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A Letter to America | 
 enlarge | Author: David Boren
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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New (33) Used (14) from $5.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 15830
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0806139447
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.60973
EAN: 9780806139449
ASIN: 0806139447
Publication Date: February 28, 2008
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A Letter to America boldly faces the question of how long the United States, with only six percent of the world's population, can remain a global superpower. University of Oklahoma president David Boren explains with unsparing clarity why the country is at a crossroads and why decisive action is urgently needed. He draws on his experiences as the longest-serving chair of the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence and as a state governor and leader of a major public university. Boren asserts major reforms to restore the ability of our political system to act responsibly. We have shared values, and we should use them to replace cynicism with hope and the determination to build a better future. Bipartisan cooperation on behalf of national interests needs to replace destructive partisanship, and we should not rule out electing a president independent of both existing parties. We must fashion a post-Cold War foreign policy that fits twenty-first-century realities--including several contending superpowers. We must adopt campaign finance reform that restores political power to the voters, rather than special interests. Universal health care coverage, budget deficit reduction, affordable higher education, and a more progressive tax structure will strengthen the middle class. Boren also describes how we can renew our emphasis on quality primary and secondary education, revitalize our spirit of community, and promote volunteerism. He urges the teaching of more American history and government, for without educated citizens our system cannot function and our rights will not be preserved. Unless we understand how we became great, we will not remain great. The plan Boren puts forward is ambitious and hopeful. It challenges Americans to look into the future, decide what we want to be and where we want to go, and then implement the policies and actions we need to take us there.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 MUST read September 30, 2008
This book should be required reading for every American citizen prior to the our Congress going back into session on Thursday, October 2, 2008. If not before then, then before the November 4th elections in 2008. It is a real wake up call to the status of America not only here at home, but also worldwide.
A Must Read September 19, 2008
After reading this from the library I immediately ordered five copies to be given to my children and grandchildren for Christmas with the instruction that they must read and act upon it.
Wise and Timely Book July 31, 2008
This is a wise, thoughtful, deeply probing assessment of The United States current situation, with sensible prescriptions to address problems. Every American should read it.
High School Required Reading July 23, 2008
I am sending my copy of "A LETTER TO AMERICA"A Letter to America by David Boren to the Arizona State Superintentent of Public Schools with the recomendation that he read it and mandate it to be required reading for all High School Junior Students. If I could afford it, I'd send a copy to every citizen in the United States!
My wife, Pegge, is ordering a copy to send to Opra.
Tom Downs, Scottsdale, AZ
 Usual list of well-known National Problems; weak on solutions July 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This short book represents David Boren's current views of the problems facing the USA. I found his dispassionate discussion of the US's relation to the world, the destructiveness of partisanship, campaign corruption, economic health, the disappearing middle class, and the Urgency of Memory (best chapter in the book) to be good summaries of where the USA stands today. I did not see Boren saying "we are at a crossroads", however.
Overall, each of these problems have been discussed in the media in one form or another, so to me, it seem like a better than average repitition of what's out there. However, the CHapter on "The Urgency of Memory" caught my eye and should be restated as an "op Ed" column. It is by far the best chapter in the book, and it contained much in it that was new to me.
Boren quotes the following passage from an address entitled "The Urgency of Memory" in which the importance of Americans returning to humanistic studies was emphasized to understand themselves and their place in the world following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
"A nation that does not know why it exists or what it stands for cannot be expected to long endure. We must recover from the amnesia that shrouds our history in darkness, our principles in confusion, and our future in uncertainty. We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision. We cannot hope that forgetting our past will enhance our focus for the future."
Boren then summarizes the demise of teaching of American History and Civics in US high schools, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning. He rightfully criticizes the demise of academic standards through out the American educational system because of political correctness and recommends that American history and Civics be required of all university graduates.
My own recollection is that the main purpose of the American primary and secondary school system was to teach American History and civics to immigrants so as to integrate them into American Society. If it is indeed true that American primary and secondary education has abdicated this reponsibility, we are in trouble.
The solution: Mandate that all immigrant and foreign students not only learn English, but also American History and Civics at ALL levels of the US educational system from kindergarten to the graduate school. Once implemented, make it mandatory for ALL students.
How can that be done?: By executive order, instruct the Department of Education to withold federal funding from primry and secondary school systems unless such a requirement is instituted. Second, by executive order, mandate the same requirement in all American Unviersities who receive federal funds for research, extension and other services or risk seeing their funds evaporate. That's at least a start.
As for Boren's other solutions, I found them weak. I felt that they represented a nostalgic trip to his younger days when life was 'simpler' or in the US Senate, where things at one time were more "collegial".
I saw no recommendations that would reinvent America along our traditional model in a new framework for the 21st century.
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