Download or read book American Crucible written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the "right" ancestry? Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society. After Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders to victory during the Spanish American War, he boasted of the diversity of his men's origins- from the Kentucky backwoods to the Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods of northeastern cities. Roosevelt’s vision of a hybrid and superior “American race,” strengthened by war, would inspire the social, diplomatic, and economic policies of American liberals for decades. And yet, for all of its appeal to the civic principles of inclusion, this liberal legacy was grounded in “Anglo-Saxon” culture, making it difficult in particular for Jews and Italians and especially for Asians and African Americans to gain acceptance. Gerstle weaves a compelling story of events, institutions, and ideas that played on perceptions of ethnic/racial difference, from the world wars and the labor movement to the New Deal and Hollywood to the Cold War and the civil rights movement. We witness the remnants of racial thinking among such liberals as FDR and LBJ; we see how Italians and Jews from Frank Capra to the creators of Superman perpetuated the New Deal philosophy while suppressing their own ethnicity; we feel the frustrations of African-American servicemen denied the opportunity to fight for their country and the moral outrage of more recent black activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Malcolm X. Gerstle argues that the civil rights movement and Vietnam broke the liberal nation apart, and his analysis of this upheaval leads him to assess Reagan’s and Clinton’s attempts to resurrect nationalism. Can the United States ever live up to its civic creed? For anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic, this book is must reading. Containing a new chapter that reconstructs and dissects the major struggles over race and nation in an era defined by the War on Terror and by the presidency of Barack Obama, American Crucible is a must-read for anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic.

Download or read book Achieving Our Country written by Richard Rorty and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of America's foremost philosophers challenges the lost generation of the American Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers such as Walt Whitman and John Dewey.

Download or read book Twentieth Century American Art written by Erika Doss and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-04-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, and Laurie Anderson are just some of the major American artists of the twentieth century. From the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to the 2000 Whitney Biennial, a rapid succession of art movements and different styles reflected the extreme changes in American culture and society, as well as America's position within the international art world. This exciting new look at twentieth century American art explores the relationships between American art, museums, and audiences in the century that came to be called the 'American century'. Extending beyond New York, it covers the emergence of Feminist art in Los Angeles in the 1970s; the Black art movement; the expansion of galleries and art schools; and the highly political public controversies surrounding arts funding. All the key movements are fully discussed, including early American Modernism, the New Negro movement, Regionalism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Neo-Expressionism.

Download or read book 20th Century Americanism written by and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Out of Work written by Richard K Vedder and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues the cause of unemployment may be the government itself Redefining the way we think about unemployment in America today, Out of Work offers devastating evidence that the major cause of high unemployment in the United States is the government itself.

Download or read book A Companion to 20th Century America written by Stephen J. Whitfield and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to 20th-Century America is an authoritative survey of the most important topics and themes of twentieth-century American history and historiography. Contains 29 original essays by leading scholars, each assessing the past and current state of American scholarship Includes thematic essays covering topics such as religion, ethnicity, conservatism, foreign policy, and the media, as well as essays covering major time periods Identifies and discusses the most influential literature in the field, and suggests new avenues of research, as the century has drawn to a close

Download or read book Prison Writing in 20th Century America written by H. Bruce Franklin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-06-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Harrowing in their frank detail and desperate tone, the selections in this anthology pack an emotional wallop...Should be required reading for anyone concerned about the violence in our society and the high rate of recidivism."—Publishers Weekly. Includes work by: Jack London, Nelson Algren, Chester Himes,Jack Henry Abbott, Robert Lowell, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Piri Thomas.

