Download or read book An Unfamiliar America written by Ari Helo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection focuses on conceptions of the unfamiliar from the viewpoint of mainstream American history: aliens, immigrants, ethnic groups, and previously unencountered ideas and ideologies in Trumpian America. The book suggests bringing historical thinking back to the center of American Studies, given that it has been recently challenged by the influential memory studies boom. As much as identity-building appears to be the central concern for much of the current practice in American history writing, it is worth keeping in mind that historical truth may not always directly contribute to one's identity-building. The researcher’s constant quest for truth does not equate to already possessing it. History changes all the time, because it consists of our constant reinterpretation of the past. It is only the past that does not change. This collection aims at keeping these two apart, while scrutinizing a variety of contested topics in American history, from xenophobic attitudes toward eighteenth-century university professors, Apache masculinity, Ku Klux Klan, Tom Waits's lyrics, and the politics of the Trump era.
Download or read book The Book of Unknown Americans written by Cristina Henríquez and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.
Download or read book Unknown America written by Michael Hart and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-14 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by Michael Hart, host of the popular weekday Talk Radio program, The Michael Hart Show, UNKNOWN AMERICA, Myths and little known oddities about the greatest nation on earth, reveals some of the most fascinating, obscure, and even overlooked facts and common myths about the greatest nation on earth. In this book you will discover amazing and little known facts and trivia about America, and learn about people and places that the history books have either forgotten, or completely overlooked. In UNKNOWN AMERICA you will learn: *Why portraits of the Declaration of Independence are completely wrong *Which is the only state to have 3 Governors in a single day *About the slave that sued for her freedom, and won! *Who "really" invented the airplane *Which US President had a dog named Satan *Strange strategies and plans used by the US Military *About the slave that owned slaves *The role IBM may have played in the Holocaust *America's only Gay President *America's first female President *Why the Rosa Parks Story is all wrong *What Presidential hopeful wanted John Wayne to be his VP Running mate *Why July 4th is not our Independence day, and what day really is ...And so much more
Download or read book American Culture written by Leonard Plotnicov and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Culture comprises fifteen essays looking at the familiar and the less familiar in American society: urbanites in Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, rural communities in the American West, Hispanics in Wisconsin, Samoans in California, the Amish, and the utopian religious communities of the Shakers and Oneida. The essays address a wide range of topics and a spectrum of occupations-miners, whalers, farmers, factory workers, physicians and nurses-to consider such questions as why some religious sects remain distinctive, separate, and viable; how groups use of such things as nicknames and family reunions to maintain ties within the community; how immigrant communities organize to sustain traditional cultural activities.
Download or read book Unfamiliar Fishes written by Sarah Vowell and published by Riverhead Books. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of "The Wordy Shipmates" comes an examination of Hawaii's emblematic and exceptional history, retracing the impact of New England missionaries who began arriving in the early 1800s to remake the island paradise into a version of New England.
Download or read book The Racial Unfamiliar written by John Brooks and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The works of African American authors and artists are too often interpreted through the lens of authenticity. They are scrutinized for “positive” or “negative” representations of Black people and Black culture or are assumed to communicate some truth about Black identity or the “Black experience.” However, many contemporary Black artists are creating works that cannot be slotted into such categories. Their art resists interpretation in terms of conventional racial discourse; instead, they embrace opacity, uncertainty, and illegibility. John Brooks examines a range of abstractionist, experimental, and genre-defying works by Black writers and artists that challenge how audiences perceive and imagine race. He argues that literature and visual art that exceed the confines of familiar conceptions of Black identity can upend received ideas about race and difference. Considering photography by Roy DeCarava, installation art by Kara Walker, novels by Percival Everett and Paul Beatty, drama by Suzan-Lori Parks, and poetry by Robin Coste Lewis, Brooks pinpoints a shared aesthetic sensibility. In their works, the devices that typically make race feel familiar are instead used to estrange cultural assumptions about race. Brooks contends that when artists confound expectations about racial representation, the resulting disorientation reveals the incoherence of racial ideologies. By showing how contemporary literature and art ask audiences to question what they think they know about race, The Racial Unfamiliar offers a new way to understand African American cultural production.
Download or read book The Secret History of America written by Manly P. Hall and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compilation of rare works on the untold history and destiny of America by acclaimed occult writer Manly P. Hall. Writer and scholar Manly P. Hall (1901-1990) is one of the most significant names in the study of the esoteric, symbolic, and occult. His legendary book The Secret Teachings of All Ages has been an underground classic since its publication in 1928. The Secret History of America expands on that legacy, offering a collection of Hall’s works—from books and journals to transcriptions of his lectures—all relating to the hidden past and unfolding future of our nation. Hall believed that America was gifted with a unique purpose to explore and share principles of personal freedom, self-governance, and independent thought. PEN Award-winning historian, Mitch Horowitz has curated a powerful collection of Hall’s most influential and insightful works that capture and explore these ideas. Never before collected in one volume, the material in The Secret History of America explores the rich destiny, unseen history, and hidden meaning of America.
