A Letter to America [Hardcover]

David L. Boren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2008

A Letter to America boldly faces the question of how long the United States, with only six percent of the world's population, can remain a global superpower. University of Oklahoma president David Boren explains with unsparing clarity why the country is at a crossroads and why decisive action is urgently needed. He draws on his experiences as the longest-serving chair of the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence and as a state governor and leader of a major public university.

Boren asserts major reforms to restore the ability of our political system to act responsibly. We have shared values, and we should use them to replace cynicism with hope and the determination to build a better future. Bipartisan cooperation on behalf of national interests needs to replace destructive partisanship, and we should not rule out electing a president independent of both existing parties. We must fashion a post-Cold War foreign policy that fits twenty-first-century realities--including several contending superpowers. We must adopt campaign finance reform that restores political power to the voters, rather than special interests. Universal health care coverage, budget deficit reduction, affordable higher education, and a more progressive tax structure will strengthen the middle class. Boren also describes how we can renew our emphasis on quality primary and secondary education, revitalize our spirit of community, and promote volunteerism. He urges the teaching of more American history and government, for without educated citizens our system cannot function and our rights will not be preserved. Unless we understand how we became great, we will not remain great.

The plan Boren puts forward is ambitious and hopeful. It challenges Americans to look into the future, decide what we want to be and where we want to go, and then implement the policies and actions we need to take us there.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wise, timely, and constructive views from one of the leading public servants and educators of our time. This book should be read, re-read, and passed along to all who care about our country and its future.
David McCullough
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of John Adams

Here now is the letter to us all, the one we have been waiting for—and sorely need. It is a message of alarm but also of hope. Our problems as Americans are huge but most are of our own making and thus capable of our own fixing. I say, Amen, David Boren.
Jim Lehrer
Executive Editor, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

David Boren's unique insights present us with a summons to action. Not all that he suggests will be palatable, but all should be debated. Above all, his letter calls us back from the precipice of narrow self-interest to the solid ground of the public good.
Ruth Simmons
President of Brown University

A powerful, compelling analysis of the major crises facing the United States today. Treating each crisis in a nonpartisan, compassionate way, and believing that 'we Americans are natural problem solvers,' Boren suggests excellent solutions for the well-being of our own and future generations of Americans.
Howard R. Lamar
former President of Yale University

David Boren defines our nation's challenges with clarity, common sense, and courage. Americans concerned about the country their children and grandchildren will find Boren's diagnosis and prescriptions refreshing, compelling—and inspiring.
Sam Nunn
U.S. Senator from Georgia, 1972–1997

--From the Publisher

About the Author

A Rhodes Scholar, David Boren is President of the University of Oklahoma. A former governor of Oklahoma, he served as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma from 1979 to 1994 and chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1987 to 1993.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd) (February 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806139447
• ISBN-13: 978-0806139449
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #720,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rhodes Scholar David Boren, currently President of the University of Oklahoma, was the longest-serving chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

Throughout his three-decade career in elective politics as Governor and three-term U.S. Senator, Boren was known as a bipartisan reformer, championing efforts to make government more accountable to the American people. During his tenure in Washington, Boren crusaded for congressional campaign finance reform and stronger congressional oversight of secret intelligence programs. He sponsored legislation to declassify thousands of documents pertaining to the history of the CIA. Boren chaired the special 1992-93 Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, which proposed making Congress more efficient and responsive by streamlining congressional bureaucracy, reducing staff sizes, and reforming procedures to end legislative gridlock. He authored the National Security Education Act in 1992 to provide scholarships for studying abroad and learning additional languages. Since the program's inception, more than 3,500 students have been given the opportunity to study abroad as Boren Scholars. The National Security Education Program is the largest international studies program created since adoption of the Fulbright scholarships.

A 1963 graduate of Yale University, Boren received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1968. Prior to becoming President of the University of Oklahoma, he served for ten years as a Trustee of Yale. When Boren left the U.S. Senate in 1994 to become President of the University of Oklahoma, he had an approval rating of 9l percent after being reelected with 83 percent of the vote in 1990, the highest percentage in the nation in a U.S. Senate contest in that election year.

