Download or read book Benjamin Franklin written by Phillips Russell and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1926 edition.
Download or read book Civilizing Torture written by W. Fitzhugh Brundage and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2018-11-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize Finalist Silver Gavel Award Finalist “A sobering history of how American communities and institutions have relied on torture in various forms since before the United States was founded.” —Los Angeles Times “That Americans as a people and a nation-state are violent is indisputable. That we are also torturers, domestically and internationally, is not so well established. The myth that we are not torturers will persist, but Civilizing Torture will remain a powerful antidote in confronting it.” —Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell “Remarkable...A searing analysis of America’s past that helps make sense of its bewildering present.” —David Garland, author of Peculiar Institution Most Americans believe that a civilized state does not torture, but that belief has repeatedly been challenged in moments of crisis at home and abroad. From the Indian wars to Vietnam, from police interrogation to the War on Terror, US institutions have proven far more amenable to torture than the nation’s commitment to liberty would suggest. Civilizing Torture traces the history of debates about the efficacy of torture and reveals a recurring struggle to decide what limits to impose on the power of the state. At a time of escalating rhetoric aimed at cleansing the nation of the undeserving and an erosion of limits on military power, the debate over torture remains critical and unresolved.
Download or read book Civilization written by Regis Debray and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American civilization’s dominance over Europe—and what to do about it In 1900, an American of taste was a European in exile; in 2000, a trendy European is a frustrated American—or one waiting for a visa. Régis Debray explores America’s global cultural ascendancy in this provocative and witty analysis of our contemporary condition. Whereas Europe once foregrounded the importance of time and writing, America is a civilization of spectacle and kinetics, blind to the tragic complexities of human life. A measure of America’s success is how its jargon has been adopted by European languages, but there is much more than that to the States’ infiltration into all aspects of modern life. For Debray, the dominance of American civilization is a historical fait accompli. Yet he envisions a sanctuary for the best of Europe modelled on Vienna at the cusp of the twentieth century, where art and literature flowered in the rich soil of a decaying empire. For decades to come, Europe can still offer a rich cultural seedbed. “Some will call it decadence,” writes Debray, “others liberation. Why not both?”
Download or read book American Civilization written by David Mauk and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction to contemporary American life examines the key institutions of American society, including state and local government, geography, education, law, media and culture, with the emphasis placed on the people of America.
Download or read book American Civilization written by David Mauk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-31 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and updated edition of the hugely successful American Civilization provides students of American studies with the perfect background and introductory information on contemporary American life. This sixth edition examines the central dimensions of American society from geography and the environment, government and politics, to religion, education, sports, media and the arts. This book: covers all core American studies topics at introductory level. contains essential historical background for American studies students in the twenty-first century analyzes issues of gender, class, race, and minorities in America’s cosmopolitan population. contains color photos, case studies, questions and terms for discussion, bibliographical references and lists of websites central to each chapter. accompanied by a fully integrated companion website featuring extensive references for further reading, links to key primary sources, filmographies and advice for students on how to approach essay questions. Featuring new color illustrations and case studies, this edition includes expanded sections on the environment, immigration, foreign policy, media and the arts, sport and leisure cultures as well as a new section on the LGBT community and detailed coverage of the 2012 election and shifting economic situation.
Download or read book Rites of Retaliation written by Lorien Foote and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, Union and Confederate politicians, military commanders, everyday soldiers, and civilians claimed their approach to the conflict was civilized, in keeping with centuries of military tradition meant to restrain violence and preserve national honor. One hallmark of civilized warfare was a highly ritualized approach to retaliation. This ritual provided a forum to accuse the enemy of excessive behavior, to negotiate redress according to the laws of war, and to appeal to the judgment of other civilized nations. As the war progressed, Northerners and Southerners feared they were losing their essential identity as civilized, and the attention to retaliation grew more intense. When Black soldiers joined the Union army in campaigns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, raiding plantations and liberating enslaved people, Confederates argued the war had become a servile insurrection. And when Confederates massacred Black troops after battle, killed white Union foragers after capture, and used prisoners of war as human shields, Federals thought their enemy raised the black flag and embraced savagery. Blending military and cultural history, Lorien Foote's rich and insightful book sheds light on how Americans fought over what it meant to be civilized and who should be extended the protections of a civilized world.
Download or read book Sugar and Civilization written by April Merleaux and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the weeks and months after the end of the Spanish-American War, Americans celebrated their nation's triumph by eating sugar. Each of the nation's new imperial possessions, from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, had the potential for vastly expanding sugar production. As victory parties and commemorations prominently featured candy and other sweets, Americans saw sugar as the reward for their global ambitions. April Merleaux demonstrates that trade policies and consumer cultures are as crucial to understanding U.S. empire as military or diplomatic interventions. As the nation's sweet tooth grew, people debated tariffs, immigration, and empire, all of which hastened the nation's rise as an international power. These dynamics played out in the bureaucracies of Washington, D.C., in the pages of local newspapers, and at local candy counters. Merleaux argues that ideas about race and civilization shaped sugar markets since government policies and business practices hinged on the racial characteristics of the people who worked the land and consumed its products. Connecting the history of sugar to its producers, consumers, and policy makers, Merleaux shows that the modern American sugar habit took shape in the shadow of a growing empire.
Download or read book America Before written by Graham Hancock and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.
