Retired "CBS News" anchor Cronkite offers this panorama of what can be seen along the coastlines from Maine to Texas, and from Washington to California. The author relates anecdotes of local color, dockside characters, and events from U.S. history. Illustrations.
The author of Mesmerized delivers another fascinating glimpse into history, this time the story of two brave suffragists on a trek across America to spread the word: Votes for Women! In April 1916, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke set out from New York City in a little yellow car, embarking on a bumpy, muddy, unmapped journey ten thousand miles long. They took with them a teeny typewriter, a tiny sewing machine, a wee black kitten, and a message for Americans all across the country: Votes for Women! The women’s suffrage movement was in full swing, and Nell and Alice would not let anything keep them from spreading the word about equal voting rights for women. Braving blizzards, deserts, and naysayers—not to mention a whole lot of tires stuck in the mud—the two courageous friends made their way through the cities and towns of America to further their cause. One hundred years after Nell and Alice set off on their trip, Mara Rockliff revives their spirit in a lively and whimsical picture book, with exuberant illustrations by Hadley Hooper bringing their inspiring historical trek to life.
Explore 50 of America's remaining iconic roadside motels. Admire the magical allure of their neon signs, unique architecture and their beautiful design that beckon you off the highway through a collection of astonishing photographs. Meet the moteliers creating the experience for a new generation to enjoy. The stories and photographs in Sleeping Around in America give readers an opportunity to rekindle fond memories of family vacations, road trips and childhood experiences while providing a roadmap of motels where they can travel to today. A book to satisfy armchair travellers, American pop-culture enthusiasts and nostalgia seeking adventure romantic explorers.
Immigration and the growing Latino population of the United States have become such contentious issues that it can be hard to have a civil conversation about how Latinoization is changing the face of America. So in the summer of 2007, Louis Mendoza set out to do just that. Starting from Santa Cruz, California, he bicycled 8,500 miles around the entire perimeter of the country, talking to people in large cities and small towns about their experiences either as immigrants or as residents who have welcomed—or not—Latino immigrants into their communities. He presented their enlightening, sometimes surprising, firsthand accounts in Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States. Now, in A Journey Around Our America, Mendoza offers his own account of the visceral, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of traveling the country in search of a deeper, broader understanding of what it means to be Latino in the United States in the twenty-first century. With a blend of first- and second-person narratives, blog entries, poetry, and excerpts from conversations he had along the way, Mendoza presents his own aspirations for and critique of social relations, political ruminations, personal experiences, and emotional vulnerability alongside the stories of people from all walks of life, including students, activists, manual laborers, and intellectuals. His conversations and his experiences as a Latino on the road reveal the multilayered complexity of Latino life today as no academic study or newspaper report ever could.
He's one of America's most capable, canny, candid, and independent financial experts. Now David M. Walker sounds a call to action. Comeback America is a tough-minded, innovative, inspiring guide to help us avoid the approaching economic abyss and put the country back on track again. As comptroller general of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—"the nation's top auditor"—Walker warned Congress and the administration as the federal surplus became a giant deficit under George W. Bush. As president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, he now works full-time to raise public awareness regarding mounting debt burdens being imposed on future generations. Comeback America is his crucial manifesto, a way for President Obama to end out-of-control government spending and reform our tax, retirement, health care, defense, and other systems—before it's too late. Walker believes that by 2030, absent significant reforms to current government programs and policies, federal taxes could double from current levels, meaning less money and poorer education for kids—which will hurt families along with our nation's economic strength and position in the world. If our foreign creditors—such as China—decide to buy fewer of our Treasury bonds, interest rates will rise and cars and homes will become less affordable. But it doesn't have to be that way. Comeback America shows how we can return to our founding principles of fiscal responsibility and stewardship for future generations. The book includes bold ideas to control spending, save Social Security, dramatically alter Medicare, and simplify the tax code—all taking into account the Obama Administration's current efforts, which receive never-before-published assessments both complimentary and critical. Nonpartisan, nonideological, and filled with a love of the country its esteemed author has spent his life serving, Comeback America is a book for anyone interested in America's economic future—in other words, a book everyone should read.
Shawn Inmon hails from Mossyrock, Washington--the setting for his first two books, Feels Like the First Time, and Both Sides Now. He is a full time author who lives in picturesque Seaview, Washington on the Pacific Ocean. Shawn says he has learned everything he knows by having 400 different jobs. For twenty years, he worked as a Managing Broker of a real estate office. Prior to that, he DJed at radio stations in Montana, Wyoming, Washington and California, sold stuff that you definitely wanted, cooked your hamburgers, fished for crabs, bought for department stores, and traveled the country with the Unlimited Hydroplanes. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Dawn. He has five daughters, a passel of grandchildren, and is the best pal of two chocolate labs named Hershey and Sadie.
As economic and military walls have come down in the post-Cold War era, states have rapidly built new barriers to prevent a perceived invasion of undesirables. This work examines the practice, politics, and consequences of building these walls.
The book about America de Tocqueville might have written had he spent some time in the nation's smoking sections Using two cross-country trips on Amtrak as her narrative vehicles, British writer Jenny Diski connects the humming rails taking her into the heart of America with the track-like scars leading back to her own past. As she did in the highly acclaimed Skating to Antarctica, Diski has created a seamless and seemingly effortless amalgam of reflection and revelation. Stranger on a Train is a combination of travelogue and memoir, a penetrating portrait of America and Americans that is at the same time an unsparing look in the mirror. Traveling and remembering both involve confronting strangers—those we have just met and those we once were—and acknowledging the play of proximity and separation. Diski has written a moving, courageous, and deeply rewarding book about who we are, and the landscapes through which we have passed to get there.
A battle rages for the heart and soul of America. For one group, the idea of “American Exceptionalism” is dead. Some never tire of lecturing us about how out-of-step America is with the rest of the world and how she needs to get with it. Worse, America, they say, is bad for the world. Her freedom and prosperity are merely historical accidents. Of course, this narrative presupposes there are better places in the world to live. Are there? Were Alec Baldwin to leave the country permanently as he once promised, where would he go?
Around Marcellus recounts the rich history of a community founded by strong and determined settlers. Marcellus and its neighbors Otisco and Marietta are located just west of Syracuse. Founded in 1794, the town grew largely because of its successful mills and businesses. Its history from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s is portrayed here in clear narrative and some 200 archival images from the Marcellus Historical Society. Around Marcellus recounts the rich history of a community founded by strong and determined settlers. Marcellus and its neighbors Otisco and Marietta are located just west of Syracuse. Founded in 1794, the town grew largely because of its successful mills and businesses. Its history from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s is portrayed here in clear narrative and some 200 archival images from the Marcellus Historical Society.