Losing the Center
Losing the Center

Author: Jeffrey Bloodworth

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2013-07

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0813142318

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Many Americans consider John F. Kennedy's presidency to represent the apex of American liberalism. Kennedy's "Vital Center" blueprint united middle-class and working-class Democrats and promoted freedom abroad while recognizing the limits of American power. Liberalism thrived in the early 1960s, but its heyday was short-lived. In Losing the Center, Jeffrey Bloodworth demonstrates how and why the once-dominant ideology began its steep decline, exploring its failures through the biographies of some of the Democratic Party's most important leaders, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Bella Abzug, Harold Ford Sr., and Jimmy Carter. By illuminating historical events through the stories of the people at the center of the action, Bloodworth sheds new light on topics such as feminism, the environment, the liberal abandonment of the working class, and civil rights legislation. This meticulously researched study authoritatively argues that liberalism's demise was prompted not by a "Republican revolution" or the mistakes of a few prominent politicians, but instead by decades of ideological incoherence and political ineptitude among liberals. Bloodworth demonstrates that Democrats caused their own party's decline by failing to realize that their policies contradicted the priorities of mainstream voters, who were more concerned about social issues than economic ones. With its unique biographical approach and masterful use of archival materials, this detailed and accessible book promises to stand as one of the definitive texts on the state of American liberalism in the second half of the twentieth century.

Art in Crisis
Art in Crisis

Author: Hans Sedlmayr

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1351531093

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The history of art from the early nineteenth century on- ward is commonly viewed as a succession of conflicts between innovatory and established styles that culminated in the formalism and aesthetic autonomy of high modernism. In Art and Crisis, first published in 1948, Hans Sedlmayr argues that the aesthetic disjunctures of modern art signify more than matters of style and point to much deeper processes of cultural and religious disintegration. As Roger Kimball observes in his informative new introduction, Art in Crisis is as much an exercise in cultural or spiritual analysis as it is a work of art history. Sedlmayr's reads the art of the last two centuries as a fever chart of the modern age in its greatness and its decay. He discusses the advent of Romanticism with its freeing of the imagination as a conscious sundering of art from humanist and religious traditions with the aesthetic treated as a category independent of human need. Looking at the social purposes of architecture, Sedlmayr shows how the landscape garden, the architectural monument, and the industrial exhibition testified to a new relationship not only between man and his handiwork but also between man and the forces that transcend him. In these institutions man deifies his inventive powers with which he hopes to master and supersede nature. Likewise, the art museum denies transcendence through a cultural leveling in which Heracles and Christ become brothers as objects of aesthetic contemplation. At the center of Art in Crisis is the insight that, in art as in life, the pursuit of unqualified autonomy is in the end a prescription for disaster, aesthetic as well as existential. Sedlmayr writes as an Augustinian Catholic. For him, the underlying motive for the pursuit of autonomy is pride. The lost center of his subtitle is God. The dream of autonomy, Sedlmayr argues, is for finite, mortal creatures, a dangerous illusion. The book invites serious analysis from art cri

Why the Left Loses
Why the Left Loses

Author: Kennedy, Paul

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1447332695

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Around the world, parties of the left and center-left have been struggling, losing ground to right-wing parties and various forms of reactionary populism. This book brings together a range of leading academics and experts on social democratic politics and policy to offer an international, comparative view of the changing political landscape. Using case studies from the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, Australia and New Zealand contributors argue that despite different local and specific contexts, the mainstream center-left is beset by a range of common challenges. Analysis focuses on institutional and structural factors, the role of key individuals, and the atrophy of progressive ideas as interconnected reasons for the current struggles of the center-left.

The Missing Center
The Missing Center

Author: Noah H. Harris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2024-11-05

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1510782850

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21 Defining Political Speeches From Presidents and Political Figures That United America in Uncertain Times The Missing Center is a message from the younger generation, and reminds us that shared aspirations and goals have solved America's greatest challenges and are at the heart of our greatest accomplishments to come. In American politics today there is a critical problem: partisanship. While a two-party political system has been a hallmark of the American government since the founding of our democracy, the extreme partisan politics in the 21st century is new. In a quest to find a path forward, The Missing Center showcases the transformative results that can happen when leaders govern from the center to unite, inspire and solve complex problems. We do not need to go back to the days of the Founding Fathers and only have to look at the recent past to find ideas that put the American people first. By examining speeches from presidents and leaders of both parties, we see how governing from the middle is the model that yields the best outcomes. With defining political speeches from across the aisle, from notable presidents and politicians alike, The Missing Center sheds light on how governing from the center and coming to compromise is the most effective pathway forward. In addition to commentary and context by the author, this important book includes speeches by leaders across the aisle, including: Joe Biden Donald Trump Barack Obama George W. Bush Hillary Clinton Elizabeth Warren And More​ The author, Noah Harris, currently age sixteen, served as an intern for two years in the United States House of Representatives. At his age, this experience creates unique insight into the issues of the day, including how government is viewed by the next generation of voters and how to create a better future.

Annual Report
Annual Report

Author: United States. Army. Signal Corps

Publisher:

Published: 1875

Total Pages: 780

ISBN-13:

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The work covers military signaling and the weather service. The latter brand was transferred in 1890, to the Weather Bureau, organized under the Dept. of Agriculture.