Best of
Americana

2011

Pulphead


John Jeremiah Sullivan - 2011
    Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us—with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that’s all his own—how we really (no, really) live now. In his native Kentucky, Sullivan introduces us to Constantine Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century polymath genius who concocted a dense, fantastical prehistory of the New World. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV’s Real World, who’ve generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina—and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill. Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we’ve never heard told this way. It’s like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we’ve never imagined to be true. Of course we don’t know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection—it’s our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan’s work.

15 Documents and Speeches That Built America (Unique Classics) (Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and Amendments, Articles of Confederation, Magna Carta, Gettysburg Address, Four Freedoms)


Patrick Henry - 2011
    There is a user-friendly table of contents for easy interaction. The following are included:1. 1215 - The Magna Carta2. 1606 - The First Virginia Charter3. 1620 - The Mayflower Compact4. 1676 - The First Thanksgiving Proclamation5. 1765 - Resolutions of the Stamp Act6. 1775 - Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death7. 1776 - Declaration of Independance8. 1777 - Articles of Confederation9. 1783 - The Paris Peace Treaty of 178310. 1787 - The Constitution of the United States of America and the Amendments11. 1796 - George Washington's Farewell Address12. 1823 - The Monroe Doctrine13. 1862 - The Emancipation Proclamation14. 1863 - The Gettysburg Address15. 1941 - The Four FreedomsThese documents and speeches provided a solid reference foundation for any class in United States history or government.All of Unique Classics ebooks have an improved navigation system which includes a linked table of contents. The works are formatted for easy reading and triple-checked for quality assurance. Our illustrated ebooks contain the best related works of art for the material which make the story reading experience much more pleasant and memorable.

Rough-Hewn Land: A Geologic Journey from California to the Rocky Mountains


Keith Heyer Meldahl - 2011
    He places us on the outcrops, rock hammer in hand, to examine the evidence for how these rough-hewn lands came to be. We see California and its gold assembled from pieces of old ocean floor and the relentless movements of the Earth’s tectonic plates. We witness the birth of the Rockies. And we investigate the violent earthquakes that continue to shape the region today. Into the West’s geologic story, Meldahl also weaves its human history. As we follow the adventures of John C. Frémont, Mark Twain, the Donner party, and other historic characters, we learn how geologic forces have shaped human experience in the past and how they direct the fate of the West today.

Behind the Green Mask


Rosa Koire - 2011
    She is a forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation. Her nearly 30 years of experience analyzing land use and property value enabled her to recognize the planning revolution sweeping the country. While fighting to stop a huge redevelopment project in her city she researched the corporate, political, and financial interests behind it and found UN Agenda 21. Impacting every aspect of our lives, UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is a corporate manipulation using the Green Mask of environmental concern to forward a globalist plan.

Missing 411: Eastern United States


David Paulides - 2011
    "Missing 411-Western U.S." was released March 1, 2012 and has garnered wide spread publicity and favorable reviews. The eastern version covers similar disappearances for the east, but also includes the master list of missing people from both books and a special list of children under 10 years who have been identified in both versions. Every story in each book is 100% factual.The eastern version contains chapters identifying clusters of missing people from the eastern section of the United States but also includes one chapter on Ontario (Canada) hunters who have disappeared. The book also contains chapters on berry pickers, sheepherders and farmers that have vanished from throughout North America under unusual circumstances.Both versions of Missing 411 identify portions of 28 clusters of missing people that have been documented throughout the U.S. and Canada. Sometimes these clusters are purely geographical while others identify a linkage based on age and sex of the victims, a very troubling and surprising find by researchers.

Lidia's Italy in America


Lidia Matticchio Bastianich - 2011
    Traveling around the United States, Lidia visits Italian American communities that created something new out of the recipes passed down from their ancestors. As she explores this utterly delectable and distinctive cuisine, Lidia shows us that every kitchen is different, every Italian community distinct, and little clues are buried in each dish: the Sicilian-style semolina bread and briny olives in New Orleans Muffuletta Sandwiches, the Neapolitan crust of New York pizza, and mushrooms (abundant in the United States, but scarce in Italy) stuffed with breadcrumbs, just as peppers or tomatoes are. Lidia shows us how this cuisine is an original American creation that redefines what we know as Italian food while always paying tribute to Italy, and she gives recognition where it is long overdue to the many industrious Italians across the country who have honored the traditions of their homeland in a delicious new style. And of course, there are Lidia’s irresistible recipes, including ·        Baltimore Crab Cakes ·        Pittsburgh’s Primanti’s Sandwiches ·        Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza ·        Eggplant Parmigiana from the Bronx ·        Gloucester Baked Halibut ·        Chicken Trombino from Philadelphia ·        authentic Italian American Meatloaf, and Spaghetti and Meatballs ·        Prickly Pear Granita from California ·        and, of course, a handful of cheesecakes and cookies that you’d recognize in any classic Italian bakery This is a loving exploration of a fascinating cuisine—as only Lidia could give us.

Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast


Michael Wojtech - 2011
    Chapters on the structure and ecology of tree bark, descriptions of bark appearance, an easy-to-use identification key, and supplemental information on non-bark characteristics—all enhanced by over 450 photographs, illustrations, and maps—will show you how to distinguish the textures, shapes, and colors of bark to recognize various tree species, and also understand why these traits evolved. Whether you’re a professional naturalist or a parent leading a family hike, Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast is your essential guide to the region’s 67 native and naturalized tree species.

The Pale King


David Foster Wallace - 2011
    But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions--questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society--through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one of the most daring writers of our time.

