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Just How Stupid Are We?

Facing the Truth About the American Voter

Just How Stupid Are We? Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Rick Shenkman

Formats and Prices

Price

$19.99

Price

$25.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD
  2. ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around May 12, 2009. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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Levees break in New Orleans. Iraq descends into chaos. The housing market teeters on the brink of collapse. Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame Democrats. Greedy corporate executives, rogue journalists, faulty voting machines, irresponsible defense contractors-we blame them, too. The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian and renowned myth-buster Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. The hard truth is that American democracy is more direct than ever-but voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. Americans are paying less and less attention to politics at a time when they need to pay much more: Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated. Shenkman offers concrete proposals for reforming our institutions-the government, the media, civic organizations, political parties-to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves.

Genre:

On Sale
May 12, 2009
Page Count
256 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465014934

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Rick Shenkman

About the Author

Rick Shenkman is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter, a New York Times bestselling author, and the editor and founder of George Mason University’s History News Network. An associate professor of History at George Mason University, he lives in Seattle, Washington.

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