"It's the things we know that just ain't so." In this bold and brilliantly argued book, acclaimed author and talk-radio host Michael Medved zeroes in on ten of the biggest fallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country--in spite of incontrovertible facts to the contrary. In "The 10 Big Lies About America," Medved pinpoints the most pernicious pieces of America-bashing disinformation that pollute current debates about the economy, race, religion in politics, the Iraq war, and other contentious issues. The myths that Medved deftly debunks include: Myth: The United States is uniquely guilty for the crime of slavery and based its wealth on stolen African labor. Fact: The colonies that became the United States accounted for, at most, 3 percent of the abominable international slave trade; the persistence of slavery in America slowed economic progress; and the U.S. deserves unique credit for ending slavery. Myth: The alarming rise of big business hurts the United States and oppresses its people. Fact: Corporations played an indispensable role in building America, and corporate growth has brought progress that benefits all with cheaper goods and better jobs. Myth: The Founders intended a secular, not Christian, nation. Fact: Even after ratifying the Constitution, fully half the state governments endorsed specific Chris-tian denominations. And just a day after approving the First Amendment, forbidding the establishment of religion, Congress called for a national "day of public thanksgiving and prayer" to acknowledge "the many signal favors of Almighty God." Myth: A war on the middle class means less comfort and opportunity for the average American. Fact: Familiar campaign rhetoric about the victimized middle class ignores the overwhelming statistical evidence that the standard of living keeps rising for every segment of the population, as well as the real-life experience of tens of millions of middle-class Americans. Each of the ten lies--widely believed among elites and taught as truth in universities and public schools--is a grotesque, propagandistic distortion of the historical record. For everyone who is tired of hearing America denigrated by people who don't know what they're talking about, "The 10 Big Lies About America "supplies the ammunition necessary to fire back the next time somebody tries to recycle these baseless beliefs. Medved's witty, well-documented rebuttal is a refreshing reminder that as Americans we should feel blessed, not burdened, by our heritage.

    It is played out against the concurrent death by cancer of Daniel's bitter father.

    Now, more than ten years later and with many of the planet's environmental stresses having become more urgent than ever, Duane Elgin has revised and updated his revolutionary book.Voluntary Simplicity is not a book about living in poverty; it is a book about living with balance. It illuminates the pattern of changes that an increasing number of Americans are making in their everyday lives -- adjustments in day-to-day living that are an active, positive response to the complex dilemmas of our time. By embracing, either partially or totally, the tenets of voluntary simplicity -- frugal consumption, ecological awareness, and personal growth -- people can change their lives. And in the process, they have the power to change the world. First published in 1981, Voluntary Simplicity was instantly recognized as a visionary work. The New York Times called it "seminal"; the Wall Street Journal noted that it was "considered the movement's Bible." Revised in 1993 to address the trend toward downshifting, this pertinent book helps us to adjust our thoughts, habits, and goals and embrace the key elements of simplicity: frugal consumption, ecological awareness and personal growth.

    The Vanishing Hitchhiker was Professor Brunvand's first popular book on urban legends, and it remains a classic. The culmination of twenty years of collection and research, this book is a must-have for urban legend lovers.

    Cooper's latest alternate history novel, a new contribution to Eric Flint's 1632 Universe, the romance between Juan Cardona, an officer in Spain's Manila garrison, and Huang Mingyu, a young, beautiful Chinese woman, is threatened when a Dutch-Japanese force launches a surprise attack on 17th century Manila. Manila falls and Juan is rescued by Huang Mingyu, who proves to have hidden talents and connections. It is then up to Juan to warn the incoming Manila galleon of the Dutch-Japanese threat before it blunders into Manila Bay, and to prove his worth to Mingyu's family. Who have interests of their own in the region....Will true love prevail when Japan (the chrysanthemum), Spain (the cross) and China (the dragon) come into conflict?For readers unfamiliar with the 1632 universe, it posits a cosmic catastrophe -- the RIng of Fire -- that throws the West Virginia town of Grantville into 17th century Germany. By 1633, the ripples caused by this event have reached East Asia, and the Japanese are determined to forestall the missionary-instigated Shimabara Rebellion of 1637.

    Her husband didn’t even know how she looked, since she had been heavily bandaged. He immediately left for service after the wedding.They communicated frequently through letters where she poured her heart out to the man who became her savior and solace. Two years passed and her husband has just returned home.Will she tell him how she feels about him? Or will she release him from the marriage which began as an act of mercy?Dear Husband, all I want to say is that I...Note: This is a standalone short and sweet romance with a happy ending.