It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace


Rye Barcott - 2011
    He was a college student heading into the Marines, and he sought to better understand ethnic violence-something he would likely face later in uniform. He learned Swahili, asked questions, and listened to young people talk about how they survived in poverty he had never imagined. Anxious to help but unsure what to do, he stumbled into friendship with a widowed nurse, Tabitha Atieno Festo, and a hardscrabble community organizer, Salim Mohamed.Together, this unlikely trio built a non-governmental organization that would develop a new generation of leaders from within one of Africa's largest slums. Their organization, Carolina for Kibera (CFK), is now a global pioneer of the movement called Participatory Development, and was honored by Time magazine as a Hero of Global Health. CFK's greatest lesson may be that with the right kind of support, people in desperate places will take charge of their lives and create breathtaking change.Engaged in two seemingly contradictory forms of public service at the same time, Barcott continued his leadership in CFK while serving as a human intelligence officer in Iraq, Bosnia, and the Horn of Africa. Struggling with the intense stress of leading Marines in dangerous places, he took the tools he learned building a community in one of the most fractured parts of Kenya and became a more effective counter insurgent and peacekeeper.It Happened on the Way to War is a true story of sacrifice and courage and the powerful melding of military and humanitarian service. It's a story of what America's role in the world could be.

The Second Coming


John Niven - 2011
    Having left his son in charge, God treated himself to a well-earned break around the height of the Renaissance. A good time to go fishing. He returns in 2011 to find things on earth haven't gone quite to plan...The world has been rendered a human toilet: genocide; starvation; people obsessed with vacuous celebrity culture; 'and,' God points out, 'there are fucking Christians everywhere.' God hates Christians. There's only one thing for it. They're sending the kid back.JC, reborn, is a struggling musician in New York City helping people as best as he can. Gathering disciples along the way - a motley collection of basket cases, stoners and alcoholics - he realises his best chance to win hearts and minds may lie in a TV talent contest. American Pop Star is the number one show in America, the unholy creation of English record executive Steven Stelfox... a man who's more than a match for the Son of God.

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice


William J. Stuntz - 2011
    Prosecutors now decide whom to punish and how severely. Almost no one accused of a crime will ever face a jury. Inconsistent policing, rampant plea bargaining, overcrowded courtrooms, and ever more draconian sentencing have produced a gigantic prison population, with black citizens the primary defendants and victims of crime. In this passionately argued book, the leading criminal law scholar of his generation looks to history for the roots of these problems--and for their solutions."The Collapse of American Criminal Justice" takes us deep into the dramatic history of American crime--bar fights in nineteenth-century Chicago, New Orleans bordellos, Prohibition, and decades of murderous lynching. Digging into these crimes and the strategies that attempted to control them, Stuntz reveals the costs of abandoning local democratic control. The system has become more centralized, with state legislators and federal judges given increasing power. The liberal Warren Supreme Court's emphasis on procedures, not equity, joined hands with conservative insistence on severe punishment to create a system that is both harsh and ineffective.What would get us out of this Kafkaesque world? More trials with local juries; laws that accurately define what prosecutors seek to punish; and an equal protection guarantee like the one that died in the 1870s, to make prosecution and punishment less discriminatory. Above all, Stuntz eloquently argues, Americans need to remember again that criminal punishment is a necessary but terrible tool, to use effectively, and sparingly.

The Age of Movies: Selected Writings


Pauline Kael - 2011
    Kael called movies "the most total and encompassing art form we have," and she made her reviews a platform for considering both film and the worlds it engages, crafting in the process a prose style of extraordinary wit, precision, and improvisatory grace. To read The Age of Movies, the first new selection in more than a generation, is to be swept up into an endlessly revealing and entertaining dialogue with Kael at her witty, exhilarating, and opinionated best. Her ability to evoke the essence of a great artist-an Orson Welles or a Robert Altman-or to celebrate the way even seeming trash could tap deeply into our emotions was matched by her unwavering eye for the scams and self-deceptions of a corrupt movie industry. Here in this career spanning collection are her appraisals of the films that defined an era-among them Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde, The Leopard, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, Nashville-along with many others, some awaiting rediscovery, all providing the occasion for masterpieces of observation and insight, alive on every page.

Best Behavior


Noah Cicero - 2011
    BEST BEHAVIOR, the new novel by Noah Cicero, is his boldest work yet. As the subject matter becomes increasingly autobiographical, the landscape more bleak, its impact is blunt, brutal, but somehow still hilarious. This is the literature of pain: of living in a world where nothing is right a temple to capitalism with no room for any kind of human spirit and, despite everything, trying to find some way to deal with it; then eventually failing. BEST BEHAVIOR might be the truest story ever told. BEST BEHAVIOR is slice-of-life, and that's as it should be. Where the classics have beginnings, middles, and ends that are relevant to the mainstream consciousness of the times, BEST BEHAVIOR is a couple of days in the life, making it a more honest and useful cultural artifact Rebecca Haze."

Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice


Alia Malek - 2011
    by post-9/11 policies and actions. Among the narrators:Young men of Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent, who were arrested and detained or singled out for voluntary interviews because of their national origin or religion.Scholars who have been blacklisted or subjected to interrogation for their research or writings on Islam and related topics.Muslim women who have suffered from job discrimination, harassment, and assault for wearing a veil or similar head covering.