Download or read book American Philanthropy written by Robert H. Bremner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988-06-15 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revised and enlarged edition of his classic work, Robert H. Bremner provides a social history of American philanthropy from colonial times to the present, showing the ways in which Americans have sought to do good in such fields as religion, education, humanitarian reform, social service, war relief, and foreign aid. Three new chapters have been added that concisely cover the course of philanthropy and voluntarism in the United States over the past twenty-five years, a period in which total giving by individuals, foundations, and corporations has more than doubled in real terms and in which major revisions of tax laws have changed patterns of giving. This new edition also includes an updated chronology of important dates, and a completely revised bibliographic essay to guide readers on literature in the field. "[This] book, as Bremner points out, is not encyclopedic. It is what he intended it to be, a pleasant narrative, seasoned with humorous comments, briefly but interestingly treating its principal persons and subjects. It should serve teacher and student as a springboard for further study of individuals, institutions and movements."—Karl De Schweinitz, American Historical Review "[American Philanthropy] is the starting point for both casual readers and academic scholars. . . . a readable book, important beyond its diminutive size."—Richard Magat, Foundation News
Download or read book A History of the Indians of the United States written by Angie Debo and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1906 when the Creek Indian Chitto Harjo was protesting the United States government's liquidation of his tribe's lands, he began his argument with an account of Indian history from the time of Columbus, "for, of course, a thing has to have a root before it can grow." Yet even today most intelligent non-Indian Americans have little knowledge of Indian history and affairs those lessons have not taken root. This book is an in-depth historical survey of the Indians of the United States, including the Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska, which isolates and analyzes the problems which have beset these people since their first contacts with Europeans. Only in the light of this knowledge, the author points out, can an intelligent Indian policy be formulated. In the book are described the first meetings of Indians with explorers, the dispossession of the Indians by colonial expansion, their involvement in imperial rivalries, their beginning relations with the new American republic, and the ensuing century of war and encroachment. The most recent aspects of government Indian policy are also detailed the good and bad administrative practices and measures to which the Indians have been subjected and their present situation. Miss Debo's style is objective, and throughout the book the distinct social environment of the Indians is emphasized—an environment that is foreign to the experience of most white men. Through ignorance of that culture and life style the results of non-Indian policy toward Indians have been centuries of blundering and tragedy. In response to Indian history, an enlightened policy must be formulated: protection of Indian land, vocational and educational training, voluntary relocation, encouragement of tribal organization, recognition of Indians' social groupings, and reliance on Indians' abilities to direct their own lives. The result of this new policy would be a chance for Indians to live now, whether on their own land or as adjusted members of white society. Indian history is usually highly specialized and is never recorded in books of general history. This book unifies the many specialized volumes which have been written about their history and culture. It has been written not only for persons who work with Indians or for students of Indian culture, but for all Americans of good will.
Download or read book Civilized Creatures written by Jennifer Mason and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-08-04 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Civilized Creatures, Jennifer Mason challenges some of our most enduring ideas about how encounters with nonhuman nature shaped American literature and culture. Mason argues that in the second half of the nineteenth century the most powerful influence on Americans' understanding of their affinities with animals was not increasing separation from the pastoral and the wilderness; instead, it was the population's feelings about the ostensibly civilized animals they encountered in their daily lives. Americans of diverse backgrounds, Mason shows, found it attractive as well as politic to imagine themselves as most closely connected to those creatures who shared humans' aptitude for civilized life. And to the minds of many in this period, national prosperity depended less on periodic exposure to untamed, wild nature than it did on the proper care and keeping of such animals within suburban and urban environments. Combining literary analysis with cultural histories of equestrianism, petkeeping, and the animal welfare movement, Civilized Creatures offers new readings of works by Susan Warner, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles W. Chesnutt. In each case, Mason demonstrates that understanding contemporary relationships between humans and animals is essential for understanding the debates about gender, race, and cultural power enacted in these texts.
Download or read book Civilized America Second edition written by Thomas Colley Grattan and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Negro in American Civilization written by Nathaniel Weyl and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Civilized to Death written by Christopher Ryan and published by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live—how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die—in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist) book. Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending—balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the “progress” defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease. Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges, such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? Civilized to Death “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (Book Riot) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (Psychology Today). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future.
Download or read book Civilized America Second edition written by Thomas Colley Grattan and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great Civilized Conversation written by Wm. Theodore De Bary and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having spent decades teaching and researching the humanities, Wm. Theodore de Bary is well positioned to speak on its merits and reform. Believing a classical liberal education is more necessary than ever, he outlines in these essays a plan to update existing core curricula by incorporating classics from both Eastern and Western traditions, thereby bringing the philosophy and moral values of Asian civilizations to American students and vice versa. The author establishes a concrete link between teaching the classics of world civilizations and furthering global humanism. Selecting texts that share many of the same values and educational purposes, he joins Islamic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources into a revised curriculum that privileges humanity and civility. He also explores the tradition of education in China and its reflection of Confucian and Neo-Confucian beliefs. He reflects on history's great scholar-teachers and what their methods can teach us today, and he dedicates three essays to the power of The Analects of Confucius, The Tale of Genji, and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon in the classroom.
Download or read book Latin American Civilization written by Benjamin Keen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on recent developments in Latin American politics and society. The major new selection made in the book are the Church's role in the Nicaraguan revolution, the Malvinas/Falklands war, the struggle for democracy in Argentina and Brazil, and women's liberation in Cuba.
