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 Kansas Guidebook 2 written by Marci Penner and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe hit the road for parts of four years to look in every one of the 626 incorporated towns and cities and in hundreds of other dots on the map and countryside locations. They drove dusty back roads and navigated big-city highways. They looked for architecture, art, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history, and people wherever they went. In their trusty Explorer Research Vehicle (lovingly known as ERV), the duo took tens of thousands of photos, traveled tens of thousands of miles, and visited with thousands of people. Five hundred Kansas towns are included in this guide containing entries on the best places to eat (672 restaurants are listed), beautiful scenery, history, customs, architecture, art, and people.

Download or read book Secret Kansas City A Guide to the Weird Wonderful and Obscure written by Anne Kniggendorf and published by Reedy Press LLC. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.

Download or read book One Kansas Farmer written by Devin Scillian and published by Sleeping Bear Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the success of S is for Sunflower: A Kansas Alphabet, husbandand- wife author team Devin and Corey Scillian join illustrator Doug Bowles in another rousing state tribute. One Kansas Farmer: A Kansas Number Book "counts out" an entertaining and educational travelogue of the state's history, geography, famous people, and places. Topics include the dancing prairie chickens and the invention of the microchip. Corey and Devin Scillian are graduates of the University of Kansas. They now live in Michigan where Devin anchors the news for WDIV-TV in Detroit. Devin's other children's books include the bestselling A is for America: An American Alphabet and Brewster the Rooster. Doug Bowles enjoys working with a wide range of clients in advertising, corporate, and editorial jobs, as well as in the children's book market. He also enjoys working on fine art collections and shows frequently in galleries around Kansas. Doug lives in Leawood, Kansas.

Download or read book Cold War Kansas written by Landry Brewer and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-24 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas played an outsized role in the Cold War, when civilization's survival hung in the balance. Forbes Air Force Base operated nine Atlas E intercontinental ballistic missile launch sites. Schilling Air Force Base was the hub for twelve Atlas F ICBMs. McConnell Air Force Base operated eighteen Titan II ICBMs. A Kansas State University engineering professor converted a discarded Union Pacific Railroad water tank into his family's backyard fallout shelter. A United States president from Kansas faced several nuclear war scares as the Cold War moved into the thermonuclear age. Landry Brewer tells the fascinating story of highest-level national strategy and how everyday Kansans lived with threats to their way of life.

Download or read book Haunted Kansas written by Lisa Hefner Heitz and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of ghost stories and narration unique to the state of Kansas. The stories are a blend of mystery and menace. The ghosts are shown are to notoriously linked to a specific structure or landscape, whether it be an 18th century mansion or a bottomless pool.

Download or read book No Saints in Kansas written by Amy Brashear and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young adult, fictional reimagining of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and the brutal murders that inspired it. Gripping and fast-paced, this meticulously researched historical fiction will reinvigorate a new generation to Capote. November is usually quiet in Holcomb, Kansas, but in 1959, the town is shattered by the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Suspicion falls on Nancy Clutter’s boyfriend, Bobby Rupp, the last one to see them alive. New Yorker Carly Fleming, new to the small Midwestern town, is an outsider. She tutored Nancy, and (in private, at least) they were close. Carly and Bobby were the only ones who saw that Nancy was always performing, and that she was cracking under the pressure of being Holcomb’s golden girl. This secret connected Carly and Bobby. Now that Bobby is an outsider, too, they’re bound closer than ever. Determined to clear Bobby’s name, Carly dives into the murder investigation and ends up in trouble with the local authorities. But that’s nothing compared to the wrath she faces from Holcomb once the real perpetrators are caught. When her father is appointed to defend the killers of the Clutter family, the entire town labels the Flemings as traitors. Now Carly must fight for what she knows is right.

Download or read book Hidden History of Kansas written by Adrian Zink and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas' storied past is filled with fascinating firsts, humorous coincidences and intriguing characters. A man who had survived a murderous proslavery massacre in 1858 hanged his would-be executioner five years later. A wealthy Frenchman utilized his utopian ideals to create an award-winning silk-producing commune in Franklin County. A young boy's amputated arm led to the rise of Sprint Corporation. The first victim of the doomed Donner Party met her end in Kansas. In 1947, a housewife in Johnson County, indignant at the poor condition of the local school for black children, sparked school desegregation nationwide. Author and historian Adrian Zink digs deep into the Sunflower State's history to reveal these hidden and overlooked stories.

