The Dark Side of the Moon series is a chronological collection of observations on social, political and occasionally even personal subjects. Jim Freeman's views of the American scene are salted with irony and lightly peppered by humor, a relief from the unending rants of the far left or far right and reasonably balanced by common sense. They're here as Freeman wrote and published them at the time, unedited and without the benefit of hindsight. These books are food for thought and Freeman encourages readers to cut into them - use and abuse these books, dog-ear the pages, mark up with highlighter and write in the margins. Make them relevant, make them yours to refer to content that particularly pleased or infuriated you. The Dark Side of the Moon is a time-machine that brings the blur of events into focus and context. Mark Twain said 'Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.' Jim Freeman uncovers that dark side and strives to shine light on it. About the 2008-2010 Book (Volume 5, the last of the Series): This fifth and final volume of The Dark Side of the Moon series begins with Welcome to the Ever-Changing, Ever-Same Face of America and winds up, some 546 pages later with Disaster Plans that Don't Bother to Anticipate Disaster. You could pretty much say those 'bookend observations' were an appropriate metaphor for the intervening years. We had a brand new President who many Americans felt actually seemed to offer The Audacity of Hope to a nation worn thin. What we got was headlock and deadlock, business pretty much as usual and a growing sense that what needed to be fixed was unfixable. These were the years of the near-past and a look back informs a look forward as we face an assessment of how much was hope and how much merely audacity.
