America Reflected
America Reflected

Author: Peter C. Rollins

Publisher: New Acdemia+ORM

Published: 2021-10-15

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 0984583203

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Eclectic criticism and insightful observations from “one of the most respected cultural historians working today” (Ronald A. Wells, Professor of History Emeritus, Calvin College). “From cowboy philosopher Will Rogers to popular perceptions of two world wars and Vietnam, from the history of language to the language of film and television, Peter Rollins has devoted his career to exploring the intriguing ways in which the creative impulse both shapes and reflects American culture. His observations are fresh, illuminating and of enduring value.” —John E. O’Connor, co-founder/editor of Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies “Examines the roles of language, satire, and film in reflecting the American consciousness through such diverse sources as Orestes Brownson, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Will Rogers, and Hollywood. Readers of America Reflected are in for a delightful voyage as they travel through American history and culture with Peter Rollins as their guide providing personal and scholarly insights into the shaping of the American mind.” —Ron Briley, editor of The Politics of Baseball: Essays on the Pastime and Power at Home and Abroad “Even those who have known and admired Peter Rollins’s acclaimed works will here find enlightening surprises. Epistemology, language theory, war’s polemics, filmed history, and an array of significant creators of American culture are all elegantly displayed. This book will make you a wiser person and charm you while it does it.” —John Shelton Lawrence, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Morningside College “Two decades ago I was privileged to work on a book, America Observed, with Alistair Cooke. Now we have America Reflected by Peter Rollins . . . Not only does Rollins make good observations about our lives and times, his reflections on a diverse set of subjects helps us to see the meanings of our observations.” —Ronald A. Wells, Professor of History Emeritus, Calvin College “Rollins gathers together glimpses of our shared worlds, so that we may observe their interconnections across media, genres, and time. From down-home values and front-porch philosophy, to tales of wars and chronicles of lives, the subjects considered here are all part of the stories we tell about ourselves and our social worlds.” —Cynthia J. Miller, President, Literature/Film Association

America at the Brink of Empire
America at the Brink of Empire

Author: Lawrence W. Serewicz

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0807131792

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Addressing issues of continuing if not heightened relevance to contemporary debate, America at the Brink of Empire explores the foreign policy leadership of Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger regarding the extent of the United States' mission to insure a stable world order. Lawrence W. Serewicz argues that in the Vietnam conflict the United States experienced an identity crisis-a near Machiavellian moment, to use the concept of J. G. A. Pocock-whereby America came close to assuming an imperial role, stretching the country to the limits of its identity as a republic. Serewicz offers a revealing look at the parts played by Rusk and Kissinger-and President Lyndon Johnson-in bringing the nation to the brink of empire in the years 1963-75.As a true believer in liberal internationalism, Rusk set the stage by defining the war in Vietnam as a threat to the world order based on the United Nations security system created after World War II. Johnson kept an open-ended commitment in Vietnam without a clear goal in sight even as he pursued the ambitious domestic reforms of the Great Society. In refusing to choose between either an imperial mission or a true republican position for the nation, he brought it perilously close to becoming an empire, ultimately failing to achieve his goals either at home or abroad. Kissinger corrected for Johnson's overreach, implementing a pragmatic realism based upon the principle that the United States is an ordinary country-a republic, not an empire-within the international community and therefore must balance its commitments with its resources.In concluding, Serewicz reflects on the continuing relevance of the Machiavellian moment for the United States by observing the differences and similarities between the presidencies of Johnson and George W. Bush. America at the Brink of Empire illuminates the far-reaching consequences of Rusk's and Kissinger's widely divergent foreign policy philosophies and outlines the tension that a statesman must reconcile between a republican government and the maintenance of a stable world order.

Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880
Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

Author: W. E. B. Du Bois

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 772

ISBN-13: 0684856573

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The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time. This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic.

America in Italian Culture
America in Italian Culture

Author: Guido Bonsaver

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-02-15

Total Pages: 575

ISBN-13: 019884946X

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When America began to emerge as a world power at the end of the nineteenth century, Italy was a young nation, recently unified. The technological advances brought about by electricity and the combustion engine were vastly speeding up the capacity of news, ideas, and artefacts to travel internationally. Furthermore, improved literacy and social reforms had produced an Italian working class with increased time, money, and education. At the turn of the century, if Italy's ruling elite continued the tradition of viewing Paris as a model of sophistication and good taste, millions of lowly-educated Italians began to dream of America, and many bought a transatlantic ticket to migrate there. By the 1920s, Italians were encountering America through Hollywood films and, thanks to illustrated magazines, they were mesmerised by the sight of Manhattan's futuristic skyline and by news of American lifestyle. The USA offered a model of modernity which flouted national borders and spoke to all. It could be snubbed, adored, or transformed for one's personal use, but it could not be ignored. Perversely, Italy was by then in the hands of a totalitarian dictatorship, Mussolini's Fascism. What were the effects of the nationalistic policies and campaigns aimed at protecting Italians from this supposedly pernicious foreign influence? What did Mussolini think of America? Why were jazz, American literature, and comics so popular, even as the USA became Italy's political enemy? America in Italian Culture provides a scholarly and captivating narrative of this epochal shift in Italian culture.

