about both slavery and freedom.” The Truth is a civics book that is perfect for today’s times. The New York Times’ Best Books of 2018 says that this is not a story of “relentless progress,” but that “reason and faith, black and white, immigrant and native, industry and agriculture ripple through the story.” However, it is a story of conflict and contradiction.” It’s far from complete. ”

Pearlstein’s four-volume chronicle of the rise of conservatism in the United States concludes with a colorful narrative history. Pearlstein begins with the Gerald Ford/Jimmy Carter presidential campaign. Mr. Reagan, an unsuccessful primary candidate, refused to cooperate with Ford, setting the stage for his victory over Mr. Carter four years later. “It’s all here – the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, the Billy Brothers, the Panama Canal Treaty, California’s Proposition 13 property tax cuts, supply-side economics, the ‘killer rabbit’, direct mail, the Ford Pinto, “Ted Kennedy, Three Mile Island, the malaise that defined this turbulent era and 100 other incidents and stories,” John S. Gardner wrote in the Guardian. Reaganland is “essentially a sociopolitical history, focusing on the movements and causes that intensely animated national debate and the impact that major social changes, such as women’s rights, had on American life.” Next, read Max Boot’s new biography, “Reagan,” which focuses on the relationship between Reagan and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In Culture Wars (1991), Hunter coined the term to describe the division between two opposing factions within the United States. “American democracy is in crisis,” he writes in his new book, Democracy and Solidarity. He examines two and a half centuries of American political culture and identifies the cultural roots of the crisis: the promise that all men are created equal and the practices that exclude broad swaths of humanity. “Hunter is America’s leading cultural historian,” David Brooks wrote in the New York Times. “He reminds us that the political life of a country is built on a cultural foundation. Each society has its own way of seeing the world, its own ideas about what is right and wrong. It has its own fundamental assumptions, its own vision of a better world that gives direction and purpose to national life.” ” American culture, which often achieved unity through opposition to common enemies and affirmation of common goals, “has broken down at its deepest level,” Hunter writes.

In June 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1973 Roe v. The Wade decision was overturned. The action sparked an avalanche of state bills to ban abortion and parallel protests and actions to restore Roe. Garrow’s groundbreaking legal history begins with his 40-year fight to repeal a Connecticut law banning contraception. He provides thorough coverage of Roe v. Wade, its precursor and successor cases, as well as the 25 years of post-Roe litigation. The book is “a monumental, expansive, insightful, frustrating, challenging and far-reaching book that documents one of the most profound changes in modern American life,” the Society said. Scholar and legal scholar Christine Luker writes in the New York Times. She points out that “much of the struggle over the boundaries of the sexual revolution took place in Congress and the courts.” Garrow concludes that this case represents one of the two most important stories in 20th century legal history (the other being Brown v. Board of Education). What happens next will likely be determined by the US presidential election.

Quinonez’s National Critics Circle Award winner Dreamland assembles the puzzle of “the worst drug epidemic to ever hit this country.” “Children from the most privileged group in the wealthiest country in the history of the world were poisoned by substances meant to numb pain and died in near-epidemic numbers,” he writes. Opiate overdose deaths rose from 10 people a day in 1999 to one every 30 minutes by 2012. Quinonez’s chronicle of “painkillers, pill mills, Mexican traffickers, and the quiet surrounding the epidemic” is told in dramatic and heartbreaking detail as it connects a small town. Suburbs across America and small towns in Mexico are creating a “devastating synergy.” OxyContin first appeared, he writes, “introduced to me by a Purdue Pharma representative in an air-conditioned clinic over steak and dessert.” Within a few years, black tar heroin was then placed in small uninflated balloons that were placed in the mouths of boys on sugarcane farms. Zarisko drives an old Nissan Sentra to meet him in a McDonald’s parking lot. ” Quinone offers glimmers of hope, including the widespread availability of naloxone, the antidote for heroin overdoses (currently also used against fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin). is bringing. The ultimate antidote, he argues, is community.

Economist Gilder’s 1981 book Wealth and Poverty defined supply-side economics and influenced the politics of the Reagan administration. His new theory offers a contrarian theory based on the concept that knowledge is true wealth. “When you insert your credit card at the gas pump, what you are actually purchasing is knowledge that enables you to make a transaction,” Gilder writes. The essence of post-capitalist life, he says, is “a huge shift of power from productive citizens, innovators, and entrepreneurs to politicians, bankers, and bureaucrats, made possible by government control of money.” insists. Gilder’s system is based on information theory. “While economics focuses on human desires and incentives, information theory focuses on human creativity.” His key principles are: “Wealth is knowledge, growth is learning, information is wonder, money is money.” It’s time.” Gilder tends to be on the side of optimists, believing that technology, entrepreneurship and innovation can drive economic development. Economic concerns are key to the upcoming election, with a majority of Americans (about 70%, according to a Pew survey) concerned about rising food and housing costs.