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American Fun
by John BeckmanHere is an animated and wonderfully engaging work of cultural history that lays out America's unruly past by describing the ways in which cutting loose has always been, and still is, an essential part of what it means to be an American. From the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Americans have defied their stodgy rules and hierarchies with pranks, dances, stunts, and wild parties, shaping the national character in profound and lasting ways. In the nation's earlier eras, revelers flouted Puritans, Patriots pranked Redcoats, slaves lampooned masters, and forty-niners bucked the saddles of an increasingly uptight middle class. In the twentieth century, fun-loving Americans celebrated this heritage and pushed it even further: flappers "barney-mugged" in "petting pantries," Yippies showered the New York Stock Exchange with dollar bills, and B-boys invented hip-hop in a war zone in the Bronx. This is the surprising and revelatory history that John Beckman recounts in American Fun. Tying together captivating stories of Americans' "pursuit of happiness"--and distinguishing between real, risky fun and the bland amusements that paved the way for Hollywood, Disneyland, and Xbox--Beckman redefines American culture with a delightful and provocative thesis. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)From the Hardcover edition.
American Furies: Crime, Punishment and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment
by Sasha Abramsky[Back cover] In this disturbing yet elegant expose of U.S. penitentiaries and their surrounding communities, Sasha Abramsky shows how American prisons have abandoned their long-held ideal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. After surveying our current state of affairs--life sentences for nonviolent crimes, appalling conditions for inmates, the growth of private prisons, the treatment of juveniles--Abramsky argues that our punitive policies are not only inhuman but deeply counterproductive. Brilliantly researched and compellingly told, American Furies reveals the devastating consequences of a society that believes in "lock 'em up and throw away the key." 8:41 AM 12/22/2008
American Gangsters: A True Crime Collection
by T. J. EnglishEnter a world where money, muscle, and murder reign with three true crime books from the New York Times–bestselling author and Edgar Award finalist. Whitey&’s Payback: In this collection of sixteen stories culled from his journalism career, author T. J. English reveals the violent world of crime with in-depth pieces on everything from old-school mobsters to corrupt federal agents—including the most feared gangster in Boston history (and secret FBI informant), James &“Whitey&” Bulger, who vanished for sixteen years before finally being brought to justice. &“Hard-hitting reporting.&” —Anthony Bruno, author of The Iceman The Westies: They were the gang even the Mafia thought twice about fighting—a gang of young, wild Irishmen led by cold-blooded Jimmy Coonan and his loyal gunman Mickey Featherstone who ruled Hell&’s Kitchen with a bloody fist. Their savagery gave them power, but their quick rise would eventually lead to betrayal and their ultimate downfall in this tale of vengeance, ambition, and the last of the Irish Mob in New York. &“A harrowing account of big city crime.&” —Library Journal Born to Kill: This Edgar Award finalist chronicles the rise and fall of the infamous Born to Kill gang, a group of young Vietnamese men raised in the wasteland left by American bombs and napalm who came to New York&’s Chinatown to make a new life, but instead brought death in their wake. Told from the perspective of one gang member who wanted more than a life of bloodshed and testified against his brethren, Born to Kill is a shocking account of the American Dream gone nightmarishly wrong. &“Hard-hitting . . .torrid and fascinating.&” —The Austin Chronicle
American Geisha
by TaylorFirst published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
American Ghost: A Family's Extraordinary History on the Desert Frontier
by Hannah NordhausAmerican Ghost is a “gripping mystery, moving family confessional, and chilling ghost story” (New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott).“Journalist Hannah Nordhaus braids personal memoir with historical research and resolute ghost hunting in a narrative that investigates the restless spirit of her great-great-grandmother Julia Schuster Staab.” —Boston GlobeLa Posada—“place of rest”—was once a grand Santa Fe mansion. It belonged to Abraham and Julia Staab, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. After they died, the house became a hotel. And in the 1970s, the hotel acquired a resident ghost—a sad, dark-eyed woman in a long gown. Strange things began to happen there: vases moved, glasses flew, blankets were ripped from beds. Julia Staab died in 1896—but her ghost, they say, lives on.In American Ghost, Julia’s great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus, traces her ancestor’s transfiguration from nineteenth-century Jewish bride to modern phantom. Family diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings take her on a riveting journey through three hundred years of German history and the American immigrant experience. With the help of historians, genealogists, family members, and ghost hunters, she weaves a masterful, moving story of fin-de-siècle Europe and pioneer life, villains and visionaries, medicine and spiritualism, imagination and truth, exploring how lives become legends, and what those legends tell us about who we are.“A haunting story about the long reach of the past.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’S Fresh Air“In this intriguing book, [Nordhaus] shares her journey to discover who her immigrant ancestor really was—and what strange alchemy made the idea of her linger long after she was gone.” —People
