That Used to Be U.S.

"That Used to Be U.S." (or us, as the authors mean it both ways) is a sobering chronicle of the state of the union. But the issues they describe in this book equally apply to any country in fact. In order to be successful nowadays a country needs to have a good education system, to keep the talented people around, to have a functional political system and leaders which are interested in the common good and not in special interests. And the leaders of a country have thorny issues to tackle these days: from budget deficits (which in fact means borrowing money today which will be paid back by our children) to energy issues and environmental issues like pollution and global warming. The book is well documented and has a first part where the authors diagnose the current American society and a second part where they give their opinions and some ideas about how to fix these issues.
So if you care about what happens in the world around you, go ahead and read this book on the American use case.