Download or read book What s the Matter with Kansas written by Thomas Frank and published by Picador. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times

Download or read book The Heart of American Poetry written by Edward Hirsch and published by Library of America. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed poet and our greatest champion for poetry offers an inspiring and insightful new reading of the American tradition We live in unsettled times. What is America and who are we as a people? How do we understand the dreams and betrayals that have shaped the American experience? For poet and critic Edward Hirsch, poetry opens up new ways of answering these questions, of reconnecting with one another and with what’s best in us. In this landmark new book from Library of America, Hirsch offers deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems we thought we knew—from Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book” and Phillis Wheatley’s “To S.M. a Young African Painter, on seeing his Works” to Garrett Hongo’s “Ancestral Graves, Kahuku” and Joy Harjo’s “Rabbit Is Up to Tricks”—exploring how these poems have sustained his own life and how they might uplift our diverse but divided nation. “This is a personal book about American poetry,” writes Hirsch, “but I hope it is more than a personal selection. I have chosen forty poems from our extensive archive and songbook that have been meaningful to me, part of my affective life, my critical consideration, but I have also tried to be cognizant of the changing playbook in American poetry, which is not fixed but fluctuating, ever in flow, to pay attention to the wider consideration, the appreciable reach of our literature. This is a book of encounters and realizations.”

Download or read book Heart of American Darkness Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier written by Robert G. Parkinson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A scarifying, blood-soaked portrait of savagery on the early frontier—much of it committed by European settlers . . . superb.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred) An acclaimed historian captures the true nature of imperialism in early America, demonstrating how the frontier shaped the nation. We are divided over the history of the United States, and one of the central dividing lines is the frontier. Was it a site of heroism? Or was it where the full force of an all-powerful empire was brought to bear on Native peoples? In this startingly original work, historian Robert Parkinson presents a new account of ever-shifting encounters between white colonists and Native Americans. Drawing skillfully on Joseph Conrad’s famous novella, Heart of Darkness, he demonstrates that imperialism in North America was neither heroic nor a perfectly planned conquest. It was, rather, as bewildering, violent, and haphazard as the European colonization of Africa, which Conrad knew firsthand and fictionalized in his masterwork. At the center of Parkinson’s story are two families whose entwined histories ended in tragedy. The family of Shickellamy, one of the most renowned Indigenous leaders of the eighteenth century, were Iroquois diplomats laboring to create a world where settlers and Native people could coexist. The Cresaps were frontiersmen who became famous throughout the colonies for their bravado, scheming, and land greed. Together, the families helped determine the fate of the British and French empires, which were battling for control of the Ohio River Valley. From the Seven Years’ War to the protests over the Stamp Act to the start of the Revolutionary War, Parkinson recounts the major turning points of the era from a vantage that allows us to see them anew, and to perceive how bewildering they were to people at the time. For the Shickellamy family, it all came to an end on April 30, 1774, when most of the clan were brutally murdered by white settlers associated with the Cresaps at a place called Yellow Creek. That horrific event became news all over the continent, and it led to war in the interior, at the very moment the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Michael Cresap, at first blamed for the massacre at Yellow Creek, would be transformed by the Revolution into a hero alongside George Washington. In death, he helped cement the pioneer myth at the heart of the new republic. Parkinson argues that American history is, in fact, tied to the frontier, just not in the ways we are often told. Altering our understanding of the past, he also shows what this new understanding should mean for us today.

Download or read book Head and Heart written by Garry Wills and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Wills has won significant acclaim for his bestselling works of religion and history. Here, for the first time, he combines both disciplines in a sweeping examination of Christianity in America throughout the last 400 years. Wills argues that the struggle now'as throughout our nation's history'is between the head and the heart, reason and emotion, enlightenment and Evangelism. A landmark volume for anyone interested in either politics or religion, Head and Heart concludes that, while religion is a fertile and enduring force in American politics, the tension between the two is necessary, inevitable, and unending.

Download or read book Lessons from the Heart of American Business written by Gerald Greenwald and published by Business Plus. This book was released on 2001-02-22 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of America's most respected executives offers his management insights on how to do business now -- and into the next century. Since taking over as chairman and chief executive officer of United Airlines, Gerald Greenwald has seen operating margins and productivity go up, labor grievances go down, and the stock price more than double. In LESSONS FROM THE HEART OF AMERICAN BUSINESS, Greenwald shares his extraordinary experiences and insights on how businesses in America operate today. He discusses such pressing management issues as: An aging workforce Corporate ethics Dealing with layoffs Building trust with employees Office politics Greenwald also explores business practices and behavior in the second half of the 20th century, and the important lessons they can teach business folks about how to manage in the future.

