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American Bulk: Essays on Excess
by Emily MesterRaised with hoarding and compulsive shopping, Emily Mester is caught in between. What happens when consumption begins to consume you back? In a series of deeply personal essays, Mester explores how the things we buy, eat, amass, and discard become an intimate part of our lives. We guiltily watch Amazon boxes pile up on the porch, wade through endless reviews to find the perfect product, and crave the comforting indulgence of a chain restaurant. With humor and sharp intellect, Mester reflects on the joys and anxieties of Costco trips, how a seasonal stint at Ulta Beauty taught her the insidious art of the sale, and what it means to get “mall sad.” In a nuanced examination of diet culture and fatness, Mester recounts her teenage summer at fat camp and the unexpected liberation she finds there. Finally, she ventures to Storm Lake, Iowa, to reckon with her grandmother’s abandoned hoard, excavating the dysfunction that lies at the heart of her family’s obsession with stuff. American Bulk introduces readers to a striking new literary talent from the American heartland, one who dares to ask us to regard consumption not with guilt but with grace and empathy.
American Bulldog
by Wil Deveer Abe FishmanOnce a well-kept secret in the United States, the American Bulldog is now one of the nation's most celebrated canine exports, establishing a devoted following around the globe. This Comprehensive Owner's Guide is dedicated to the American Bulldog, a breed that was once used as a ranch and farm dog but today excels as a companion and protection dog. Author Abe Fishman provides a controversial but wholly candid retelling of the breed's history and its re-creation in the United States. The history chapter is followed by a chapter devoted to the characteristics of this exceptional working breed, offering sound advice about which owners are best suited to this vigorous and active canine.New owners will welcome the well-prepared chapter on finding a reputable breeder and selecting a healthy, sound puppy. Chapters on puppy-proofing the home and yard, purchasing the right supplies for the puppy as well as house-training, feeding, and grooming are illustrated with photographs of handsome adults and puppies. In all, there are over 135 full-color photographs in this useful and reliable volume. The author's advice on obedience training will help the reader better mold and train into the most well-mannered dog in the neighborhood. The extensive and lavishly illustrated chapter on healthcare provides up-to-date detailed information on selecting a qualified veterinarian, vaccinations, preventing and dealing with parasites, infectious diseases, and more. Sidebars throughout the text offer helpful hints, covering topics as diverse as historical dogs, breeders, or kennels, toxic plants, first aid, crate training, carsickness, fussy eaters, and parasite control. Fully indexed. .
American Bureaucracy
by Warren G BennisLike it or not, contemporary man is man-in-bureaucracy. He spends the majority of his waking hours in a bureaucracy; establishes an identity and status in a bureaucracy; garners most of his satisfactions and disappointments in a bureaucracy; and, increasingly, he is what he does.Aside from the importance of understanding those institutions that shape our values, behavior, and experience, bureaucracy is a vital area for study because it reveals a wide range of social behavior in a compact and comprehensible way. The abstract and ephemeral problems of society at large are brought down to earth —made measurable, comprehensible and visible in the bureaucratic microcosm. Problems of power and influence, change and innovation, intergroup conflict, ambition and aspiration, self-realization versus participative democracy, technology versus humanism: all can be observed and analyzed in human organizations.This volume pinpoints the dilemma of present bureaucratic organizations: the conflict between the need to sustain innovation and bureaucratic drives toward rationality and stability. The essays it contains discuss specific human needs that bureaucracy must meet if it is to continue to attract talented people and takes a step into the future to analyze the kinds of organizations that may be expected to evolve as institutions seek more flexible use of human resources.
