Book picks similar to
Wedding Within the War by Michael Rossman
political-commentary
sexy-like-champagne
american-history
documentary-narrative
Drum Taps
Walt Whitman - 1865
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
Eric Liu - 2011
Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today--generate these simple but revolutionary ideas:True self interest is mutual interest. (Society, it turns out, is an ecosystem that is healthiest when we take care of the whole.)Society becomes how we behave. (The model of citizenship depends on contagious behavior, hence positive behavior begets positive behavior.)We’re all better off when we’re all better off. (The economy is not an efficient machine. It’s an effective garden that need tending. Adjust the definition of wealth to society creating solutions for all.)Government should be about the big what and the little how. (Government should establish the ideas and the goals, and then let the people find the solutions of how to make it happen.)Freedom is responsibility. (True freedom is not about living some variant of libertarianism but rather an active cooperation a part of a big whole society; freedom costs a little freedom.)The Gardens of Democracy is an optimistic, provocative, and timely summons to improve our role as citizens in a democratic society.
Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
Barack Obama - 2010
From the artistry of Georgia O'Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington, President Obama sees the traits of these heroes within his own children, and within all of America’s children. Breathtaking, evocative illustrations by award-winning artist Loren Long at once capture the personalities and achievements of these great Americans and the innocence and promise of childhood. This beautiful book celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans, from our nation’s founders to generations to come. It is about the potential within each of us to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths. It is a treasure to cherish with your family forever.From the Hardcover edition.
Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie
Linda Pressman - 2011
As the child of two Holocaust Survivors, Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie tells the story of growing up with parents who have survived the unsurvivable, who land in Skokie, an idyllic northern suburb of Chicago, where they're suddenly free to live their lives, yet they find that their past has arrived with them. Through the pages of this book the author discovers that past, discovers why outside the house is the magic of her Skokie childhood but inside the Nazis are forever on the march, and ultimately finds that her parents' stories are her own.
The Death of Conservatism
Sam Tanenhaus - 2009
Now Tanenhaus, a leading authority on modern politics, has expanded his argument into a sweeping history of the American conservative movement. For seventy-five years, he argues, the Right has been split between two factions: consensus-driven “realists” who believe in the virtue of government and its power to adjust to changing conditions, and movement “revanchists” who distrust government and society–and often find themselves at war with America itself. Eventually, Tanenhaus writes, the revanchists prevailed, and the result is the decadent “movement conservatism” of today, a defunct ideology that is “profoundly and defiantly unconservative–in its arguments and ideas, its tactics and strategies, above all in its vision.”But there is hope for conservatism. It resides in the examples of pragmatic leaders like Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan and thinkers like Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley, Jr. Each came to understand that the true role of conservatism is not to advance a narrow ideological agenda but to engage in a serious dialogue with liberalism and join with it in upholding “the politics of stability.” Conservatives today need to rediscover the roots of this honorable tradition. It is their only route back to the center of American politics. At once succinct and detailed, penetrating and nuanced, The Death of Conservatism is a must-read for Americans of any political persuasion.
Complete Writings
Phillis Wheatley - 2001
Struck by Phillis' extraordinary precociousness, the Wheatleys provided her with an education that was unusual for a woman of the time and astonishing for a slave. After studying English and classical literature, geography, the Bible, and Latin, Phillis published her first poem in 1767 at the age of 14, winning much public attention and considerable fame. When Boston publishers who doubted its authenticity rejected an initial collection of her poetry, Wheatley sailed to London in 1773 and found a publisher there for Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.This volume collects both Wheatley's letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions--including a poignant plea to the Earl of Dartmouth urging freedom for America and comparing the country's condition to her own. With her contemplative elegies and her use of the poetic imagination to escape an unsatisfactory world, Wheatley anticipated the Romantic Movement of the following century. The appendices to this edition include poems of Wheatley's contemporary African-American poets: Lucy Terry, Jupiter Harmon, and Francis Williams.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
Russell Muirhead - 2019
But conspiracists today have introduced something new--conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence--especially facts ominously withheld by official sources--to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition (exemplified by the Trump catchphrase "a lot of people are saying") and bare assertion ("rigged!").The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations--political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy.Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today's politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat.
Brothers and Warriors
Geoff Baggett - 2016
Oppression, privation, and fear overwhelm the villages and homesteads of North and South Carolina. The Patriot cause seems all but lost. James and John Hamilton are violently drawn into the war by forces seemingly beyond their control. Since their early childhood these brothers have survived rejection, hunger, death, tragedy and loss. But will they survive the bloody onslaught and depravity of the Redcoats and their Tory allies? Can they spill the blood of their enemies and still hold on to compassion and humanity? Will they ever again know the peace of their humble cabin in the Carolina forest? Brothers and Warriors is the tumultuous, triumphant story of brothers fighting and surviving for home, justice, love, and freedom … and for one another.
James Madison: Writings
James Madison - 1999
Arranged chronologically, it contains almost 200 documents written between 1772, the year after Madison's graduation from Princeton, and his death in 1836. Included are all 29 of Madison's contributions to The Federalist as well as speeches and letters that illuminate his role in framing and ratifying the Constitution. Also represented are early writings on religious freedom; correspondence with figures such as Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Monroe; writings from his terms as secretary of state and president; and letters and essays written during retirement.
The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War
Louise Steinman - 2001
mailed home a Japanese flag. Fifty years later, his daughter unfolded the past. Growing up, Louise Steinman knew little about her father's experiences in World War II. All she knew was that the whistling teakettle was banned from the kitchen and that she was never to cry in front of him. Years later, after her parents' death, she found an old ammunition box, filled with nearly five hundred letters her father had written to her mother during the War. She also found a silk Japanese flag inscribed to Yoshio Shimizu. Who was Yoshio Shimizu and why did her father have his flag? So began Steinman's quest to return this "souvenir" to its owner, and in the process, to learn more about the war that transformed the expressive young man in those letters into the reserved father she had known. Weaving together her father's raw, poignant letters with her own journey, Steinman presents a powerful view of how war changed one generation and shaped another.
The Vietnam War: A Very Brief History
Mark Black - 2012
For many, it defined a generation.The Very Brief History series is intended to give the reader a short, concise account of the most important events in world history. Each book provides the reader with the essential facts concerning a particular event or person; no distractions, just the essential facts, allowing the reader to master the subject in the shortest time possible. With The Very Brief History series, anyone can become a history expert!
The Vietnam Air War: From The Cockpit
Dennis M. Ridnouer - 2018
Showcasing seventy-two true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. There is no political agenda. There is no partisan opinion. There is no romanticizing. These are simply tales from the thick of an endlessly complex conflict, raw and uncut, told directly by the men who were foisted into its napalm- and sweat-soaked clutches. Occasionally funny, sometimes tragic, and often harrowing, these true accounts bring new and personal perspectives to one of the most studied and most maligned wars in America’s history, revealing with no Hollywood glamorizing what the war was really like for members of the US Air Force of all ranks and myriad functions who answered the call to fight. They saw no choice but to follow the orders they were given. And for better or for worse, by the time they returned, each of them would be changed forever.
Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles
W.E.B. Du Bois - 1986
This Library of America volume presents his essential writings, covering the full span of a restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice.The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.