America on the Edge

Henry A. Giroux holds the Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada.

• Introduction: Henry Giroux on Critical Pedagogy and the Responsibilities of the Public Intellectual: Interviews with Marcia Morales, Mike Pozo & Sina Rahmani PART I: AMERICA UNDER SIEGE: AUTHORITARIANISM & DEMOCRACY The Conservative Assault on America Democracy and the Crisis of Public Education From Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib: Rethinking Representation as Public Pedagogy PART II: AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM: RESISTING RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND MARKET ORTHODOXY The Passion of the Right: Religious Fundamentalism and the Crisis of Democracy Academic Entrepreneurs: The Corporate Takeover of Higher Education PART III: RETHINKING POLITICAL AND CULTURAL LITERACY Orwellian Newspeak and the Crisis of Democracy The Abandoned Generation: The Urban Debate League and the Politics of Possibility Movies and Public Pedagogy: Film as Cultural Politics PART IV: RACE, SURVEILLANCE, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial Racial Injustice and Disposable Youth in the Age of Zero Tolerance PART V: MILITARIZATION, MASCULINITY, AND THE SPECTRE OF FASCISM Waging War On Democracy: The Militarizing of Public Space Brutalized Bodies and Emasculated Politics: Fight Club PART VI: YOUTH, PEDAGOGY, AND THE POLITICS OF HOPE Heroin Chic, Consumerism, and the Politics of Seduction Reclaiming Education and Hope in Dark Times Translating the Future - Commencement Speech, Memorial University, June 2005

"America on the Edge is an enormously important book - perhaps Giroux's most comprehensive and hard-hitting analysis of the juggernaut of cultural repression that distorts our lives as citizens and renders many of our children socially expendable. Written with a potent mix of shrewd analysis and passionate morality, this dynamic and sophisticated work should stir a social outcry, particularly in the threatened realm of academia. I hope it's widely read." - Jonathan Kozol'These essays are Giroux at his best, analyzing and criticizing the changing organizations of power in the United States and their effects on the larger world, and calling out to anyone who will listen that that world is possible.' - Lawrence Grossberg, author of Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America's Future'Here Henry Giroux is at his most lucid, stripping the veil of illusion to reveal the multiple hypocrisies at the core of contemporary American society. His solutions to this devastating moment rest in a deep commitment to education, critical thinking, and the potential to revitalize democracy within an energized public sphere." - Carol Becker, Dean of Faculty, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, author of Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art