Download or read book 1927 and the Rise of Modern America written by Charles J. Shindo and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Charles Lindbergh landed at LeBourget Airfield on May 21, 1927, his transatlantic flight symbolized the new era-not only in aviation but also in American culture. The 1920s proved to be a transitional decade for the United States, shifting the nation from a production-driven economy to a consumption-based one, with adventurous citizens breaking new ground even as many others continued clinging to an outmoded status quo. In his new book, Charles Shindo reveals how one year in particular encapsulated the complexity of this transformation in American culture. Shindo's absorbing look at 1927 shatters the stereotypes of the Roaring '20s as a time of frivolity and excess, revealing instead a society torn between holding on to its glorious past while trying to navigate a brave new world. His book is a compelling and entertaining dissection of the year that has come to represent the apex of 1920s culture, combining references from popular films, music, literature, sports, and politics in a captivating look back at change in the making. As Shindo notes, while Lindbergh's flight was a defining event, there were others: The Jazz Singer, for example, brought sound to the movies, and the 15 millionth Model T rolled off of Ford's assembly line. Meanwhile, the era's supposed live-for-today frivolity was clouded by Prohibition, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Such events, Shindo explains, reflected a fundamental disquiet running beneath the surface of a nation seeking to accommodate and understand a broad array of changes—from new technology to natural disasters, from women's forays into the electorate to African-Americans' migration to the urban north. Shindo, however, also notes that this was an era of celebrity. He not only examines why Lindbergh and Ford were celebrated but also considers the rise and growing popularity of the infamous, like convicted murderers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, and he illuminates the explosive growth of professional sports and stars like baseball's Babe Ruth. In addition, he takes a close look at cinematic heroines like Mary Pickford and the "It" girl Clara Bow to demonstrate the conflicting images of women in popular culture. Distinctive and insightful, Shindo's richly detailed analysis of 1927's key events and personalities reveals the multifaceted ways in which people actually came to grips with change and learned to embrace an increasingly modern America.
Download or read book Crime and the Rise of Modern America written by Kristofer Allerfeldt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - Contents:The crimes of the century -- Crime and the West -- Hate crime -- Policing and imprisonment -- Conmen, swindlers, and dupes -- Business and financial crime -- Prohibitions -- Sex crime -- Political crime : scandal, sleaze and corruption -- Terrorists : rebels, radicals and freedom fighters and criminals with a cause -- Immigration and crime.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern America written by George Moss and published by Pearson. This book was released on 1995 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U.S. History from 1900 to 1945. This is the first comprehensive historical narrative to treat the period from the 1890s to 1945 as a coherent unit of study in its own right. A synthesis of the most recent scholarship on the period, it combines the best of a traditional public policy approach with the richness and depth of a new social history perspective.
Download or read book Supreme City written by Donald L. Miller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning historian surveys the astonishing cast of characters who helped turn Manhattan into the world capital of commerce, communication and entertainment --
Download or read book Radio s America written by Bruce Lenthall and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orson Welles’s greatest breakthrough into the popular consciousness occurred in 1938, three years before Citizen Kane, when his War of the Worlds radio broadcast succeeded so spectacularly that terrified listeners believed they were hearing a genuine report of an alien invasion—a landmark in the history of radio’s powerful relationship with its audience. In Radio’s America, Bruce Lenthall documents the enormous impact radio had on the lives of Depression-era Americans and charts the formative years of our modern mass culture. Many Americans became alienated from their government and economy in the twentieth century, and Lenthall explains that radio’s appeal came from its capability to personalize an increasingly impersonal public arena. His depictions of such figures as proto-Fascist Charles Coughlin and medical quack John Brinkley offer penetrating insight into radio’s use as a persuasive tool, and Lenthall’s book is unique in its exploration of how ordinary Americans made radio a part of their lives. Television inherited radio’s cultural role, and as the voting tallies for American Idol attest, broadcasting continues to occupy a powerfully intimate place in American life. Radio’s America reveals how the connections between power and mass media began.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism written by David Farber and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-26 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of modern conservatism through the lives of six leading figures The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism tells the gripping story of perhaps the most significant political force of our time through the lives and careers of six leading figures at the heart of the movement. David Farber traces the history of modern conservatism from its revolt against New Deal liberalism, to its breathtaking resurgence under Ronald Reagan, to its spectacular defeat with the election of Barack Obama. Farber paints vivid portraits of Robert Taft, William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. He shows how these outspoken, charismatic, and frequently controversial conservative leaders were united by a shared insistence on the primacy of social order, national security, and economic liberty. Farber demonstrates how they built a versatile movement capable of gaining and holding power, from Taft's opposition to the New Deal to Buckley's founding of the National Review as the intellectual standard-bearer of modern conservatism; from Goldwater's crusade against leftist politics and his failed 1964 bid for the presidency to Schlafly's rejection of feminism in favor of traditional gender roles and family values; and from Reagan's city upon a hill to conservatism's downfall with Bush's ambitious presidency. The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism provides rare insight into how conservatives captured the American political imagination by claiming moral superiority, downplaying economic inequality, relishing bellicosity, and embracing nationalism. This concise and accessible history reveals how these conservative leaders discovered a winning formula that enabled them to forge a powerful and formidable political majority. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Download or read book The Gilded Age written by Charles William Calhoun and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Broad in scope, The Gilded Age brings together sixteen original essays that offer lively syntheses of modern scholarship while making their own interpretive arguments. These engaging pieces allow students to consider the various societal, cultural and political factors that make studying the Gilded Age crucial to our understanding of America today.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of American Growth written by Robert J. Gordon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.
