EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Bulldozer and the Big Tent

Download or read book The Bulldozer and the Big Tent written by Todd Gitlin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-09-10 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book, by one of America's most intelligent and decent political writers, tells liberals how the conservative movement rose and fell, and how they could emulate its successes while avoiding its failures." --George Packer, author of Blood of the Liberals and The Assassins' Gate "No one is better than Todd Gitlin at describing the crucial dynamic through which movements gain or lose political power. Justly celebrated for his seminal work on such dynamics during the 1960s, Gitlin now explains everything that's happened since, with passion and wisdom--and happily, because of Bushism's collapse, legitimate optimism about the future." --Michael Tomasky, Editor, Guardian America "An impassioned yet realistic plea for Democrats and liberals to become more serious about politics. They would do well to follow his advice." --Alan Wolfe, Director, Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, Boston College "A brilliant and indispensable book. Gitlin convincingly urges liberals to take seriously the greater difficulty the Democrats have forging cohesion among identity-based groups over the Republicans persuading the less diverse Republican base to bury disagreements in the drive for victory. Gitlin argues that Democrats will have to bite the bullet and unite under a big tent. It's a hard lesson for ardent newcomers to the movement to swallow. Gitlin is dead right." --Thomas B. Edsall, Special Correspondent, The New Republic "This is an indispensable book by one of our most gifted public intellectuals. Todd Gitlin explains--with splendid scholarship, reporting, and wit--how the Bush machine debased our political life and how progressives, in all their variety, are struggling to build a new majority. It is the best guide we have to America's recent past and its possible future." --Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan and Professor of History, Georgetown University

Book The Bulldozer and the Big Tent

Download or read book The Bulldozer and the Big Tent written by Todd Gitlin and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Politics without Stories

Download or read book Politics without Stories written by David Ricci and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservatives use great stories to prescribe government policy. Liberals engage the world via science and pragmatism, rendering liberalism less inspiring. This book examines this difference.

Book The Competition of Ideas

Download or read book The Competition of Ideas written by Murray Weidenbaum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murray Weidenbaum has been a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a speaker at meetings at the Brookings Institution, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation and has also written for their publications, and served as a reviewer of ongoing studies. In The Competition of Ideas, Weidenbaum examines the political economy of these vital institutions, drawing heavily on several decades of involvement in their activities. He is uniquely able to see their accomplishments as well as their shortcomings.Because of the importance of the activities of their organizations, and their tax-exempt status, think tanks are held to a high standard. Weidenbaum shows that sometimes think tanks are more tank than think?major think tanks are often predictable in the positions they take on public issues and are far better at analyzing the shortcomings of other elements of society than of their own operations. The overarching issue of quality control, Weidenbaum holds, deserves more attention than it has attained in the think tank world.This book presents a careful, balanced account of where think tanks have been and where they are now headed. Given the high levels of professionalism in many think tanks, a fundamental change in the attitude of their management is important. The compelling need is less for the wielder of policy than for the lucid synthesizer of relevant research and analysis. Likewise, society needs sensitivity to the long-term concerns of the citizenry more urgently than rapid response to the opportunities of the moment. Future competition, particularly among the major think tanks, could well be centered, not on achieving greater visibility, but on developing responses to economic, environmental, and national security problems that are likely to be adopted and carried out.

Book Seeds of Change

Download or read book Seeds of Change written by John Atlas and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Seeds of Change is the definitive book on one of the most effective grassroots organizations of low-income Americans."Robert Kuttner --

Book The Age of Austerity

Download or read book The Age of Austerity written by Thomas Byrne Edsall and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most prescient political observers provides a sobering account of how pitched battles over scarce resources will increasingly define American politics in the coming years—and how we might avoid, or at least mitigate, the damage from these ideological and economic battles. In a matter of just three years, a bitter struggle over limited resources has enveloped political discourse at every level in the United States. Fights between haves and have-nots over health care, unemployment benefits, funding for mortgage write-downs, economic stimulus legislation—and, at the local level, over cuts in police protection, garbage collection, and in the number of teachers—have dominated the debate. Elected officials are being forced to make zero-sum choices—or worse, choices with no winners. Resource competition between Democrats and Republicans has left each side determined to protect what it has at the expense of the other. The major issues of the next few years—long-term deficit reduction; entitlement reform, notably of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; major cuts in defense spending; and difficulty in financing a continuation of American international involvement—suggest that your-gain-is-my-loss politics will inevitably intensify.

