EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA is written by Mugambi Jouet who teaches at Stanford Law School. In the description for this book,
the publisher (University of California Press), notes that
“Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, a visceral suspicion of
government, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than
the rest of the Western world—Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.” It honestly was a surprise at first to see
America described in such anti-intellectual terms relative to other countries,
but then I realized how aptly that descriptor fit with recent calls and emails about
the need to preserve library funding due to current budget cut proposals. Jouet explores the growing radicalization of
conservative America and what divides us from each other. This , too, fits with the news: note, for example,
the demonstrations being called for the six month anniversary of the election and
a Wall Street Journal article (“When the CEO Met the CEO President”) quoting a business leader who says, “if we
don’t do something fundamentally different soon, we are going to have class
warfare, and that’s a scary thing.”
In the extensively researched and footnoted EXCEPTIONAL
AMERICA, Jouet includes a quote from Tocqueville describing Americans
as having “a grasp of public affairs, a knowledge of laws and precedents … and
an ability to understand them [which] is greater there than in any other place
on earth.” Jouet then questions whether this is still true, saying, “in vast
segments of modern America, its people are arguably the least informed of all
Westerners and the likeliest to ignore the greater good.” Even if they only spend time on a relatively short excerpt, this book will prompt some critical thinking and great discussions for our students.
In BATTLES FOR
FREEDOM, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Eric Foner explores some
different aspects of American radicalism. Available from independent publisher
I.B.Taurus, this book contains 24 pieces written by Foner and published in The
Nation over the past forty years. He particularly focuses on the politics
of history and the politics of race. The
first piece (“The Men and the Symbols”) deals with the controversy surrounding
American “justice” as applied to two immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti. In the last (“Letter to Bernie”), Foner acknowledges Sanders’ role in
forcing “the questions of economic inequality and excessive corporate power to
the center of our political discourse.” As a side note, our Advanced Placement US
History students examining nineteenth century events frequently consult other
texts by Foner: Free Soil, Free
Labor, Free Men and The Fiery Trial. 
From Yale University Press, SOUL OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT provides
an overview of freedom of speech and is written by legal expert Floyd Abrams, who
has taught at Yale Law School and litigated cases such as the Pentagon Papers
and Citizens United. Abrams, too, contrasts, America with other Western
democratic states, noting that the First Amendment (his “rock star of the
American Constitution”) contains only 45 words, including nine which prohibit
the government from “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Abrams divides his argument into sections
which provide some historical context, compares the legal protection in the US
to other countries, explains the importance of Bridges v. California,
examines the right to be forgotten and the funding of political campaign
spending and then concludes with a discussion of ongoing issues like those
concerning classified materials. It is that last section which is particularly interesting,
since Abrams begins, “having sweeping First Amendment rights does not begin to
answer the question of how to use them.” Much to ponder here.
