The optimistic book of the year is America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century—Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come. Co-written by author and tech entrepreneur James C. Bennett and lawyer Michael J. Lotus, this bold new book explains our inevitable liberation from the shackles of failed Big Government and the transition into a sustainable era of post-industrial prosperity, creative enterprise, and individual and familial liberty.

Some interesting themes from the book:

• The next century will be as different from the world of today as we are from the age of steam railroads, telegraphs, and punch-card computers. The obstacles we face are political and regulatory, not technical or scientific.

• The unique American kind of family, developed in England over one thousand years ago, makes us individualistic, enterprising, and liberty-loving. But our current system is not geared towards working families—this can be changed.

• Part of the painful current economic downturn is due to the unavoidable process of shutting down the dying economic and political model of the 20th century.

• We will replace the current shambles in America with constitutionally limited government, which will be compelled to live within its means.

According to the authors, America is once again on the cusp of great transformation. The core American values of freedom, individualism, family, and enterprise have enabled our progressive expansion from an agricultural to an industrial corporate economy; they will continue to guide us as we adapt our political and economic institutions to emerge successfully as a post-industrial and decentralized society. Bennett and Lotus provide unique insight into our historical trajectory and a road map to the renewed American future.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Dwight Schwab of the Examiner.com (see the full interview at: http://www.examiner.com/article/america-3-0-soon-to-be-bestseller?CID=examiner_alerts_article):

BENNETT & LOTUS – We inherited language and law and political and economic ideas from England, as well as a culture that is capitalistic and individualistic. The foundation for that culture is a type of nuclear family structure which is almost unique in the world, and we still have it, and most people who have settled here have eventually adopted it.

SCHWAB – What is this unique family structure you are talking about?

BENNETT & LOTUS – A lot of things about American families sound normal to Americans, but they are actually very unusual in the world. American parents cannot pick their children’s spouses; they don’t have to give them equal inheritances; adult children are expected to marry and form their own homes away from their parents; and we have no extended families in the way they do in many foreign countries.

SCHWAB – Why does it matter that Americans have had this type of family?

BENNETT & LOTUS – It has shaped everything about us, especially by making us independent and enterprising. We are more alone in the world than other people, our parents don’t have to help us, we have no extended families to save us, we make our own marriage choices, our own career choices, we pick our own friends and colleagues, and we have to hustle to succeed.

SCHWAB – Does being individualistic mean that we have to live by the law of the jungle?

BENNETT & LOTUS – No. Part of the genius of America has been being individualistic but also willing and able to cooperate freely and a high degree of trust with others, to create businesses and other types of voluntary organizations. And there is a role for government, but it will have to be smaller, less intrusive, more efficient, and less centralized in the future. Government will adapt to America 3.0, just as we and our children will.

See Daniel Hannan’s excellent review in The Telegraph: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100234551/americas-greatest-days-lie-ahead/.

Check out their blog at www.Americathreepointzero.com.