    Atlanta has the highest income inequality in the entire country, blighted neighborhoods and hideous highways, suburban sprawl, and racial injustice. While many cities across America suffer similarly, nowhere but Atlanta have they so dangerously collided.The most promising plan for Atlanta's rebirth is the Beltline, a massive ring of defunct railways already being transformed into a series of parks, pathways, and streetcars. Cutting through forty neighborhoods ranging from affluent to impoverished, the Beltline will complete a twenty-two-mile loop encircling downtown: shifting the character of the city toward a more walkable, prosperous, and enlightened future. By embracing its physical limitations, by building infrastructure and public amenities, and by offering citizens a vision to fight for, Atlanta is hoping to redeem its past and save its future. City on the Verge reveals how cities across the country can transform themselves for the better.

    These diverse authors challenge the common misconception that today's young people are apathetic, shallow, and materialistic. Aged ten to thirty-one, these atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, transgender, heterosexual, bisexual, metrosexual Americans are from every type of background and ethnicity, but are united by their struggle toward a common goal. They are the inheritors of their parents' legacy from the sixties, but also have the imagination and courage to embark on new paths and different directions. In letters addressed to their parents, to past generations, to each other, to the youth of tomorrow and to their future selves, each author articulates his or her vision for the world as they work towards racial, economic, gender, environmental and global justice. As the editors write in their introduction: "From globalization to the war on terrorism and beyond, our generation is compelled to action in the midst of a rapidly changing, and unique political moment Our challenge, and yours, is to live our lives in a way that does not make a mockery of our values."

    Learn about your role in movement-building and how to pick and build campaigns that contribute towards a bigger mass movement against the largest penal system in the world. This important new resource offers examples from this and other movements, time-tested organizing techniques, and vision to inspire, challenge, and motivate.

    Disruptive tactics have failed to halt the rise of Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election. Movements ranging from Black Lives Matter to environmentalism are leaving activists frustrated. Meanwhile, recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance. In The End of Protest Micah White heralds the future of activism. Drawing on his unique experience with Occupy Wall Street, a contagious protest that spread to eighty-two countries, White articulates a unified theory of revolution and eight principles of tactical innovation that are destined to catalyze the next generation of social movements. Despite global challenges—catastrophic climate change, economic collapse and the decline of democracy—White finds reason for optimism: the end of protest inaugurates a new era of social change. On the horizon are increasingly sophisticated movements that will emerge in a bid to challenge elections, govern cities and reorient the way we live. Activists will reshape society by forming a global political party capable of winning elections worldwide. In this provocative playbook, White offers three bold, revolutionary scenarios for harnessing the creativity of people from across the political spectrum. He also shows how social movements are created and how they spread, how materialism limits contemporary activism, and why we must re-conceive protest in timelines of centuries, not days. Rigorous, original and compelling, The End of Protest is an exhilarating vision of an all-encompassing revolution of revolution.

    Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee are three of the most prominent economists today, and in "Common Sense Economics" they show us why economic understanding is an essential ingredient for life in today's society, a key element that empowers those who possess it to better take charge of their own lives and their own responsibilities to their society. In clear, powerful language free of any hint of jargon or obscurity, they illuminate the basic principles of supply and demand, private ownership, trade, and more. In a world where free trade, taxes, and government spending are issues everyone needs to understand, "Common Sense Economics" is a lucid, simple explanation of how and why our economy and our world work the way they do, and how and why individuals and nations prosper.

    Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation—the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments—that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. “The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book” (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein’s invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.

    From that moment on, capitalism grew and expanded with a dynamism and adaptability that are now all too familiar, profiting from wars and even managing to rebound after a series of devastating economic crises. In this highly-anticipated revised edition of the 1981 classic, Beaud extends one of the major strengths of the original: the interweaving of social, political, and economic factors in the context of history. At the same time, Beaud's analysis provides a realistic and thorough examination of the developments of capitalism in the last twenty years, including globalization, the accelerating speed of capital transfer, and the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent absorption of its population into the world market. This new edition also offers a completely revised format that integrates diagrams and flow-charts not previously available in the English-language edition.

    Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.ContentsThe PurposeOf Means and EndsA Word about WordsThe Education of an OrganizerCommunicationIn the BeginningTacticsThe Genesis of Tactic ProxyThe Way Ahead

    LA was a launchpad for Black Power--where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation--and home to the Chicano walkouts and Moratorium, as well as birthplace of "Asian America" as a political identity, base of the antiwar movement, and of course, center of California counterculture.Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive history of LA in the Sixties, drawing on extensive archival research, scores of interviews with principal figures of the 1960s movements, and personal histories (both Davis and Wiener are native Los Angelenos). Following on from Davis's award-winning LA history, City of Quartz, and picking up where the celebrated California historian Kevin Starr left off (his eight-volume history of California ends in 1963), Set the Night on Fire is a fascinating historical corrective, delivered in scintillating and fiercely elegant prose.