We Still Hold These Truths

After an opening Prologue, Ron Hirsch lays the historical foundation for "an American manifesto" in the first two chapters: Federalism and the Protection of Rights—In the Beginning and Today and The American Social Contract. We Still Hold These Truths then proceeds to examine nine key areas of domestic and international government policy in succeeding chapters: Religion, Morality, and the State; Education; Health Care; Civil Rights; Security; The Environment and Energy Policy; Taxes and the Economy; The American Worker and the Global Economy; and Foreign Policy and Defense. The book closes with an Epilogue, which summarizes his call to action.

Thoroughly researched and footnoted using both government documents and secondary sources, the book is nevertheless concise (97 pages), meeting the author's goal of creating a document that was short yet comprehensive, dealt with complex issues in a straight-forward manner, and provided sufficient examples and data to ground his positions without getting bogged down in great detail.

We Still Hold These Truths is forceful and passionate, yet fair, in the presentation of its arguments. It is scholarly without being a tome and is anything but dry. It is a moving book that is thought provoking, yet a relatively quick read. It will be of interest to a broad range of readers—concerned citizens, politicians, academics, students, and policy makers—across a broad political spectrum.