American Girls and Global Responsibility: A New Relation to the World during the Early Cold War
by Jennifer HelgrenAmerican Girls and Global Responsibility brings together insights from Cold War culture studies, girls’ studies, and the history of gender and militarization to shed new light on how age and gender work together to form categories of citizenship. Jennifer Helgren argues that a new internationalist girl citizenship took root in the country in the years following World War II in youth organizations such as Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, YWCA Y-Teens, schools, and even magazines like Seventeen. She shows the particular ways that girls’ identities and roles were configured, and reveals the links between internationalist youth culture, mainstream U.S. educational goals, and the U.S. government in creating and marketing that internationalist girl, thus shaping the girls’ sense of responsibilities as citizens.
American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
by Nancy Jo SalesA New York Times BestsellerInstagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’s riveting and explosive American Girls.With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence—one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl’s first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today’s teenage girls. Provocative and urgent, American Girls is destined to ignite a much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate unprecedented new challenges.
American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
by Nancy Jo SalesA New York Times BestsellerInstagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’s riveting and explosive American Girls.With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence—one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl’s first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today’s teenage girls. Provocative and urgent, American Girls is destined to ignite a much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate unprecedented new challenges.
American Gitanos in Mexico City: Transnationalism, Cultural Identity and Economic Environment
by David LagunasThis book provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the Gitano community of Mexico City. The ethnographic study showcases the interplay between cultural reproduction, economic reproduction, and the Gitano / non-Gitano opposition. The first part of the book discusses how the cultural identity of this community is reproduced based on migratory processes, social relations and the dynamics of kinship and gender roles to understand the contradiction between value systems and practices in a patriarchal society. In the second part, emphasis is placed on the economic dynamism of this group in its interactions with the majority society in the context of informal economy and the group’s articulation with space and mobility in the territory. The analysis problematizes territorial mobility and circulation regimes based on fieldwork carried out in the process of active participation with Gitano families selling textile clothes and accessories through the country.
American Gold Digger: Marriage, Money, and the Law from the Ziegfeld Follies to Anna Nicole Smith (Gender and American Culture)
by Brian DonovanThe stereotype of the "gold digger" has had a fascinating trajectory in twentieth-century America, from tales of greedy flapper-era chorus girls to tabloid coverage of Anna Nicole Smith and her octogenarian tycoon husband. The term entered American vernacular in the 1910s as women began to assert greater power over courtship, marriage, and finances, threatening men's control of legal and economic structures. Over the course of the century, the gold digger stereotype reappeared as women pressed for further control over love, sex, and money while laws failed to keep pace with such realignments. The gold digger can be seen in silent films, vaudeville jokes, hip hop lyrics, and reality television. Whether feared, admired, or desired, the figure of the gold digger appears almost everywhere gender, sexuality, class, and race collide.This fascinating interdisciplinary work reveals the assumptions and disputes around women's sexual agency in American life, shedding new light on the cultural and legal forces underpinning romantic, sexual, and marital relationships.
American Government
by Mirya Holman Timothy O. LenzUniversity of West Georgia American Government book
American Government
by Robert TaggartDesigned for use in differentiated classrooms, this integrated curriculum unit uses simple language to deliver core content supportive of NCSS standards. <p><p> Key learnings: government organization (all levels), development of American democracy, the election process, how court decisions have shaped government. Reading level: grade 4. Interest level: grades 6-12. JWW282.
