COMING APART

Saturday, June 30, 2012

COMING APART
The State of White America, 1960 - 2010
By Charles Murray

THE REASON THAT CHARLES MURRAY
WROTE COMING APART: "The American project consists of the continuing effort, begun with the founding, to demonstrate that human beings can be left free as individuals and families to live their lives as they see fit, coming together voluntarily to solve their joint problems. The polity based on that idea led to a civic culture that was seen as exceptional by all the world. To be an American was to be different from other nationalities, in ways that Americans treasured. That culture is unraveling.

I focus on what happened, not why. I discuss some of the whys, but most of them involve forces that cannot be changed. My primary goal is to induce recognition of the ways in which America is coming apart at the seams―not seams of race or ethnicity but of class.

As with all books on policy, this one will eventually discuss how we might change course. But discussing solutions is secondary in this book, just as understanding causes is secondary. The important thing is to look unblinkingly at the nature of the problem."
AUTHOR: Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. he first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. His subsequent books include In Pursuit, The Bell Curve (with Richard J. Herrnstein), What It Means to Be a Libertarian, Human Accomplishment, In Our Hands, and Read Education. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland.


MY REVIEW: This is a book I wish every American could and would read. I say it that way because I know  there are some who cannot read and understand this book and there are others who will not read it. I read this book with great emotion and excitement because I have lived through what Charles Murray is describing and I agree that America is coming apart at the seams.

Bestselling author Jonah Goldberg has called Charles Murray, "Arguably the most consequential social scientist alive."  Now that may or may not be true. I don't know! But I do know this: Charles Murray has done all of America a favor by writing this book. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

In my opinion the thirteen page prologue is worth the price of the book!

I love what Murray says about the founding virtues of America: Marriage, Industriousness, Honesty and Religiosity. Can we ever recapture these virtues? I don't know. I can only hope.

Read this book!

(I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah  Publishing Group for this review.)