The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States


Gordon S. Wood - 2011
    More than almost any other nation in the world, the United States began as an idea. For this reason, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood believes that the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid and not based on any universally shared heritage, we have had to continually return to our nation's founding to understand who we are. In 'The Idea of America', Wood reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the revolution remains so essential. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution - from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment - and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy. As Wood reveals, while the founders hoped to create a virtuous republic of yeoman farmers and uninterested leaders, they instead gave birth to a sprawling, licentious, and materialistic popular democracy. Wood also traces the origins of American exceptionalism to this period, revealing how the revolutionary generation, despite living in a distant, sparsely populated country, believed itself to be the most enlightened people on earth. The revolution gave Americans their messianic sense of purpose-and perhaps our continued propensity to promote democracy around the world-because the founders believed their colonial rebellion had universal significance for oppressed peoples everywhere. Yet what may seem like audacity in retrospect reflected the fact that in the eighteenth century republicanism was a truly radical ideology-as radical as Marxism would be in the nineteenth-and one that indeed inspired revolutionaries the world over. Today there exists what Wood calls a terrifying gap between us and the founders, such that it requires almost an act of imagination to fully recapture their era. Because we now take our democracy for granted, it is nearly impossible for us to appreciate how deeply the founders feared their grand experiment in liberty could evolve into monarchy or dissolve into licentiousness. Gracefully written and filled with insight, 'The Idea of America' helps us to recapture the fears and hopes of the revolutionary generation and its attempts to translate those ideals into a working democracy.

What It Means to Be a Democrat


George S. McGovern - 2011
     George McGovern has been a leading figure of the Democratic Party for more than fifty years. From this true liberal comes a thoughtful examination of what being a Democrat really means. McGovern admonishes current Democratic politicians for losing sight of their ideals as they subscribe to an increasingly centrist policy agenda. Applying his wide- ranging knowledge and expertise on issues ranging from military spending to same-sex marriage to educational reform, he stresses the importance of creating policies we can be proud of. Finally, with 2012 looming, McGovern's "What It Means to Be a Democrat" offers a vision of the Party's future in which ideological coherence and courage rule.

Queer Ultra Violence: Bash Back! Anthology


Fray Baroque - 2011
    The queer anarchist project embodied by Bash Back! is first and foremost a refusal of victimhood and a reclamation of the violence taken from us by progressive ideology and used against us by queerbashers and the State. It was a crucial shift for Bash Back! to break with those who refused to recognize the importance of this reclamation. It served to cohere and solidify the insurrectional queer tendency around the question of violence…

Don't Know Much About Indians (But I Wrote a Book About Us Anyways)


Gyasi Ross - 2011
    They don t ride horses or get falling down drunk. They are not the stoic crying Indian from a commercial nor the flowing-haired warrior on the cover of a romance novel. The characters in these 18 stories and poems are regular Indians - people who have day jobs, college students, insecure folks, kids in love. These characters are unique, diverse, and just like the rest of America. The book is heartbreaking and life-affirming, controversial and heartwarming, funny and tragic. If you think you know about Indians or if you know that you don't, step into the lives of these characters and you will come away enlightened, discomfited, entertained and inspired.

Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America


Tom Piazza - 2011
    Time and time again, Piazza identifies the unlikely, precious connections between recent events, art, letters, and music; through his words, these byways of popular culture provide an unexpected measure of the times.” —Elvis Costello

Krazy and Ignatz, 1922-1924: At Last My Drim of Love Has Come True


George Herriman - 2011
    (Next: The dailies!)While the Krazy Kat Sundays were created and published in black and white until 1935 (and therefore the majority of strips in this book are black and white), Herriman’s publisher did briefly experiment with running the strip in color in 1924, and all 10 of these rare full-color strips are presented here. The book also includes more rare photographs of Herriman, a “DeBaffling” section explaining period references and in-jokes, and the usual surprise “goodies” each of these volumes springs on their readers. And for the 13th and last time, the covers will be by Chris Ware.

Love Her To Death


M. William Phelps - 2011
    --Katherine Ramsland True Love Kills In the midst of Pennsylvania's Amish country, on a peaceful summer night in 2008, the body of 45-year-old Jan Roseboro was found at the bottom of her backyard pool. Her husband Michael, a successful businessman and member of a prominent family, showed no emotion as he learned of her death. But the next day an autopsy revealed Jan had been savagely beaten and strangled before being tossed in the water to drown. Soon Michael's secret lover, pregnant with his child, stepped into the media spotlight. And a horrifying true story of illicit passion, deadly deceit, and cold-blooded murder unfolded. . . Praise for M. William Phelps "One of America's finest true-crime writers."--Vincent Bugliosi "Phelps creates a vivid portrait." --"Publishers Weeklyy" Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: Vols. 1 & 2 Gift Box Set


Floyd Gottfredson - 2011
    Vol. 1, "Race to Death Valley," features a dozen different adventures starring Mickey, his gal Minnie and her uncle Mortimer (not to be confused with Mickey's rival in the animated shorts!), his pals Horace Horsecollar and Butch, the villainous Pegleg Pete, and the mysterious and shrouded Fox. Relive Mickey's race to a gold mine with Pegleg Pete hot on his heels; Mickey's life on the lam; and Mickey's ringside battle with a hulking heavyweight champ! In Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island, Mickey fights with pirates on desolate Treasure Island; quests with Goofy to catch ruthless counterfeiters; and battles to save windy Horace Horsecollar from mad scientists, a robbery frame-up - and himself! Bad guys "Bill Shakespeare" and hypnosis-happy Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex join archenemy Pegleg Pete.