Book Resisting the News

Download or read book Resisting the News written by Jennifer Rauch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resisting the News brings together unique insights from activists and alternative-media users to offer a distinctive perspective on the problems of journalism today—and how to fix them. Using critical-cultural theory and, in particular, the conceptual frameworks of ritual communication and interpretive communities, this book examines how audiences filter their interpretations of mainstream news through the prisms of their identities and experiences with alternative media and political protest. Jennifer Rauch gives voice to alternative-media audiences and illuminates the cultural resources, values, assumptions, critical skills, and discursive strategies through which they make sense of their news environments. Drawing on a 15-year research project, Rauch employs a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and quasi-ethnographic methods, including focus groups, media-use diaries, close-ended surveys, and open-ended questions, to paint a layered portrait of liberal and conservative critiques of journalism. Shedding new light on popular theories about "how news works" and about "mass" audiences, this book will be useful to students, scholars, and teachers of political communication, journalism studies, media studies, and critical-cultural studies.

Book Why We re Liberals

Download or read book Why We re Liberals written by Eric Alterman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-03-13 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author and Newsweek columnist takes a characteristically irreverent look at the rampant mistreatment of liberals and liberalism The "most honest and incisive media critic writing today"(National Catholic Reporter), Eric Alterman is committed to restoring the liberal tradition to its honored place as the political philosophy of mainstream American citizens. In this bracing and well-documented counterattack on right- wing spin and misinformation, Alterman briskly disposes of the canards and false definitions that have been foisted upon liberals by the right and have been accepted unquestioningly by nearly everyone else. The perfect post-election book for all those who are ready to fight back against the conservative mudslinging machine and reclaim their voices in the political process, Why We're Liberals brings clarity and perspective to the possibility of a new day in America.

Book The 2000s

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bob Batchelor
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
  • Release : 2008-11-30
  • ISBN : 0313349134
  • Pages : 260 pages

Download or read book The 2000s written by Bob Batchelor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-11-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Pop Culture 2.0. In the 2000s, Generation eXposure, emerged from the marriage of new technology and the nation's obsession with celebrity. Social media technology, such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and countless blogs, gave everyman a voice and a public persona that they could share with friends across the street or around the world. Suddenly, it was not enough to imitate Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, technology gave everyone a platform to launch their own 15 minutes of fame. The fixation on self and celebrity acted as a diversion from more serious challenges the nation faced, including President George W. Bush's War on Terror. The wars overseas sharply divided the country, after a moment of national unity after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which took away one of the world's most recognizable buildings. The era witnessed interest rates dropping to historic lows, but later subprime became one of the most searched terms on Google as the nation teetered on recession. Big was in like never before and suddenly people nationwide could buy or build their own McMansion-a slice of the American dream. While supersized homes and fast food meals became commonplace, the electronics and transportation advances proved that good things came in increasingly smaller packages. Apple's iPod reinvented how people interacted with music, hybrids changed thoughts on fuel efficiency as a gallon of gas topped $3. Cell phones usage ballooned in our always on society, while physically shrinking to the size of a deck of cards. Yes, me-centric Pop Culture 2.0, which the pundits predicted would some day arrive, burst onto the scene and ultimately transformed the way we interact with one another and the world around us. Chapters inside the latest volume in the American Popular Culture Through History series explore various aspects of popular culture, including advertising, literature, leisure activities, music visual arts, and travel. Supplemental resources include a timeline of important events, cost comparisons, and an extensive bibliography for further reading.

Book Why Conservatives Tell Stories and Liberals Don t

Download or read book Why Conservatives Tell Stories and Liberals Don t written by David M Ricci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do conservatives tell stories? Because it helps them win elections and assail liberal policies like health care reform and economic stimulus. "Why" is important, but the "what" and the "how" behind the stories that conservatives tell are equally interesting, and in this new book, David Ricci reveals all. He shows how conservative activists and candidates tell many tales that come together to project a large-scale story; a cultural narrative; a vision of what America is and what it should do to prosper socially, economically, and politically. Liberals, by contrast, tend to look for theories rather than stories, for mathematical explanations rather than theological axioms, for data rather than anecdotes, and for statistics rather than homilies. The difference is paradoxical. Liberals are unlikely to fashion sweeping narratives that capture the public s attention and commitment. Yet conservatives may tell attractive stories like the ones that got us into Iraq that momentarily capture voter support but end up costing the country more than it can afford."

