Description
Book SynopsisThe United States today is hopelessly polarized the political Right and Left have hardened into rigid and deeply antagonistic camps, preventing any sort of progress. Amid the bickering and inertia, the promise of the 1960s,when we came together as a nation to fight for equality and universal justice,remains unfulfilled.As Shelby Steele reveals in Shame , the roots of this impasse can be traced back to that decade of protest, when in the act of uncovering and dismantling our national hypocrisies,racism, sexism, militarism,liberals internalized the idea that there was something inauthentic, if not evil, in the America character. Since then, liberalism has been wholly concerned with redeeming modern American from the sins of the past, and has derived its political legitimacy from the premise of a morally bankrupt America. The result has been a half-century of well-intentioned but ineffective social programs, such as Affirmative Action. Steele reveals that not only have these programs fai
Trade ReviewNew York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Wall Street Journal "Shelby Steele is one of the very few writers able to tell home truths about the plight of black Americans... In Shame, an essay on the political polarization of our country and on the want of progress among black Americans, he has produced his most complex and challenging work... The irony here is that Shelby Steele might just be a Tom of a different kind--a black Tom Paine, whose 21st-century common sense could go a long way to bringing his people out of their by now historical doldrums." New York Times Book Review "A spirited polemic...Steele delivers this message in an ardent, readable style...Steele...speaks with passion, eloquence and unremitting honesty." Publishers Weekly, starred review "This timely critique warrants attention from anyone troubled by the persistence of racial discord in American life, from Selma to Ferguson." Kirkus "A conservative analysis of political polarization and race relations in America, more thoughtful and less vitriolic than most volleys from either side." Claremont Review of Books "Steele may well have given us his most important book yet."
Table of ContentsChapter One: The Great Divide Chapter Two: A Collision Chapter Three: Hypocrisy Chapter Four: The Moral Asymmetry of Hypocrisy Chapter Five: The Compounding of Hypocrisy Chapter Six: Characterological Evil Chapter Seven: "The Battle of Algiers" Chapter Eight: No Past, No Future Chapter Nine: America's "Characterological Evil": A Pillar of Identity Chapter Ten: The Denouement Chapter Eleven: After Evil, "The Good" Chapter Twelve: The New Liberalism Chapter Thirteen: Dissociation Chapter Fourteen: Relativism and Anti-Americanism Chapter Fifteen: The Culture Chapter Sixteen: Conservatism: The New Counterculture Chapter Seventeen: A Politics of Idealism Chapter Eighteen: Liberalism is Beautiful, but Conservatism is Freedom
