These Three Books Explain the American Crisis

Looking for a gift for the policy wonk in your life? Here are some recommendations.

By Eliot Spitzer
Posted Monday, Dec. 14, 2009, at 9:44 AM ET

More than a year after the most inspiring presidential election in a generation, and despite the most severe economic crisis in two generations, the change that so many Americans hoped for has not come. A modest health care reform bill is limping through Congress. The government has not tackled climate change or fixed the financial markets that nearly destroyed the economy. In the most significant policy arenas—economic growth, health reform, and foreign policy—we are seeing not the transformational politics we had hoped for but, at best, mere incrementalism. Why?

Does the United States even have the capacity—emotionally or politically—to make the massive changes necessary for us to compete in the 21^st century global economy?