Download or read book An All Consuming Century written by Gary Cross and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. An All-Consuming Century is a rich history of how market goods came to dominate American life over that remarkable hundred years between 1900 and 2000 and why for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism. By 1930 a distinct consumer society had emerged in the United States in which the taste, speed, control, and comfort of goods offered new meanings of freedom, thus laying the groundwork for a full-scale ideology of consumer's democracy after World War II. From the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T ("so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one") and the innovations in selling that arrived with the department store (window displays, self service, the installment plan) to the development of new arenas for spending (amusement parks, penny arcades, baseball parks, and dance halls), Americans embraced the new culture of commercialism—with reservations. However, Gary Cross shows that even the Depression, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the inflation of the 1970s made Americans more materialistic, opening new channels of desire and offering opportunities for more innovative and aggressive marketing. The conservative upsurge of the 1980s and '90s indulged in its own brand of self-aggrandizement by promoting unrestricted markets. The consumerism of today, thriving and largely unchecked, no longer brings families and communities together; instead, it increasingly divides and isolates Americans. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, Cross writes, and it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern America 1865 1951 A Fourth Edition of Political and Social Growth of the American People 1865 1940 Etc With Plates and Maps written by Arthur Meier Schlesinger and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Roots of the Modern American Empire written by William Appleman Williams and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of the American People written by Paul Johnson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 1108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As majestic in its scope as the country it celebrates. [Johnson's] theme is the men and women, prominent and unknown, whose energy, vision, courage and confidence shaped a great nation. It is a compelling antidote to those who regard the future with pessimism."— Henry A. Kissinger Paul Johnson's prize-winning classic, A History of the American People, is an in-depth portrait of the American people covering every aspect of U.S. history—from politics to the arts. "The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures," begins Paul Johnson's remarkable work. "No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind." In A History of the American People, historian Johnson presents an in-depth portrait of American history from the first colonial settlements to the Clinton administration. This is the story of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character. Littered with letters, diaries, and recorded conversations, it details the origins of their struggles for independence and nationhood, their heroic efforts and sacrifices to deal with the 'organic sin’ of slavery and the preservation of the Union to its explosive economic growth and emergence as a world power. Johnson discusses contemporary topics such as the politics of racism, education, the power of the press, political correctness, the growth of litigation, and the influence of women throughout history. Sometimes controversial and always provocative, A History of the American People is one author’s challenging and unique interpretation of American history. Johnson’s views of individuals, events, themes, and issues are original, critical, and in the end admiring, for he is, above all, a strong believer in the history and the destiny of the American people.
Download or read book The Known Citizen written by Sarah E. Igo and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post Book of the Year Winner of the Merle Curti Award Winner of the Jacques Barzun Prize Winner of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award “A masterful study of privacy.” —Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books “Masterful (and timely)...[A] marathon trek from Victorian propriety to social media exhibitionism...Utterly original.” —Washington Post Every day, we make decisions about what to share and when, how much to expose and to whom. Securing the boundary between one’s private affairs and public identity has become an urgent task of modern life. How did privacy come to loom so large in public consciousness? Sarah Igo tracks the quest for privacy from the invention of the telegraph onward, revealing enduring debates over how Americans would—and should—be known. The Known Citizen is a penetrating historical investigation with powerful lessons for our own times, when corporations, government agencies, and data miners are tracking our every move. “A mighty effort to tell the story of modern America as a story of anxieties about privacy...Shows us that although we may feel that the threat to privacy today is unprecedented, every generation has felt that way since the introduction of the postcard.” —Louis Menand, New Yorker “Engaging and wide-ranging...Igo’s analysis of state surveillance from the New Deal through Watergate is remarkably thorough and insightful.” —The Nation
Download or read book A Nation of Steel written by Thomas J. Misa and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1998-09-04 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the age of railroads through the building of the first battleships, from the first skyscrapers to the dawning of the age of the automobile, steelmakers proved central to American industry, building, and transportation. In A Nation of Steel Thomas Misa explores the complex interactions between steelmaking and the rise of the industries that have characterized modern America. A Nation of Steel offers a detailed and fascinating look at an industry that has had a profound impact on American life.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern America 1865 1951 written by Arthur Meier Schlesinger and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author explains and interprets the political, economic, social and cultural developments of the American past.
Download or read book Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South written by Steven P. Miller and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While spreading the gospel around the world through his signature crusades, internationally renowned evangelist Billy Graham maintained a visible and controversial presence in his native South, a region that underwent substantial political and economic change in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this period Graham was alternately a desegregating crusader in Alabama, Sunbelt booster in Atlanta, regional apologist in the national press, and southern strategist in the Nixon administration. Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South considers the critical but underappreciated role of the noted evangelist in the creation of the modern American South. The region experienced two significant related shifts away from its status as what observers and critics called the "Solid South": the end of legalized Jim Crow and the end of Democratic Party dominance. Author Steven P. Miller treats Graham as a serious actor and a powerful symbol in this transition—an evangelist first and foremost, but also a profoundly political figure. In his roles as the nation's most visible evangelist, adviser to political leaders, and a regional spokesperson, Graham influenced many of the developments that drove celebrants and detractors alike to place the South at the vanguard of political, religious, and cultural trends. He forged a path on which white southern moderates could retreat from Jim Crow, while his evangelical critique of white supremacy portended the emergence of "color blind" rhetoric within mainstream conservatism. Through his involvement in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, as well as his deep social ties in the South, the evangelist influenced the decades-long process of political realignment. Graham's public life sheds new light on recent southern history in all of its ambiguities, and his social and political ethics complicate conventional understandings of evangelical Christianity in postwar America. Miller's book seeks to reintroduce a familiar figure to the narrative of southern history and, in the process, examine the political and social transitions constitutive of the modern South.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern America 1865 1951 written by Arthur Meier Schlesinger and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
