Book excerpt: America, once the land of golden dreams for millions of people, has become a world empire; and we are beginning to learn that the life of an empire resembles Thomas Hobbes' description of life in a state of nature: "nasty, brutish, and short." This book, by a scholar dragged reluctantly into political activism, offers a way out. Some will say that this book is "unpatriotic," but it is really an act of supreme patriotism.