Citizens!

The vital issues of our society and time--social, political, economic, and environmental--are diced with lively, thoughtful insight in these citizen essays. Retired teacher Helen Good created this project in her home-town newspaper: every other week for a year the paper published an essay exploring an important citizen issue. The paper followed an A-Z format, producing twenty-six essays over the year. In a variety of voices, the essays scrutinize rationales for topical political positions and seek to establish criteria for citizen choices. Whether one finally agrees with any particular essay or not, they make an insightful read that inspires intelligent citizenship—the only kind that can long endure as a democracy. Dan P. Greaney has worked with the people of Blue Oak to assemble the essays as Citizens! A-Z Essays on What’s Important, complete with introductory vignettes of the citizen authors, creating a picture of Americana in the ongoing struggle for democracy.