Behavior of North American Mammals


Mark Elbroch - 2011
    We want to know, and field guides are an ideal aid for identification. But when we want to know more about the lives of these animals—their natural histories, their place in the larger ecological community, and where to look for them in the future—we can now turn to Behavior of North American Mammals.This exciting new addition to the Peterson Reference Guide series is highly readable and full of fascinating facts. For example, when an opossum plays dead it isn't pretending: opossums actually do enter a catatonic deathlike state. Armadillos sequester air in their guts, blow up to twice their normal volume, and paddle across the water. And beavers stockpile food for winter by caching it in beneath a raft of branches, which gets frozen in place and keeps them well supplied until spring.A guide not to identifying mammals, but to understanding what they do, Behavior of North American Mammals provides detailed information on more than 70 species of mammals and includes illuminating and attractive photographs and drawings. Comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible, the book includes  information on daily and seasonal activity, food and foraging, home range and habitat, communication, courtship and mating, development and dispersal of young, interactions with their own species, and interactions with other species.

The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy


Roger DeBlanck - 2011
    Their boyhood yearnings and adventures coincide with Cuba’s revolutionary upheaval of the late Fifties. With instability escalating on the island, the Ramos family makes a heartrending decision. Juan and Alberto’s father chooses to stay in Cuba while the brothers, their nanny, and their mother move to Miami to start new lives. Over the course of their youth, the brothers’ frequent encounters and unique connections with Fidel Castro in Cuba and then with John F. Kennedy in America leave the brothers enamored with the larger-than-life images of these two brilliant, yet flawed leaders. Ultimately, Juan and Alberto trust in their bond of brotherly love as the guiding force to fulfilling their hopes and dreams. Spanning over twenty years in the lives of the brothers and covering nearly a half-century of the lives of their extended family, The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy weaves together an intimate coming-of-age tale with a multi-generational family saga. This is the epic story of two courageous boys as they endure hardship and tragedy to become extraordinary young men during one of the most pivotal eras of the 20th Century.

Fallingwater


Lynda Waggoner - 2011
    With stunning new photography commissioned especially for this book, Fallingwater captures the much-loved masterpiece by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright following its recent restoration. Built in 1936 for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, Fallingwater is hailed as a twentieth-century masterpiece—a marvel of innovation and daring that appears to float over rushing falls. This volume is a major event in the story of this icon, with new authoritative texts on Fallingwater’s history, structure, restoration, and collections, including the house’s relationship to its setting and its importance to the sustainability movement; its meaning in the context of Wright’s body of work; the analysis and planning process that went into Fallingwater’s restoration and how a seemingly unsolvable problem was overcome through modern engineering. Destined to become the lasting volume on this seminal monument, the book is a tribute to genius and the long-awaited reconsideration of this masterwork.

Dandelions for Dinner: Greece at War and a Family's Dreams of America


Sam P. Stamatis - 2011
    Told through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, it is an epic tale of youth, family, poverty, war, and unjust loss. It is also an uplifting story of how in the midst of calamity, survival is possible by using your head, taking your hits, and maintaining an undying faith.Though it is the tale of a family that is by all standards poor, "Dandelions for Dinner" demonstrates just how rich the poor can be when they have hope, faith, and love for one another-when they maintain the lessons of their parents and forefathers, nurture a love of education, and never let up on their hope for freedom. This memoir is, above all, a story about the importance of America-not only for those who live there, but also for all those who reside in the dark corners of faraway lands and dream of a better life.Over the course of their life together, any family will most assuredly experience both want and plenty, suffering and joy. "Dandelions for Dinner" is the surprising story of what remains when everything else is lost.

The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World's Fair and Its Legacy


Paula BeckerTom Brown - 2011
    

The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA


Taylor Branch - 2011
    deprives them of the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution." Decades of greed and self-interest pushed the NCAA to collapse under the weight of its hypocrisy. The parasitic business of college sports generates billions every year, yet fails to compensate college athletes.

Wish You Were Me


Myriam Gurba - 2011
    There are some weird and unexplored thought patterns happening here. Gurba is a fierce pioneer in the gooey guts of our emotional and sexual zeitgeist."Myriam Gurba just blows me away. Her wit, her perversion, her sharp female smarts, her total fearlessness. I gasp and I gasp as I read her work because I can't believe she said that! It's not shocking, it's a relief. Okay it's a little bit shocking, too. All the best writing makes you come undone a little and Myriam is not afraid to stick her fingernails into your psyche and pull." --Michelle Tea"Wish You Were Me is funny. Achingly funny. Uncomfortably funny, and that's the best kind of funny. It's the kind of humor you'll never forget and it's the kind of book you'll find necessary to subject your friends to." --Mary Van NoteMyriam Gurba lives in Long Beach, California and is the author of Dahlia Season (Future Tense/Manic D Press), which won the Edmund White Award for debut fiction. She has toured and performed with Sister Spit and her writing has appeared in anthologies and magazines such as make/shift and Garage.

