Tales of a New America

Japan's resurgent growth and unrest in the Third World signal the end of the United States' preeminent position as a world power. American conservatives bent on a rigid, militarist posture and liberals who preach altruism both have utterly failed to adapt to a changed reality. That is Reich's thesis, developed in chapters examining the corrosion of our cultural myths. While the Horatio Alger parable of ""the little guy who makes good'' is losing its inspirational hold in an economy of scarcity, America's fear and aggressiveness toward ``them out there''be they Russians or Latinosseem to be intensifying. Reich ( The Next American Frontier urges cooperation among political factions as our only hope. He sounds like a conservative when he attacks government regulation, like a liberal when he argues that we should view welfare as public investment in our future. His contention that both the arms race with the Soviets and the trading race with Japan are sapping our economy is well worth considering. (March 26)