American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail (America in the Nineteenth Century)
by Sarah KeyesIn popular mythology, the Overland Trail is typically a triumphant tale, with plucky easterners crossing the Plains in caravans of covered wagons. But not everyone reached Oregon and California. Some 6,600 migrants perished along the way and were buried where they fell, often on Indigenous land. As historian Sarah Keyes illuminates, their graves ultimately became the seeds of U.S. expansion.By the 1850s, cholera epidemics, ordinary diseases, and violence had remade the Trail into an American burial ground that imbued migrant deaths with symbolic power. In subsequent decades, U.S. officials and citizens leveraged Trail graves to claim Native ground. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples pointed to their own sacred burial grounds to dispute these same claims and maintain their land. These efforts built on anti-removal campaigns of the 1820s and 30s, which had established the link between death and territorial claims on which the significance of the Overland Trail came to rest.In placing death at the center of the history of the Overland Trail, American Burial Ground offers a sweeping and long overdue reinterpretation of this historic touchstone. In this telling, westward migration was a harrowing journey weighed down by the demands of caring for the sick and dying. From a tale of triumph comes one of struggle, defined as much by Indigenous peoples’ actions as it was by white expansion. And, finally, from a migration to the Pacific emerges instead a trail of graves. Graves that ultimately undergirded Native dispossession.
American Business Cycles 1945-50
by Conrad BlythAfter the end of the Second World War businessmen and economists throughout the world feared that the American postwar inflationary boom would end in a serious slump. The slump took a long time to come, and when it did appear in 1949 it was both mild and short lived. In its mildness and brevity it foreshadowed the American business recessions since that time and, indeed, may foreshadow the end of the business cycle as it has been known in the past. This book presents the first full-scale study of the 1948–49 recession in the United States, making it the focal point of a detailed, analytical account of American business fluctuations from the end of the Second World War until the beginning of the Korean War. The main part of the book is prefaced by a review of fluctuations from 1945 to 1967 and of the business cycle theory, which places the postwar events in perspective. Of special importance are the studies of the ending, in early 1948, of the period of re-stocking and re-equipment; of the impact of the changed farm situation in this deflationary atmosphere, and use of modern consumption theory to explain the changes in household spending after the war and during the recession. Dr. Blyth has drawn extensively upon the results of modern economic research, and has woven the econometric findings and the historical narrative together with a theoretical analysis. He conclusively rejects the theory that recent U.S. business cycles are the result of any largely self-perpetuating fluctuation in investment in stocks. Instead he draws attention to the persistent destabilizing roles of changes in defense expenditure and of changes in monetary policy-inventory investment performs the largely passive role of aggravating these changes. The book, first published in 1969, will be of value not only to specialists in business cycle studies, but to economists and others concerned with the problems of stability and growth in the international economy, as well as to economic historians.
American Business Regulation: Understand, Survive and Thrive
by William LesserWhile there are lengthy texts discussing the economics of why and how governments regulate business and apply antitrust, this book is unique in providing the details of current business regulation in many industries through lengthy examples the author develops with the use of cases, including Harvard Business School cases. Students are then guided to devise business strategies of introducing new products within the scope of regulation (known or unknown). While the economic theories of regulation are covered, the focus of this text is a "hands-on coping" with regulation and using regulation as a business strategy to deal with competitors. Online instructor's materials are also available for adopters.
American Business Since 1920: How It Worked (The American History Series #29)
by Thomas K. McCraw William R. ChildsTells the story of how America’s biggest companies began, operated, and prospered post-World War I This book takes the vantage point of people working within companies as they responded to constant change created by consumers and technology. It focuses on the entrepreneur, the firm, and the industry, by showing—from the inside—how businesses operated after 1920, while offering a good deal of Modern American social and cultural history. The case studies and contextual chapters provide an in-depth understanding of the evolution of American management over nearly 100 years. American Business Since 1920: How It Worked presents historical struggles with decision making and the trend towards relative decentralization through stories of extraordinarily capable entrepreneurs and the organizations they led. It covers: Henry Ford and his competitor Alfred Sloan at General Motors during the 1920s; Neil McElroy at Procter & Gamble in the 1930s; Ferdinand Eberstadt at the government’s Controlled Materials Plan during World War II; David Sarnoff at RCA in the 1950s and 1960s; and Ray Kroc and his McDonald’s franchises in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first; and more. It also delves into such modern success stories as Amazon.com, eBay, and Google. Provides deep analysis of some of the most successful companies of the 20th century Contains topical chapters covering titans of the 2000s Part of Wiley-Blackwell’s highly praised American History Series American Business Since 1920: How It Worked is designed for use in both basic and advanced courses in American history, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
American Business and Foreign Policy: Cases in Coffee and Cocoa Trade Regulation 1961-1974 (Routledge Library Editions: International Trade Policy #1)
by Joseph ShortDeveloping countries have for many decades waged a campaign for the global regulation of trade in primary products through international commodity agreements. Heavily dependent upon exports of primary products, developing countries hope to regulate the markets for their commodities to achieve higher prices. While there is a myriad of obstacles to agreements, the blame for slow progress is often laid at the feet of the industrial, commodity-consuming countries, particularly the US. This book, first published in 1987, is a comparative case study that closely analyses how American businesses behaved in relation to US government responses to developing countries’ demands for commodity agreements for coffee and cocoa.
