December 17, 2012 Twelve years into a new century, the U.S. is coming to grips with some hard truths: credit is finite, and our houses aren’t ATMs. We are less satisfied with our work, yet we work more and earn less. We are bombarded by advertisements and “news” that often obscures the facts. And our schools are training students for twenty-first-century jobs that may be outsourced overseas anyway. All in all, it’s a bleak picture, but Bill Ivey—writer, teacher, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, principal in Global Cultural Strategies, and trustee of the Center for American Progress—believes we have the tools to create a post-consumerist society. He talks with Chapter 16 about Handmaking America: A Back-to-Basics Pathway to a Revitalized American Democracy, a new book that outlines his ambitious vision for a new era.

December 14, 2012 In 1946, soon after returning from World War II, Marine lieutenant Christopher S. Donner wrote a memoir that chronicled his experiences as an artillery officer in the Pacific. Lt. Donner served as a Forward Observer in Okinawa, literally under the guns, spotting where the shells hit and calling in adjustments to the battery behind. More than sixty years later, Jack H. McCall, an attorney in Knoxville and a former Army officer, has edited and annotated Donner’s manuscript. Pacific Time on Target is a thoughtful portrait of the Pacific war from the point of view of a junior officer in the thick of things.