Book cover for The Fight Is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World by George Packer

The Fight Is for Democracy

Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World

George Packer
2003 Released
304 Pages
5-7 Hours
★ 3.63 16 ratings
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Harper PerennialISBN 9780060532499

Americans aren't fighting just a war on terrorism ... they are fighting, and losing, a war of ideas.

This riveting collection of original essays by some of the best political minds in America argues that the post-September 11 era has put American democracy itself on trial. In short, defeating terrorism requires us to live up to our own ideals. In The Fight Is for Democracy, nine leading writers take a hard, and at times personal, look at American life and America's role in the world. These pieces share a belief in the need for liberal reform at home and abroad. Power alone is not enough to win hearts and minds around the world. The war against terrorism should be a war for democracy.

Edited and with an Introduction by George Packer, The Fight Is for Democracy pushes the national debate in provocative new directions with essays on:

  • Domestic politics and foreign policy -- Michael Tomasky, political columnist for New York magazine

  • Human rights and intervention -- Laura Secor, Boston Globe staff writer

  • Secularism -- Vijay Seshadri, author and professor at Sarah Lawrence College

  • Patriotism -- Todd Gitlin, author and professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University

  • Politics in the Arab World -- Kanan Makiya, author and professor at Brandeis University

  • Intellectuals and American culture -- Susie Linfield, associate director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University

  • Globalization -- William Finnegan, staff writer at The New Yorker

  • Economic inequality -- Jeff Madrick, editor of Challenge magazine

    • Liberalism and terror -- Paul Berman, contributing editor of The New Republic

    • George Packer

    George Packer is an award-winning author and staff writer at The Atlantic. His books include The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (winner of the National Book Award), The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (winner of the Hitchens Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography). He is also the author of two novels and a play, and the editor of a two-volume edition of the essays of George Orwell.

    More by George Packer

    The Emergency
    Facing Unpleasant Facts
    Last Best Hope
    The Unwinding
    Betrayed
    The Assassins' Gate
    The Village of Waiting
    Our Man
    Interesting Times
    Blood of the Liberals

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