The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World


W. Cleon Skousen - 1981
    The truth is that the solutions have been available for a long time -- in the writings of our Founding Fathers -- carefully set forth in this timely book.In The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World, Discover the 28 Principles of Freedom our Founding Fathers said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desire peace, prosperity, and freedom. Learn how adherence to these beliefs during the past 200 years has brought about more progress than was made in the previous 5000 years. These 28 Principles include The Genius of Natural Law, Virtuous and Moral Leaders, Equal Rights--Not Equal Things, and Avoiding the Burden of Debt. Published by the National Center for Constitut

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right


Arlie Russell Hochschild - 2016
    As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Russell Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets – among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident – people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children. Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests. Instead, Russell Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream – and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Russell Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in "red" America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?

Ways of Seeing


John Berger - 1972
    First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has."Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of TellingWinner of the 1972 Booker Prize for his novel, G., John Peter Berger (born November 5th, 1926) is an art critic, painter and author of many novels including A Painter of Our Time, From A to X and Bento’s Sketchbook.

Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials


Malcolm Harris - 2017
    An Australian millionaire says Millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This Millennial is here to prove them all wrong.Millennials have been stereotyped as lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and immature. We've gotten so used to sloppy generational analysis filled with dumb clichés about young people that we've lost sight of what really unites Millennials. Namely:-We are the most educated and hard-working generation in American history.-We poured historic and insane amounts of time and money into preparing ourselves for the 21st century labor market.- We have been taught to consider working for free (homework, internships) a privilege for our own benefit.- We are poorer, more medicated, and more precariously employed than our parents, grandparents, even our great grandparents, with less of a social safety net to boot. Kids These Days, is about why. In brilliant, crackling prose, early Wall Street occupier Malcolm Harris gets mercilessly real about our maligned birth cohort. Examining trends like runaway student debt, the rise of the intern, mass incarceration, social media, and more, Harris gives us a portrait of what it means to be young in America today that will wake you up and piss you off. Millennials were the first generation raised explicitly as investments, Harris argues, and in Kids These Days he dares us to confront and take charge of the consequences now that we are grown up.

Compelling Interest: The Real Story behind Roe v. Wade


Roger Resler - 2012
    Wade Supreme Court decision, the abortion debate has been highly charged and politicized. Questions like these—and passionate but widely varying answers—have become the common language of the public dialogue on this issue. Yet behind the scenes of this historic case are other intriguing questions:·       How did the Supreme Court come to be involved in the abortion debate?·       Was language manipulated to affect the outcome?·       What was the moral basis underlying the decision?In Compelling Interest, author Roger Resler draws on original sources, including the actual transcripts for oral arguments, the majority and minority opinions, and comments by the lawyers and others involved to take a careful look at the real story behind the historic Roe v. Wade decision.Resler includes conversations with experts, including sociology professor Dr. William Brennan, the late Dr. Mildred Jefferson and Dr. Carolyn Gerster who co-founded the National Right to Life Committee, prolific author and speaker Randy Alcorn, bioethics professor Dr. Gerard Magill, perinatologist Dr. James Thorp, and photojournalist Michael Clancy.This carefully researched book speaks with a thought-provoking, balanced voice that stands out from the usual partisan rhetoric on the topic.

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things


Barry Glassner - 1999
    He exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our anxieties: politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime and drug use even as both are declining; advocacy groups that raise money by exaggerating the prevalence of particular diseases; TV news-magazines that monger a new scare every week to garner ratings.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong


James W. Loewen - 1995
    Lies My Teacher Told Me won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship.James W. Loewen, a sociology professor and distinguished critic of history education, puts 12 popular textbooks under the microscope-and what he discovers will surprise you. In his opinion, every one of these texts fails to make its subject interesting or memorable. Worse still is the proliferation of blind patriotism, mindless optimism and misinformation filling the pages.From the truth about Christopher Columbus to the harsh reality of the Vietnam War, Loewen picks apart the lies we've been told. This audiobook, narrated by Brian Keeler (The Hurricane, "All My Children") will forever change your view of the past.