American Business and Public Policy: The politics of foreign trade
by Theodore DraperAmerican Business and Public Policy is a study of the politics of foreign trade. It challenges fifty years of writ-ing on pressure politics. It includes nine hundred interviews with heads of corporations, including 166 of the 200 largest corporations; another 500 interviews with congressmen, lob-byists, journalists, and opinion leaders; and eight community studies making this book the most intensive survey in print of the politics of business. It is a realistic behavioral examination of a major type of economic decision.The authors introduce their study with a history of the tariff as a political issue in American politics and a history of American tariff legislation in the years from Europe's trade recovery under the Marshall Plan to the challenge of the Common Market. They examine in succession the changing attitudes of the general public and the political actions of the business community, the lobbies, and Congress.American Business and Public Policy is a contribution to social theory in several of its branches. It is a contribution to understanding the business community, to the social psychol-ogy of communication and attitude change, to the study of political behavior in foreign policy.American Business and Public Policy is at once a study of a classic issue in American politics the tariff; decision-making, particularly the relation of economic to social-psycho-logical theories of behavior; business communication what businessmen read about world affairs, what effect foreign travel has on them, where they turn for political advice, and how they seek political help; pressure politics, lobbying, and the Congressional process.
American By Degrees
by Robert J. YoungThe expressions of American hostility toward France after 9/11 are not new - Franco-American relations in the early twentieth century were also difficult, characterized by the same antagonistic depictions of the other's culture. Ambassador Jules Jusserand's years in Washington (1903-24) were defined by efforts to correct such misconceptions, whether they came from the venomous pens of French extremists or from members of William Randolph Hearst's press empire. In An American by Degrees Robert Young explores Ambassador Jusserand's life and legacy. Fluent in English, married to an American, and a historian who was a frequent guest at many American universities, Jusserand deftly cultivated American sympathies for France. His tasks as a diplomat were formidable, whether during the period of America's war-time neutrality - when France was nearly over-run by the German army - or when as allies they competed for control of the peace process or sought to resolve post-war issues like disarmament, war debts, and reparations. Jusserand relentlessly reminded Americans that France had been an ally during their Revolution and that their concept of "civilization" was part of France's intellectual and cultural legacy. His emphasis on their shared history was natural, as befitted the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History and only the second foreigner to serve as president of the American Historical Association.
American By Degrees: The Extraordinary Lives of French Ambassador Jules Jusserand
by Robert J. YoungThe expressions of American hostility toward France after 9/11 are not new - Franco-American relations in the early twentieth century were also difficult, characterized by the same antagonistic depictions of the other's culture. Ambassador Jules Jusserand's years in Washington (1903-24) were defined by efforts to correct such misconceptions, whether they came from the venomous pens of French extremists or from members of William Randolph Hearst's press empire. In An American by Degrees Robert Young explores Ambassador Jusserand's life and legacy. Fluent in English, married to an American, and a historian who was a frequent guest at many American universities, Jusserand deftly cultivated American sympathies for France. His tasks as a diplomat were formidable, whether during the period of America's war-time neutrality - when France was nearly over-run by the German army - or when as allies they competed for control of the peace process or sought to resolve post-war issues like disarmament, war debts, and reparations. Jusserand relentlessly reminded Americans that France had been an ally during their Revolution and that their concept of "civilization" was part of France's intellectual and cultural legacy. His emphasis on their shared history was natural, as befitted the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History and only the second foreigner to serve as president of the American Historical Association.