Book Bright  Infinite Future

Download or read book Bright Infinite Future written by Mark Green and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Blending the historical, biographical and political, this wide-ranging "memoir + manifesto" describes how the values of the 1960s are shaping a new progressive majority in 2016 and beyond. Multi-faceted Mark Green--bestselling author, public interest lawyer, elected official--guides us through contemporary American politics as Johnson retaliates against his antiwar work; Nader launches the modern consumer movement; Clinton wins the 1992 New York primary and therefore the nomination; the author debates Castro in Havana on human rights; and Green loses the closest NYC mayoral election in a century to Bloomberg after 9/11 in a perfect storm of money, terrorism, and race. As Public Advocate for New York City, Green is Mayor Giuiliani's bête noir--he exposes the NYPD's racial profiling, kills off Joe Camel, inspires the city's 311 system, and shows how a person who believes in positive, progressive government can make it work for average citizens. Starting with the consequential movements of the 1960s, Bright, Infinite Future tracks how a rising tide of minority and Millennial voters, the GOP's lurch from mainstream to extreme, and the contrast between the disastrous presidency of Bush 43 and the successful ones of Clinton and Obama are leading to a new era of "progressive patriotism" that will culminate in the 2016 presidential election. Full of behind-the-scenes stories about boldfaced names, this will be the 2016 book for liberals looking to Leonard Bernstein's 'bright, infinite future," conservatives who want to know what they're up against, and readers who want to know what it takes and what it's like "in the arena." "--

Book The Chosen Peoples

    Book Details:
  • Author : Todd Gitlin
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2010-09-14
  • ISBN : 9781439148778
  • Pages : 272 pages

Download or read book The Chosen Peoples written by Todd Gitlin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans and Israelis have often thought that their nations were chosen, in perpetuity, to do God’s work. This belief in divine election is a potent, living force, one that has guided and shaped both peoples and nations throughout their history and continues to do so to this day. Through great adversity and despite serious challenges, Americans and Jews, leaders and followers, have repeatedly faced the world fortified by a sense that their nation has a providential destiny. As Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz argue in this original and provocative book, what unites the two allies in a “special friendship” is less common strategic interests than this deep-seated and lasting theological belief that they were chosen by God. The United States and Israel each has understood itself as a nation placed on earth to deliver a singular message of enlightenment to a benighted world. Each has stumbled through history wrestling with this strange concept of chosenness, trying both to grasp the meaning of divine election and to bear the burden it placed them under. It was this idea that provided an indispensable justification when the Americans made a revolution against Britain, went to war with and expelled the Indians, expanded westward, built an overseas empire, and most recently waged war in Iraq. The equivalent idea gave rise to the Jewish people in the first place, sustained them in exodus and exile, and later animated the Zionist movement, inspiring the Israelis to vanquish their enemies and conquer the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Everywhere you look in American and Israeli history, the idea of chosenness is there. The Chosen Peoples delivers a bold new take on both nations’ histories. It shows how deeply the idea of chosenness has affected not only their enthusiasts but also their antagonists. It digs deeply beneath the superficialities of headlines, the details of negotiations, the excuses and justifications that keep cropping up for both nations’ successes and failures. It shows how deeply ingrained is the idea of a chosen people in both nations’ histories—and yet how complicated that idea really is. And it offers interpretations of chosenness that both nations dearly need in confronting their present-day quandaries. Weaving together history, theology, and politics, The Chosen Peoples vividly retells the dramatic story of two nations bound together by a wild and sacred idea, takes unorthodox perspectives on some of our time’s most searing conflicts, and offers an unexpected conclusion: only by taking the idea of chosenness seriously, wrestling with its meaning, and assuming its responsibilities can both nations thrive.

Book Undying

Download or read book Undying written by Todd Gitlin and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: November 2004: George W. Bush is re–elected. Five days later, Alan Meister, a New York professor of philosophy, is diagnosed with lymphoma—not that he can prove the two are connected. While coping with the rigors of chemotherapy, Alan begins work on a long–postponed book titled The Health of a Sick Man, arguing that the core of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical thought was a decades–long attempt to cope with his lifelong incapacities—his blinding headaches, upset stomach, weak vision, and all–around frailty, not least his vexed relations with women. As Alan's treatment proceeds, he finds relief by imagining Nietzsche not as a historical figure, but as a character in his daily life, a reminder that his own heart continues to beat. Rooted in the author's personal experience with lymphoma, this novel is a compound of reminiscences, aphorisms, anecdotes, and encounters: with Alan's errant daughter Natasha, who has returned home to help care for him; with mortal friends; with a mysterious hospital roommate; with students; with contemporary life as it reaches him through the newspapers and his readings. Steady, spare, and often bracingly funny, Undying cries out in a robust voice: I am.

