Contents:
Forword: Benjamin Barber Preface: Toward the Reconstruction of American Community and Democracy Part I: The Triple Threat to Community and Democracy Introduction: The Case for Community Economic Stability: Economics and Political Economics 1. Globalization and Free Trade 2. The Chase for Jobs 3. The Challenge of Sprawl Part II: Place-based Policy Alternatives Note to Part II 4. Federal Job Stabilizing Policies 5. Conventional Strategies 6. State and Municipal Enterprise 7. Local Multipliers Part III: Place-based Economic Structures Note to Part III 8. Supporting Employee Ownership 9. Community Development Corporations and Community Development Financial Institutions 10. Alternative Ownership Models: Nonprofits and Coops 11. Community Land Trusts and Community Agriculture Part IV: The Global Context Note to Part IV 12. Restructuring Global Economic Institutions 13. Alternative Approaches to Trade Conclusion: Political-Economic Policies for the Next Stage of Democratic Development Acknowledgements

When pundits refer to the death of community, they are speaking of a number of social ills, which include, but are not limited to, the general increase in isolation and cynisism of our citizens, widespread concerns about declining political participation and membership in civic organizations, and periodic outbursts of small town violence. Making a Place for Community argues that this death of community is being caused by contemporary policies that, if not changed, will continue to foster the decline of community. Increased capital flow between nations is not at the root of the problem, however, increased capital flow within our nation is. Small towns shouldn't have to hope for a prison to open nearby and downtown centres shouldn't sit empty as suburban sprawl encroaches, but they do and it's a result of widely agreed upon public policies.

2011 edition, with a new introduction by the author and a new foreword by James Gustave Speth As discontent with the economic and political status quo mounts in the wake of the "great recession," America Beyond Capitalism is a book whose time has come. Gar Alperovitz's expert diagnosis of the long-term structural crisis of the American economic and political system is accompanied by detailed, practical answers to the problems we face as a society. Unlike many books that reserve a few pages of a concluding chapter to offer generalized, tentative solutions, Alperovitz marshals years of research into emerging "new economy" strategies to present a comprehensive picture of practical bottom-up efforts currently underway in thousands of communities across the United States. All democratize wealth and empower communities, not corporations: worker-ownership, cooperatives, community land trusts, social enterprises, along with many supporting municipal, state and longer term federal strategies as well. America Beyond Capitalism is a call to arms, an eminently practical roadmap for laying foundations to change a faltering system that increasingly fails to sustain the great American values of equality, liberty and meaningful democracy. Gar Alperovitz is the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative. He is the author of numerous books, including Unjust Deserts (with Lew Daly), Making a Place For Community (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio), Rebuilding America (with Jeff Faux) and, in connection with foreign policy, Atomic Diplomacy and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

Praise for America Beyond Capitalism

"At a time when the national media's been transfixed by the imperalist adventures and crony capitalism of the Bush administration, Gar Alperovitz discovers that not only have the seeds of a legitimately democratic political economy been planted, they are bearing fruit. Addressing a range of necessary changes, from urban design to health care to the distribution of wealth, Alperovitz's Pluralist Commonwealth is the kind of careful, well-researched, and practical alternative progressives have been seeking. And it's more-visionary, hopeful, even inspirational. I highly recommend it."
-Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need, and Professor of Sociology, Boston College

"An important guidebook to the future. First, Alperovitz leads a grim tour of the deteriorated values at the core of the American experience-equality, liberty, democracy, and the wise use of our collective wealth. Then he takes us to the mountaintop with a broad and optimistic mapping vision of how Americans can remake their economy and society to restore those values. A compelling and convincing story of the future."
-William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy

"Succeeds brilliantly in taking the Jeffersonian spirit into the last bastion of privilege in America, offering workable solutions for making the American economy one that is truly of, by, and for the people."
-Jeremy Rifkin, author of The End of Work

This book provides important new evidence to support the thesis that the primary reason for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not to end the war in Japan, as was said at the time, but to 'make the Russians more manageable'. Drawing on recently released diaries and records of Truman, Eisenhower and others, Alperovitz re-evaluates the assumptions, hesitations and decisions that precipitated the use of atomic weapons and traces how possession of the bomb changed American strategy toward the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference and helped to set it on a course that contributed to the swift beginning of the Cold War. Most historians of the period now agree that diplomatic considerations related to the Soviet Union played a major role in the decision to use the bomb. Atomic Diplomacy pioneered this new understanding. Today we still live in Hiroshima's shadow; this path breaking work is timely and urgent reading for anyone interested in the history - and future - of peace and war.

Scientists debate the role of scientific research in the military-industrial complex and consider the complicity of academic science in American wars. On March 4, 1969, MIT faculty and students joined together for an extraordinary day of protest. Growing out of the MIT community's anguish over the Vietnam War and concern over the perceived complicity of academic science with the American war machine, the events of March 4 and the days following were a "positive protest"-a forum not only for addressing political and moral priorities but also for mapping out a course of action. Soon afterward, some of the participants founded the Union of Concerned Scientists. This book documents the March 4 protest with transcripts of talks and panel discussions. Speakers included Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Lionel Trilling, and Nobel Laureate George Wald, whose memorable speech, "A Generation in Search of a Future," was widely circulated. Topics of discussion ranged from general considerations of the intellectuals' political responsibility to specific comments on the Vietnam War and nuclear disarmament. This fiftieth anniversary edition adds a foreword by Kurt Gottfried, a physicist, participant in the March 4 protest, and cofounder of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He writes, forcefully and hopefully, "Fifty years ago, a remarkable awakening was occurring among American scientists about their role in society. This volume offers a fascinating snapshot of that moment on March 4, 1969, and the activities and discussions collected here remain relevant and resonant today." In an era when many politicians routinely devalue science, we can take inspiration from the March 4 protests.