American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and Recipes Behind More Than 125 of Our Best-Loved Cakes
by Anne ByrnTaste your way through America with more than 125 recipes for our favorite historical cakes and frostings.Cakes in America aren't just about sugar, flour, and frosting. They have a deep, rich history that developed as our country grew. Cakes, more so than other desserts, are synonymous with celebration and coming together for happy times. They're an icon of American culture, reflecting heritage, region, season, occasion, and era. And they always have been, throughout history.In American Cake, Anne Byrn, creator of the New York Times bestselling series The Cake Mix Doctor, takes you on a journey through America's past to present with more than 125 authentic recipes for our best-loved and beautiful cakes and frostings. Tracing cakes chronologically from the dark, moist gingerbread of New England to the elegant pound cake, the hardscrabble Appalachian stack cake, war cakes, deep-South caramel, Hawaiian Chantilly, and the modern California cakes of orange and olive oil, Byrn shares recipes, stories, and a behind-the-scenes look into what cakes we were baking back in time. From the well-known Angel Food, Red Velvet, Pineapple Upside-Down, Gooey Butter, and Brownie to the lesser-known Burnt Leather, Wacky Cake, Lazy Daisy, and Cold Oven Pound Cake, this is a cookbook for the cook, the traveler, or anyone who loves a good story. And all recipes have been adapted to the modern kitchen.
American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC
by Shahan MuftiOne of Publishers Weekly's best nonfiction books of 2022The riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Muslim terror attack, the 1977 Hanafi siege of Washington, D.C. Late in the morning of March 9, 1977, seven men stormed the Washington, D.C., headquarters of B’nai B’rith International, the largest and oldest Jewish service organization in America. The heavily armed attackers quickly took control of the building and held more than a hundred employees of the organization hostage inside. A little over an hour later, three more men entered the Islamic Center of Washington, the country’s largest and most important mosque, and took hostages there. Two others subsequently penetrated the District Building, a few hundred yards from the White House. When a firefight broke out, a reporter was killed, and Marion Barry, later to become mayor of Washington, D.C., was shot in the chest. The deadly standoff brought downtown Washington to a standstill. The attackers belonged to the Hanafi Movement, an African American Muslim group based in D.C. Their leader was a former jazz drummer named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who had risen through the ranks of the Nation of Islam before feuding with the organization’s mercurial chief, Elijah Muhammad, and becoming a spiritual authority to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Like Malcolm X, Khaalis had become sharply critical of the Nation’s unorthodox style of Islam. And, like Malcolm X, he paid dearly for his outspokenness: In 1973, followers of the Nation murdered seven Hanafis at their headquarters, including several members of Khaalis’s family. When they took hostages in 1977, one of the Hanafis’ demands was for the murderers, along with Muhammad Ali and Elijah’s son, to be turned over to the group to face justice. They also demanded that the American premiere of Mohammad: Messenger of God—an epic about the life of the prophet Muhammad financed and supported by the Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi—be canceled and the film destroyed. The lives of 149 hostages hung in the balance, and the United States’ fledgling counterterrorism forces—as yet untested—would have to respond. Shahan Mufti’s American Caliph gives a full account of the largest ever hostage taking on American soil and of the man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the disarray of the 1970s and its ongoing reverberations.
American Cancer Society: Access to Care
by Robert L. Simons Kathryn RosenbergCEO John Seffrin decides to radically change the strategy of the American Cancer Society. The new Access to Care strategy relies on advocacy to change public policy and increase the number of Americans eligible for cancer prevention and treatment. The new strategy brings with it considerable political risk. Leveraging an organization with 3 million volunteers, this case describes how he skillfully transforms the organization (structure, control systems, staff, shared values, etc.) to implement the new strategy.
