{"id":191776,"date":"2013-10-18T14:56:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T18:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yfiledev.uit.yorku.ca\/?p=191776"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:45:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T13:45:46","slug":"profs-new-book-asks-provocative-question-is-us-a-house-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/yfile\/2013\/10\/18\/profs-new-book-asks-provocative-question-is-us-a-house-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"Prof's new book asks provocative question - is US a house divided?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>A House Divided: Watching America\u2019s Descent into Civil Conflict<\/i>, a new digital book<i> <\/i>by award-winning author and York political science Professor James Laxer, analyzes the descent of the United States into civil conflict.<\/p>\n<p>At a time when American society is roiled by deep divisions over immigration, guns, the role of the state, and the <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-191780\" style=\"margin: 8px;border: 0px none\" alt=\"BookJamesLaxer\" src=\"https:\/\/yfile.news.yorku.ca\/files\/2013\/09\/BookJamesLaxer1.jpg\" width=\"190\" height=\"263\" \/>economic crisis, Laxer makes the case that serious conflict is likely to be generated from the right of the American political spectrum, from the forces he refers to as \u201cOld America\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In the book, Laxer asks the provocative question: \u201cIs the United States once again \u2018A House Divided\u2019,\u201d to use Lincoln\u2019s famous phrase on the eve of the American Civil War. He argues that Old America is increasingly desperate in the face of the demographic and societal changes that are transforming the country.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to show how old elites, the French aristocracy on the eve of the Revolution, and the Southern Slaveocracy who started the Civil War, can <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-191781\" style=\"margin: 8px\" alt=\"JamesLaxer\" src=\"https:\/\/yfile.news.yorku.ca\/files\/2013\/09\/JamesLaxer-200x300.jpg\" width=\"160\" height=\"240\" \/>provoke desperate conflicts to salvage their positions. Could this happen in America today?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><strong>James Laxer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Laxer is the author of more than 14 books, including <i>Tecumseh and Brock: The War of 1812<\/i> (House of Anansi Press, 2012) and <i>The Acadians: In Search of a Homeland <\/i>(Doubleday Canada, 2007). His book, <i>Stalking the Elephant: My Discovery of America<\/i> (Viking Canada, 2000), was on national bestseller lists for seven weeks.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.houseofanansi.com\/A-House-Divided-P2207.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>A House Divided<\/i> <\/a>while in California in the winter of 2013 where he was also writing <i>Travels Through the Golden State: A California Diary<\/i>, both are Anansi Digital Publications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new digital book, <i>A House Divided: Watching America' Descent into Civil Conflict<\/i> by award-winning author and York political science Professor James Laxer, analyzes the descent of the United States into civil conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":191782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yfileauthor":[],"qualifier":[],"yfile-author":[],"tags-to-show":[],"workflow":[],"class_list":["post-191776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":{"internal_publish_date":null,"original_image":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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