The Best of Stephen R. Donaldson


Stephen R. Donaldson - 2011
    Donaldson has also written some of the most distinctive short fiction of recent decades. This generous collection brings together much of the best of that shorter work and provides an ideal showcase for its author s depth, versatility, and consummate literary artistry.Included here are eleven stories and novellas that run the gamut from horror ( The Conqueror Worm ) to high fantasy ( Daughter of Regals ), from contemporary spiritual drama ( Unworthy of the Angel ) to action-oriented SF ( Animal Lover ), together with such uncategorizable gems as The Killing Stroke, with its unique combination of magic and martial arts, and The Woman Who Loved Pigs, an astonishing account of personal transformation and long-delayed revenge.In settings that range from the deeply familiar to the wholly imagined, The Best of Stephen R. Donaldson offers a gallery of tales that have the resonance and moral complexity of compact novels. Beneath their often-gaudy surfaces, they show us very real people who confront, and sometimes overcome, extreme adversity, who struggle to find balance and harmony in an inherently chaotic universe. Each story is the clear product of a master storyteller. Each demands and rewards repeated readings. Together, they form one of the cornerstone volumes of modern fantasy, a book that will be read and treasured by Donaldson s many fans, and by anyone who values imaginative literature at its finest.

Art Journey America Landscapes: 89 Painters' Perspectives


Kathy Kipp - 2011
    Accompanying each painting are the thoughts, techniques and inspirations for the paintings by each artist.

Why Are So Many Black Men In Prison? A Comprehensive Account Of How And Why The Prison Industry Has Become A Predatory Entity In The Lives Of African American ... The Largest Prison System In The World


Demico Boothe - 2011
    Out of the 10.4 million Black adult males in the U.S. population, nearly 1.5 million are in prisons and jails with another 3.5 million more on probation or parole or who have previously been on probation or parole. Black males make up nearly 75% of the total prison population, and due to either present or past incarceration is the most socially disenfranchised group of American citizens in the country today. This book details the author's personal story of a negligent upbringing in an impoverished community, his subsequent engagement in criminal activity (drug dealing), his incarceration, and his release from prison and experiencing of the crippling social disenfranchisement that comes with being an ex-felon. The author then relates his personal experiences and realizations to the seminal problems within the African-American community, federal government, and criminal justice system that cause his own experiences to be the same experiences of millions of other young Black men. "Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?" will not only scrutinize specific longstanding problems and certain cultural misgivings within the African-American community, but will also confront how deliberate actions on the part of the federal government and several elected politicians over the past 2 decades paved the way for this crisis to occur and evolve into the present situation where millions of Black men are experiencing social disenfranchisement due to mass criminalization, incarceration, and a faulty criminal justice system. The author identifies and expounds upon three basic problems that are the causative factors behind themass criminalization and incarceration of African-American males, and provides conclusive supportive facts and statistics to substantiate these identifications. The three problems identified are: (1) Irresponsible and negligent actions on the part of African-Americans, both individually and collectively, past and presently (2) A criminal justice system that has been formulated and designed for the purposes of maintaining a highly visible permanent criminal class within The United States citizenry (3) Racism and an element of right wing White supremacist-minded leadership that has found a way to modernly "re-enslave" and neutralize a large portion of the African-American population through drug proliferation, poverty, miseducation, criminalization and incarceration, and misuse of the law and the criminal justice system, and that has skillfully hidden their agenda by utilizing "political correctness" and a well crafted scheme that uses the law and the law-making process to create and promote an unjust social order. It is the author's aim to display to the reader very clear facts about this crisis of Black male criminalization and disenfranchisement; its origin, development, purpose, and it's affects in terms of how it is stifling all of the other areas of development for African-Americans, and what steps that can be undertaken in order to curb and eventually annihilate this problem. This book also has information that can serve as a guideline for African-Americans on how to change their longstanding position as a basically powerless and dependant minority to a more independent and powerful group within the American and world power structure.

Notes on Anarchism


Noam Chomsky - 2011
    In a slightly different version, it also appeared in the New York Review of Books, May 21, 1970.

Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know(r)


Mark A.R. Kleiman - 2011
    Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs?In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know(R). They begin, by defining drugs, examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue.Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world.What Everyone Needs to Know(R) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

A Dozen Crime Stories: from a well-known, big-box discount retail chain


Thomas Leverett - 2011
    A Dozen Crime Stories from a Well-known, Big-box, Discount Retail Chain has twelve short stories; the style is direct and powerful.

American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era


David W. Blight - 2011
    He delivered this speech just three years after the Virginia Civil War Commission published a guide proclaiming that the Centennial is no time for finding fault or placing blame or fighting the issues all over again.David Blight takes his readers back to the centennial celebration to determine how Americans then made sense of the suffering, loss, and liberation that had wracked the United States a century earlier. Amid cold war politics and civil rights protest, four of America s most incisive writers explored the gulf between remembrance and reality. Robert Penn Warren, the southern-reared poet-novelist who recanted his support of segregation; Bruce Catton, the journalist and U.S. Navy officer who became a popular Civil War historian; Edmund Wilson, the century s preeminent literary critic; and James Baldwin, the searing African-American essayist and activist each exposed America s triumphalist memory of the war. And each, in his own way, demanded a reckoning with the tragic consequences it spawned.Blight illuminates not only mid-twentieth-century America s sense of itself but also the dynamic, ever-changing nature of Civil War memory. On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the war, we have an invaluable perspective on how this conflict continues to shape the country s political debates, national identity, and sense of purpose."