American Government (Third Edition)
by Bob Jones University Press Staff Timothy Dean KeeseeIn the American Government Student Text, 3rd ed. , your student will learn about essential features of American government, from its historical and scriptural foundations to detailed analysis of its inner workings. The course provides an overview of changes and developments in our government with an emphasis on the U. S. Constitution and current events. It is organized for use in either a one- or two-semester course. The third edition of American Government contains a new chapter on state and local governments as well as Christian worldview boxes that are designed to help students think scripturally and critically about governmental issues. - Publisher.
American Government In Black And White: Diversity And Democracy
by Steven C. Tauber Paula D. McClainAmerican Government in Black and White: Diversity and Democracy, Fourth Edition, covers all of the standard topics found in an Introduction to American Government text while also speaking to today's students who want to examine how racial inequality has shaped-and will continue to shape-who we are and what we believe. Authors Paula D. McClain and Steven C. Tauber address issues of inequality in major facets of American government, including the U.S. Constitution, key political institutions, and the making of public policy. Engaging the original voices of racial and ethnic actors in our nation's history, the text shows how to measure and evaluate the importance of equality in America, from its founding up to today.
American Government In Black And White: Diversity And Democracy (Third Edition)
by Steven C. Tauber Paula Denice McClainAmerican Government in Black and White: Diversity and Democracy, Third Edition, is a unique introduction to American government that uses racial and ethnic equality as its underlying theme. <P><P>Authors Paula D. McClain and Steven C. Tauber address issues of inequality in major facets of government, including the U.S. Constitution, key American political institutions and instruments of political behavior, and the making of public policy. <P><P>Engaging the original voices of racial and ethnic actors in our nation's history, they show students how to measure and evaluate the importance of equality in America, from its founding up to today. <P><P>The third edition has been thoroughly updated to cover recent political events, including the 2016 presidential election campaigns and outcomes.
American Government in Black and White (Second Edition)
by Paula D. Mcclain Steven C. TauberConcise, affordable, and engaging, American Government in Black and White, Second Edition, 2014 Election Update, is a unique introduction to American government that uses racial and ethnic equality as its underlying theme. Authors Paula D. McClain and Steven C. Tauber address issues of inequality in major facets of government, including the U. S. Constitution, key American political institutions and instruments of political behavior, and the making of public policy. Engaging the original voices of racial and ethnic actors in our nation's history, they show students how to measure and evaluate the importance of equality in America, from its founding up to today. FEATURES * Three kinds of text boxes that help students develop empirical and qualitative analytical abilities: "Measuring Equality," "Evaluating Equality," and "Our Voices" * Vignettes, illustrations, and case material that connect America's past and present * Running glossary definitions, thematic chapter conclusions, probing review questions, and annotated additional readings highlighting writings by and about racial and ethnic minorities
American Government: Constitutional Democracy Under Pressure
by Cal JillsonAmerican Government: Constitutional Democracy Under Pressure highlights the dangerous tension between our constitutional principles and institutions and the populist heat that sometimes roils our national politics, including at the current political moment. Our constitutional democracy has been under pressure for some time, but few would deny that fears for its fate have deepened in just the past few years. We assume that our political institutions will limit and contain contemporary populism, just as the Founders intended and as they have in the past, but will they? An increasingly polarized electorate, urging their representatives to fight and never to compromise, may be stressing Constitutional limits. This new edition offers to help American government teachers lead their students to a nuanced theoretical and practical understanding of what is happening in the politics of their Constitutional democracy today.New to the Third Edition Further develops and highlights the distinguishing theme of the book, “Constitutional Democracy Under Pressure,” in light of the Trump and Biden administrations. Expands coverage of all media aspects including fake news, social media, responsible journalism, and related topics including foreign manipulation of the news. Describes numerous ways in which the American political system has been affected by the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, and security concerns. Evaluates the evidence for increasing polarization in public opinion, voting behavior, and legislative politics. Explores the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions including controversial rulings on reproductive health, the separation of church and state, the environment, and presidential powers. Includes the most recent election results. Updates in all tables, figures, suggested readings plus photo updates throughout.