Download or read book Charles The Heart of a King written by Catherine Mayer and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-02-05 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 'Breathtaking' The Times '[The book that] made headlines around the world.' Independent The former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Prince Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark. The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy. Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it. Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores the Prince's philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy. Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other. 'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ 'A sustained piece of higher journalism' Independent

Download or read book Sisters in Hate written by Seyward Darby and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WITH A NEW FOREWARD Journalist Seyward Darby's "masterfully reported and incisive" (Nell Irvin Painter) exposé pulls back the curtain on modern racial and political extremism in America telling the "eye-opening and unforgettable" (Ibram X. Kendi) account of three women immersed in the white nationalist movement. After the election of Donald J. Trump, journalist Seyward Darby went looking for the women of the so-called "alt-right" -- really just white nationalism with a new label. The mainstream media depicted the alt-right as a bastion of angry white men, but was it? As women headlined resistance to the Trump administration's bigotry and sexism, most notably at the Women's Marches, Darby wanted to know why others were joining a movement espousing racism and anti-feminism. Who were these women, and what did their activism reveal about America's past, present, and future? Darby researched dozens of women across the country before settling on three -- Corinna Olsen, Ayla Stewart, and Lana Lokteff. Each was born in 1979, and became a white nationalist in the post-9/11 era. Their respective stories of radicalization upend much of what we assume about women, politics, and political extremism. Corinna, a professional embalmer who was once a body builder, found community in white nationalism before it was the alt-right, while she was grieving the death of her brother and the end of hermarriage. For Corinna, hate was more than just personal animus -- it could also bring people together. Eventually, she decided to leave the movement and served as an informant for the FBI. Ayla, a devoutly Christian mother of six, underwent a personal transformation from self-professed feminist to far-right online personality. Her identification with the burgeoning "tradwife" movement reveals how white nationalism traffics in society's preferred, retrograde ways of seeing women. Lana, who runs a right-wing media company with her husband, enjoys greater fame and notoriety than many of her sisters in hate. Her work disseminating and monetizing far-right dogma is a testament to the power of disinformation. With acute psychological insight and eye-opening reporting, Darby steps inside the contemporary hate movement and draws connections to precursors like the Ku Klux Klan. Far more than mere helpmeets, women like Corinna, Ayla, and Lana have been sustaining features of white nationalism. Sisters in Hate shows how the work women do to normalize and propagate racist extremism has consequences well beyond the hate movement.

Download or read book Wild at Heart written by John Eldredge and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-04-17 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In all your boyhood dreams of growing up, did you dream of being a "nice guy"? Eldredge believes that every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is how he bears the image of God; that is what God made him to be.

Download or read book My Heart Is an Idiot written by Davy Rothbart and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets—and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He's continually coming up with outrageous schemes, which he always manages to pull off. Well, almost always. But even when things don't work out, Rothbart finds meaning and humor in every moment. Whether it's humiliating a scammer who takes money from aspiring writers or playing harmless (but side-splitting) goofs on his deaf mother, nothing and no one is off-limits. But as much as Rothbart is a tragically lovable, irresistibly brokenhearted hero, it's his prose that's the star of the book. In the tradition of David Sedaris and Sloane Crosley but going places very much his own, his essays show how things that are seemingly so wrong can be so, so right.

Download or read book Hatemonger written by Jean Guerrero and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A vital book for understanding the still-unfolding nightmare of nationalism and racism in the twenty-first century.” —Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River Stephen Miller was one of the most influential advisors in the White House. He crafted Donald Trump’s speeches, designed immigration policies that banned Muslims and separated families, and outlasted such Trump stalwarts as Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions. But he’s remained an enigma. Until now. Emmy- and PEN-winning investigative journalist and author Jean Guerrero charts the thirty-four-year-old’s astonishing rise to power, drawing from more than one hundred interviews with his family, friends, adversaries and government officials. After being radicalized as a teenager and attending Duke University, Miller served Tea Party congresswoman Michele Bachmann and nativist Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. Recruited to Trump’s campaign, Miller met his idol. Having dreamed of Trump’s presidency before he even announced his decision to run, Miller became his senior policy advisor and speechwriter. Together, they stoked dystopian fears about the Democrats, “Deep State” and “American Carnage,” painting migrants and their supporters as an existential threat to America. While Trump railed against illegal immigration, Miller crusaded against legal immigration. He targeted refugees, asylum seekers and their children, engineering an ethical crisis for a nation that once saw itself as the conscience of the world. Miller rallied support for this agenda, even as federal judges tried to stop it, by courting the white rage that found violent expression in tragedies from El Paso to Charlottesville. Hatemonger unveils the man driving some of the most divisive confrontations over what it means to be American—and what America will become.

Download or read book Change of Heart written by Jodi Picoult and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we save ourselves, or do we rely on others to do it? Is what we believe always the truth?

