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The subleties of failures are seldom discovered,
and that is just as good.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
            
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The Global Village
(article dated from August 1996)

Here at the Capitola Book Café we're getting a fast lesson in the politics of commerce and public space. We are currently part of a coalition of local citizens and other business owners opposed to the construction of yet another shopping mall in our area--this one to include a Borders bookstore five times larger than our store. But this is not simply a local issue. Citizens in communities large and small all over the nation are feeling the effects of chain store expansion. In the cover story of last month's Atlantic Monthly, James Howard Kunstler writes: "American's sense that something is wrong with the places where we live and work and go about our daily business. We drive up and down the gruesome, tragic suburban boulevards of commerce, and we're overwhelmed at the fantastic, awesome, stupefying ugliness of everything in sight--the fry pits, the big-box stores, the office units, the lube joints, the carpet warehouses, the parking lagoons, the jive plastic townhouse clusters, the uproar of signs, the highway itself clogged with cars..." And the issue is not simply economic or aesthetic; it goes to the heart of our notions of citizenship, of community, of public morality. Kunstler continues: "The ugliness is the surface expression of deeper problems--problems that relate to the issue of our national character. The pattern it represents is economically catastrophic, an environmental calamity, socially devastating, and spiritually degrading." As these battles between local citizens and big business have been waged in recent years, more and more writers, scholars, and critics have tried to sort out the different sides of the issue and help readers understand the long term and far reaching results of local decisions. What follows is a list of just some of the titles on this topic currently available:

  • Jihad vs. McWorld, by Benjamin R. Barber
    An elegant analysis of what Barber believes is the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. The diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart - and bringing together - the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends.

  • Habits of the Heart, by Robert N. Bellah, et. al.
    This is an updated edition of the pivotal study of American life that was first published in 1985. Back then the authors prescribed a quest for democratic communities based on our diverse civic and religious tradition as the cure for what ailed us. In the introduction to the new book, the authors relate the argument to the current realities of American society and the growing debate about the country's future.

  • How Superstore Sprawl Can Harm Communities: And What Citizens Can Do About It, by Constance E. Beaumont
    (National Trust for Historic Preservation)
    Functioning as both a warning about the effects of superstore sprawl, and a guide for community activists, this book is a wonderful introduction to the different effects chain businesses have on communities, as well as the effects communities can have on chain businesses. It provides pictures and commentary on well-designed downtowns in cities that have successfully managed the infiltration of chains. For activists, it lays out step by step plans for fighting a corporate giant threatening to muscle its way into town, and offers inspiring stories of resourceful Davids and outwitted Goliaths.

  • Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun
    Of recent political theorists and philosophers, Habermas remains the leading voice on the subject of the public sphere. In this new work, experts from disciplines across the entire spectrum of the academic pantheon offer essays, informed by Habermas' thought, which cover topics such as gender, religion, morality, and the media, all as they relate to and define the public sphere. As a whole the book is an investigation into the nature of community, what it is, and what it should be. It is a must read for anyone seeking to understand and impact the social realm of a modern capitalist society.

  • Trust, by Francis Fukuyama
    Challenging orthodoxies of both the left and right, the author examines a wide range of national cultures in order to divine the underlying principles that foster social and economic prosperity. Insisting that we cannot divorce economic life from cultural life, he contends that in an era when social capital may be as important as physical capital, only those societies with a high degree of social trust will be able to create the flexible, large-scale business organizations that are needed to compete in the new global economy.

  • Americans No More, by Georgie Anne Geyer
    Asks what has become of the sense of "citizenship" - the connection between people and nation that is more than the mere convenience of carrying a passport or being eligible for public benefits. Citizenship, according to Geyer, involves not just pride in or comfort with a certain culture but also a sense of shared obligations for its long-term survival and health. This obligation is what is withering away.

  • Building a Win-Win World, by Hazel Henderson
    The author shows how the global economy is unsustainable because of its negative effects on employees, families, communities, and the ecosystem. She posits that our thoughts on the global economy avoid the responsibility for the radical and usually damaging changes brought about by unchecked expansion into new markets. We still do business under the aegis of the war paradigm, setting out to infiltrate, divide, conquer, and this line of thought is horribly outdated. The author offers new ways of thinking about the global economy that bring sustainability, improved health and prosperity to those it impacts.

  • Divided We Fall, by Haynes Johnson
    The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has traveled the country interviewing Americans about their hopes and concerns regarding jobs, crime, race, and education. In this work, he offers a deep analysis of the direction of American culture and politics based on what he learns. In the end the book urges us to join together, and face the inevitable changes that we a society must make to survive.

  • Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler
    By the authors who write for the liberal journal, The American Prospect, this collection points to the deep sources of unease Americans feel about our economic future and about the competence of government to solve collective problems. Included is Robert Putman's essay on Bowling Alone where he suggests the civil society as well as politics is unraveling. People spend less time on everything from PTA's to bowling leagues. As economic pressures claim more and more available time, and as market forms of organization drive out civic forms, the social fabric becomes threadbare.

  • The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, by Christopher Lasch
    The author makes his most accessible critique yet of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial classes. He argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, but by the elites. These elites, mobile and increasingly global in outlook, refuse to accept limit or ties to nation and place. As they isolate themselves in their networks and enclaves, they abandon the middle class, divide the nation, and betray the idea of a democracy for all America's citizens.

  • The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind
    The author takes on the question of our national identity and suggests that the forces of nationalism and the ideal of a trans-racial melting pot need not be in conflict with one another. He provides a practical agenda for a liberal nationalist revolution that would combine a new color-blind liberalism in civil rights with practical measures for reducing class-based barriers to racial integration. His critique is sharp and to the point and sure to alter your sense of America's identity.

  • The Case Against the Global Economy, edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith
    Bringing together a host of different authors, including Wendell Berry, Ralph Nader, and William Grieder, this work seeks first to clarify the form of what is being called the "global economy," and to show how the rush toward globalization is likely to affect our lives. Secondly, it suggests that this process should be brought to a halt as soon as possible, and reversed. We are being asked to believe that the development processes that have made people poorer and increased the devastation on the planet will now lead to diametrically different and highly beneficial outcomes, if only they can be accelerated and applied everywhere, freely, without restriction. As a whole, it is an alarming book on the most urgent of topics.

  • Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, by Robert D. Putnam
    The author and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970 when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.

  • Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, by Michael Sandel
    The author tackles the question of why - during a period of such unprecedented affluence and greater social justice for women and minorities - American politics are so rife with discontent. What he finds is that our view of citizenship, of civic responsibility, is not adequate for a self-governing nation. Looking back over our history, Sandel recalls the arguments of such thinkers as Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, with the goal of reinventing and reinvigorating our civic philosophy and thus enriching our lives as citizens.

  • Alternatives to Sprawl, by Dwight Young
    This is a policy report published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. It's based on several workshops and conferences designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice regarding urban development. It is an excellently detailed and illustrated look at what city planners, architects and citizens face when deciding what to build in their community and where to build it. It also illuminates some of the culprits that encourage urban sprawl, the greatest of these being the American Dream.