American Government: Institutions and Policies (AP) 11th Edition)
by James Q. Wilson John J. Diiulio Jr.The guide includes chapter focus, study outlines, "Did You Think That...?" and practice questions with answers.
American Government: Stories of a Nation for the AP Course
by Karen Waples Scott AbernathyThis new offering from AP teacher Karen Waples and college professor Scott Abernathy is tailor-made to help teachers and students transition to the redesigned AP U. S. Government and Politics course. Carefully aligned to the course framework, this brief book is loaded with instructional tools to help you and your students meet the demands of the new course, such as integrated skills instruction, coverage of required cases and documents, public policy threaded throughout the book, and AP practice after every chapter and unit, all in a simple organization that will ease your course planning and save you time.
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
by Robert D. Putnam David E. CampbellAmerican Grace is a major achievement, a groundbreaking examination of religion in America. Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation's religious landscape has been reshaped. America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization--the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars. American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans. Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them: * Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith; * Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives; * Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage; * Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven; * Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans: more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes--but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith; * Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today. American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding our nation today.
American Graffiti: George Lucas, the New Hollywood and the Baby Boom Generation (Cinema and Youth Cultures)
by Peter KrämerCombining a detailed film analysis with archival research and social science approaches, this book examines how American Graffiti (1973), a low-budget and star-less teen comedy by a filmmaker whose only previous feature had been a box office flop, became one of the highest grossing and most highly acclaimed films of all time in the United States, and one of the key expressions of the nostalgia wave washing over the country in the 1970s. American Graffiti: George Lucas, the New Hollywood and the Baby Boom Generation explores the origins and development of the film, its form and themes as well as its marketing, reception, audiences and impact. It does so by considering the life and career of the film’s co-writer and director George Lucas; the development and impact of the baby boom generation to which he, many of his collaborators and the vast majority of the film’s audience belonged; the transformation of the American film industry in the late 1960s and 1970s; and broader changes in American society which gave rise to an intense sense of crisis and growing pessimism across the population. This book is ideal for students, scholars and those with an interest in youth cinema, the New Hollywood and George Lucas as well as both Film and American Studies more broadly.
American Gridlock
by James A. Thurber Thurber, James A. and Yoshinaka, Antoine Antoine YoshinakaAmerican Gridlock brings together the country's preeminent experts on the causes, characteristics, and consequences of partisan polarization in US politics and government, with each chapter presenting original scholarship and novel data. This book is the first to combine research on all facets of polarization, among the public (both voters and activists), in our federal institutions (Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court), at the state level, and in the media. Each chapter includes a bullet-point summary of its main argument and conclusions, and is written in clear prose that highlights the substantive implications of polarization for representation and policy-making. Authors examine polarization with an array of current and historical data, including public opinion surveys, electoral and legislative and congressional data, experimental data, and content analyses of media outlets. American Gridlock's theoretical and empirical depth distinguishes it from any other volume on polarization.
American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods: The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg
by French L. MacLeanThe first biography of MSgt. John C. Woods, infamous US Army hangman of the Nuremberg trials MacLean meticulously separates fact from the mythology surrounding this enigmatic figure This is a follow-on book to The Fifth Field, winner of the 2013 Richard G. Trefry Award from the Army Historical Foundation
American Hardcore
by Steven Blush George Petros"American Hardcore sets the record straight about the last great American subculture"-Paper magazineSteven Blush's "definitive treatment of Hardcore Punk" (Los Angeles Times) changed the way we look at Punk Rock. The Sony Picture Classics-distributed documentary American Hardcore premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. This revised and expanded second edition contains hundreds of new bands, thirty new interviews, flyers, a new chapter ("Destroy Babylon"), and a new art gallery with over 125 rare photos and images.
American Hate: Survivors Speak Out
by Arjun SethiIn a series of powerful, unfiltered testimonials, people of various races, ethnicities, faiths, and genders speak out about now having to live in fear of long-standing, deeply rooted hatred and citizen-on-citizen violence that the Trump administration has given license to flourish.