Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen - Softcover

Griffin, Susan

3.63

27 ratings by Goodreads

9781590307069: Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590307062 ISBN 13: 9781590307069

Publisher: Trumpeter, 2009

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What does is it mean to be a citizen of the United States? Susan Griffin’s provocative investigation of that question takes us from the Declaration of Independence to the Iraq War, with many stops in between. Her conclusion: democracy is nothing less than a revolution of consciousness, and the revolution has just begun.

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About the Author:

Susan Griffin has won dozens of awards for her work as a feminist writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and filmmaker. She is the author of more than twenty books including A Chorus of Stones, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of an Emmy, a MacArthur grant, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a frequent contributor to Ms. magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications. She lectures widely and is a frequent guest on national and local radio programs. She lives in Berkeley, California.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Democracy is a work in progress as both a political system and a state of mind. Griffin, recipient of a MacArthur grant, continues the unique “social autobiography” she began with A Chorus of Stones: A Private Life of War (1992) in this inquiry into the “interior life of democracy” and the divide between theory and practice. Glimpses into her fractured postwar California childhood, discovery of the profound revelations of nature, passion for jazz, and introduction to social activism illuminate democratic values in the private realm, while a series of fresh and probing profiles strike at the very heart of America’s cruel paradoxes. What contrary forces were at work when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and refused to accept people of color as his equals? How to explain the juxtaposition between Emerson’s perception of the “empathic connection between the human spirit and all life” and the genocidal actions against the Cherokee? Given the legacy of workers’ rights advocate Rose Schneiderman, what underlies today’s conflicts over immigration? With a light yet devastating touch, Griffin charts our continued “wrestling” with democratic ideals as New Orleans is abandoned in the wake of Katrina and the Iraq War is launched with lies. Griffin’s incisive search for the soul of democracy stirs up pride, despair, and hope. --Donna Seaman

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