No segment of American society is spared from Bouza's critical gaze in exposing the systemic excesses that are poisoning the heart of our nation. He spotlights the white-collar criminals, who quietly take pennies from each of us to create their own pots of gold. He unmasks the politicians, on both ends of the political spectrum, whose arrogance and hypocrisy speak volumes. He demonstrates how organized crime, while catering to our sinful, illicit cravings, affects our daily lives from buying a fresh dinner to building a house. He uncloaks the televalgelists and other fraudulent religious leaders who have transformed the ministry from a shepherd's leading the flock into a huckster's fleecing the gullible. Moreover, he reveals the abuses that have permeated the medical and other ”helping” professions.
De Publishers Weekly
In a slashing jeremiad, Bouza (The Police Mystique) presents a hard-hitting analysis of the moral rot that sustains political and institutional corruption, greed, crime, hedonism, racism?forces that he says threaten to destroy the fabric of American society. A police reformer who has headed the NYPD's Bronx division and the Minneapolis Police Department, he looks unflinchingly at the Mafia's stranglehold on several industries; urges that drug enforcement efforts focus on top-level operators rather than on street criminals; and outlines a tough program to combat domestic terrorism. Examining the savings-and-loan scandal, white-collar crimes, Wall Street profiteering and venal politicians, Bouza calls for corporate democracy, a vigilant, muckraking media, tighter government regulations to ensure fiscal integrity and rewarding of whistle-blowers. With crusading zeal and a scattershot approach, he links the decline in values to mind-numbing TV and video game violence, exploitative religious cults and money-hungry televangelists, rappers' misogynist lyrics, a welfare system that fails to demand recipient accountability and a popular culture that exalts sports and entertainment heroes but discards teachers and sages. His call for moral renewal is buttressed by practical strategies. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Bouza, former head of the Minneapolis Police Department and the NYPD's Bronx forces and author of a half-dozen previous books, including The Police Mystique (1990), has always been an iconoclast, rejecting oversimplifications for a big picture full of complexity and context. Here, he examines the current state of the U.S., taking as standard the conviction that a "healthy society is altruistic; a sick one, hedonistic." Bouza watches "tipping factors": "What is occurring faster, rot or renewal?" He applies this question to crime (of the white collar, street, and organized varieties) and punishment, to unbridled capitalism, to professions no longer restrained by ethics, to a political system that inspires more cynicism than confidence, to religion, cults, and terrorists, to American culture, and to the shortsighted denial-based "solutions" we have so far devised. Although his sometimes overwritten prose is duly critical of venal pols and greedy, unfeeling CEOs, Bouza is unusual in insisting that readers recognize how their selfishness and hedonism contribute to a more general social devolution. A thought-provoking jeremiad. Mary Carroll
Críticas
More than a mere indictment, The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire: Corruption, Decadence And The American Dream offers hope in the form of inventive, practical solutions to the most pressing problems affecting our society today. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire provides factual evidence in contrast to propaganda and makes a case for common decency and wisdom where intolerance and ignorance continue to grow and fester. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire is an ambitious, powerful work presenting compelling evidence to shock the reader out of complacent and inspire him or her to action now -- before its too late. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire should be required reading for every candidate for public office and every registered voter deluged with campaign rhetoric and television sound bites. -- Midwest Book Review
Contraportada
No segment of American society is spared from Bouza's critical gaze in exposing the systemic excesses that are poisoning the heart of our nation. He spotlights the white-collar criminals, who quietly take pennies from each of us to create their own pots of gold. He unmasks the politicians, on both ends of the political spectrum, whose arrogance and hypocrisy speak volumes. He demonstrates how organized crime, while catering to our sinful, illicit cravings, affects our daily lives from buying a fish dinner to building a house. He uncloaks the televangelists and other fraudulent religious leaders who have transformed the ministry from a shepherd's leading the flock into a huckster's fleecing the gullible. Moreover, he reveals the abuses that have permeated the medical and other "helping" professions.
