America (The Book) - Definition and Overview

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (ISBN 0446532681) is a 2004 humor book written and edited by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, and David Javerbaum, and written by the staff of the The Daily Show. Karlin is the show's executive producer and Javerbaum its head writer. The book is written as a satire of a U.S. high school civics textbook, complete with study guides, questions, and class exercises. Its inside front cover is even "stamped" with a template with the heading "THIS BOOK IS THE PROPERTY OF" and lines within a section marked "ISSUED TO" where the reader could write his or her name, the year, and the condition of the book when issued and when returned. It pokes fun at the American political system, and includes a chapter caricaturing American views of the rest of the world.

Appearing shortly before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, the book includes several pages of an "Election Guide" making fun of both candidates. Publishers Weekly (PW) chose it as its "Book of the Year"; it noted that "in a year defined by political polemics, it seems fitting that PW's Book of the Year be one in which the authors survey the entire political system and laugh."

The book, published in September 2004, remained a best seller even after the election, despite a decision by Wal-Mart to cancel its order because, as a spokewoman was quoted in USA Today: "We felt a majority of our customers would not be comfortable with the image" [of naked justices]. The book was also banned from some Mississippi public libraries for its depictions of nude United States Supreme Court Justices. The ban was later lifted after the library board received complaints. [1] (http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/10617771.htm) Chapter 5 on the Judicial Branch includes obviously doctored photographs of the current justices, with their heads superimposed on appropriately aged naked bodies. On the page opposite the photographs, the reader is invited to "Restore their dignity" by covering each justice with a cutout of his or her robe.

Table of Contents

• Study Guide
• Foreword: by Thomas Jefferson
• Ch. 1: Democracy Before America
• Ch. 2: The Founding of America
• Ch. 3: The President: King of Democracy
• Ch. 4: Congress: Quagmire of Freedom
• Ch. 5: The Judicial Branch: It Rules
• Ch. 6: Campaigns and Elections: America Changes the Sheets
• Ch. 7: The Media: Democracy's Valiant Vulgarians
• Ch. 8: The Future of Democracy: Four Score and Seven Years from Now
• Ch. 9: The Rest of the World: International House of Horrors
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Credits
• Election 2004 (bonus section not listed in Table of Contents)

External links

• America (The Book) (http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/book.jhtml), official site
• Behind the robes, Stewart finds controversy (http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2004-10-19-stewart-book_x.htm), an October 2004 article from USA Today
• Satirist Jon Stewart's Book Named Year's Best (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=6997878), Reuters December 2004 coverage of PW's selection
• Mississippi libraries ban 'Daily Show' book (http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/10/banned.book.ap/), CNN article on book's banning in Mississippi.