American Canopy: The Role of Trees in the Shaping of a Nation
by Eric RutkowThis fascinating and groundbreaking work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and their trees across the entire span of our nation's history. Like many of us, historians have long been guilty of taking trees for granted. Yet the history of trees in America is no less remarkable than the history of the United States itself--from the majestic white pines of New England, which were coveted by the British Crown for use as masts in navy warships, to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west. In fact, without the country's vast forests and the hundreds of tree species they contained, there would have been no ships, docks, railroads, stockyards, wagons, barrels, furniture, newspapers, rifles, or firewood. No shingled villages or whaling vessels in New England. No New York City, Miami, or Chicago. No Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, or Daniel Boone. No Allied planes in World War I, and no suburban sprawl in the middle of the twentieth century. America--if indeed it existed--would be a very different place without its millions of acres of trees. As Eric Rutkow's brilliant, epic account shows, trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country's rise as both an empire and a civilization. Among American Canopy's many fascinating stories: the Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered to plot rebellion against the British; Henry David Thoreau's famous retreat into the woods; the creation of New York City's Central Park; the great fire of 1871 that killed a thousand people in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; the fevered attempts to save the American chestnut and the American elm from extinction; and the controversy over spotted owls and the old-growth forests they inhabited. Rutkow also explains how trees were of deep interest to such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR, who oversaw the planting of more than three billion trees nationally in his time as president. As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in our country's history. America started as a nation of people frightened of the deep, seemingly infinite woods; we then grew to rely on our forests for progress and profit; by the end of the twentieth century we came to understand that the globe's climate is dependent on the preservation of trees. Today, few people think about where timber comes from, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves and endanger the future. Never before has anyone treated our country's trees and forests as the subject of a broad historical study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. Audacious in its four-hundred-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, American Canopy is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike and announces Eric Rutkow as a major new author of popular history.
American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation
by Eric RutkowThis fascinating and groundbreaking work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and their trees across the entire span of our nation's history. Like many of us, historians have long been guilty of taking trees for granted. Yet the history of trees in America is no less remarkable than the history of the United States itself--from the majestic white pines of New England, which were coveted by the British Crown for use as masts in navy warships, to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west. In fact, without the country's vast forests and the hundreds of tree species they contained, there would have been no ships, docks, railroads, stockyards, wagons, barrels, furniture, newspapers, rifles, or firewood. No shingled villages or whaling vessels in New England. No New York City, Miami, or Chicago. No Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, or Daniel Boone. No Allied planes in World War I, and no suburban sprawl in the middle of the twentieth century. America--if indeed it existed--would be a very different place without its millions of acres of trees. As Eric Rutkow's brilliant, epic account shows, trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country's rise as both an empire and a civilization. Among American Canopy's many fascinating stories: the Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered to plot rebellion against the British; Henry David Thoreau's famous retreat into the woods; the creation of New York City's Central Park; the great fire of 1871 that killed a thousand people in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; the fevered attempts to save the American chestnut and the American elm from extinction; and the controversy over spotted owls and the old-growth forests they inhabited. Rutkow also explains how trees were of deep interest to such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR, who oversaw the planting of more than three billion trees nationally in his time as president. As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in our country's history. America started as a nation of people frightened of the deep, seemingly infinite woods; we then grew to rely on our forests for progress and profit; by the end of the twentieth century we came to understand that the globe's climate is dependent on the preservation of trees. Today, few people think about where timber comes from, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves and endanger the future. Never before has anyone treated our country's trees and forests as the subject of a broad historical study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. Audacious in its four-hundred-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, American Canopy is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike and announces Eric Rutkow as a major new author of popular history.
American Capitalism: A Reader
by Louis Hyman Edward E. Baptist"Welcome to this collection of important documents and essays about the history of American capitalism. We hope you will find these to be useful supplements to courses on the history of capitalism in the United States and elsewhere. There is no one right way to read this book, and no one right way to use it as part of a course. We only hope that you will find these readings as illuminating as we have found them. Taken together, these are the bricks and mortar that allowed us to build more than a class about a specific subject, taught in a specific format. In fact, they have enabled us to shape our understandings of how capitalism has developed and changed and how it continues to change in the United States--and how those developments and changes shape lives, here and in the rest of the world." From the forward.