King of the Wild Suburb: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons and Guns


Michael A. Messner - 2011
    This candid memoir will make engrossing reading for both seasoned scholars and newcomers to gender studies. Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War For decades, feminist scholars, memoirists, and novelists have explored the lineaments of mother-daughter relationships, yet the world of fathers and sons has garnered relatively little attention. In his closely observed memoir, King of the Wild Suburb, noted Gender Studies scholar Michael Messner opens up the affective terrain between fathers and sons, and in the process deepens and complicates our understanding of masculinity. Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture Michael Messner's reflections on coming of age in the pivotal Sixties deftly captures the fault lines that separated so many young men and women from the lives of their parents and grandparents. It was, perhaps, easier for young women to rebel and choose careers over homemaking than it was for young men to opt out of a culture that made war, guns, and hunting the anchors of manhood. King of the Wild Suburb helps us understand how masculinity has changed, albeit still precariously, making it possible to maintain a fidelity to one's past while passing on to the next generation a freedom to explore new ways to be a man. Jan E. Dizard, author of Mortal Stakes: Hunters and Hunting in Contemporary America

Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Area Cemeteries & Their Residents


Douglas Keister - 2011
    Includes The Big Four, Manhattan Churchyards & Resting Places, Eternal Excursions in well-known boroughs, as well as Humane Remains at the pet cemetery in Hartsdale.

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park: The Unauthorized Guide


Mark Masek - 2011
    Covering more than 300 acres, its more than 300,000 permanent residents include dozens of top film, TV and entertainment personalities, from Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, to Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor, and everyone in between. But good luck if you want to visit and pay your respects to your favorite celebrity. The cemetery will not give out the location of any of its well-known permanent residents, and won’t even acknowledge that they’re buried there. But this book, “Forest Lawn Memorial-Park: The Unauthorized Guide,” provides the most complete, accurate and comprehensive directions to find the final burial locations of nearly 100 celebrities, including Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Walt Disney, Mary Pickford, Ted Knight, Tom Mix, Spencer Tracy, W.C. Fields, Carole Lombard, John Gilbert, Red Skelton, Clara Bow, Errol Flynn, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Sammy Davis Jr., Irving Thalberg, Norma Shearer, Alan Ladd, Chico Marx and Larry Fine, plus dozens more, along with detailed personal and professional biographies, as well as historical information about the cemetery where former President Ronald Reagan was married to his first wife, actress Jane Wyman. In a city where celebrity is the only really important currency, Forest Lawn Glendale is still at the top of the cemetery “A List,” and this book will guide you to its most famous permanent residents.

Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting


W. Scott Poole - 2011
    From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Conflicting anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, science, and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers, new monsters appear as American society evolves, paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. Consulting newspaper accounts, archival materials, personal papers, comic books, films, and oral histories, Poole adroitly illustrates how the creation of the monstrous "other" not only reflects society's fears but shapes actual historical behavior and becomes a cultural reminder of inhuman acts.

Ghost Towns of Route 66


Jim Hinckley - 2011
    The quintessential boom-and-bust highway of the American West, Route 66 once hosted a thriving array of boom towns built around oil wells, railroad stops, cattle ranches, resorts, stagecoach stops, and gold mines. Join Route 66 expert Jim Hinckley as he tours more than 25 ghost towns, rich in stories and history, complemented by gorgeous sepia-tone and color photography by Kerrick James. Also includes directions and travel tips for your ghost-town explorations along Route 66.Explore the beauty and nostalgia of these abandoned communities along America’s favorite highway!

Stolen Pleasures: Selected Stories of Gina Berriault


Gina Berriault - 2011
    It’s like trying to pin down the eternal moment.” —Gina BerriaultGina Berriault was one of the great, rare masters of short fiction. With commendable restraint and economy, she delivered stories that contain entire worlds inhabited by a range of characters thrown into all kinds of unsettling predicaments. As a short story writer she had a gift for tapping into the emotions of love, hope, and grief, and for making them palpable within her narratives. No two of her stories are alike, except for in the inevitable disquiet the reader feels in their wake, the exquisite unease that remains at the end of such acclaimed tales as “The Cove,” “The Stone Boy,” and many others.Now, in this compelling posthumous collection, Berriault’s astonishing short fiction once again proves that her position as one of America’s best storytellers remains unchallenged.

Common Sense: A Political History


Sophia Rosenfeld - 2011
    Sophia Rosenfeld shows how common sense--the wisdom of ordinary people, self-evident truths--has been used to justify all political extremes, with a history that is anything but commonsensical.

15 Minutes: General Curtis Lemay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation


L. Douglas Keeney - 2011
    This is the chilling true story of the incredibly risky steps our military took to protect us from that scenario, including: Over two thousand loaded bombers that crossed American skies. They sometimes crashed and at least nine times resulted in nuclear weapons being accidentally dropped A system that would use timers and rockets to launch missiles even after everyone was dead Disastrous atmospheric nuclear testing including the horrific runaway bomb--that fooled scientists and put thousands of men in uniform in the center of a cloud of hot fallout A plan to use dry lake beds to rebuild and launch a fighting force in the aftermath of nuclear warBased on formerly classified documents, military records, press accounts, interviews and over 10 years of research, "15 Minutes "is one of the most important works on the atom bomb ever written."

The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713-1763


Paul W. Mapp - 2011
    Breaking from scholars' traditional focus on the Atlantic world, Paul W. Mapp demonstrates the centrality of hitherto understudied western regions to early American history and shows that a Pacific focus is crucial to understanding the causes, course, and consequences of the Seven Years' War.

Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma


Joseph A. Tainter - 2011
    We now take for granted that economic growth is good, necessary, and even inevitable, but also feel a sense of unease about the simultaneous growth of complexity in the processes and institutions that generate and manage that growth. As societies grow more complex through the bounty of cheap energy, they also confront problems that seem to increase in number and severity. In this era of fossil fuels, cheap energy and increasing complexity have been in a mutually-reinforcing spiral. The more energy we have and the more problems our societies confront, the more we grow complex and require still more energy. How did our demand for energy, our technological prowess, the resulting need for complex problem solving, and the end of easy oil conspire to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill increasingly likely, if not inevitable? This book explains the real causal factors leading up to the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, a disaster from which it will take decades to recover.

