Book picks similar to
Supreme Decisions, Combined Volume: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact by Melvin I. Urofsky
american-history
college
melting-pot-liquor
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Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism
Walter F. LaFeber - 1999
From basketball prodigy to international phenomenon to seductive commercial ideal, Michael Jordan is the supreme example of how American corporations have used technology in a brave, massively wired new world to sell their products in every corner of the globe. LaFeber's examination of Nike and its particular dominion over the global marketplace is often scathing, while his fascinating mini-biography of Michael Jordan and the commercial history of basketball reveal much about American society. For this new paperback edition, LaFeber has added a chapter on globalization in a changed world, after mass protests and since September 11. "Bold, riveting....Brilliantly illuminates how hyper-US capitalism has spread its financial wings around the globe."—Douglas Brinkley "LaFeber brings an impressive intellect to bear on his subject."—Barbara Rudolph, Chicago Tribune
The Servant Economy: Where America's Elite is Sending the Middle Class
Geoffrey P. Faux - 2012
So how can they continue down the same road? The simple answer, that no in charge one wants to publicly acknowledge: because things are still pretty great for the people who run America. It was an accident of history, Jeff Faux explains, that after World War II the U.S. could afford a prosperous middle class, a dominant military, and a booming economic elite at the same time. For the past three decades, all three have been competing, with the middle class always losing. Soon the military will decline as well.The most plausible projections Faux explores foresee a future economy nearly devoid of production and exports, with the most profitable industries existing to solely to serve the wealthiest 1%The author's last book, The Global Class War, sold over 20,000 copies by correctly predicting the permanent decline of our debt-burdened middle class at the hands of our off-shoring executives, out of control financiers, and their friends in WashingtonSince his last book, Faux is repeatedly asked what either party will do to face these mounting crises. After looking over actual policies, proposed plans, non-partisan reports, and think tank papers, his astonishing conclusion: more of the same.
Anne Orthwood's Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia
John Ruston Pagan - 2002
Orthwood died soon after giving birth; one of the twins, Jasper, survived. Orthwood's illegitimate pregnancy sparked four related cases that came before the Northampton magistrates -- who coincidentally held court in the same tavern -- between 1664 and 1686. These interrelated cases and the decisions rendered in them are notable for the ways in which the Virginia colonists modified English common law traditions and began to create their own, as well as what they reveal about cultural and economic values in an Eastern shore community. Through these cases, the very reasons legal systems are created are revealed, namely, the maintenance of social order, the protection of property interests, the protection of personal reputation, and personal liberty. Through Jasper Orthwood's life, the treatment of the poor in small communities is set in sharp relief.Anne Orthwood's Bastard was the winner of the 2003 Prize in Atlantic History, American Historical Association.
Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams
Ed Linn - 1993
But the tag that really fits is Hitter. “A riveting retrospective” (Baseball americanca). Index; career statistics; photographs.
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
Edmund S. Morgan - 1953
The Stamp Act Crisis, originally published by UNC Press in 1953, identifies the issues that caused the confrontation and explores the ways in which the conflict was a prelude to the American Revolution.
The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary
George Breitman - 1967
Evaluates the experiences and teachings of the black leader during his final year of life.
Land of the Spotted Eagle
Luther Standing Bear - 1978
In addition to describing the customs, manners, and traditions of the Teton Sioux, Standing Bear also offered general comments about the importance of Native cultures and values and the status of Indian peoples in American society. With the assistance of Melvin R. Gilmore, curator of ethnology at the University of Michigan, and Warcaziwin, Standing Bear’s niece and secretary, Standing Bear sought to tell the white man “just how” they “lived as Lakotans.” Land of the Spotted Eagle is generously interspersed with personal reminiscences and anecdotes, including chapters on child rearing, social and political organization, family, religion, and manhood. Standing Bear's views on Indian affairs and his suggestions for the improvement of white-Indian relations are presented in the two closing chapters.
The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe
Francis La Flesche - 1900
It is a simple, affecting tale of young Indian boys midway between two cultures, reluctant to abandon the ways of their fathers, and puzzled and uncomfortable in their new roles of "make-believe white men." The ambition of the Indian parents for their children, the struggle of the teachers to acquaint their charges with a new world of learning, and especially the problems met by both parents and teachers in controlling and directing schoolboy exuberance contribute to the authen-ticity of this portrait of the "Universal Boy," to whom La Flesche dedicated his book. Regarded by anthropologists as a classic of Native American literature, it is one of those rare books that are valued by the specialist as authentic sources of information about Indian culture and yet can be recommended wholeheartedly to the general reader, especially to young people in high school and the upper grades, as a useful corrective to the often distorted picture of Indian life seen in movies, comics, and television.
