SOCIAL SCIENCES

If We Can Keep It: How the

Tomasky, Michael. If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How it Might Be Saved. Liveright:$SPACE$Norton. Feb. 2019. 288p. illus. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781631494086. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9781631494093. POL SCI
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Tomasky (Daily Beast;$SPACE$New York Times; editor, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas) turns his considerable analytical talents to an investigation of our current political situation set within an historical framework dating back to the origins of the United States. He concludes that although our nation may seem broken, it is not beyond repair, and provides a number of possible solutions to cure what he refers to as our "Age of Fracture." These include expanding the size of the House of Representatives, reconsidering the Electoral College, fighting the Senate filibuster, and limiting partisan gerrymandering. On the social front, Tomasky argues for college students to spend their first three years studying, with their fourth and final year being one of service. Moreover, the author believes that civics education should be greatly improved in order to maintain an informed society.
VERDICT This timely and sophisticated analysis is recommended for all collections and nicely complements Jon Meacham's The Soul of America, which provides a similar mature assessment of modern America.
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