The Last Eagle


Michael Wenberg - 2011
    The crew, however, isn’t content to sit out the war. With help from unexpected sources—a naval attaché with the British Embassy and a courageous American reporter and her photographer sidekick—they overcome their captors, regain control of the "Eagle," and escape. The German’s are convinced the "Eagle's" crew has no stomach for a fight and will seek refuge in Sweden. But the Poles have something else in mind—join up with the British Fleet and continue fighting against their homeland's Nazi conquerors. They face stiff odds. The "Eagle" has little food and water, few torpedoes, and no sea charts. And before she can rendezvous with the British somewhere in the North Sea, she must traverse the Baltic, which has become little more than a Nazi-controlled lake. This story is inspired by the exploits of the Polish submarine, "Orzel," during the early weeks of World War II. Winston Churchill called her escape from the Nazis “an epic.”

See You Down the Trail


Bert Nemcik - 2011
    Meet Appalachian Trail men and Appalachian Trail women. This is a true story of my 2002 Appalachian Trail thru-hike. The story is a simple tale of what it takes to hike 2275 miles in four months, live alone most of the time, learn how to do with little and enjoy every moment of the adventure.For those considering a thru-hike, you will find the technical information contained in the book invaluable. This is a celebration of the freedom of the hills and the joy of long distance hiking and backpacking.Here are some highlights.• Each day is my favorite - each new day is a new adventure in self-discovery and problem solving and joy and happiness.• The trail is the most intense way to live fully because it is so simple.• When you find someone with bad trail karma leave them quickly.“It’s much better to have a lot of pleasant memories than bitter regrets. Imagine how many folks wish they could do what we’re doing and never get out and just do it. Living a lifetime of adventure is much more satisfying than savoring one adventure of a lifetime.”Bert "Shadow" Nemcik, AT02

Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution


William Bunge - 2011
    Fitzgerald, at its core, is dedicated to understanding global phenomena through the intensive study of a small, local place.Beginning with an 1816 encounter between the Ojibwa population and the neighborhood’s first surveyor, William Bunge examines the racialized imposition of local landscapes over the course of European American settlement. Historical events are firmly situated in space—a task Bunge accomplishes through liberal use of maps and frequent references to recognizable twentieth-century landmarks.More than a work of historical geography, Fitzgerald is a political intervention. By 1967 the neighborhood was mostly African American; Black Power was ascendant; and Detroit would experience a major riot. Immersed in the daily life of the area, Bunge encouraged residents to tell their stories and to think about local politics in spatial terms. His desire to undertake a different sort of geography led him to create a work that was nothing like a typical work of social science. The jumble of text, maps, and images makes it a particularly urgent book—a major theoretical contribution to urban geography that is also a startling evocation of street-level Detroit during a turbulent era.A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication

Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics


J. David Gillespie - 2011
    J. David Gillespie introduces readers to minor partisan actors of three types: short-lived national parties, continuing doctrinal and issue parties, and the state and local significant others. Woven into these accounts are profiles of some of the individuals who have taken the initiative to found and lead these parties. Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Jesse Ventura, and other recent and contemporary electoral insurgents are featured, along with the most significant current national and state parties challenging the primacy of the two major parties.

The Gospel of the Working Class: Labor's Southern Prophets in New Deal America


Erik S. Gellman - 2011
    Gellman and Jarod Roll trace the influence of two southern activist preachers, one black and one white, who used their ministry to organize the working class in the 1930s and 1940s across lines of gender, race, and geography. Owen Whitfield and Claude Williams, along with their wives Zella Whitfield and Joyce Williams, drew on their bedrock religious beliefs to stir ordinary men and women to demand social and economic justice in the eras of the Great Depression, New Deal, and Second World War. Williams and Whitfield preached a working-class gospel rooted in the American creed that hard, productive work entitled people to a decent standard of living. Gellman and Roll detail how the two preachers galvanized thousands of farm and industrial workers for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. They also link the activism of the 1930s and 1940s to that of the 1960s and emphasize the central role of the ministers' wives, with whom they established the People's Institute for Applied Religion. This detailed narrative illuminates a cast of characters who became the two couples' closest allies in coordinating a complex network of activists that transcended Jim Crow racial divisions, blurring conventional categories and boundaries to help black and white workers make better lives. In chronicling the shifting contexts of the actions of Whitfield and Williams, The Gospel of the Working Class situates Christian theology within the struggles of some of America's most downtrodden workers, transforming the dominant narratives of the era and offering a fresh view of the promise and instability of religion and civil rights unionism.

The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964–1980


Annelise Orleck - 2011
    Conservatives deride the War on Poverty for corruption and the creation of “poverty pimps,” and even liberals carefully distance themselves from it. Examining the long War on Poverty from the 1960s onward, this book makes a controversial argument that the programs were in many ways a success, reducing poverty rates and weaving a social safety net that has proven as enduring as programs that came out of the New Deal.The War on Poverty also transformed American politics from the grass roots up, mobilizing poor people across the nation. Blacks in crumbling cities, rural whites in Appalachia, Cherokees in Oklahoma, Puerto Ricans in the Bronx, migrant Mexican farmworkers, and Chinese immigrants from New York to California built social programs based on Johnson’s vision of a greater, more just society. Contributors to this volume chronicle these vibrant and largely unknown histories while not shying away from the flaws and failings of the movement—including inadequate funding, co-optation by local political elites, and blindness to the reality that mothers and their children made up most of the poor.In the twenty-first century, when one in seven Americans receives food stamps and community health centers are the largest primary care system in the nation, the War on Poverty is as relevant as ever. This book helps us to understand the turbulent era out of which it emerged and why it remains so controversial to this day.