War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler and America in a Time of Unrest
Michael Rosenberg - 2008
Award-winning columnist Michael Rosenberg chronicles the days of campus unrest and civil turmoil during the Vietnam War years as seen through the prism of two legendary college football coaches, Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.
The Gilded Years
Karin Tanabe - 2016
Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself rooming with Louise “Lottie” Taylor, the scion of one of New York’s most prominent families. Though Anita has kept herself at a distance from her classmates, Lottie’s sphere of influence is inescapable, her energy irresistible, and the two become fast friends. Pulled into her elite world, Anita learns what it’s like to be treated as a wealthy, educated white woman—the person everyone believes her to be—and even finds herself in a heady romance with a moneyed Harvard student. It’s only when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita’s brother, Frederick, whose skin is almost as light as his sister’s, that the situation becomes particularly perilous. And as Anita’s college graduation looms, those closest to her will be the ones to dangerously threaten her secret. Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Gilded Age, an era when old money traditions collided with modern ideas, Tanabe has written an unputdownable and emotionally compelling story of hope, sacrifice, and betrayal—and a gripping account of how one woman dared to risk everything for the chance at a better life.
The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal
Tom McBride - 2011
Now this fascinating book extends the Mindset List approach to dramatize what it was like to grow up for every American generation since 1880, showcasing the remarkable changes in what Americans have considered "normal" about the world around them.Expands Tom McBride and Ron Nief's popular annual Mindset Lists to explore the mindset of nine generations of Americans, from 1880 to the future high school graduates of 2030Offers a novel and absorbing way to understand the frame of reference of Americans through history, whether it's the high school grads of 1918, who viewed riding an elevator as a thrill second only to roller coasters, or those of 2009, who have always thought of "friend" as an active verbPuts a human face on the evolution of historical changes related to technology, the struggle for rights and equality, the calamities of war and depression, and other areasThe annual Mindset List garners extensive media attention, including on Today, The Early Show, the NBC Nightly News, CNN, and Fox as well as in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, and hundreds of international publicationsWhatever your own generational mindset, this book will give you an entertaining and important new tool for understanding the unique perspective and experience of Americans over more than a hundred and fifty years.
An Illustrated History of the USA
Bryn O'Callaghan - 1990
It traces the history of the USA from the time of the Amerindians, through to the arrival of the Europeans, to the present day. Topics covered include colonial life, the Civil War and the American involvement in Vietnam.
The Civil War: A Concise History
Louis P. Masur - 2011
Louis P. Masur's The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book thenproceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimatelybecame a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose storiesconstitute nothing less than America's Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for yearsto come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations. From the vantage of the war's sesquicentennial, this concise history of the entire Civil War era offersan invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.
The Lincoln Assassination
John Butler Ford - 2015
But there is far more to the story, including the bizarre scheme that Booth first concocted to kidnap Lincoln and trade him for Confederate soldiers held in Northern prisons. Here is the full story of the plot, the bumbling plotters that Booth recruited, Lincoln's lingering death, the manhunt for the assassin, and the trial of the conspirators. It is essential knowledge of a tragedy that shaped America for a century to come.
FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America
Burton W. Folsom Jr. - 2011
Did World War II really end the Great Depression—or did President Franklin Roosevelt’s poor judgment and confused management leave Congress with a devastating fiscal mess after the final bomb was dropped? In this provocative new book, historians Burton W. Folsom, Jr., and Anita Folsom make a compelling case that FDR’s presidency led to evasive and self-serving wartime policies. At a time when most Americans held isolationist sentiments—a backlash against the stunning carnage of World War I—Roosevelt secretly favored an aggressive interventionist foreign policy. Yet, throughout the 1930s, he spent lavishly on his disastrous New Deal programs and slashed defense spending, leaving America vastly unprepared for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the challenge of fighting World War II. History books tell us the wartime economy was a boon, thanks to massive government spending. But the skyrocketing national debt, food rations, nonexistent luxuries, crippling taxes, labor strikes, and dangerous work of the time tell a different story—one that is hardly the stuff of recovery. Instead, the war ushered in a new era of imperialism for the executive branch. Roosevelt seized private property, conducted illegal wiretaps, tried to silence domestic opposition, and interned 110,000 Japanese Americans. He set a dangerous precedent for entangling alliances in foreign affairs, including his remarkable courtship of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, while millions of Americans showed the courage, perseverance, and fortitude to make the weapons and fight the war. Was Roosevelt a great wartime leader, as historians almost unanimously assert? The Folsoms offer a thought-provoking revision of his controversial legacy. FDR Goes to War will make America take a second look at one of its most complicated presidents.