Download or read book The Coddling of the American Mind written by Greg Lukianoff and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

Download or read book The Perfect Metabolism Plan written by Sara Vance and published by Mango Media Inc.. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heal your metabolism, improve your health, and reach your ideal weight with this practical guide to metabolic renewal—includes more than fifty recipes! Some people seem to eat whatever they want without gaining a pound while others obsess over calories and exercise—all for weight loss that’s either temporary or nonexistent. The difference comes down to metabolism. And in Sara Vance’s The Perfect Metabolism Plan, you’ll learn how to get your metabolism working for you. When your metabolism is out of whack, your willpower, hunger hormones, insulin, and cravings all work against you. Beyond having trouble with weight, you tend to feel foggy, sluggish, or generally unwell. In The Perfect Metabolism Plan, nutritionist and foodie Sara Vance breaks down the ten basic principles to unlocking your optimal metabolism. She then guides you through a three-phase cleanse to help you reboot your metabolism and achieve your weight and health goals naturally. The Perfect Metabolism Plan includes: A bonus chapter of metabolic hacks More than fifty healthy recipes A workable plan for putting it all into action

Download or read book Native Country of the Heart written by Cherríe Moraga and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This memoir's beauty is in its fierce intimacy." --Roy Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2019 From the celebrated editor of This Bridge Called My Back, Cherríe Moraga charts her own coming-of-age alongside her mother’s decline, and also tells the larger story of the Mexican American diaspora. Native Country of the Heart: AMemoir is, at its core, a mother-daughter story. The mother, Elvira, was hired out as a child, along with her siblings, by their own father to pick cotton in California’s Imperial Valley. The daughter, Cherríe Moraga, is a brilliant, pioneering, queer Latina feminist. The story of these two women, and of their people, is woven together in an intimate memoir of critical reflection and deep personal revelation. As a young woman, Elvira left California to work as a cigarette girl in glamorous late-1920s Tijuana, where an ambiguous relationship with a wealthy white man taught her life lessons about power, sex, and opportunity. As Moraga charts her mother’s journey—from impressionable young girl to battle-tested matriarch to, later on, an old woman suffering under the yoke of Alzheimer’s—she traces her own self-discovery of her gender-queer body and Lesbian identity, as well as her passion for activism and the history of her pueblo. As her mother’s memory fails, Moraga is driven to unearth forgotten remnants of a U.S. Mexican diaspora, its indigenous origins, and an American story of cultural loss. Poetically wrought and filled with insight into intergenerational trauma, Native Country of the Heart is a reckoning with white American history and a piercing love letter from a fearless daughter to the mother she will never lose.

Download or read book Alcohol in America written by United States Department of Transportation and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1985-02-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alcohol is a killerâ€"1 of every 13 deaths in the United States is alcohol-related. In addition, 5 percent of the population consumes 50 percent of the alcohol. The authors take a close look at the problem in a "classy little study," as The Washington Post called this book. The Library Journal states, "...[T]his is one book that addresses solutions....And it's enjoyably readable....This is an excellent review for anyone in the alcoholism prevention business, and good background reading for the interested layperson." The Washington Post agrees: the book "...likely will wind up on the bookshelves of counselors, politicians, judges, medical professionals, and law enforcement officials throughout the country."

Download or read book A Flaw in the Blood written by Stephanie Barron and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of the bestselling Jane Austen mysteries brings rich historical immediacy to an enthralling new suspense novel centered around Queen Victoria’s troubled court…and a secret so dangerous, it could topple thrones. Windsor Castle, 1861. For the second time in over twenty years, Irish barrister Patrick Fitzgerald has been summoned by the Queen. The first time, he’d been a zealous young legal clerk, investigating what appeared to be a murderous conspiracy against her. Now he is a distinguished gentleman at the top of his profession. And the Queen is a woman in the grip of fear. For on this chilly night, her beloved husband, Prince Albert, lies dying. With her future clouded by grief, Fitzgerald can’t help but notice the Queen is curiously preoccupied with the past. Yet why, and how he can help, is unclear. His bewilderment deepens when the royal coach is violently overturned, nearly killing him and his brilliant young ward, Dr. Georgiana Armistead, niece of the late Dr. Snow, a famed physician who’d attended none other than Her Majesty. Fitzgerald is sure of one thing: the Queen’s carriage was not attacked at random—it was a carefully chosen target. But was it because he rode in it? Fitzgerald won’t risk dying in order to find out. He’ll leave London and take Georgiana with him—if they can get out alive. For soon the pair find themselves hunted. Little do they know they each carry within their past hidden clues to a devastating royal secret…one they must untangle if they are to survive. From the streets of London to the lush hills of Cannes, from the slums of St. Giles to the gilded halls of Windsor Castle, A Flaw in the Blood delivers a fascinating tale of pursuit, and the artful blend of period detail and electrifying intrigue that only the remarkable Stephanie Barron can devise.

Download or read book The Triple Package written by Jed Rubenfeld and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do Jews win so many Nobel Prizes and Pulitzer Prizes? Why are Mormons running the business and finance sectors? Why do the children of even impoverished and poorly educated Chinese immigrants excel so remarkably at school? It may be taboo to say it, but some cultural groups starkly outperform others. The bestselling husband and wife team Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and Jed Rubenfeld, author of The Interpretation of Murder, reveal the three essential components of success – its hidden spurs, inner dynamics and its potentially damaging costs – showing how, ultimately, when properly understood and harnessed, the Triple Package can put anyone on their chosen path to success.