Keen On

In an America riven with both civic discord and ignorance, how can we nurture a next generation of responsibly informed citizens? That’s the all important question Lindsey Cormack addresses in her new book, How to Raise a Citizen. There are no magical tricks to learning how to be a good citizen, Cormack says, no clever shortcuts or miraculous new technologies. Instead, it’s up to all of us to take responsibility for giving our kids the necessary knowledge to understand the workings of our democratic system. And that all begins at the local level, she insists, where the real business of American democracy gets done on a daily basis. Lindsey Cormack is an associate professor of Political Science and Director of the Diplomacy Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her first book, Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis investigates the differences between legislative efforts and lip service paid to veterans by members of the US Congress. Her second book, How to Raise