7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
MICHENER'S VISION AND HOPES FOR AMERICA, October 30, 2003
By A Customer
James A. Michener endeared himself to readers everywhere with books like Hawaii, Tales of the South Pacific, Centennial, and Chesapeake. His writing style and concise, comprehensive research was at the foundation of books that have become American treasures.
In This Noble Land Michener takes a different approach, though one not entirely unexpected from an author who, it is evident, loved America deeply. The book takes a hard but, I feel, honest view of America, where it has been, what it is now (the view of things in 1999) and where Michener believes it is headed.
Michener addresses the political problems facing us and what it will take, in his view, for Americans to continue their past record of greatness. He speaks of morals, of ethics and of integrity--from the standpoint of what we were as a country to the backsliding nation that we have become.
In my favorite chapter of the book Michener tackles very eloquently the problem of America's love affair with professional sports, the unfortunate decline of the morals of many sports figures, their poor example to America's youth and the sorry fact that we would, as a nation, gladly pay top dollar for tickets to any sporting event while refusing to acknowledge the plight of America's poor.
Taken all in all, whether you like This Noble Land or not will depend entirely upon how closely your views agree with those of the author. For me, I felt that Michener's vision as expounded in This Noble Land was 20/20. The book is already four years old at this review but I feel that it will have merit for decades to come. Hopefully we will have the sense as Americans to change things for the better.
Douglas McAllister
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True USA Patroit, December 24, 2002
This review is from: This Noble Land: My Vision for America (Audio Cassette)
THIS NOBLE LAND My Vision For American by James A. Michener
Mr. Michner was a true USA Patriot for his whole life and died a true USA patriot. I could not sum up his work for the USA any better than that. James was 90 years old when he wrote this dream as to what he wanted his country the USA to become starting from his death when he wrote this his last book. What this book really is an open letter to Americans with the blueprint of a utopia, which he realized, was not possible with humans and their different inspirations, but he continued to have hope right to his last breath.
The things that he writes about has been achievable and he gave a blueprint to use to achieve his suggestions. Considering the situation we are in now his ideas would have been good if implemented. They should be implemented if our `elite' permits it. Our elite is now is the small number of people who now belong to the moneyed part of our society. These people have 80 percent of the wealth. We have reached the stage of our society where the money is king and the elite, which have the money, are leading us.
Money used to be used for cover over our heads and food. It is now power and elects our leaders, good or bad. Before that we elected our leaders for their ability as a hunter or provider. Then there was a relative short time when we had a democracy where elected them by votes of who we thought could lead us down the road to freedom and prosperity. Now our leaders talk a good democracy, but their actions are something else.
Michener starts out by explaining our tax system and provides suggestions for replacement after telling us how bad it is. He starts by telling his submitted tax declaration took 48 pages, this was in 1995. American tax declarations really haven't changed much since then. If anything they are more complex now. Read his thoughts on taxes they will be eye opener.
How do we get work for everyone in American? We are not headed in that direction now. Mr. Michener has a few ideas some have been tried in the past by countries in the world with varying degrees of success. Mr. Michener has put a lot of thought into this.
I want to quote Mr. Michener here, "Our government must stop passing income tax laws and other laws whose only purpose is to siphon even more wealth into the hands of those already rich while penalizing those at the lower end of the economic scale."
For any kind of `trickle down' system to work the elite have to give more to the humans who need it and will spend it on food and clothing to prevent a revolution of those who are not participating in the American bounty. And these are the people who spend and cause our economy to grow.
Mr. Michener addresses the condition of our society and where the blacks fit in. This is really worth reading for all colors. He is dreaming about a classless society.
He addresses large company and their employees, but he was not privy to our `evil' system which has came to the attention of our government now. Large and small companies were or are stealing from stockholder and employees both equally and sharing in the downward movement of these companies. The government is acting `very slowly' to correct these problems.
Mr. Michener, who taught in grade school up to post doctorate level in the university, was very interested in this subject. He went to elementary school when the children said a `pledge of allegiance to the USA' before they started class. We have gone on `dumbing down' our children in the last few years in spite is Mr. Michener's warning. I cannot write all of his recommendations here. Read his book!
I am running out of space and time, but Mr. Michener's comments on the USA family should be read and digested.
His health care section should be read by everyone in the government that has anything to do with the health laws. He put a lot of thought into how to improve our system, which is getting worse it, could. Most of the western countries have better health systems than ours. Why is this, just the smell of money?
This is getting to long to hold attention so I will close for with the recommendation to read, THIS NOBLE BOOK, MY VISION FOR AMERICA, by Mr. Michener, whose last thought was for the United States of America.
Roger L. Lee
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