Pivotal Decade
Pivotal Decade

Author: Judith Stein

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010-05-25

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0300163290

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In this fascinating new history, Judith Stein argues that in order to understand our current economic crisis we need to look back to the 1970s and the end of the age of the factory--the era of postwar liberalism, created by the New Deal, whose practices, high wages, and regulated capital produced both robust economic growth and greater income equality. When high oil prices and economic competition from Japan and Germany battered the American economy, new policies--both international and domestic--became necessary. But war was waged against inflation, rather than against unemployment, and the government promoted a balanced budget instead of growth. This, says Stein, marked the beginning of the age of finance and subsequent deregulation, free trade, low taxation, and weak unions that has fostered inequality and now the worst recession in eighty years. Drawing on extensive archival research and covering the economic, intellectual, political, and labor history of the decade, Stein provides a wealth of information on the 1970s. She also shows that to restore prosperity today, America needs a new model: more factories and fewer financial houses. --Publisher's description.

Pivotal Decades
Pivotal Decades

Author: John Milton Cooper

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1990-08-07

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 9780393956559

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Contemporary American began in the first two decades of this century. These were the years in which two of our greatest presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson—transformed the office into the center of power; in which the United States entered the world stage and fought its first overseas war; in which the government's proper role in the economy became a public question; and in which reform became an imperative for muckraking reporters, progressive politicians, social activists, and writers. It was a golden age in American politics, when fundamental ideas were given compelling expression by thoughtful candidates. It was a trying time, however, for many Americans, including women who fought for the vote, blacks who began organizing to secure their rights, and activists on the Left who lost theirs in the first Red Scare of the century. John Cooper's panoramic history of this period shows us where we came from and sheds light on where we are.

1863
1863

Author: Harold Holzer

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2013-02-25

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0809332477

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Only hours into the new year of 1863, Abraham Lincoln performed perhaps his most famous action as president by signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather than remaining the highlight of the coming months, however, this monumental act marked only the beginning of the most pivotal year of Lincoln’s presidency and the most revolutionary twelve months of the entire Civil War. In recognition of the sesquicentennial of this tumultuous time, prominent Civil War scholars explore the events and personalities that dominated 1863 in this enlightening volume, providing a unique historical perspective on a critical period in American history. Several defining moments of Lincoln’s presidency took place in 1863, including the most titanic battle ever to shake the American continent, which soon inspired the most famous presidential speech in American history. The ten essays in this book explore the year’s important events and developments, including the response to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation; the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and other less-well-known confrontations; the New York City draft riots; several constitutional issues involving the war powers of President Lincoln; and the Gettysburg Address and its continued impact on American thought. Other topics include the adaptation of photography for war coverage; the critical use of images; the military role of the navy; and Lincoln’s family life during this fiery trial. With an informative introduction by noted Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer and a chronology that places the high-profile events of 1863 in context with cultural and domestic policy advances of the day, this remarkable compendium opens a window into a year that proved decisive not only for the Civil War and Lincoln’s presidency but also for the entire course of American history.

Watching Women's Liberation, 1970
Watching Women's Liberation, 1970

Author: Bonnie J. Dow

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2014-10-30

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0252096487

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In 1970, ABC, CBS, and NBC--the “Big Three” of the pre-cable television era--discovered the feminist movement. From the famed sit-in at Ladies’ Home Journal to multi-part feature stories on the movement's ideas and leaders, nightly news broadcasts covered feminism more than in any year before or since, bringing women's liberation into American homes. In Watching Women's Liberation, 1970: Feminism's Pivotal Year on the Network News, Bonnie J. Dow uses case studies of key media events to delve into the ways national TV news mediated the emergence of feminism's second wave. First legitimized as a big story by print media, the feminist movement gained broadcast attention as the networks’ eagerness to get in on the action was accompanied by feminists’ efforts to use national media for their own purposes. Dow chronicles the conditions that precipitated feminism's new visibility and analyzes the verbal and visual strategies of broadcast news discourses that tried to make sense of the movement. Groundbreaking and packed with detail, Watching Women's Liberation, 1970 shows how feminism went mainstream--and what it gained and lost on the way.

The Make-or-Break Year
The Make-or-Break Year

Author: Emily Krone Phillips

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1620973243

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A Washington Post Bestseller An entirely fresh approach to ending the high school dropout crisis is revealed in this groundbreaking chronicle of unprecedented transformation in a city notorious for its "failing schools" In eighth grade, Eric thought he was going places. But by his second semester of freshman year at Hancock High, his D's in Environmental Science and French, plus an F in Mr. Castillo's Honors Algebra class, might have suggested otherwise. Research shows that students with more than one semester F during their freshman year are very unlikely to graduate. If Eric had attended Hancock—or any number of Chicago's public high schools—just a decade earlier, chances are good he would have dropped out. Instead, Hancock's new way of responding to failing grades, missed homework, and other red flags made it possible for Eric to get back on track. The Make-or-Break Year is the largely untold story of how a simple idea—that reorganizing schools to get students through the treacherous transitions of freshman year greatly increases the odds of those students graduating—changed the course of two Chicago high schools, an entire school system, and thousands of lives. Marshaling groundbreaking research on the teenage brain, peer relationships, and academic performance, journalist turned communications expert Emily Krone Phillips details the emergence of Freshman OnTrack, a program-cum-movement that is translating knowledge into action—and revolutionizing how teachers grade, mete out discipline, and provide social, emotional, and academic support to their students. This vivid description of real change in a faulty system will captivate anyone who cares about improving our nation's schools; it will inspire educators and families to reimagine their relationships with students like Eric, and others whose stories affirm the pivotal nature of ninth grade for all young people. In a moment of relentless focus on what doesn't work in education and the public sphere, Phillips's dramatic account examines what does.

Hemingway at Eighteen
Hemingway at Eighteen

Author: Steve Paul

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1613739745

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In the summer of 1917, Ernest Hemingway was an 18-year-old high school graduate unsure of his future. The American entry in the Great War stirred thoughts of joining the army. While many of his friends in Oak Park, Illinois, were heading to college, Hemingway couldn't make up his mind, and eventually chose to begin a career in writing and journalism at one of the great newspapers of its day, the Kansas City Star. In six and a half months, Hemingway experienced a compressed, streetwise alternative to a college education, which opened his eyes to urban violence, the power of literature, the hard work of writing, and a constantly swirling stage of human comedy and drama. The Kansas City experience led Hemingway into the Red Cross ambulance service in Italy, where, two weeks before his 19th birthday, he was dangerously wounded at the front. Award-winning writer Steve Paul takes a measure of these experiences that transformed Hemingway from a "modest, rather shy and diffident boy" to a young man who was increasingly occupied by recording the truth as he saw it of crime, graft, exotic temptations, violence, and war. Hemingway at Eighteen sheds new light on this young man bound for greatness and a writer at the very beginning of his journey.

A Pivotal Moment
A Pivotal Moment

Author: Laurie Ann Mazur

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1610911415

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With contributions by leading demographers, environmentalists, and reproductive health advocates, A Pivotal Moment offers a new perspective on the complex connection between population dynamics and environmental quality. It presents the latest research on the relationship between population growth and climate change, ecosystem health, and other environmental issues. It surveys the new demographic landscape—in which population growth rates have fallen, but human numbers continue to increase. It looks back at the lessons of the last half century while looking forward to population policies that are sustainable and just. A Pivotal Moment embraces the concept of “population justice,” which holds that inequality is a root cause of both rapid population growth and environmental degradation. By addressing inequality—both gender and economic—we can reduce growth rates and build a sustainable future.