Download or read book Reds written by Ted Morgan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this landmark work, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Ted Morgan examines the McCarthyite strain in American politics, from its origins in the period that followed the Bolshevik Revolution to the present. Morgan argues that Senator Joseph McCarthy did not emerge in a vacuum—he was, rather, the most prominent in a long line of men who exploited the issue of Communism for political advantage. In 1918, America invaded Russia in an attempt at regime change. Meanwhile, on the home front, the first of many congressional investigations of Communism was conducted. Anarchist bombs exploded from coast to coast, leading to the political repression of the Red Scare. Soviet subversion and espionage in the United States began in 1920, under the cover of a trade mission. Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted the Soviets diplomatic recognition in 1933, which gave them an opportunity to expand their spy networks by using their embassy and consulates as espionage hubs. Simultaneously, the American Communist Party provided a recruitment pool for homegrown spies. Martin Dies, Jr., the first congressman to make his name as a Red hunter, developed solid information on Communist subversion through his Un-American Activities Committee. However, its hearings were marred by partisan attacks on the New Deal, presaging McCarthy. The most pervasive period of Soviet espionage came during World War II, when Russia, as an ally of the United States, received military equipment financed under the policy of lend-lease. It was then that highly placed spies operated inside the U.S. government and in America’s nuclear facilities. Thanks to the Venona transcripts of KGB cable traffic, we now have a detailed account of wartime Soviet espionage, down to the marital problems of Soviet spies and the KGB’s abject efforts to capture deserting Soviet seamen on American soil. During the Truman years, Soviet espionage was in disarray following the defections of Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko. The American Communist Party was much diminished by a number of measures, including its expulsion from the labor unions, the prosecution of its leaders under the Smith Act, and the weeding out, under Truman’s loyalty program, of subversives in government. As Morgan persuasively establishes, by the time McCarthy exploited the Red issue in 1950, the battle against Communists had been all but won by the Truman administration. In this bold narrative history, Ted Morgan analyzes the paradoxical culture of fear that seized a nation at the height of its power. Using Joseph McCarthy’s previously unavailable private papers and recently released transcripts of closed hearings of McCarthy’s investigations subcommittee, Morgan provides many new insights into the notorious Red hunter’s methods and motives. Full of drama and intrigue, finely etched portraits, and political revelations, Reds brings to life a critical period in American history that has profound relevance to our own time.

Download or read book Anti Communism in Twentieth Century America written by Larry Ceplair and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling, critical analysis of anti-communism illustrates the variety of anti-Communist styles and agendas, thereby making a persuasive case that the "threat" of domestic communism in Cold War America was vastly overblown. In the United States today, communism is an ideology or political movement that barely registers in the consciousness of our nation. Yet merely half a century ago, "communist" was a buzzword that every citizen in our nation was aware of—a term that connoted "traitor" and almost certainly a characterization that most Americans were afraid of. Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History provides a panoramic perspective of the types of anti-communists in the United States between 1919 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It explains the causes and exceptional nature of anti-communism in the United States, and divides it into eight discrete categories. This title then thoroughly examines the words and deeds of the various anti-Communists in each of these categories during the three "Red Scares" in the past century. The work concludes with an unapologetic assessment of domestic anti-communism. This book allows readers to more fully comprehend what the anti-communists meant with their rhetoric, and grasp their impact on the United States during the 20th century and beyond—for example, how anti-communism has reappeared as anti-terrorism.

Download or read book Americanism The Fourth Great Western Religion written by David Gelernter and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2007-06-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to “believe” in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations? Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right. Gelernter argues that what we have come to call “Americanism” is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment. Gelernter traces the development of the American religion from its roots in the Puritan Zionism of seventeenth-century New England to the idealistic fighting faith it has become, a militant creed dedicated to spreading freedom around the world. The central figures in this process were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the secularization of the American Zionist idea into the form we now know as Americanism. If America is a religion, it is a religion without a god, and it is a global religion. People who believe in America live all over the world. Its adherents have included oppressed and freedom-loving peoples everywhere—from the patriots of the Greek and Hungarian revolutions to the martyred Chinese dissidents of Tiananmen Square. Gelernter also shows that anti-Americanism, particularly the virulent kind that is found today in Europe, is a reaction against this religious conception of America on the part of those who adhere to a rival religion of pacifism and appeasement. A startlingly original argument about the religious meaning of America and why it is loved—and hated—with so much passion at home and abroad.

Download or read book Twentieth Century America written by Thomas C. Reeves and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-05-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As this most tumultuous century draws to a close, the need for a concise and trustworthy history is clear. Recent decades have seen the publication of American histories that are either bloated with unnecessary detail or infused with a polemical purpose that undermines their authority. InTwentieth-Century America, Thomas C. Reeves provides a fluidly written narrative history that combines the rare virtues of compression, inclusiveness, and balance. From Progressivism and the New Deal right up to the present, Reeves covers all aspects of American history, providing solid coverage of each era without burying readers in needless detail or trivia. This approach allows readers to grasp the major developments and continuities of American history and to come away with a cohesive picture of the whole of the twentieth century. The volume stresses social and well as political history, emphasizing the roles played by all Americans--including immigrants, minorities, women, and working people--and pays special attention to such topics as religion, crime, public health, national prosperity, and the media. Reeves is careful throughout to present both sides of controversial subjects and yet does not leave readers bewildered about which interpretations are most strongly supported or where to explore these issues more thoroughly. At the conclusion of each chapter, the author cites ten authoritative volumes for further study. The bibliographies, as well as the text, are refreshing in their lack of ideological bent. "Objectivity," Reeves suggests, "is an illusive but worthy goal for the historian." For anyone wishing to achieve a lucid historical overview of the past 100 years, Twentieth-Century America is the best place to start.

