Download or read book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers written by Theda Skocpol and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than forty states enacted social spending, labor regulations, and health education programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably, as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties, and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about what might be possible in the American future.
Download or read book Boomerang written by Theda Skocpol and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1997 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skocpol (government and sociology, Harvard U.) explores the changing currents of domestic U.S. politics through the prism of the defeat of President Clinton's comprehensive health care plan. She argues that the defeat reflected the success of Reaganite conservative tactics which switched from direct attacks on social programs to a fiscal starvation in the name of lower taxes. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Obama and America s Political Future written by Theda Skocpol and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barack Obama’s galvanizing victory in 2008, coming amid the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, opened the door to major reforms. But the president quickly faced skepticism from supporters and fierce opposition from Republicans, who scored sweeping wins in the 2010 midterm election. Here, noted political scientist Theda Skocpol surveys the political landscape and explores its most consequential questions: What happened to Obama’s “new New Deal”? Why have his achievements enraged opponents more than they have satisfied supporters? How has the Tea Party’s ascendance reshaped American politics? Skocpol’s compelling account rises above conventional wisdom and overwrought rhetoric. The Obama administration’s response to the recession produced bold initiatives—health care reform, changes in college loans, financial regulation—that promise security and opportunity. But these reforms are complex and will take years to implement. Potential beneficiaries do not readily understand them, yet the reforms alarm powerful interests and political enemies, creating the volatile mix of confusion and fear from which Tea Party forces erupted. Skocpol dissects the popular and elite components of the Tea Party reaction that has boosted the Republican Party while pushing it far to the right at a critical juncture for U.S. politics and governance. Skocpol’s analysis is accompanied by contributions from two fellow scholars and a former congressman. At this moment of economic uncertainty and extreme polarization, as voters prepare to render another verdict on Obama’s historic presidency, Skocpol and her respondents help us to understand its triumphs and setbacks and see where we might be headed next.
Download or read book Tasting the Sky written by Ibtisam Barakat and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2007-02-20 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Arab American National Museum Book Award for Children's/YA Literature, among other awards and honors. "When a war ends it does not go away," my mother says."It hides inside us . . . Just forget!" But I do not want to do what Mother says . . . I want to remember. In this groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Ibtisam Barakat captures what it is like to be a child whose world is shattered by war. With candor and courage, she stitches together memories of her childhood: fear and confusion as bombs explode near her home and she is separated from her family; the harshness of life as a Palestinian refugee; her unexpected joy when she discovers Alef, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. This is the beginning of her passionate connection to words, and as language becomes her refuge, allowing her to piece together the fragments of her world, it becomes her true home. Transcending the particulars of politics, this illuminating and timely book provides a telling glimpse into a little-known culture that has become an increasingly important part of the puzzle of world peace.
Download or read book The Evolution of Political Parties Campaigns and Elections written by Randall E. Adkins and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2008-02-14 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primary source materials are a great way for students to experience firsthand a historic event, to more fully understand a pivotal actor or figure, or to explore legislation or a judicial decision. Students leave these readings better prepared to grapple with secondary sources. In fact, they can often support a different interpretation or more critically engage with analysis. This new volume—with 50 documents that include speeches, court cases, letters, diary entries, excerpts from autobiographies, treaties, legislation, regulations and reports, documentary photographs, ad stills, public opinion polls, transcripts, and press releases—is a great starting point for any parties and elections course. Careful editing, pithy headnotes, and discussion questions all enhance this useful reader.
Download or read book Mothers of Invention written by Drew Gilpin Faust and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring privileged Confederate women's wartime experiences, this book chronicles the clash of the old and the new within a group that was at once the beneficiary and the victim of the social order of the Old South.
Download or read book Diminished Democracy written by Theda Skocpol and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pundits and social observers have voiced alarm each year as fewer Americans involve themselves in voluntary groups that meet regularly. Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent times, but most are run by professionals who lobby Congress or deliver social services to clients. What will happen to U.S. democracy if participatory groups and social movements wither, while civic involvement becomes one more occupation rather than every citizens right and duty? In Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol shows that this decline in public involvement has not always been the case in this countryand how, by understanding the causes of this change, we might reverse it.
