Eric Alterman. What Liberal Media?: The Truth about Bias and the News. Basic Books, 2004.

Though this book is now a bit dated (the main points of reference are the 2000 presidential election) it remains important and perceptive. The problems it addresses have definitely not gone away–and they need to be addressed.

It is discouraging to think that all these years after this book came out and utterly demolished the myth that mainstream American media have a liberal bias, this untruth can still be spouted with at least some effectiveness by people on the Right. In an engagingly written and thoroughly documented survey of how the mainstream media actually works (especially in its unjustified and ultimately tragic hatchet job on Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election), Alterman makes it clear that the corporate media has long been hostile to the social and political Left in this country–and got more and more so by the turn of the century.

Alterman certainly has an agenda, but he is a scholar and writes clearly and mostly non-polemically. He has tons of documentation and examples. This is a strong book. Even if it is a bit dated, it still deserves to be read by anyone who truly wants to understand how it was the the United States has gotten itself into the mess we are in.

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Jane Jacobs. Dark Age Ahead. Vintage, 2004.

Jane Jacobs, like Studs Terkel and John Kenneth Galbraith, was one of the wonders of the world, a source of powerful inspiration.  All three of these prophets lived nearly to or beyond their 90s as productive, perceptive analysts of the human condition–and purveyors of affirmative, humanistic values to the end–even amidst sharply critical and perceptive evaluations of the modern world.

Jacobs, author of the classic, The Life and Death of Great American Cities, published her final book when she was 88, just two years before her death.  Dark Age Ahead has a grim title. Jacobs argues that our modern, technology-worshiping Western culture is heading into decline–identifying five key areas where she sees this: community and family, higher education, the effective practice of science, taxation and government, and the self-regulation of the learned professions. Most thoughtful readers could easily add to her list.

The several years since this book came out have only reinforced her dire warnings. She does not ultimately despair, though. Throughout her career, Jacobs was able to identify important ways in which human societies do manifest a resilience and inclination toward adaptation that makes humane responses to crises possible. She does so here in her final writings as well. This isn’t exactly a book of big hope, but we do find glimmers. Jacobs’ challenge to us–for which we should be grateful, along with our gratitude for her entire body of work–is to cultivate those glimmers of hope in the belief that humanity is inclined toward healing its problem.

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