Download or read book Tropic of Kansas written by Christopher Brown and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Timely, dark, and ultimately hopeful: it might not ‘make America great again,’ but then again, it just might.”—Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling and award winning author of Homeland Acclaimed short story writer and editor of the World Fantasy Award-nominee Three Messages and a Warning eerily envisions an American society unraveling and our borders closed off—from the other side—in this haunting and provocative novel that combines Max Barry’s Jennifer Government, Philip K. Dick’s classic Man in the High Castle, and China Mieville’s The City & the City The United States of America is no more. Broken into warring territories, its center has become a wasteland DMZ known as “the Tropic of Kansas.” Though this gaping geographic hole has no clear boundaries, everyone knows it's out there—that once-bountiful part of the heartland, broken by greed and exploitation, where neglect now breeds unrest. Two travelers appear in this arid American wilderness: Sig, the fugitive orphan of political dissidents, and his foster sister Tania, a government investigator whose search for Sig leads her into her own past—and towards an unexpected future. Sig promised those he loves that he would make it to the revolutionary redoubt of occupied New Orleans. But first he must survive the wild edgelands of a barren mid-America policed by citizen militias and autonomous drones, where one wrong move can mean capture . . . or death. One step behind, undercover in the underground, is Tania. Her infiltration of clandestine networks made of old technology and new politics soon transforms her into the hunted one, and gives her a shot at being the agent of real change—if she is willing to give up the explosive government secrets she has sworn to protect. As brother and sister traverse these vast and dangerous badlands, their paths will eventually intersect on the front lines of a revolution whose fuse they are about to light. “Futurist as provocateur! The world is sheer batshit genius . . . a truly hallucinatorily envisioned environment.”—William Gibson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author

Download or read book Oceans of Kansas written by Michael J. Everhart and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Excellent . . . Those who are interested in vertebrate paleontology or in the scientific history of the American midwest should really get a copy.” —PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the vast inland sea that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Giant sharks, marine reptiles called mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later. Michael J. Everhart vividly captures the history of these startling finds over the decades and re-creates in unforgettable detail these animals from our distant past and the world in which they lived—above, within, and on the shores of America’s ancient inland sea. “Oceans of Kansas remains the best and only book of its type currently available. Everhart’s treatment of extinct marine reptiles synthesizes source materials far more readably than any other recent, nontechnical book-length study of the subject.” —Copeia “[The book] will be most useful to fossil collectors working in the local region and to historians of vertebrate paleontology . . . Recommended.” —Choice

Download or read book Bleeding Kansas written by Nicole Etcheson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2004-01-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war. While other writers have cited slavery or economics as the cause of unrest, Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. Covering the period from the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to the 1879 Exoduster Migration, it traces the complex interactions among groups inside and outside the territory, creating a comprehensive political, social, and intellectual history of this tumultuous period in the state's history. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.

Download or read book 83 000 Square Miles No Lines No Waiting written by Steve Harper and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kansas Trail Guide written by Jonathan M. Conard and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the windswept plains to the majestic Flint Hills, the subtle beauty of the Sunflower State is best appreciated from its myriad wide-ranging trails. And whether you’re an avid hiker or desultory explorer, a bicyclist or horseback rider, this book makes a most congenial guide. An invaluable companion for exploring new trails or learning about accustomed routes, this comprehensive guide will tell you all you need to know (as well as what it might surprise you to learn) about the trails that crisscross Kansas—history and geography, wildlife and scenery, park locations and cultural possibilities, and, now and then, even a bit of geology and botany. The illustrated guide includes detailed full-color maps, GPS coordinates, and, of course, extensive route descriptions—through historic sights and prairies and state parks, to lakes and rivers and wildlife refuges. The authors identify the best trails for families or going solo; for running or hiking, biking or horseback riding; for hunting wildflowers, encountering wildlife, enjoying scenic vistas, or exploring Kansas history. They also include helpful descriptions of flora and fauna, and historical highlights for each area. Concise, complete, and engaging, this is the guide anyone journeying the trails of Kansas, seasoned hiker and armchair traveler alike, should not be without.

Download or read book History of Butler County Kansas written by Vol. P. Mooney and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bird Kansas written by Tony Parker and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1989 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parker, Britain's expert interviewer, finds a classic mid-American town in Bird, Kansas, surrounded by cornfields and prairie, with a population of just under 2,000.

Download or read book Finding Kansas written by Aaron Likens and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a mental health professional who has specialized in the field of autistic-spectrum disorders for nearly twenty years, the only apt comparison I can make of Aarons writings is the effect of Temple Grandins first book, Emergence. Her personal account of the experience of autism was a revelation. It shattered many myths and previously accepted facts about autism. Her book permanently changed the previously limited understanding of autistic disorders. I believe Aarons writings have the same potential regarding Aspergers Disorder. He reveals depths of emotion, social comprehension, nuances of cognition and perception, and especially the potential for something close to recovery. I believe its potential benefits are invaluable and capable of changing lives. In the course of this personal odyssey, however, he becomes much more than a clinical study of Aspergers, for his personal queries eventually pose the same strenuous questions about the human experience that have challenged philosophers since antiquity: What is the meaning of our lives and actions? How do we reconcile our experience with that of others? Where does the Truth lie? What is Love? Does freedom equal love? Dr. Mark Cameron, PhD St. Louis, MO What Aaron has written provides a unique and unusual look into the cognitive processes involved in someone with Asperger's Syndrome. Understanding these ideas and emotions are essential to provide a better understanding to Autism Spectrum Disorders, including Asperger's Syndrome. This will provide a unique contribution to scientific research as well as better awareness and understanding of people with this disorder. Dr. Alycia Halladay Princeton, NJ

Download or read book Sitting Pretty written by Rebekah Taussig and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.