American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century [Paperback]

Kevin Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 27, 2007

An explosive examination of the coalition of forces that threatens the nation, from the bestselling author of American Dynasty

In his two most recent bestselling books, American Dynasty and Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips established himself as a powerful critic of the political and economic forces that rule—and imperil—the United States, tracing the ever more alarming path of the emerging Republican majority’s rise to power. Now Phillips takes an uncompromising view of the current age of global overreach, fundamentalist religion, diminishing resources, and ballooning debt under the GOP majority. With an eye to the past and a searing vision of the future, Phillips confirms what too many Americans are still unwilling to admit about the depth of our misgovernment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title of political analyst Phillips's latest book may overstate his case (in the text, he prefers the term "theocratic direction"), but his analysis likely will strike chords among those troubled by our current political moment. Phillips (American Dynasty) expounds upon historical parallels for each of his three subjects. In his section on "Oil and American Supremacy," for example, he points to Britain's post-WWI involvement in the Middle East as an analogy to Iraq, and in his section on radicalized religion, he warns of "the pitfalls of imperial Christian overreach from Rome to Britain." The five major measures of U.S. debt—from national to household—keep setting records, he observes in his section on "Borrowed Prosperity," and the real estate boom spurred by the Federal Reserve, he argues, cannot continue. Phillips identifies the escalating clout of the financial services industry and suggests that Americans should emulate policies in Asia that encourage savings and in Europe that encourage manufacturing. The lesson of the past, he warns, is that intractable national issues "generate weak and compromising politicians or zealous bumblers." A critic of the Bush family, Phillips sees little hope in Hillary Clinton. Expect him to make some provocative appearances on chat shows. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This former Republican strategist has written several books on the relationship between wealth and politics in this country, including the New York Times best-sellers Politics of Rich and Poor (1990) and Wealth and Democracy (2002). Phillips' abiding theme is given a workout again in his new book, with his major thesis spelled out on the first page of the preface: three demons threaten the continued well-being of the U.S. These are our "reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies," a "milieu of radicalized (and much too influential) religion," and a "reliance on borrowed money" (domestic and international debt, that is). His stiff--no harsh--words are aimed primarily at the Republican Party for allowing these three trends to have gotten out of control, but Democrats, without offering clear and tangible alternatives, are not let off the hook. The author's investigation into these three problems is set in a historical context as he posits the undeniable fact that all previous world economic powers have ultimately failed in continued strength (each one, however, believing "they were unique and that God was on their side"). Phillips is eloquent, absorbing, and frightening, and this book will follow its predecessors onto the best-seller lists. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (March 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143038281
• ISBN-13: 978-0143038283
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (213 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

171 of 187 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Consequences Of Rabid Republican Conservatism! March 21, 2006

By Barron Laycock HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Author, advisor, and academic Kevin Phillips is a man of considerable intellect. In the late 1960s he penned a signal work ("The Emerging Republican Majority") that successfully prophesized the ways in which massive socioeconomic and demographic shifts in American society from a northern and industrial one to one more centered in what he euphemistically referred to as the "Sunbelt". In detailing this momentous transformation, Phillips made some then-startling prognostications how such a shift in population and potential electoral votes would presage the long-term shift to a more conservative and Republican-oriented political majority for generations to come. Of course, being a conservative Republican himself, he assumed that this development meant greater fiscal responsibility, more rationally-based international savoir-faire, and much greater social stability. Yet, as he admits in his latest volume, "American Theocracy", that is hardly what the record reflects having transpired in the intervening thirty five years.

Instead, in this calm, clear, and well articulated tour of the social, economic, and political territory with which he is so familiar, Phillips describes the contemporary topography of conservative republican rule as being an inhospitable and ungovernable landscape pocked by craters of ideological fervor, fiscal insanity, and unspeakable personal greed. In many ways, his well-articulated broadside against the political right is all the more damning because it is not only from a true believer, but also from an outstanding academic with a persuasive resume, a man who carefully documents and substantiates everything he cites, especially in this scathing look at exactly where it is that the 21st century's form of rabid Republican conservatism is leading us. Yet one does not find here so much a prosaic attack on the present Bush administration as it is a penetrating historical analysis of how we got to this point in terms of three frightening enduring social and political trends, phenomena neither invented nor originated by the present administration.

