"...there is now more reason to wonder whether America can take the steps that would lead it back toward a path of innovation, opportunity, solvency, and promise. William Harris and Steven Beschloss do a systematic and convincing job of showing how Americans can make these changes--and what will happen if we don't."
National correspondent for The Atlantic
Check out Adrift op-eds in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Arizona Republic, quotes in Christian Science Monitor and Beschloss Q&A on Adrift for Haverford College, and Beschloss interview on "Here and Now," NPR station KJZZ. You also can find Beschloss essays from the Sunday Viewpoints of the Arizona Republic on American empire, American exceptionalism, urban dynamism and voter distrust.
Our country is facing hard times and we have to ask a hard question: Are our best days ahead of us or are they past? Many of our nation's schools are struggling with teaching our children. Cities and states are struggling with painful choices caused by budget deficits. The national debt is growing while we work to recover from the recession. National politicians seem locked in partisan wars while the public is becoming more pessimistic about the economy. We have arrived at a moment, a crossroads, that calls us to decide what kind of country we are going to be.
This should be the time for the best of us to emerge. Yet rather than roll up our sleeves and engage in the hard work and sacrifice required to fix our problems, we seem to be letting our differences divide us and allowing our common purpose to be forgotten or ignored. While the global competition for excellence and pre-eminence intensifies, our country drifts, hampered by this destructive stalemate.
I don't believe this troubled path is inevitable, an unstoppable reality that requires us all to merely accept a future of lowered expectations. Quite the contrary. I believe we are capable of taking a hard look at what ails us, figure out how it happened, engage in an adult conversation about what we should do about it, and then get down to business re-establishing our national greatness.
That's why I was pleased to be asked by Bill Harris and Steven Beschloss to write a foreword for their book. They have engaged in serious reflection, gathered together many of the central threads that explain our current challenges, and created a compelling and inspiring narrative that should be at the center of a national conversation about our nation's future. The publication of Adrift can help reset our course. It couldn't be more important or more timely.