Download or read book The Anti American Century written by Ivan Krastev and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interrogates the nature of anti-Americanism today and over the last century. It asks several questions: How do we define the phenomenon from different perspectives: political, social, and cultural? What are the historical sources and turning points of anti-Americanism in Europe and elsewhere? What are its links with anti-Semitic sentiment? Has anti-Americanism been beneficial or self-destructive to its “believers”? Finally, how has the United States responded and why? The authors, scholars from a multitude of countries, tackle the potential political consequences of anti-Americanism in Eastern and Central Europe, the region that has been perceived as strongly pro-American.

Download or read book Americanism in the Twenty First Century written by Deborah J. Schildkraut and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores public opinion about being and becoming American, and its implications for contemporary immigration debates. It focuses on the causes and consequences of two aspects of American identity: how people define being American and whether people think of themselves primarily as American rather than as members of a panethnic or national origin group. Importantly, the book evaluates the claim – made by scholars and pundits alike – that all Americans should prioritize their American identity instead of an ethnic or national origin identity. It finds that national identity within American democracy can be a blessing or a curse. It can enhance participation, trust, and obligation. But it can be a curse when perceptions of deviation lead to threat and resentment. It can also be a curse for minorities who are attached to their American identity but also perceive discrimination.

Download or read book Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth Century America written by Dave Tell and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth-Century America revolutionizes how we think about confession and its ubiquitous place in American culture. It argues that the sheer act of labeling a text a confession has become one of the most powerful, and most overlooked, forms of intervening in American cultural politics. In the twentieth century alone, the genre of confession has profoundly shaped (and been shaped by) six of America’s most intractable cultural issues: sexuality, class, race, violence, religion, and democracy.

Download or read book Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth Century America written by Christine Pawley and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For well over one hundred years, libraries open to the public have played a crucial part in fostering in Americans the skills and habits of reading and writing, by routinely providing access to standard forms of print: informational genres such as newspapers, pamphlets, textbooks, and other reference books, and literary genres including poetry, plays, and novels. Public libraries continue to have an extraordinary impact; in the early twenty-first century, the American Library Association reports that there are more public library branches than McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Much has been written about libraries from professional and managerial points of view, but less so from the perspectives of those most intimately involved—patrons and librarians. Drawing on circulation records, patron reviews, and other archived materials, Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America underscores the evolving roles that libraries have played in the lives of American readers. Each essay in this collection examines a historical circumstance related to reading in libraries. The essays are organized in sections on methods of researching the history of reading in libraries; immigrants and localities; censorship issues; and the role of libraries in providing access to alternative, nonmainstream publications. The volume shows public libraries as living spaces where individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, needs, and desires encountered and used a great variety of texts, images, and other media throughout the twentieth century.

Download or read book American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century written by Vine Deloria and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers eleven essays on federal Indian policy.

Download or read book A Documentary History of the Communist Party of the United States Twentieth century Americanism 1937 1939 written by Bernard K. Johnpoll and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1994 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fifth in an eight-volume documentary history of the Communist Party of the United States of America. This landmark collection by a noted authority on the American Left is the result of forty years of searching for pamphlets, proclamations, manifestos, party reports, and minutes of meetings in bookstores and archives all over the country. Facsimilies of the originals are presented whenever possible. Brief introductions and critical notes and explanations about the documents are provided with each of these rare and hard-to-find materials. Volume V begins with a short introduction describing the documentary history and pointing to important sources of information about the Communist Party of the United States. Documents are arranged chronologically and cover a period dealing with twentieth-century American from 1937 to 1939. The documents include speeches, resolutions, and various reports and analyses about timely issues and attitudes current in the party then on the Soviet Union, American history, women voters, elections, anti-Semitism, national security, and communist theory and practice.