Under Boren's leadership, the University of Oklahoma has emerged as a pacesetter in American public higher education, ranking first in the nation among public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars per capita. Total endowment has grown five-fold to more than $1 billion during the thirteen years of his presidency. A teacher at heart, Boren is in the classroom every semester leading a first-year course in political science.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Re-thinking what it means to be a superpower, February 29, 2008

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Letter to America (Hardcover)

Consider the following:

Students in 55 of the nation's leading universities can't identity the Constitution as the document that establishes the division of governmental powers into three branches. More than half of the country's high school students don't know why or who we fought in WWII. Sixty percent of Americans think that it's the president, not the congress, with the power to declare war. Fifty percent think that the president can suspend the Constitution at will. And week after week, the most widely-read "news" stories are those focusing on celebrities and gossip.

Former U.S. senator and University of Oklahoma President David Boren argues that this widespread and cumulative ignorance creates a "civic amnesia" that makes it easier for political leaders to manipulate the electorate, generate bad public policy, destroy the economy, and alienate the rest of the world. If the U.S. is to remain an effective superpower, writes Boren, the political and economic directions in which it's going must change. And a necessary condition for that change is a citizenry that's educated, alert, and willing to participate.

A Letter to America focuses on three areas in which Boren fears the nation is slipping: world influence, partisan politics, and the economy. He worries that especially since 9/11, the U.S. has alienated former friends and further antagonized old enemies with its aggressive foreign policy, its publicly expressed disdain for international agreements such as the Kyoto Accord, and its refusal to enter into serious political and economic talks with China, which Boren thinks is fast becoming this century's other superpower. The U.S. is in danger of losing any moral and political authority it once had among the nations of the world.

On the domestic front, Boren argues that the exponentially growing divide between the super rich and the poor, and the accompanying shrinkage of the middle class, is jeopardizing democratic institutions (as Supreme Court Justice Brandeis once said, "You can have a democracy and a society sharply divided between the rich and the poor, but you cannot have both for very long," quoted by Boren on p. 79). The federal deficit, which as of 2007 was $8.9 trillion--and is growing by leaps and bounds because of the $9 billion in borrowed cash we spend each month in Iraq--is collapsing the economy and siphoning funds away from much need infrastructural repair. If the current economic trends continue, by 2020 interest on the national debt and the cost maintaing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, will "completely consume all the taxes we now pay" (p. 69).

Moreover, partisan wrangling has become so bitter and uncompromising, and political campaigning so corrupt and money-driven, that Boren sees little hope of electing responsible officials unless the system is overhauled. But, once again, the system won't change unless the civic amnesia that paralyzes citizens and reinforces the status quo is eroded.

Boren offers a few suggestions about how to fix the problems that face the country: ratify a Constitutional Amendment that limits campaign spending, insist on bipartisan cooperation and perhaps even elect a president with ties to neither political party, revise the progressive tax system to guarantee that the super wealthy pay a fair share, cut back on the strong-arming in foreign policy and begin to listen, as an equal among equals, to other nations. None of Boren's suggestions are especially surprising, and certainly none are as radical as those offered by Naomi Wolf in her own recent letter to America (The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot). Moreover, Boren might be criticized for putting too much faith in education. Is it simply ignorance that's handicapping the U.S., or are we talking about a profound moral indifference that civic literacy may not address? Is it civic or ethical amnesia? Perhaps Boren would argue that there's little difference.

Boren's book excels in providing a quick overview, along with some very sobering statistics, about the foreign and domestic problems facing the nation. He makes a compelling case for his claim that we simply can't continue as we have. If we wish to remain a superpower, we have to re-think what it means to be a superpower in today's world. Otherwise, he warns, "we could be the first generation of Americans that fails to contribute to the unbroken line of progress in our country" (p. 102).

Something to chew on in a presidential election year.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars David Boren and the Urgency of Memory, June 8, 2008

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Letter to America (Hardcover)

David Boren's short book is cast in the form of a letter to all Americans. Boren is a former Rhodes Scholar, Governor of Oklahoma, and Senator. He resigned his Senate seat to become President of the University of Oklahoma, a position he has held since 1995. While serving as a University President, Boren teaches an introductory class in American government to freshmen. The book is simply and eloquently written and, for this reader, comes from the heart.