NVSQVAM (Nowhere)


Ann Sterzinger - 2011
    Probably Marx, but Lester Reichartsen doesn t have time to look it up. A decade ago, Lester was kicked out of the most popular punk band in Chicago. Since then he been party to an accidental pregnancy, talked into marrying the other party, and roped into an academic career in Classical Letters, so time won t allow him to be curious about anything outside his discipline. But if whoever said that was right, Lester is middle class for sure: the island of college-town academics he lives on now makes him feel almost as alien as the village of Bible-Belt idiots that surrounds it. So why is it that when some meth-head breaks into his little family's cramped apartment the only thing they of value to steal is his seven-year-old computer? If this is the middle class, then Lester doesn t want to know what s below it.

Hiking the Continental Divide Trail: One Woman's Journey


Jennifer A. Hanson - 2011
    Foreword by Steve Dudley, Executive Director of the Continental Divide Trail Alliance.An avid outsoorswoman, West Point graduate and former Captain in the U.S. Army, Jennifer Hanson - with her husband Greg Allen - set off to thru-hike the 2,400-mile Continental Divide Trail. Together they traversed:* Arid ranchlands of New Mexico* Snow-capped mountains of Colorado* Red Desert of Wyoming* Glacier National Park of MontanaDuring their hike, Jennifer learned that she had lost her father to cancer, and, within three weeks, her husband was forced to leave the trail due to an injured nerve in his foot. Jennifer finished the last nine hundred miles of the trail - alone.Hiking the Continental Divide Trail: One Woman's Journey is the story of their incredible summer and is filled with courage, humor, stunning scenery, local personalities and the simple joys of backpacking. In addition, it is an invaluable resource for those planning their own section- or thru-hike of the CDT. Appendixes include:* Thru-hike Preparation and Timeline* Equipment and Clothing List* Food List* Itinerary and Supply Points* Map List and Sources* Complete Index

American Studies


Jim Dow - 2011
    A landscape, for Dow, is fashioned by ordinary individuals leaving their mark on their surroundings through everyday acts, unconscious of the enduring effect these changes have on our world. Our signs and billboards, barbershops, office buildings, libraries, pool halls, private clubs, courthouses, and motels—these places belong to a world made primarily by and for American men, and are naturally imbued with that identity. Obsessive by nature, once praised as “dumb, in the honorific sense of the word,” Dow takes photographs that depict how Americans purposefully create environments and transform their aesthetic power—spiritually, historically, and sometimes commercially. His method has evolved from an early black and white directness, deeply influenced by photography greats Harry Callahan and Walker Evans, to richly detailed color studies of American vernacular culture. In these beautifully realized images, made in every corner of the United States over nearly 40 years of American travel, Dow catalogs aspects of American culture that are seemingly commonplace yet always astonishingly unique.Published in association with CDS Books of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-Century America


Michael Zakim - 2011
    Building on but moving past these studies, Capitalism Takes Command presents a history of family farming, general incorporation laws, mortgage payments, inheritance practices, office systems, and risk management—an inventory of the means by which capitalism became America’s new revolutionary tradition.This multidisciplinary collection of essays argues not only that capitalism reached far beyond the purview of the economy, but also that the revolution was not confined to the destruction of an agrarian past. As business ceaselessly revised its own practices, a new demographic of private bankers, insurance brokers, investors in securities, and start-up manufacturers, among many others, assumed center stage, displacing older elites and forms of property. Explaining how capital became an “ism” and how business became a political philosophy, Capitalism Takes Command brings the economy back into American social and cultural history.

Chinaberry


James Still - 2011
    The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver this story to readers, having assembled and refined the manuscript to prepare it for publication. Chinaberry, named for the ranch that serves as the centerpiece of the story, is Still's last and perhaps greatest contribution to American literature.Chinaberry follows the adventures of a young boy as he travels to Texas from Alabama in search of work on a cotton farm. Upon arriving, he discovers the ranch of Anson and Lurie Winters, a young couple whose lives are defined by hard work, family, and a tragedy that haunts their past. Still's entrancing narrative centers on the boy's experience at the ranch under Anson's watchful eye and Lurie's doting care, highlighting the importance of home, whether it is defined by people or a place.In this celebration of the art of storytelling, Still captures a time and place that are gone forever and introduces the reader to an unforgettable cast of characters, illustrating the impact that one person can have on another. A combination of memoir and imagination, truth and fiction, Chinaberry is a work of art that leaves the reader in awe of Still's mastery of language and thankful for the lifetime of wisdom that manifests itself in his work.

Rockabilly: The Twang Heard 'Round the World: The Illustrated History


Michael Dregni - 2011
    Here’s the story of Elvis Presley’s first Sun records that inspired all. And here’s Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and many more rockabillies from the golden years of 1955—1959, in a book chock full of photos, collectible memorabilia, movie posters, rare records, fashion, and rebel lifestyle. The story continues today, with a rockabilly revival that began with stars, such as the Stray Cats and Robert Gordon, spreading around the globe from Europe to Japan. Today, rockabilly is better than ever, with bands like Rev. Horton Heat and others playing the music and living the life from Memphis to Helsinki to Tokyo. There’s still good rockin’ tonight!