American Capitalism: New Histories (Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism)
by Edited by Sven Beckert Christine DesanThe United States has long epitomized capitalism. From its enterprising shopkeepers, wildcat banks, violent slave plantations, huge industrial working class, and raucous commodities trade to its world-spanning multinationals, its massive factories, and the centripetal power of New York in the world of finance, America has come to symbolize capitalism for two centuries and more. But an understanding of the history of American capitalism is as elusive as it is urgent. What does it mean to make capitalism a subject of historical inquiry? What is its potential across multiple disciplines, alongside different methodologies, and in a range of geographic and chronological settings? And how does a focus on capitalism change our understanding of American history?American Capitalism presents a sampling of cutting-edge research from prominent scholars. These broad-minded and rigorous essays venture new angles on finance, debt, and credit; women’s rights; slavery and political economy; the racialization of capitalism; labor beyond industrial wage workers; and the production of knowledge, including the idea of the economy, among other topics. Together, the essays suggest emerging themes in the field: a fascination with capitalism as it is made by political authority, how it is claimed and contested by participants, how it spreads across the globe, and how it can be reconceptualized without being universalized. A major statement for a wide-open field, this book demonstrates the breadth and scope of the work that the history of capitalism can provoke.
American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power
by John GalbraithIn his new introduction to this classic text on political economy, Galbraith reasserts the validity of the core thesis of American Capitalism: The best and established answer to economic power is the building of countervailing power. The trade union remains an equalizing force in the labor markets, and the chain store is the best answer to the market power of big food companies. This work remains an essential guidepost of American mores as well as that as of the American economy.
American Capitals: A Historical Geography
by Christian MontèsState capitals are an indelible part of the American psyche, spatial representations of state power and national identity. Learning them by heart is a rite of passage in grade school, a pedagogical exercise that emphasizes the importance of committing place-names to memory. But geographers have yet to analyze state capitals in any depth. In "American Capitals," Christian Mont s takes us on a well-researched journey across AmericaOCofrom Augusta to Sacramento, Albany to Baton RougeOCoshedding light along the way on the historical circumstances that led to their appointment, their success or failure, and their evolution over time. aaaaaaaaaaaWhile all state capitals have a number of characteristics in commonOCoas symbols of the state, as embodiments of political power and decision making, as public spaces with private interestsOCoMont s does not interpret them through a single lens, in large part because of the differences in their spatial and historical evolutionary patterns. Some have remained small, while others have evolved into bustling metropolises, and Mont s explores the dynamics of change and growth. All but eleven state capitals were established in the nineteenth century, thirty-five before 1861, but, rather astonishingly, only eight of the fifty states have maintained their original capitals. Despite their revered status as the most monumental and historical cities in America, capitals come from surprisingly humble beginnings, often plagued by instability, conflict, hostility, and corruption. Mont s reminds us of the period in which they came about, OC an era of pioneer and idealized territorial vision, OCO coupled with a still-evolving American citizenry and democracy. "
American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump
by Tim AlbertaPolitico Magazine’s chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider’s look at the making of the modern Republican Party—how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. <P><P>The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trump’s victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence. <P><P>American Carnage is the story of a president’s rise based on a country’s evolution and a party’s collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing cultural and demographic landscape, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party’s identity in the post-Bush era. <P><P>The factions that emerged—one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell—engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP’s internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. <P><P>Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the Republican Party—and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period—can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. <P><P>How did a party obsessed with the national debt vote for trillion-dollar deficits and record-setting spending increases? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and walls? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-divorced philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive? <P><P>Loaded with exclusive reporting and based off hundreds of interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, and many others—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we’ve never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence
by Thomas Gabor Fred GuttenbergShooting Down Gun Violence Misinformation"Don't tell me there's no such thing as gun violence. It happened in Parkland." ―Fred Guttenberg#1 Best Seller in School Safety, Education Policy, and Law Enforcement PoliticsFred Guttenberg, who lost his beloved daughter Jaime in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, and International gun policy consultant Thomas Gabor team up in American Carnage to dismantle some of the most common myths about guns and gun violence.A national disgrace. In America, over 40,000 die each year as a result of gun violence. Relative to other advanced countries, the U.S. has a dismal gun violence record. Gun law reforms could reduce the number of gun deaths, but many political challenges stand in the way. A widespread multi-year misinformation assault on truth by the gun lobby and gun-extremists sows doubt about the dangers of pervasive gun ownership, gun carrying, and potential effectiveness of gun laws.Debunking popular gun myths. Countering with strong evidence-based research the many slogans and myths repeated incessantly by spokespersons for the gun lobby and its surrogates is essential if we are to have a society where kids can attend school safely and people can work and enjoy life without fear of being shot. Over the last 30 years, the NRA’s campaign to achieve an armed society has succeeded in persuading many Americans that having a gun in the home or carrying a gun makes them safer. The evidence is overwhelming this is not the case. Guns in the home are far more likely to be used against a family member or in a suicide attempt than against an intruder. Tackling this and other myths is critical.Myths and slogans exposed as false in American Carnage include:Gun owners frequently use firearms to fend off attackersAn armed society is a safer societyGuns don’t kill people, people kill peopleIf you have read Trigger Points, The Violence Project, Warning Signs, or Fred Guttenberg’s Find the Helpers, American Carnage is a must read.
