Books, Arts & Manners: Elizabeth’s World

Politics and Money: The New Road to Corruption By Elizabeth Drew Macmillan, 166 pp., $11.95

The American Founders took great pains to construct a system of elections that would protect citizens from the ambition of candidates and the power of organized interests. That system, argues Elizabeth Drew, is now threatened by the new role of money in politics. An unprecedented obsession with campaign contributions has taken over Capitol Hill and endangers the very soul of democracy.