Download or read book Lakota America written by Pekka Hamalainen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America's history Named One of the New York Times Critics' Top Books of 2019 - Named One of the 10 Best History Books of 2019 by Smithsonian Magazine - Winner of the MPIBA Reading the West Book Award for narrative nonfiction "Turned many of the stories I thought I knew about our nation inside out."--Cornelia Channing, Paris Review, Favorite Books of 2019 "My favorite non-fiction book of this year."--Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion "A briliant, bold, gripping history."--Simon Sebag Montefiore, London Evening Standard, Best Books of 2019 "All nations deserve to have their stories told with this degree of attentiveness"--Parul Sehgal, New York Times This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's great commercial artery, and then--in what was America's first sweeping westward expansion--as a horse people who ruled supreme on the vast high plains. The Lakotas are imprinted in American historical memory. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull are iconic figures in the American imagination, but in this groundbreaking book they emerge as something different: the architects of Lakota America, an expansive and enduring Indigenous regime that commanded human fates in the North American interior for generations. Hämäläinen's deeply researched and engagingly written history places the Lakotas at the center of American history, and the results are revelatory.
Download or read book Fresh Water for Flowers written by Valérie Perrin and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eccentric young caretaker brings exuberant life to a smalltown French cemetery in this #1 international bestselling novel: “Enchanting” (Publishers Weekly). Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne, France. Traversing the grounds by unicycle, tending to her many gardens—and being present for the intimate, often humorous confidences of visitors—Violette’s life follows the predictable rhythms of mourning. But then Violette’s routine is disrupted by the arrival of Julien Sole, the local police chief. Julien has come to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that Julien’s inexplicable gesture is intertwined with Violette’s own complicated past. “Melancholic and yet ebullient . . . An appealing indulgence in nature, food and drink, and, above all, friendships.” —The Guardian, UK
Download or read book Another Day in the Death of America written by Gary Younge and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeShortlisted for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Foundation AwardFinalist for the 2017 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismLonglisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non Fiction On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost. This powerful and moving work puts a human face-a child's face-on the "collateral damage" of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.
Download or read book The Vast Unknown written by Broughton Coburn and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of the New York Times bestselling Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, this chronicle of the iconic first American expedition to Mt. Everest in May 1963 – published to coincide with the climb's 50th anniversary – combines riveting adventure, a perceptive analysis of its dark and terrifying historical context, and revelations about a secret mission that followed. In the midst of the Cold War, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the space race with the Soviet Union, and the quagmire of the Vietnam War, a band of iconoclastic, independent-minded American mountaineers set off for Mt. Everest, aiming to restore America's confidence and optimism. Their objective is to reach the summit while conducting scientific research, but which route will they take? Might the Chinese, in a public relations coup, have reached the top ahead of them? And what about another American team, led by the grandson of a President, that nearly bagged the peak in a bootleg attempt a year earlier? The Vast Unknown is, on one level, a harrowing, character-driven account of the climb itself and its legendary team of alternately inspiring, troubled, and tragic climbers who suffered injuries, a near mutiny, and death on the mountain. It is also an examination of the profound sway the expedition had over the American consciousness and sense of identity during a time when the country was floundering. And it is an investigation of the expedition's little-known outcome: the selection of a team to plant a CIA surveillance device on the Himalayan peak of Nanda Devi, to spy into China where Defense Intelligence learned that nuclear missile testing was underway.
Download or read book American Betrayal written by Diana West and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservative columnist West uncovers how and when America gave up its core ideals and began the march toward socialism. She digs into the modern political landscape, dominated by President Barack Obama, to ask how it is that America turned its back on its basic beliefs.
Download or read book Coming to America written by Betsy Maestro and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 1996 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the evolving history of immigration to the United States, a long saga about people coming first in search of food and then, later in a quest for religious and political freedom, safety, and prosperity.
Download or read book Turning the Tables written by Andrew P. Haley and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2011-05-30 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth century, restaurants served French food to upper-class Americans with aristocratic pretensions, but by the turn of the century, even the best restaurants cooked ethnic and American foods for middle-class urbanites. In Turning the Tables, Andrew P. Haley examines how the transformation of public dining that established the middle class as the arbiter of American culture was forged through battles over French-language menus, scientific eating, cosmopolitan cuisines, unescorted women, un-American tips, and servantless restaurants.
Download or read book Life in the USA written by Planaria J. Price and published by University of Michigan Press ELT. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life in the USA is not quite like it is in the movies or on TV. For people who are unfamiliar with its culture, there is the potential for confusion and embarrassing situations. This book, Life in the USA, has been written to help those new to the United States. Nine broad topics (first impressions of America, body language, social customs and manners, relationships, celebrations and gifts, surviving the city, the workplace, schools, and health and personal matters) are covered through an engaging and easy-to-read question-and-answer format in form of letters from immigrant students to their teacher. Students are also advised to read comic strips, listen to popular music, and read classic American children’s stories in order to become familiar with the many the nuances of American culture and to better understand Americans. From tips for job interviews to garage sales and dating, Life in the USA offers immigrant students helpful hints and answers for becoming comfortable in the United States of America.
Download or read book Exceptional America written by Mugambi Jouet and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Donald Trump follow Barack Obama into the White House? Why is America so polarized? And how does American exceptionalism explain these social changes? In this provocative book, Mugambi Jouet describes why Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sex, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war. Raised in Paris by a French mother and Kenyan father, Jouet then lived in the Bible Belt, Manhattan, and beyond. Drawing inspiration from Alexis de Tocqueville, he wields his multicultural sensibility to parse how the intense polarization of U.S. conservatives and liberals has become a key dimension of American exceptionalism—an idea widely misunderstood as American superiority. While exceptionalism once was a source of strength, it may now spell decline, as unique features of U.S. history, politics, law, culture, religion, and race relations foster grave conflicts. They also shed light on the intriguing ideological evolution of American conservatism, which long predated Trumpism. Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, a visceral suspicion of government, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than the rest of the Western world—Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Exceptional America dissects the American soul, in all of its peculiar, clashing, and striking manifestations.
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
