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. . . Mr. Itzkoff places most of the blame for America's alleged intellectual decline on what he sees as an economically and intellectually elite cast of misguided liberals. They have isolated themselves from American society, he says, by their paternalistic treatment of the underclass, by discounting the importance of traditional family values and by failing to raise enough bright children to sustain national competence. The New York Times Book Review

Few doubt that the United States has slipped from its longstanding eminence as the world's wealthiest and most productive nation. The problem for the past 30 years has been the diagnosis of both the decline and then the cure. Literally trillions of dollars have been expended in futile programs to stanch the hemorrhaging of our economic wealth, jobs, educational achievement, and cultural elan.

Itzkoff argues that we will never stop the fall until we understand our real national dilemma. This is the decline in our national intelligence profile: fewer citizens of high intelligence, educational potential, and economic productivity. These ideas are taboo. Itzkoff, however, insists that these are the facts, and they must be examined. In this book, he lays out the available evidence for our social disintegration and suggests a rational program of policy initiatives that would begin to restore us to what we were as recently as 1955--the great hope of the world.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments Decline
• Introduction: Truth and National Survival Nations, Powerful and Wealthy America's Greatness Economics: Is the Sleeper a Giant? Our Educational Wreckage
• The Social Bond Unravels Ebb Tide The Free Market of High Intelligence
• The Tragedy of Low Intelligence Renewal Defensive Driving
• The American Family A Non-Hyphenated People W.E. Burghardt
• DuBois Immigration: Hot War Disestablishing State Schooling Middle-Class Economics and the Social Contract Natality: World War III
• Appendix America, 2044 A.D.
• Notes For Further Reading
• Index

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CHOICE Review

Itzkoff emphasizes the "decline of the nation's intelligence capital, level of thought and behavior." His underlying premise is that national survival is constructed of three building bricks: educational achievement, economic prosperity, and social stability. Further, survival implies international competitiveness with the powerful, wealthy, intellectually creative nations becoming leaders. With his background in music, philosophy, and educational theory, Itzkoff analyzes America's economic decline, educational wreckage, and unraveling of social bonds. For him, the real problem is that all the US population derives from a "lower level of the intellectual, and thus the social, scale." His renewal strategies include a return to traditional family life/structure ("central to the evolution of high human intelligence") and a persuasion of "the potentially parasitic classes at the top and at the bottom of society to act appropriately ... if a nation wants to survive as a First World society, it needs to choose carefully the values that will help to achieve this goal ... [and] populate itself with individuals who can be educated to achieve those values ...." These thoughts are reminiscent of the behaviorist Skinner talking in Walden Two (1948), considerations that have raised much controversy. Chapter notes at end. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty. E. Pearson; Marywood College

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

SEYMOUR W. ITZKOFF has been a Professor at Smith College since 1965. Trained in music, philosophy, and educational theory, he is the author of 12 earlier books including The Road to Equality: Evolution and Social Reality (Praeger Trade, 1992) and a four-part series on the evolution of human intelligence.