Reviews of Jim Webb's Books
Click here to preview Chapter 14, titled: WHAT THEN MUST WE DO?
ABOUT THIS BOOK
“I’m the only person in the history of Virginia elected to statewide
office with a Union card, two Purple Hearts, and three tattoos."
Jim Webb—the bestselling author and now the celebrated, outspoken
U.S. Senator from Virginia—presents a clear-eyed, hard-hitting plan
of attack for putting government to work for the people, rather than
special interests, and for restoring the country's standing around
the world.
Infused with the intelligence, force, and firebrand style that has
earned Senator Jim Webb enormous national attention from his
earliest days in office, A Time to Fight offers a thorough and
provocative assessment of the thorniest issues Americans face today,
along with cogent solutions drawn from Webb's lifetime of experience
as a much-decorated Marine, a widely traveled, award-winning
journalist and novelist, a highly placed member of the Reagan
administration, a Senator with a son who fought as a Marine in Iraq
and, perhaps most important, a proud scion of America's vast but
frequently ignored working class.
Webb exposes how America has entered a dangerous, unprecedented
cycle of seemingly unsolvable unknowns. Our economic policies,
particularly in this age of globalization, have produced widely
divergent results leading to a country calcifying along class lines.
Our demographic makeup has been altered dramatically and is set to
keep on changing, through both legal and illegal immigration. Our
editorialists and politicians talk about the American dream, and
some urge us to bring democracy to the rest of the world. But more
than two million Americans are now in prison, by far the highest
incarceration rate in the so-called advanced world. Our foreign
policy is confused, without clear direction; increasingly vulnerable
to such largely unexamined long-term threats as China's emerging
power while it has become bogged down in the never-ending struggles
of the Middle East. As this drift toward societal regression has
taken place, America's leadership has largely been paralyzed, unable
or unwilling to stop the slide. "Where are the leaders?" Webb asks.
"Has our political process become so compromised by powerful
interest groups and the threat of character assassination that even
the best among us will not dare to speak honestly about the
solutions that might bring us back to common sense and fundamental
fairness?"
Through vivid personal narratives of the struggles members of his
family faced, and citing the courageous actions of presidents
ranging from Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower,
A Time to Fight provides specific, viable ideas for restoring
fairness to our economic system, correcting the direction of
national security efforts, ending America's military occupation of
Iraq, and developing greater government accountability. Webb brings
a fresh perspective to political dynamics that have shaped our
country. His stirring, populist manifesto calls upon voters to make
the choices that will change America for the better in this election
season.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
JIM WEBB is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and the author of nine
books, including the bestselling cultural history Born Fighting and
the classic novel of the Vietnam War Fields of Fire as well as Lost
Soldiers, The Emperor's General, and three other novels. As a Marine
in Vietnam he received the nation's second- and third-highest awards
for combat heroism. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense and
Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. In January
2009, upon the retirement of Senator John Warner, Webb will become
Virginia’s senior U.S. Senator.
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS