A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


Ronald Takaki - 1993
    In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a re-visioning - of our nation's past.

The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America


Susan Faludi - 2007
    Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore "traditional" manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? Why did an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation lead us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling "security moms," swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the "rescue" of a female soldier cast as a "helpless little girl"? The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite "barbarians" on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms. Brilliant and important, The Terror Dream shows what 9/11 revealed about us--and offers the opportunity to look at ourselves anew.

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics


bell hooks - 2000
    In engaging and provocative style, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. Hers is a vision of a beloved community that appeals to all those committed to equality, mutual respect, and justice. hooks applies her critical analysis to the most contentious and challenging issues facing feminists today, including reproductive rights, violence, race, class, and work. With her customary insight and unsparing honesty, hooks calls for a feminism free from barriers but rich with rigorous debate. In language both eye-opening and optimistic, hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture, and to imagine a different future.

Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation


Margaret Mead - 1928
      It details her historic journey to American Samoa, taken where she was just twenty-three, where she did her first fieldwork.  Here, for the first time, she presented to the public the idea that the individual experience of developmental stages could be shaped by cultural demands and expectations.  Adolescence, she wrote, might be more or less stormy, and sexual development more or less problematic in different cultures.  The "civilized" world, she taught us had much to learn from the "primitive."  Now this groundbreaking, beautifully written work as been reissued for the centennial of her birth, featuring introductions by Mary Pipher and by Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.

Writing a Woman's Life


Carolyn G. Heilbrun - 1988
    A woman's journey ended at the altar. Professor Heilbrun notes that the diversity of women's lives now makes it possible for women to dare to choose their own scripts.

Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters”


Kim Todd - 2021
    In various disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians. Inventive writers whose in-depth narratives made headlines for weeks at a stretch, these "girl stunt reporters" changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and redefined journalism for the modern age.The 1880s and 1890s witnessed a revolution in journalism as publisher titans like Hearst and Pulitzer used weapons of innovation and scandal to battle it out for market share. As they sought new ways to draw readers in, they found their answer in young women flooding into cities to seek their fortunes. When Nellie Bly went undercover into Blackwell’s Insane Asylum for Women and emerged with a scathing indictment of what she found there, the resulting sensation created opportunity for a whole new wave of writers. In a time of few jobs and few rights for women, here was a path to lives of excitement and meaning.After only a decade of headlines and fame, though, these trailblazers faced a vicious public backlash. Accused of practicing "yellow journalism," their popularity waned until "stunt reporter" became a badge of shame. But their influence on the field of journalism would arc across a century, from the Progressive Era "muckraking" of the 1900s to the personal "New Journalism" of the 1960s and ’70s, to the "immersion journalism" and "creative nonfiction" of today. Bold and unconventional, these writers changed how people would tell stories forever.

Privilege, Power, and Difference


Allan G. Johnson - 2001
    Written in an accessible, conversational style, Johnson links theory with engaging examples in ways that enable readers to see the underlying nature and consequences of privilege and their connection to it. This extraordinarily successful book has been used across the country, both inside and outside the classroom, to shed light on issues of power and privilege.Allan Johnson has worked on issues of social inequality since receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1972. He has more than thirty years of teaching experience and is a frequent speaker on college and university campuses. Johnson has earned a reputation for writing that is exceptionally clear and explanations of complex ideas that are accessible to a broad audience.Instructors and students can now access their course content through the Connect digital learning platform by purchasing either standalone Connect access or a bundle of print and Connect access. McGraw-Hill Connect(R) is a subscription-based learning service accessible online through your personal computer or tablet. Choose this option if your instructor will require Connect to be used in the course. Your subscription to Connect includes the following:- SmartBook(R) - an adaptive digital version of the course textbook that personalizes your reading experience based on how well you are learning the content.- Access to your instructor's homework assignments, quizzes, syllabus, notes, reminders, and other important files for the course.- Progress dashboards that quickly show how you are performing on your assignments and tips for improvement.- The option to purchase (for a small fee) a print version of the book. This binder-ready, loose-leaf version includes free shipping.Complete system requirements to use Connect can be found here: http: //www.mheducation.com/highered/platform...

The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir


Alice S. Rossi - 1973
    Her introductions to each section are informative and written with nonpolemical grace. -- Doris Grumbach, New RepublicIntroduction : analysis versus action --"Remember the Ladies": Abigail Adams vs. John Adams --Selected letters from the Adams family correspondence --Away from puddings and garments : Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) --On the equality of the sexes / Judith Sargent Murray --Champion of womankind: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) --A vindication of the rights of woman / Mary Wollstonecraft --Woman of Action: Frances Wright (1795-1852) --Education ; Of free enquiry / Frances Wright --The first woman sociologist: Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) --Society in America / Harriet Martineau --The making of a cosmopolitan humanist: Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) --The great lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus women / Margaret fuller --Prestige from the other sex: John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) --The subjection of women / John Stuart Mill. Introduction: social roots of the woman's movement in America --From abolition to sex equity: Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimké (1805-1879) --Appeal to the Christian woman of the South / Angelina Grimké --Letters on the equality of the sexes and the condition of women / Sarah Grimké --Letters to Catherine Beecher / Angelina Grimké --The Blackwell Clan --Medicine as a profession for women / Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell --Sex and evolution / Antoinette Brown Blackwell --A feminist friendship: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) --Motherhood / Elizabeth Cady Stanton --Introduction to The Woman's Bible / Elizabeth Cady Stanton --Along the Suffrage Trail --Selections from the History of Woman Suffrage --Seneca Falls convention --Reminiscences of Emily Collins --The Akron Convention --The Newport convention --The Kansas Campaign of 1867 --Political equality for women. Introduction: feminism and class politics --Marriage and property: Friedrich Engles (1820-1895) --The origin of the family / Friedrich Engels --Working-class socialist: August Bebel (1840-1913) --Woman and socialism / August Bebel --Red Emma on women: Emma Goldman (1869-1940) --The tragedy of woman's emancipation / Emma Goldman --the right to one's body: Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) --My fight for birth control : Birth Control- a parent's problem or woman's? / Margaret Sanger --Beware the State: Suzanne LaFollette (b. 1893) --Concerning Women / Suzanne LaFollette --The "Militant Madonna": Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) --Women and Econommics / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --Pioneer on the urban frontier: Jane Addams (1860-1935) --Utilization of women in city Government / Jane Addams --Introduction: Feminism and intellectual complexity. Guineas and locks: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) --A room of one's own / Virginia Woolf --Cultural stretch: Margaret Mead (b.1901) --Sex and temperament / Margaret Mead --A not-so rebellious "other": Simone de Beauvoir (b. 1908) --The second sex / Simone de Beauvoir

Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War


Virginia Nicholson - 2006
    Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows how the single woman of the inter-war years had to depend on herself and, in doing so, helped change society.

Full Frontal Feminism


Jessica Valenti - 2007
    It just isn't very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com.This revised edition includes a new foreword by Valenti, reflecting upon what’s happened in the five years since Full Frontal Feminism was originally published. With new openers from Valenti in every chapter, the book covers a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more.Chapters include:You’re a Hardcore Feminist. I Swear.Feminists Do It Better (and Other Sex Tips)Pop Culture Gone WildThe Blame (and Shame) GameIf These Uterine Walls Could TalkMy Big Fat Unnecessary Wedding and Other Dating Diseases“Real” Women Have BabiesI Promise I Won’t Say “Herstory”Boys Do CryBeauty CultSex and the City Voters, My AssValenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues or belaboring where today's young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with. Full Frontal Feminism is sending out the message to readers—yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty frigging cool.

Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote


Janet Theophano - 2002
    In Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives through the Cookbooks They Wrote, Janet Theophano shows that cookbooks provide food for the mind and the soul as well. Looking beyond the ingredients and instructions, she shows how women have used cookbooks to assert their individuality, develop their minds, and structure their lives. Beginning in the seventeenth century and moving up through the present day, Theophano reads between the lines of recipes for dandelion wine, "Queen of Puddings," and half-pound cake to capture the stories and voices of these remarkable women.The selection of books looked at is enticing and wide-ranging. Theophano begins with seventeenth-century English estate housekeeping books that served as both cookbooks and reading primers so that women could educate themselves during long hours in the kitchen. She looks at A Date with a Dish, a classic African American cookbook that reveals the roots of many traditional American dishes, and she brings to life a 1950s cookbook written specifically for Americans by a Chinese émigré and transcribed into English by her daughter. Finally, Theophano looks at the contemporary cookbooks of Lynne Rosetto Kaspar, Madeleine Kamman, and Alice Waters to illustrate the sophistication and political activism present in modern cookbook writing. Janet Theophano harvests the rich history of cookbook writing to show how much more can be learned from a recipe than how to make a casserole, roast a chicken, or bake a cake. We discover that women's writings about food reveal--and revel in--the details of their lives, families, and the cultures they help to shape.

Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty


Annelise Orleck - 2005
    Declaring "We can do it and do it better," these women proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty. In 1972 they founded Operation Life, which was responsible for many firsts for the poor in Las Vegas-the first library, medical center, daycare center, job training, and senior citizen housing. By the late 1970s, Operation Life was bringing millions of dollars into the community. These women became influential in Washington, DC-respected and listened to by political heavyweights such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter. Though they lost their funding with the country's move toward conservatism in the 1980s, their struggles and phenomenal triumphs still stand as a critical lesson about what can be achieved when those on welfare chart their own course.

A Queer History of the United States


Michael Bronski - 2011
    Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to “Publick Universal Friend,” refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized “female marriage.” And in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. These are just a few moments of queer history that Michael Bronski highlights in this groundbreaking book.   Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, A Queer History of the United States is more than a “who’s who” of queer history: it is a book that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, noted scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the 1990s, and has written a testament to how the LGBT experience has profoundly shaped our country, culture, and history.  A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history—the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today.   At heart, A Queer History of the United States is simply about American history. It is a book that will matter both to LGBT people and heterosexuals. This engrossing and revelatory history will make readers appreciate just how queer America really is.

Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Political Issues


George McKenna - 1978
    Presents clashing views on political issues which are provided in a debate-style format designed to develop critical thinking skills in a student.

What They Fought for, 1861-1865


James M. McPherson - 1994
    McPherson presented a fascinating, concise general history of the defining American conflict. With What They Fought For, he focuses his considerable talents on what motivated the individual soldier to fight. In an exceptional and highly original Civil War analysis, McPherson draws on the letters and diaries of nearly one thousand Union and Confederate soldiers, giving voice to the very men who risked their lives in the conflict. His conclusion that most of them felt a keen sense of patriotic and ideological commitment counters the prevailing belief that Civil War soldiers had little or no idea of what they were fighting for. In their letters home and their diaries--neither of which were subject to censorship--these men were able to comment, in writing, on a wide variety of issues connected with their war experience. Their insights show how deeply felt and strongly held their convictions were and reveal far more careful thought on the ideological issues of the war than has previously been thought to be true. Living only eighty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Civil War soldiers felt the legacy and responsibility entrusted to them by the Founding Fathers to preserve fragile democracy--be it through secession or union--as something worth dying for. In What They Fought For, McPherson takes individual voices and places them in the great and terrible choir of a country divided against itself. The result is both an impressive scholarly tour de force and a lively, highly accessible account of the sentiments of both Northern and Southern soldiers during the national trauma of the Civil War.