Mehring Books is proud to announce the publication of The Crisis of American Democracy, the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, by David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board.

Available now to readers of the World Socialist Web Site, this 156-page volume of four lectures comprises contemporaneous analyses of the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections.

In The Crisis of American Democracy, North argues that the re-election of President George W. Bush marks an ominous turning point in American and international politics. Having been returned to power, the most reactionary administration in the history of the United States will escalate its program of international militarism and domestic repression.

Through a detailed historical analysis, North establishes that behind the breakdown of democracy in the United States lies the deterioration of the global economic position of American capitalism, and the development of unprecedented levels of wealth concentration and social inequality. The turn to aggressive militarism abroad, and the vast expansion of police state measures during the past three years arise, he maintains, not from the so-called “terrorist threat”, but from the extreme sharpening of social and class tensions within American society itself.

The volume also includes an incisive obituary to Ronald Reagan and an assessment of the Kennedy presidency written by North and Bill Van Auken on the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Copies of The Crisis of American Democracy can be purchased online in the US for $US19.95 per issue, at sales@mehringbooks.co.uk in the UK and Europe for £8.99 per issue and mehring@ozemail.com.au in Australia and Asia for $A19.95 per issue plus postage and handling ($5 in Australia and the US, £2 in Britain—international rates extra).