Download or read book States and Social Revolutions written by Theda Skocpol and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State structures, international forces, and class relations: Theda Skocpol shows how all three combine to explain the origins and accomplishments of social-revolutionary transformations. Social revolutions have been rare but undeniably of enormous importance in modern world history. States and Social Revolutions provides a new frame of reference for analyzing the causes, the conflicts, and the outcomes of such revolutions. It develops a rigorous, comparative historical analysis of three major cases: the French Revolution of 1787 through the early 1800s, the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the 1930s, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 through the 1960s. Believing that existing theories of revolution, both Marxist and non-Marxist, are inadequate to explain the actual historical patterns of revolutions, Skocpol urges us to adopt fresh perspectives. Above all, she maintains that states conceived as administrative and coercive organizations potentially autonomous from class controls and interests must be made central to explanations of revolutions.
Download or read book Mothers of Massive Resistance written by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining racial segregation from 1920s to the 1970s this book explores the grassroots workers who maintained the system of racial segregation. For decades white women performed duties that upheld white over black: censoring textbooks, deciding on the racial identity of their neighbors, celebrating school choice, and lobbying elected officials. They instilled beliefs in racial hierarchies in their children, built national networks, and experimented with a color-blind political discourse. White women's segregationist politics stretched across the nation, overlapping with and shaping the rise of the New Right.
Download or read book War s Waste written by Beth Linker and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With US soldiers stationed around the world and engaged in multiple conflicts, Americans will be forced for the foreseeable future to come to terms with those permanently disabled in battle. At the moment, we accept rehabilitation as the proper social and cultural response to the wounded, swiftly returning injured combatants to their civilian lives. But this was not always the case, as Beth Linker reveals in her provocative new book, War’s Waste. Linker explains how, before entering World War I, the United States sought a way to avoid the enormous cost of providing injured soldiers with pensions, which it had done since the Revolutionary War. Emboldened by their faith in the new social and medical sciences, reformers pushed rehabilitation as a means to “rebuild” disabled soldiers, relieving the nation of a monetary burden and easing the decision to enter the Great War. Linker’s narrative moves from the professional development of orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists to the curative workshops, or hospital spaces where disabled soldiers learned how to repair automobiles as well as their own artificial limbs. The story culminates in the postwar establishment of the Veterans Administration, one of the greatest legacies to come out of the First World War.
Download or read book Declining Fortunes written by Katherine S. Newman and published by . This book was released on 1993-05-18 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thoughtful portrait of the baby boom generation and its subgroups, exploring the differences in expectations and economic reward experienced by the boomers and their parents. Anthropologist Newman (Columbia U.) draws on extensive interviewing, incorporating extended quotes and cases in her presentation; but the notes show that she has also synthesized her discussion from a wide range of other resources. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book The Whirlwind War written by Frank N. Schubert and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 1995 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CMH Publication 70-30. Edited by Frank N. Schubert and TheresaL. Kraus. Discusses the United States Army's role in the Persian Gulf War from August 1990 to February 1991. Shows the various strands that came together to produce the army of the 1990s and how that army in turn performed under fire and in the glare of world attention. Retains a sense of immediacy in its approach. Contains maps which were carefully researched and compiled as original documents in their own right. Includes an index.