Boren's letter conveys a sense of urgency. He finds the United States mired in a host of problems, including the lack of a sense of direction and purpose and pervasive cynicism about the political process. Boren finds that the position of the United States in the world is on the decline. Boren's goal is to revitalize the promise of America. His basic programme can be seen in comments he makes about the United States policy beginning with the Marshall Plan following WW II where " generosity,vision, political courage, and bipartisanship came together to help America lead the world and ultimately to end the Cold War without a third world war." (pp.16-17)

In short chapters of his letter Boren considers foreign policy, excessive partisanship in the halls of Congress and in the Executive Branch, the corruption resulting from exponentially increasing expenditures on political campaigning financed by special interest groups, domestic issues such as deficit spending, health care, and education, and the increased polarization in the United States between the wealthy and the poor, to the detriment of the middle class. In each of these issues, Boren concludes that the "generosity, vision, political courage, and bipartisanship" that characterized America of a different era are sadly lacking. Boren diagnoses what he believes are the sources of the problems and offers suggestions for their resolution. As is to be expected in a short account, Boren is more impressive in identifying problems than in proposing detailed solutions. His goal is to help his readers see the problems and work through for themselves to answers.

The single theme that pervades this book is the need for improving education at all levels of the American educational system and of all subjects, both scientific and humanistic. Boren recognizes that a simple glut of information does not necessarily lead to knowledge and that knowledge itself needs to be expanded and deepened to become wisdom. Boren points out that young Americans in particular know little of the history of our country and of its political institutions. This lack of knowledge consists of an ignorance of particular facts (such as that the United States fought Germany in WW II or that George Washington was the General at Yorktown) as well as knowledge of the Constitution and of the roles of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary in the United States government and of the nature of the Federal system. With this lack of knowledge comes a lack of understanding of the nature of our country and of the meaning and character of the American experiment. Whatever the merits may be of Boren's specific policy proposals, I think he is surely correct that Americans need to be better educated and the secondary school and university level in their understanding of American history and the American experience.

In the opening and concluding sections of his letter, Boren discusses a lecture given in 2002 by Bruce Cole, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Cole delivered a lecture at New York University titled "The Urgency of Memory" in which he stressed the importance of Americans returning to humanistic studies to understand themselves and their place in the world following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Boren quotes the following passage from Cole's address. (p.15)

"A nation that does not know why it exists or what it stands for cannot be expected to long endure. We must recover from the amnesia that shrouds our history in darkness, our principles in confusion, and our future in uncertainty. We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision. We cannot hope that forgetting our past will enhance our focus for the future."

Boren's letter can be read as a commentary on these words of Cole. By learning to understand and appreciate our nation, to recognize its achievements and its failures and to find meaning in the American experience, Americans can identify and surmount the problems that beset our beloved country.

Robin Friedman

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book For The Younger Generation To Begin With, June 7, 2008

By 

VanessaJ "Prophet2C" (San Diego, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Letter to America (Hardcover)

I am a part of the younger generation Boren seems to be looking to in much of ALTA's questioning disbelief over the downward direction our country seems to be heading. Most of the concerns Boren mentions here were not new to me but having them all found so easily and accissibly in one short book should make it easier for many of the kids who need to read it on their lunch breaks. Hopefully they will be putting it down with the same sense of urgency to making a difference where our country needs it. I already volunteer but not in any way that is not a direct source of positive, political and economic, change for any of the problems discussed in ALTA.

What Boren asks for (the younger generations taking more accountability for the future of the United States) brings up the only significant complaint I have with his book. There is a lot mentioned about why our country is failing to remain internationally strong or even nationally responsible but there is almost nothing included to help the readers who feel moved to begin making a difference but simply don't know where to begin. It could simply be a function of how short, A Letter to America, is but I can't help but wonder how many kids will complete this book with the same sense of urgency I did but with the lack of direction to public or political projects/organizations that could actually make a difference they will loose interest and soon be back to where they were before ever having read it.

Overall: a Good Quick Read. Nothing new or ground breaking but important and perhaps a gateway book for many younger readers.