War and Independence In Spanish America
War and Independence In Spanish America

Author: Anthony McFarlane

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 1136757791

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During the period from 1808 to 1826, the Spanish empire was convulsed by wars throughout its dominions in Iberia and the Americas. The conflicts began in Spain, where Napoleon’s invasion triggered a war of national resistance. The collapse of the Spanish monarchy provoked challenges to the colonial regime in virtually all of Spain's American provinces, and colonial demands for autonomy and independence led to political turbulence and violent confrontation on a transcontinental scale. During the two decades after 1808, Spanish America witnessed warfare on a scale not seen since the conquests three centuries earlier. War and Independence in Spanish America provides a unified account of war in Spanish America during the period after the collapse of the Spanish government in 1808. McFarlane traces the courses and consequences of war, combining a broad narrative of the development and distribution of armed conflict with analysis of its characteristics and patterns. He maps the main arenas of war, traces the major campaigns by and crucial battles between rebels and royalists, and places the military conflicts in the context of international political change. Readers will come away with a fully realized understanding of how war and military mobilization affected Spanish American societies and shaped the emerging independent states.

Reflecting on America
Reflecting on America

Author: Clare L. Boulanger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1351551914

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Anthropologists travel back in time and across the globe to understand human culture?but, surprise, there is culture right here in the United States. This second edition of the best-selling textbook and anthology, Reflecting on America, again focuses on how we can recognize the common cultural thread running through diverse American phenomena?from heroin addiction and Big Business?s efforts to shape the identities of children, to Civil War reenactments and the popularity of burlesque in the Midwest. In addition, this second edition includes chapters written especially for this volume on striptease, Burning Man, The Big Bang Theory TV show, and Groundhog Phil. Written throughout with verve and quirky humor, and offering ?Questions for discussion? after every article, this book is perfect for undergraduate classes in anthropology and American studies. Drawing together twenty-two scholars with expertise in anthropological ideas about culture, Reflecting on America examines what it means to be American.

An Historical Introduction to American Education
An Historical Introduction to American Education

Author: Gerald L. Gutek

Publisher: Waveland Press

Published: 2012-09-18

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1478608897

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Guteks classic volume on the history of American education has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide a twenty-first-century perspective on the development of American educational institutions. Like earlier editions, the well-researched Third Edition employs a topical approach to examine the evolution of key institutions like the common school and the high school, as well as significant movements like progressive education, racial desegregation, and multiculturalism. Primary source readings enhance and reinforce chapter content and feature new writings from Benjamin Rush, Horace Mann, Maria Montessori, W. E. B. Du Bois, John Dewey, and Jane Addams. Two new chapters add depth to this comprehensive, richly illustrated work. Immigration, Multiculturalism, and Education examines the response of public schools to the education of immigrant children in the context of Americas industrialization and urbanization. This compelling addition also looks at the changing demographics of immigration and discusses the experiences and contributions of Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. Progressive Education and John Dewey explores the origins of progressive education, the philosophies of John Dewey and other leading progressive educators, and this movements ongoing influence in American classrooms. The Third Editions topical organization lends itself to multiple uses in the classroom. Each chapter provides the historical foundation for the study of a contemporary topic in education, including the organization and structure of schools, the philosophy of education, early childhood education, curriculum and instruction, multicultural and bilingual education, and educational policy.

American Civil Religion
American Civil Religion

Author: Peter Gardella

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-11-18

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0199355010

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The United States has never had an officially established national church. Since the time of the first British colonists, it has instead developed a strong civil religion that melds God and nation. In a deft exploration of American civil religious symbols-from the Liberty Bell to the Vietnam Memorial, from Mount Rushmore to Disney World-Peter Gardella explains how the places, objects, and words that Americans hold sacred came into being and how Americans' feelings about them have changed over time. In addition to examining revered historical sites and structures, he analyzes such sacred texts as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, the Kennedy Inaugural, and the speeches of Martin Luther King, and shows how five patriotic songs-"The Star-Spangled Banner," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," "America the Beautiful," "God Bless America," and "This Land Is Your Land"-have been elevated into hymns. Arguing that certain values-personal freedom, political democracy, world peace, and cultural tolerance-have held American civil religion together, Gardella chronicles the numerous forms those values have taken, from Jamestown and Plymouth to the September 11, 2001 Memorial in New York.