No segment of American society is spared from Bouza's critical gaze in exposing the systemic excesses that are poisoning the heart of our nation. He spotlights the white-collar criminals, who quietly take pennies from each of us to create their own pots of gold. He unmasks the politicians, on both ends of the political spectrum, whose arrogance and hypocrisy speak volumes. He demonstrates how organized crime, while catering to our sinful, illicit cravings, affects our daily lives from buying a fresh dinner to building a house. He uncloaks the televalgelists and other fraudulent religious leaders who have transformed the ministry from a shepherd's leading the flock into a huckster's fleecing the gullible. Moreover, he reveals the abuses that have permeated the medical and other ”helping” professions.
De Publishers Weekly
In a slashing jeremiad, Bouza (The Police Mystique) presents a hard-hitting analysis of the moral rot that sustains political and institutional corruption, greed, crime, hedonism, racism?forces that he says threaten to destroy the fabric of American society. A police reformer who has headed the NYPD's Bronx division and the Minneapolis Police Department, he looks unflinchingly at the Mafia's stranglehold on several industries; urges that drug enforcement efforts focus on top-level operators rather than on street criminals; and outlines a tough program to combat domestic terrorism. Examining the savings-and-loan scandal, white-collar crimes, Wall Street profiteering and venal politicians, Bouza calls for corporate democracy, a vigilant, muckraking media, tighter government regulations to ensure fiscal integrity and rewarding of whistle-blowers. With crusading zeal and a scattershot approach, he links the decline in values to mind-numbing TV and video game violence, exploitative religious cults and money-hungry televangelists, rappers' misogynist lyrics, a welfare system that fails to demand recipient accountability and a popular culture that exalts sports and entertainment heroes but discards teachers and sages. His call for moral renewal is buttressed by practical strategies.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Bouza, former head of the Minneapolis Police Department and the NYPD's Bronx forces and author of a half-dozen previous books, including The Police Mystique (1990), has always been an iconoclast, rejecting oversimplifications for a big picture full of complexity and context. Here, he examines the current state of the U.S., taking as standard the conviction that a "healthy society is altruistic; a sick one, hedonistic." Bouza watches "tipping factors": "What is occurring faster, rot or renewal?" He applies this question to crime (of the white collar, street, and organized varieties) and punishment, to unbridled capitalism, to professions no longer restrained by ethics, to a political system that inspires more cynicism than confidence, to religion, cults, and terrorists, to American culture, and to the shortsighted denial-based "solutions" we have so far devised. Although his sometimes overwritten prose is duly critical of venal pols and greedy, unfeeling CEOs, Bouza is unusual in insisting that readers recognize how their selfishness and hedonism contribute to a more general social devolution. A thought-provoking jeremiad. Mary Carroll
Críticas
More than a mere indictment, The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire: Corruption, Decadence And The American Dream offers hope in the form of inventive, practical solutions to the most pressing problems affecting our society today. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire provides factual evidence in contrast to propaganda and makes a case for common decency and wisdom where intolerance and ignorance continue to grow and fester. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire is an ambitious, powerful work presenting compelling evidence to shock the reader out of complacent and inspire him or her to action now -- before its too late. The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire should be required reading for every candidate for public office and every registered voter deluged with campaign rhetoric and television sound bites. -- Midwest Book Review
Contraportada
No segment of American society is spared from Bouza's critical gaze in exposing the systemic excesses that are poisoning the heart of our nation. He spotlights the white-collar criminals, who quietly take pennies from each of us to create their own pots of gold. He unmasks the politicians, on both ends of the political spectrum, whose arrogance and hypocrisy speak volumes. He demonstrates how organized crime, while catering to our sinful, illicit cravings, affects our daily lives from buying a fish dinner to building a house. He uncloaks the televangelists and other fraudulent religious leaders who have transformed the ministry from a shepherd's leading the flock into a huckster's fleecing the gullible. Moreover, he reveals the abuses that have permeated the medical and other "helping" professions.