This Noble Land

by James A. Michener

Deteriorating race relations, a growing disparity between rich and poor, the decline of education and a growing anti-intellectualism, inadequate health care - these are among the fracture points that Mr. Michener believes threaten America's vitality and its future. As a scholar of world history, a dedicated, lifelong public servant, and a student of his own and other cultures, Michener offers a broad and learned perspective on these much debated issues. He compares America's shift from a producer to a consumer nation to a similar movement in sixteenth-century Spain - a movement that presaged the decline of the Spanish empire. In today's control of vast wealth by a tiny handful of people, he sees parallels with the Catholic Church's monopoly on wealth in pre-Reformation Europe. He evaluates the Contract with America and other current political initiatives in light of the Founding Fathers' understanding of the social contract and the responsibility the more fortunate have to those who ar