Download or read book Civic Engagement in American Democracy written by Theda Skocpol and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American democracy is in many ways more vital than ever before. Advocacy groups proliferate and formerly marginalized groups enjoy new opportunities. But worrisome trends exist. Millions of Americans are drawing back from involvements with community affairs and politics. Voters stay home; public officials grapple with distrust or indifference; and people are less likely to cooperate on behalf of shared goals. Observers across the spectrum of opinion agree that it is vital to determine what is happening and why—so that Americans can take well-informed, effective steps to revitalize our national community. The book opens with an eagle-eye look at the roots of America's special patterns of civic engagement, examining the ways social groups and government and electoral politics have influenced each other. Other chapters examine the impact of advocacy groups and socioeconomic inequalities on democratic processes and probe the influence of long-term social and cultural changes on voluntary associations and civic participation. The book concludes by asking why social liberation has been accompanied by new inequalities and the erosion of many important forms of citizen leverage and participation. Coming together from several disciplines, contributors include Jeffrey M. Berry, Henry E. Brady, John Brehm, Steven Brint, Elisabeth S. Clemens, Peter Dobkin Hall, Wendy M. Rahn, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Robert Wuthnow. Copublished with the Russell Sage Foundation
Download or read book Policing America s Empire written by Alfred W. McCoy and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the dawn of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army swiftly occupied Manila and then plunged into a decade-long pacification campaign with striking parallels to today’s war in Iraq. Armed with cutting-edge technology from America’s first information revolution, the U.S. colonial regime created the most modern police and intelligence units anywhere under the American flag. In Policing America’s Empire Alfred W. McCoy shows how this imperial panopticon slowly crushed the Filipino revolutionary movement with a lethal mix of firepower, surveillance, and incriminating information. Even after Washington freed its colony and won global power in 1945, it would intervene in the Philippines periodically for the next half-century—using the country as a laboratory for counterinsurgency and rearming local security forces for repression. In trying to create a democracy in the Philippines, the United States unleashed profoundly undemocratic forces that persist to the present day. But security techniques bred in the tropical hothouse of colonial rule were not contained, McCoy shows, at this remote periphery of American power. Migrating homeward through both personnel and policies, these innovations helped shape a new federal security apparatus during World War I. Once established under the pressures of wartime mobilization, this distinctively American system of public-private surveillance persisted in various forms for the next fifty years, as an omnipresent, sub rosa matrix that honeycombed U.S. society with active informers, secretive civilian organizations, and government counterintelligence agencies. In each succeeding global crisis, this covert nexus expanded its domestic operations, producing new contraventions of civil liberties—from the harassment of labor activists and ethnic communities during World War I, to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, all the way to the secret blacklisting of suspected communists during the Cold War. “With a breathtaking sweep of archival research, McCoy shows how repressive techniques developed in the colonial Philippines migrated back to the United States for use against people of color, aliens, and really any heterodox challenge to American power. This book proves Mark Twain’s adage that you cannot have an empire abroad and a republic at home.”—Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago “This book lays the Philippine body politic on the examination table to reveal the disease that lies within—crime, clandestine policing, and political scandal. But McCoy also draws the line from Manila to Baghdad, arguing that the seeds of controversial counterinsurgency tactics used in Iraq were sown in the anti-guerrilla operations in the Philippines. His arguments are forceful.”—Sheila S. Coronel, Columbia University “Conclusively, McCoy’s Policing America’s Empire is an impressive historical piece of research that appeals not only to Southeast Asianists but also to those interested in examining the historical embedding and institutional ontogenesis of post-colonial states’ police power apparatuses and their apparently inherent propensity to implement illiberal practices of surveillance and repression.”—Salvador Santino F. Regilme, Jr., Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs “McCoy’s remarkable book . . . does justice both to its author’s deep knowledge of Philippine history as well as to his rare expertise in unmasking the seamy undersides of state power.”—POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review Winner, George McT. Kahin Prize, Southeast Asian Council of the Association for Asian Studies
Download or read book Young Soldiers written by Rachel Brett and published by International Labour Organization. This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is estimated that more than 300,000 children are involved in armed conflicts throughout the world, the vast majority through forced labour. This publication contains the personal views and experiences of child soldiers, highlighting a number of factors contributing to their participation, including the socio-economic and political environment, and their vulnerable personal circumstances, as well as how diverse risk factors interact. These personal stories also draw attention to the gender dimensions of the problem, and to concept of child soldiers 'volunteering' in armed conflict situations. The book then goes on to explore key factors in the development of a comprehensive strategy to tackle the problem, including addressing issues of breakdown of law and order, availability of weapons, extreme forms of social exclusion including poverty and inequality, lack of educational opportunities, widespread child abuse and child labour. The publication includes profiles of conflict situations in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Congo, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Download or read book African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania written by Priya Lal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-12 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major historical study of Tanzania's socialist experiment: the ujamaa villagization initiative of 1967-75.
Download or read book White Chrysanthemum written by Mary Lynn Bracht and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, a deeply moving novel that follows two Korean sisters separated by World War II. Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home. South Korea, 2011. Emi has spent more than sixty years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made, but she must confront the past to discover peace. Seeing the healing of her children and her country, can Emi move beyond the legacy of war to find forgiveness? Suspenseful, hopeful, and ultimately redemptive, White Chrysanthemum tells a story of two sisters whose love for each other is strong enough to triumph over the grim evils of war.
