what's a subtitle worth?
Paul Starr is changing the subtitle of his book Freedom's Power (see my review here) for its release in paperback. The old subtitle was The True Force of Liberalism, and the new one is The History and Promise of Liberalism; for what it's worth, I think this will be an improvement.
To an extent, the book's original title--with its juxtaposition of "power" and "force"--played too easily into the hands of conservative caricaturists who won't read past the cover, as in "Those liberals want to use all that power to force us to do things." Starr notes this when mentioning the "right-wingers who argue that power is all liberals want."
Also in the here's-my-two-cents'-worth department, I found the book to be very light on the sort of "empty rhetoric" that litters many other political tomes. I may pick up the paperback as well if it has a new afterword...how about it, Mr Starr?