This Noble Land

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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 are less privileged. And as a lifelong practitioner and patron of the arts, Michener writes movingly of the arts as agents for change - for transforming the soul and ensuring a civilization's greatness - even as he condemns the anti-art stance of many politicians today. Michener draws not only on his knowledge of history but also on over eight decades of living as an American. He recalls how as a young boy in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse he pledged allegiance to the flag, and through the years his reverence for the sound principles on which America was founded has remained strong