The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot [Paperback]

Naomi Wolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2007

Winner of the 2008 NAUTILUS SILVER AWARD in the category of Social Change/Activism

In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century‚'s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.

The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.

In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us‚-with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine‚'s revolutionary pamphlets‚-that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.

"Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,‚" states Wolf.

Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots efforts to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.

The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate‚-spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots‚-to save our liberty and defend our nation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Library Journal 9.15.07 (starred review)

This latest offering from best-selling author Wolf, The Beauty Myth, is a harbinger of an age that may finally see the patriarchal realm of political discourse usurped. Here is Wolf's compellingly and cogently argued political argument for civil rights, not women's rights. She contributes this call to action to a canon that from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes and Locke and forward, with a few exceptions (e.g., Hannah Arendt), has been largely populated by men. Wolf's work is actually closer to the agitated, passionate polemics of Emma Goldman than the ponderous, philosophical musings of Arendt. Readers will appreciate her energy and urgency as she warns we are living through a dangerous "fascist shift" brought about by the Bush administration. Her chapters outline the "Ten Steps to Fascism" citing historical corollaries (as well as the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm), with headings like "Invoke an External and Internal Threat," "Establish Secret Prisons," and "Target Key Individuals." In other words, fascism can exist without dictatorship. Her book's publication through a small press in Vermont that is committed to "the politics and practice of sustainable living" rather than through a large trade house is itself a political act. Highly recommended for all collections.
--Theresa Kintz, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, PA

"One of the most important books that's been written, certainly in the last decade or two, and perhaps in my lifetime."
-- Thom Hartmann, best-selling author and host of The Thom Hartmann Radio Program

"Naomi Wolf 's End of America is a vivid, urgent, mandatory wake-up call that addresses momentous issues of tyranny, democracy, and survival."
--Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the three-volume Eleanor Roosevelt

"Naomi Wolf sounds the alarm for all American patriots. We must come together as a nation and recommit ourselves to the fundamental American idea that no president, whether Democrat or Republican, will ever be given unchecked power."
--Wes Boyd, co-founder, MoveOn.org

"The framers of our Constitution fully understood that it can happen here. Patriots like Madison, Paine, and Franklin would certainly applaud Naomi Wolf and recognize her as a sister in their struggle."
--Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again

"You will be shocked and disturbed by this book. Most Americans reject outright any comparison of post 9/11 America with the fascism and totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Pinochet's Chile. Sadly, the parallels and similarities, what Wolf calls the 'echoes' between those societies and America today, are all too compelling."
--Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights

From the Inside Flap

An impassioned call to action to Americans from all walks of life to restore the checks and balances and our time-honored protections against abuses of power outlined by our Founding Fathers.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing; 1st edition (September 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933392797
• ISBN-13: 978-1933392790
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (231 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Civil Rights & Liberties

More About the Author

Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.

The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller. She followed that with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, published by Random House in 1993, and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, published in 1997. Misconceptions, released in 2001, is a powerful and passionate critique of pregnancy and birth in America.

In fall 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of The Beauty Myth. In May of 2005, Ms. Wolf released The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from my Father on How to Live, Love and See. The End of America, published in September 2007 by Chelsea Green, is Naomi's latest book.

Naomi Wolf is co-founder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an organization devoted to training young women in ethical leadership for the 21st century. The institute teaches professional development in the arts and media, politics and law, business and entrepreneurship as well as ethical decision making.

She lives with her family in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

262 of 282 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The book is worth a read, October 26, 2007

By 

Phix - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Paperback)

President Bush has carried on a century-long trend to its next step (which happens to be an horrendous one). My complaint about Naomi Wolfe is that she seems focused on President Bush, when really he is merely the latest figurehead in a generation-spanning agenda. Also, she ignores the complicity (and therefore the guilt) of Congress. Additionally, she claims that we are a democracy, and we are not: this is a constitutional republic. This is not merely semantics - a democracy does not have a rule book, just runs by the whims of the majority (in an ideal setting). A Constitutional Republic has a rule book, called the Constitution, and being a republic keeps the original rules somewhat intact unless a true majority is willing to work to change the rules (make amendments). On the other hand, she describes the realities of what happens to the relationship between the government and its people as a country or nation goes downhill. Those steps described were not made up by Ms. Wolfe. Many of those steps have been implemented in our country today. She is also inspiring to her listeners for she at least tells them that they can reverse this trend back toward freedom, which she is absolutely right when she says we are losing it faster than you can say "statism".

146 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Time to Panic Yet?, October 12, 2007

By 

Gary Schroeder "GS23" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Paperback)

Not quite yet, but perhaps we're close. Naomi Wolf has written a book that fills a significant need at this point in our history. She sounds the call to warn American citizens...warn us that we may be slowly metamorphosing into that which we despise most: a country that bullies its citizens and is unaccountable to any recognized authority.

While some will see this book as alarmist --and reasonable people could debate this-- one of her points is undoubtedly true. That is, the decent into a repressive regime is slow and quiet. It usually does not come as an overnight announcement of martial law or suspension of elections. Instead, it happens over the course of years, so quietly that most may never notice until it's a fait accompli. Only then will people ask "how did this happen?".

Wolf compares and contrasts recent events in American history with those in Communist Russia, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. This will undoubtedly put some readers off as any one of these references is a hot button that, once pushed, inflames blinding emotion. However, if you can get past that, the parallels are disquieting...even when read with a skeptical eye.

I hope that when I re-read this review in two years that I will be able to say that my concerns about torture, secret prisons, warrantless eavesdropping, a cowed media, and all the rest have faded away. If not, I'll have to acknowledge the prescience of Wolf's thesis.

274 of 312 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, troubling message, September 17, 2007

By 

D. T. - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Paperback)

I was thoroughly frightened by the content of this book, and truly hope others are as well. The path we are headed down in this country should be concerning to both Democrats and Republicans. Loss of our liberties will, after all, affect all of us. I would urge anyone who reads this to keep an open mind, and not immediately discard the message she is conveying simply because it focuses on troubling things being done by the current administration. These things would be troubling no matter which party the president belonged to. Being able to take a step back from blind party allegiance to actually see when there is a problem is a key factor in maintaining a healthy democracy. No leader deserves our blind allegiance, regardless of their political party affiliation. Our elected leaders should be accountable to us, not the other way around.