Phillips sees three interlocking tendencies as now reaching a critical point in defining and even threatening the future of the polity. First is the rise of the corruptive influence of oil on both domestic and foreign policy; second is the rise of an intolerant form of radical Christian doctrine into key areas of public life; and third, the incredibly irresponsible increase in the level of both public and private debt. Each of these trends threatens to undermine both the short-term and long term stability of the nation, and each in its own way is a key factor in the way that describes how it is that both the Executive branch and the Congress are becoming increasingly beholden to special interests and are increasingly undemocratic. In particular, the fashion in which President Bush and the Congress have used permanent tax cuts for the wealthy as a device to transfer responsibility for future debt away from the wealthy and toward those with less means and less political voice, while at the same time insanely increasing that public debt, defies both morality and logic. Moreover, Phillips finds that the ways in which these trends are unfolding makes us as individual citizens and as members of the larger collectivity substantially less likely and immensely less able to determine our own future in anything resembling a rational and progressive fashion.

In many ways, this book represents a kind of sequel to Phillips original tome in the sense that herein he once again provides for the reader the sort of broad structural perspective illustrating the ways in which social, economic, and political change profoundly impact the future for both society at large and individuals in private, personal existence. In so detailing the powerful fashion in which these three powerful trends relate to each other and how they combine to impact the nature of American society itself, how they tend to push the nation toward ever more limited and ever weaker versions of its former substantial self, he also offers the reader an opportunity to understand the true nature of forces around us that demand public action now. This is an unnerving snapshot of America at a fateful crossroad, at a point that even the dullest among us must begin to recognize the palpable dangers. With the publication of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book, we can no longer say no one has warned us. Enjoy!

660 of 742 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The pot calling the kettle black March 21, 2006

By Eric J. Lyman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is the kind of book that would have kept me up at night had I read it six or seven years ago. American Theocracy convincingly and chillingly compares the current situation in the U.S. to that during the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire, The British Empire, Hapsburg Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Scared yet?

Author Kevin Phillips comes up with a series of characteristics of what he called a "power already at its peak and starting to decline." The list includes a polarization of the society and widespread concern with cultural and economic decay; growing religious fervor and an increasingly close relationship between church and state; a rising commitment to faith over reason; growing government debt; and "hubris-driven national strategic and military overreach."

Jeez, open most days' newspaper and don't be surprised to find concrete examples of each of these points.

The point risks being lost amid all the white noise predicting doom and gloom of different sorts these days. No doubt most readers will find themselves a little more jaded to these sorts of prognostications than they would have been just a few years back.

But what separates Mr. Phillips from the pack (at least to some extent) is his curriculum vitae: he is the same Kevin Phillips who, as a Republican strategist in the 1960s, shattered the Democrat's "solid south" in his book The Emerging Republican Majority. Most political scientists credit the book with sowing the seeds that handed the Republicans the White House in every election since then that didn't feature a highly-intelligent southern governor on top of the Democratic ticket as a way to wrestle a few electoral votes away south of the Mason-Dixon line.

If Mr. Phillips can recognize the hubris in what he helped create, then maybe that's something we should take seriously.

The book comes a bit unraveled at the end, though, when Mr. Phillips unconvincingly argues that the disastrous war in Iraq was precipitated by the needs of several key Republican constituencies: energy producers looking for new oil and gas fields to develop, currency traders worried that OPEC might abandon the dollar and cause its collapse, and evangelical Christians who see events of the last generation in the Middle East as coming right from the Book of Revelation, hailing Armageddon. While he there some validity in his conclusions, Mr. Phillips is no doubt oversimplifying an astonishingly complex set of issues.

But his ultimate conclusion -- that Republican extremists currently pulling the strings of power in Washington are responsible for the country's energy vulnerability, over-stretched military, sky-high debt levels, and the indulgence of radical religion -- are a threat to the country as great as the one facing fifth-century Rome is rings true and is without a doubt bone chilling. Come to think of it, American Theocracy may yet keep me awake with worry tonight.

