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Rating: 
Summary: A very important piece of work
Review: For those who have a true interest in understanding the realities of American Society. I would rank this book in my top ten within social sciences. It allows the reader to see the evolution of social and moral decay that has overtaken America. Students of sociology and theology will find it fascinating. Liberals likely will find this offensive as it points out some holes in victimhood theory.
Rating:
Summary: Why the World Is The Way It Is
Review: I read the original edition of this book and it is by far the most important social/political critique I've ever read. If you've ever asked yourself, "Why is the world the way it is today?", this book will help provide an answer. It indicts liberalism for its devastating social experimentation, utilizing a priori logic while never demonizing the intentions of liberals (a break the left never gives conservatives). Magnet explains that it's not liberal intentions which were wrong, but the incentives and disincentives created by liberal social policies which were so tragic, particulary for poor minorities. Ideas which were radical just thirty years ago have become unquestioned mainstream assumptions, the very Establishment itself. Every social problem we face today, from crime to drug addiction, broken families to school violence can be traced back to the absolute sea-change America and the rest of the West went through during the Sixties and early Seventies. The impact of that time can not be overstated yet Magnet manages to explain this in a rather slim volume. Anyone looking for answers will find them in this excellent, passionate book. Things will make sense after reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst book ever!
Review: Illogical, conservative and contains contradictions within itself. Every page is drenched with hate and ignorance. This is a way too simplistic explanation of how the economy and humans work.
Nevertheless, if you know some white supremacist who needs a good read; here is the perfect present.
Rating:
Summary: Sixties Radicals Hated America, Damage Remains
Review: Myron Magnet details a host of fraudulent agendas set forth by writers, artists, intellectuals, political operatives. The mission of this vanguard: show you, the supposedely stupid American public, that America is evil, that its institutions are corrupt from America's very founding, to pound guilt in your head until you cannot see how great America really is.
Very few liberals in high powered places will ever admit or apologize for their participation in their attempted destruction of our institutions. Most will never admit that they harbored socialistic leanings, latent sympathy for communism. Or if they had good intentions, they will not admit they were duped.
The sixties radicals held college professors at gunpoint, blew up university buildings, held teachers hostage, spat on American soldiers, wrote trashy books, staged fake homeless people on the streets, spewed false social statistics, and distorted science with quack psychology, and wacky environmentalism.
Sixties radicals killed our cops. Black panthers killed our cops. Puerto Rican terrorists FALN organized themselves for bombing America later in the 1970s.
Sixties radicals distorted the greatness of our free market economy by trumping up American poverty and then started the massive fleecing of our pocketbooks for their social programs. The result: trillions of dollars of . . . federal government worker bee hives.
The radical chic of Manhattan and Hollywood are now dirty old men making movies and writing books that project their miserable view of the world on unsuspecting kids and suburban folks. Just go to any museum and look at exhibits and see their malignant influence.
If you want to know why the culture war is so heated, and the left and right are constantly shouting at each other, read this book and see that this condition is exactly what the sixties radicals wanted.
And after all that damage and millions of arbortions of infant souls, the aging radicals still claim they were "idealistic"!
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Summary: Not Only What Went Wrong, but How It Can Be Reversed
Review: Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare is brilliant because it not only gives the statistics and endless accounts of what has gone wrong since the start of the United States' mid-20th century cultural revolution, but it also explains WHY those areas deteriorated (some have improved, obviously) and how they can be reversed. Along with Marvin Olasky, Myron Magnet is considered a foundational author of the compassionate conservatism philosophy that President Bush campaigned upon during the 2000 presidential election. This is Magnet's manifesto for that philosophy. In this book Mr. Magnet traces the roots of the radical shift that the privileged classes, the "Haves" as he labels them, enacted upon the culture of America and the entire Western world. He documents how in the middle 1900s these intellectuals, with a worldview based in Marxism and Freudianism, used America's universities and judiciaries to take hold of the system and transmogrify it to fit their causes, many which were originally well-meaning but ultimately, and tragically, misguided. The results of their success in turning America's previous culture on its head are seen throughout our society, but its effects have been far more pernicious to the impoverished, or, the "Have-nots." The change in crime, illiteracy, illegitimacy, income and many other telling rates from the American underclass began almost instantly and are now staggeringly depressing. Most of us have seen these numbers repeated ad infinitum, but this book will show you how and why these things happened in a way that many other social commentaries will not. This is a fantastic work that addresses a sad topic with an optimistic tone. It is one that all Americans should read and explain to their families and children as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Why ignore the facts?