The Declaration of Independence and Other Great Documents of American History 1775-1865


John Grafton - 2000
    Compelling, influential, and often inspirational, they range from Patrick Henry's dramatic "Give me liberty or give me death" speech at the start of the American Revolution to Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, issued in the closing weeks of the Civil War. Also included are the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson's classic rationale for rejecting allegiance to the government of King George III; the Monroe Doctrine, the cornerstone of American foreign policy; and these other landmark statements: The Constitution of the United States James Madison: The Federalist, No. 10George Washington: First Inaugural AddressGeorge Washington: Farewell Address Thomas Jefferson: First Inaugural Address William Lloyd Garrison: Prospectus for The LiberatorAndrew Jackson: Veto of the Bank Bill Abraham Lincoln: First Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln: Emancipation ProclamationAbraham Lincoln: Gettysburg AddressAn introductory note precedes the text of each document, providing fascinating background history and information about the author. An indispensable reference for students, this handy compendium will also serve as an invaluable introduction for general readers to American political writing.

No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner


Robert Shrum - 2007
    Never before have we seen such a penetrating view of the inside drama, tensions, and foibles of champaigns, consultants, and campaigners. Comments Doris Kearns Goodwin, an author.

Charlotte Huck's Children's Literature: A Brief Guide


Barbara Z. Kiefer - 2009
    Expertly designed in a vibrant, full-color format, this streamlined text not only serves as a valuable resource by providing the most current reference lists and examples from which to select texts from all genres, but it also emphasizes the critical skills needed to search for and select literature--researching, evaluating, and implementing quality books in the pre-K-to-8 classroom--to give readers the tools they need to evaluate books, create curriculum, and share the love of literature. It includes unique features that spur critical thinking and direct application in the classroom and curriculum.

Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright


Brendan Gill - 1987
    His works—among them Taliesin North, Taliesin West, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax buildings, the Guggenheim Museum—earned him a good measure of his fame, but his flamboyant personal life earned him the rest. Here Brendan Gill, a personal friend of Wright and his family, gives us not only the fullest, fairest, and most entertaining account of Wright to date, but also strips away the many masks the architect tirelessly constructed to fascinate his admirers and mislead his detractors. Enriched by hitherto unpublished letters and 300 photographs and drawings, this definitive biography makes Wright, in all his creativity, crankiness, and zest, fairly leap from its pages.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life


J. William T. Youngs - 1984
    Youngs (Eastern Washington U.) provides both personal and political details of Eleanor Roosevelt's life, from childhood through and beyond the death of her husband Franklin, exploring her life as First Lady and the following

Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design


Michael Shermer - 2006
    Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology.In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself.Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language


John McWhorter - 2001
    While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment.Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.

American Education: A History


Wayne J. Urban - 1995
    Chronologically organized, it provides an objective overview of each major period in the development of American education, setting the discussion against the broader backdrop of national and world events. The first text to explore Native American traditions (including education) prior to colonization, it also offers strong, ongoing coverage of minorities and women.Key points that define the fourth edition of this volume include:Balanced Perspective - The authors provide contrasting views of American educational traditions, reforms, and theories in order to maintain a balanced view of events. They focus on conflicts, compromises and outcomes (positive and negative) that have defined America's educational past and that shape its future options. They also set discussions against the broader backdrop of national and world events.Pre-colonial Focus - A unique and much praised opening chapter discusses the educational traditions of Native Americans and the two-way learning exchanges that occurred between two distinct "old world" cultures, that is, between Native American and European cultures. The Indians taught as well as learned from the colonists. No other text has this feature.Cultural Conflict Focus - Throughout the text attention is paid to the cultural conflicts embedded in the majority-minority struggles of Native Americans and various immigrant groups throughout the nation's history. Chapter 5: Class, Caste and Education in the South provides an in-depth analysis of the educational legacy of Southern culture throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.Readability - Reviewers have labeled this the "best written text on the market" in terms of style, clarity and interest. "It's clarity and readability differentiate it from other books."Changes - The fourth edition will include more visual illustrations as well as substantial new material. A new epilogue adds closing comments on the present and future prospects for American education.