American Carrier Air Power at the Dawn of a New Century
by Benjamin S. LambethIn the Afghanistan war, U.S. carrier-based fighters substituted almost entirely for land-based theater air forces. The Navy's carriers again played a key role in conducting around-the-clock operations against Saddam Hussein's forces in Iraq. American carrier air power is now able to conduct coordinated deep-strike missions well beyond coastal reaches. The Navy's performance over Afghanistan and Iraq showed how the nation's carrier force can provide around-the-clock target coverage, consistently accurate target attack, and multiple successful target attacks per sortie.
American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry
by Sari Horwitz Scott HighamThe definitive investigation and exposé of how some of the nation's largest corporations created and fueled the opioid crisis—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters who first uncovered the dimensions of the deluge of pain pills that ravaged the country and the complicity of a near-omnipotent drug cartel. AMERICAN CARTEL is an unflinching and deeply documented dive into the culpability of the drug companies behind the staggering death toll of the opioid epidemic. It follows a small band of DEA agents led by Joseph Rannazzisi, a tough-talking New Yorker who had spent a storied thirty years bringing down bad guys; along with a band of lawyers, including West Virginia native Paul Farrell Jr., who fought to hold the drug industry to account in the face of the worst man-made drug epidemic in American history. It is the story of underdogs prevailing over corporate greed and political cowardice, persevering in the face of predicted failure, and how they found some semblance of justice for the families of the dead during the most complex civil litigation ever seen.The investigators and lawyers discovered hundreds of thousands of confidential corporate emails and memos during courtroom combat with legions of white-shoe law firms defending the opioid industry. One breathtaking disclosure after another—from emails that mocked addicts to invoices chronicling the rise of pill mills—showed the indifference of big business to the epidemic&’s toll. The narrative approach echoes such work as A Civil Action and The Insider, moving dramatically between corporate boardrooms, courthouses, lobbying firms, DEA field offices, and Capitol Hill while capturing the human toll of the epidemic on America&’s streets.AMERICAN CARTEL is the story of those who were on the front lines of the fight to stop the human carnage. Along the way, they suffer a string of defeats, some of their careers destroyed by the very same government officials who swore to uphold the law before they begin to prevail over some of the most powerful corporate and political influences in the nation.
American Castle: One Hundred Years of Mar-a-Lago
by Mary C. ShanklinThe characters, scandals, and secrets that shaped America's most controversial residence. Emerging from family tragedy and newfound chances, the story of Mar-a-Lago starts when heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and investor E.F. Hutton built their ode to Roaring Twenties excess in south Florida. And as the hood ornament of Palm Beach society, not even a catastrophic hurricane could deter winter revelries there. No one could have predicted what followed: This 126-room wonder has withstood mutual adultery, high-stakes divorces, ruinous development plans, apathetic heirs, and financial collapse. All this...even before Donald Trump was given the keys to the front door. American Castle reveals a power couple's dream oasis colliding with the Kennedys, Lady Bird Johnson, Richard Nixon, the National Park Service, and Donald Trump--the man who fused a private club with a Winter White House and watched the FBI raid his own home.