Review: Myron Magnet, publisher of the quarterly "City Journal", has written an absolutely wonderful book about the best laid plans of mice and men going awry. In this book the aspirations of the socialist central planners are shown to create more problems than they solve hence the title. Magnet is a skillful writer and a deep and intricate thinker. While his observations are absolutely correct, his depictions of the carnage wrought are gentle and rancorless. To draw a contrast, Martin Gross, the equally intelligent author of the "the End of Sanity: Social and Cultural Madness in America", is far more trenchent and bitter in his denunciations of the same problems that Magnet describres. Magnet's thesis is that the Socialist Left's embrace of Marxist as well as Freudian theory has accrued to poltical and social policies which have been incredibly destructive to the culture of the have-not's in America. When one considers that the Left has controlled the political process for the most of the last half century one cannot help but wonder what it takes for bad societal outcomes to stop bad social policies? Indeed the record is clear and the jury is in, Socialism is a loser. Even Western Europe is moving inexorably toword the Center-Right in election after election. Keynes is out and Hayek is in. The 3rd way is not the way. Magnet goes through the underpinnings of Marxist theory and the intricate arguments of its more intellectual proponents. It never ceases to amaze how intelligent people can concoct such detailed and seemingly logical arguments to support such blatently sophist conclusions, but Magnet patiently weaves together his fabric of stories, facts and conclusions until you cannot resist agreeing with his solutions and his remedies. The theories of both Freud and Marx, as depicted in this book, are on the outside looking in at this point in history, but a fierce rear guard action is still being fought by the true believers in academia, Hollywood, the major media and the major book publishers. In this book Magnet shows them the way to redemption. When will they listen? To those of us willing to acknowledge the turning of the wheel of history, Magnet does a marvelous job in helping us transition from the old to the new. This book is purportedly the most important book read by "W" other than the bible, and it is said to form the basis for his stance as a compassionate conservative. It should be read by everyone seeking to understand how we got here and where we're going to go.
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Summary: A Unique and Incisive Book
Review: The Dream and the Nightmare is one of the rare books that will
change your perception of reality forever. Magnet uses all kinds of data and analysis to show what a tragedy welfare has been for the poor. Those who earnestly wanted to help the less fortunate instead sent them on a downward spiral towards despair and desperation. The welfare system created by the Federal Government was much worse than a $5 trillion waste of money--it undermined and set back the progress of Americas poor by a hundred years. Myron Magnet has done a service to the country, as he wrote, first thing to do when you're in a hole is to stop digging!
Rating: 
Summary: very good book
Review: This book is part of a growing chorus of voices that are saying that not only are the hip and multicultural ideas garbage, but that they are quickly turning America into a third world country. This book cuts through dumb ideas and tries to get us back to basics: functional families, responsibility for yourself, a work ethic -- this is the rather stringent prescription for an America that Magnet correctly describes as having run amok with bleeding heart liberalism and its dopey ideas of cheap sex, easy divorce, abortion on demand, and throwing money at the poor in the hopes that they will begin to function properly. The book isn't elegantly written and there isn't any poetry in it, but this book sets the right prescription on the table. Read it if you want to get your head on straight.
Rating:
Summary: very good book
Review: This book is well worth reading. In it you can witness first hand the twisted statistics and warped rationalizations necessary to justify the worsening disparity between the lives of most of our nation's citizens, and the mega-wealthy who run things. You can learn how poor people are just too stupid, lazy and morally depraved to overcome the corrupting good intentions of misguided liberals. Learn how to blame Dr. Spock, rock `n' roll and those permissive liberals for all our problems. It may sound like a perfect rehash of Spiro Agnew circa 1968, but so what. Of course the punch line is, if we just discontinue funding programs that benefit poor people, so their lives are even more of a living hell than they already are, then they will surely get the message and be happy to work hard for minimum wage and quit all this whining about opportunity. This popular and pathetic argument is just the rationalization that the newly conservative and greedy need to justify supporting a system that systematically thwarts the aspirations of the poor and middle class, while ignoring the vast expense of corporate corruption. Just forget about statistics that clearly show the mega wealthy who run this country are getting richer, faster than ever before, while the poor and middle class are steadily loosing ground. Its certainly heartening to hear that this book is being championed by our president, son of a diplomat and past president, pushed through Harvard as a "C" student, who made every dime of his millions through family business connections, never worked a "real job" in his life, and happily mined his dads political connections to become our appointed president. Gee, I guess maybe wealth does have its advantages. I sincerely hope that poor and middle class people find the necessary courage to overcome the odds that have been stack against them. I also sincerely hope that the wealthy find the necessary courage to admit their complicity in the multi-billion dollar corruption that pervades or business and political community, which continues to thwart the aspirations of the rest of their fellow citizens.
Rating:
Summary: What A Shame!
Review: This is one of the books that President George W. Bush said helped him to understand the newed to substitute a culture of responsibility for the false ideas of liberation that grew out of the l960's counter culture. The author explains how liberal ideological constructs concerning work, mental illness, and education produced awful consequences for the poor. They did for the rich as well, but a wealthy single mother had far more options, he says, than her counterpart. Magnet skewers warm fictions about homelessness leading to crime, noting that criminal behavior usually comes first.
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