128 of 141 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Who Will Hear This Wake Up Call? March 21, 2006

By K. Johnson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Kevin Phillips is one of the most widely read and acclaimed in this field. Of his many works, "The Emerging Republican

Majority" written 40 years ago in 1969, gives him the credibility, as well as his 13 other books since. "American Theocracy" discusses the 5 decades of growth many recent developments occurring in the US political, economic, religious and cultural realm in the GOP. He supports his points with lots of research and referencing.

Phillips states the GOP and US government are "a fusion of

petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic

Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex."

At one time, the GOP was the party of stability, order, low taxes, low spending, and small government (in theory at least).

The author notes the transition of the GOP to what many others think and believe today: In 2006, it's over. The Republican party can never argue again that it's the party of low taxes and spending, and small government. The 'big-government GOP' began long before The G.W . Bush administration, but Bush 43 has greatly exacerbated to shift to big spending, big

government, conglomerate control, and the erosion of personal

liberties and freedom of speech. Today there is a Cult of Personality and a lack of critical thought and even disdain -- to the slightest questioning or criticism of American domestic and foreign policy: Bushbots. Federal bureaucratic interference in education with the "No Child Left Behind," Act, and the promulgation of the pseudo-scientific "Intelligent Design." The federal government's interference in the Schiavo case is another clear example of many, noted in "American Theocracy."

Borrowed Prosperity:

"a preference for conspicuous consumption over energy efficiency and conservation,"

"Never before have political leaders urged . . . large-scale

indebtedness on American consumers to rally the economy,"

It was Phillips who coined the well-know term "The Sunbelt. Well, here's another: "National-Debt Culture."

Federal deficits, Social Security, Corporate debt, state & Local

bonds, and massive trade imbalances. "The Financialization of America."

American Per Capita Debt Ratios at Historical All-Time Highs:

On a per capita level, the real estate boom was in part caused by the 1997 "no roll-over" capital gains tax, subsequent tech crash in 2000, and the lowed interest rates in decades.

So what did people do as a result of the boom? Buy more stuff. How? By using their home equity as an ATM machine as they falsely believed they were "wealthier." Will there be consequences?

Perhaps. Perhaps, not.

Petro-Politics and the Military-Industrial Complex:

The U.S. government learned during WWII that high military and defense spending helps the US economy, provides jobs which in turn, spur consumer spending, while redistributing wealth to corporations (defense contracting companies).

Petro-Warriors:

When troops first went into Iraq, what was the first thing they

secured? the Iraqi Oil Ministry, and several oil refineries. One of the primary and public arguments for the invasion of Iraq by the US government was 1. it would help the U.S. economy and 2. it would cause oil prices to decline.

Potential Impact:

As for Phillip's latest, even more convincing is his perspective. He isn't a fan of the Royal Bush family, NOR does he see Hillary as a viable and effective alternative. If Americans can stop pretending that parties are really that different on the political spectrum they can realize, that American culture, habits and behaviour, will be the

deciding factor. However I don't see it happening.

This is a breakthrough book that will receive attention. It's not the first book published recently, that offers these opinions. But it's the credentials of the author, Kevin Phillips that will spur discussion. Things won't change; but things will be discussed. His objective historical notes about previously fallen Empires involved several historical facts that have occurred to other great powers in the past: global usurpation, religious intransigence, debt, and dependency on resources that are *outside* of the nation.

What Phillips is describing is not Earth shattering, bold, nor brave. Because it's a truthful observation based on statistical facts, not necessarily just opinion. And, it's a concept that happens to ALL empires over the course of world history. The Roman Empire declined over a period of 300 to 400 years. The United States does not seem to have that long. I suspect when it starts, which may be now, it will take 50 to 100 years. However, when it will begin exactly , is what we don't know. Like all of history, time moves on, and so does Earth's civilization.

Worth noting again, readers must disassociate themselves from their own natural biases. Like all books regarding the current political, cultural, and religious landscape: don't focus on opposing sides and viewpoints. Focus on the book's various perspectives and then apply to your perceptions. Then, deconstruct this book by yourself.