Book McCain  The Myth of a Maverick

Download or read book McCain The Myth of a Maverick written by Matt Welch and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John McCain is one of the most familiar, sympathetic, and overexposed figures in American politics, yet his concrete governing philosophy and actual track record have been left curiously unexamined, mostly because of the massive distractions in his official biography, but also because of his ingenious strategy of talking ad infinitum to each and every access-craving media person who happens by. The more he has spouted, the less journalists have bothered trying to see through the fog. McCain gives the public what it wants but can't find -- a flesh-and-bones political portrait of a man onto whom people are forever projecting their own ideological fantasies. It is a psychological key for decoding his allegedly ‘maverick' actions. McCain will quickly lay out in overlapping detail the root cause of the senator's worldview: his personal transformation from underachieving punk to war hawk uber-patriot, in which he used the "higher power" of American nationalism to save his life and soul. McCain looks behind the war hero, behind the maverick reformer. Journalist and pundit Matt Welch brings to this project an investigative eye and a coolly analytical mindset to provide Republicans, Democrats and Independents a picture of the man.

Book 1968

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gassert Phillipp Gassert
  • Publisher : Black Rose Books Ltd.
  • Release : 2019-10-15
  • ISBN : 1551646498
  • Pages : 266 pages

Download or read book 1968 written by Gassert Phillipp Gassert and published by Black Rose Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a year of seismic social and political change. With the wildfire of uprisings and revolutions that shook governments and halted economies in 1968, the world would never be the same again. Restless students, workers, women, and national liberation movements arose as a fierce global community with radically democratic instincts that challenged war, capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy with unprecedented audacity. Fast forward fifty years and 1968 has become a powerful myth that lingers in our memory. Released for the fiftieth anniversary of that momentous year, this second edition of Philipp Gassert's and Martin Klimke's seminal 1968 presents an extremely wide ranging survey across the world. Short chapters, written by local eye-witnesses and historical experts, cover the tectonic events in thirty-nine countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East to give a truly global view. Included are forty photographs throughout the book that illustrate the drama of events described in each chapter. This edition also has the transcript of a panel discussion organized for the fortieth anniversary of 1968 with eyewitnesses Norman Birnbaum, Patty Lee Parmalee, and Tom Hayden and moderated by the book's editors. Visually engaging and comprehensive, this new edition is an extremely accessible introduction to a vital moment of global activism in humanity's history, perfect for a high school or early university textbook, a resource for the general reader, or a starting point for researchers.

Book Delirium

    Book Details:
  • Author : Nancy L. Cohen
  • Publisher : Catapult
  • Release : 2012-02-01
  • ISBN : 1619020335
  • Pages : 369 pages

Download or read book Delirium written by Nancy L. Cohen and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Perhaps if the Pill had never been invented, American politics would be very different today," Nancy L. Cohen writes in her prescient new book, Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America The 2012 election was supposed to be about the economy, but over the last few months it turned into a debate about sex and women's rights. In Delirium, Cohen takes us on a gripping journey through the confounding and mysterious episodes of our recent politics to explain how we and why we got to this place. Along the way she explores such topics as why Bill Clinton was impeached over a private sexual affair; how George W. Bush won the presidency by stealth; why Hillary lost to Obama; why John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate; and what the 2012 presidential contest tells us about America today. She exposes the surprising role of right–wing women in undermining women's rights, as well as explains how liberal men were complicit in letting it happen. Cohen uncovers the hidden history of an orchestrated, well–financed, ideologically powered shadow movement to turn back the clock on matters of gender equality and sexual freedom and how it has played a leading role in fueling America's political wars. Delirium tells the story of this shadow movement and how we can restore common sense and sanity in our nation's politics.

Book In Search of Progressive America

Download or read book In Search of Progressive America written by Michael Kazin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly every recent poll finds that most voters agree with views historically labeled as liberal: a hike in the minimum wage, government-mandated health insurance for every American, stronger gun control laws, broader sex education programs, laws that would make it easier for unions to organize, and the use of diplomacy instead of war to combat terrorism. But as a conservative presidential administration exits, how can progressives step into the breach? In Search of Progressive America presents ten essays by journalists, academics, and government insiders that address the current state of promise and debate within the Left in U.S. politics. The political atmosphere that confronts progressives still poses challenges, and the authors propose thoughtful ways to create a new political order by building an inclusive, durable coalition. The collection covers several of the most significant aspects of American political life. Matthew Yglesias, Andrew Bacevich, and Gary Gerstle offer three sober evaluations of the United States in world affairs and the impact of the world on American minds. Next, Todd Gitlin and Andrew Rich examine the struggle to control the messages of politics, through the mainstream media and think tanks, respectively. Ezra Klein, Dean Baker, Karen Kornbluh, and Nelson Lichtenstein each call for major changes in domestic policy grounded in both history and common sense. Finally, Michael Kazin recalls the era when Christian activists were found more often on the left than on the right and argues that a second coming of religious progressivism might be possible today.