The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Author: Diane Ravitch

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2010-03-02

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0465014917

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Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.


Great American Stuff

Great American Stuff

Author: R. L. Jones

Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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One of the most compelling and delightful popular culture anthologies published in decades, this volume tells the story of Ivory Soap and the Model-T Ford, probes the intricate glories of Navajo rugs and Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, and celebrates the genius of Benny Goodman and Humphrey Bogart. Uniquely organized, it romps in a whimsical stream-of-consciousness manner through more than 250 of our country's finest products, richest traditions, and most inspiring people. Line drawings throughout.


The Great American Whatever

The Great American Whatever

Author: Tim Federle

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-03-29

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1481404113

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From the award-winning author of Five, Six, Seven, Nate! and Better Nate Than Ever comes “a Holden Caulfield for a new generation” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Quinn Roberts is a sixteen-year-old smart aleck and Hollywood hopeful whose only worry used to be writing convincing dialogue for the movies he made with his sister Annabeth. Of course, that was all before—before Quinn stopped going to school, before his mom started sleeping on the sofa…and before the car accident that changed everything. Enter: Geoff, Quinn’s best friend who insists it’s time that Quinn came out—at least from hibernation. One haircut later, Geoff drags Quinn to his first college party, where instead of nursing his pain, he meets a guy—okay, a hot guy—and falls, hard. What follows is an upside-down week in which Quinn begins imagining his future as a screenplay that might actually have a happily-ever-after ending—if, that is, he can finally step back into the starring role of his own life story.


Great American City

Great American City

Author: Robert J. Sampson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 022683400X

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"In his magisterial Great American City, Robert J. Sampson puts social scientific data behind an argument that we all feel and experience everyday: the neighborhood you live in has a big effect on your life and the city you live in. Not only does your neighborhood determine where your nearest hospital is, what kind of schools your children can attend, or how many police officers you might encounter (and how they respond to you), it affects how you feel, how you think about the world and your place in it. Like many sociologists before him, Sampson looks to Chicago to make his insightful interventions, based on extensive data collected across the city's diverse neighborhoods. This edition includes a new afterword by Sampson reflecting on changes in Chicago and the country that have occurred since the book was initially published. He notes the increase in gun violence, both among civilians and police killings of civilians, as well as steady or growing rates of segregation despite an increase in diversity. With these changes have come new research, much of it a continuation or elaboration of the work in Great American City. He updates readers on the status of the research initiative that serves as the basis of Great American City, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and summarizes how scholars have taken up his work. Many of these scholars have new tools at their disposal with the rise of big data; Sampson remarks on these changes in the field"--


The Great American Broadcast

The Great American Broadcast

Author: Leonard Maltin

Publisher: NAL

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780451200785

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This account of the Golden Age of Radio offers behind the scenes stories about Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, and many more stars, as well as the histories of radio soap operas, westerns and other shows. Includes hundreds of personal interviews and more than 125 rare photos and illustrations.


The Time of Their Lives

The Time of Their Lives

Author: Al Silverman

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2016-01-19

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1504028252

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A lively portrait of mid-twentieth-century American book publishing—“A wonderful book, filled with anecdotal treasures” (The New York Times). According to Al Silverman, former publisher of Viking Press and president of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the golden age of book publishing began after World War II and lasted into the early 1980s. In this entertaining and affectionate industry biography, Silverman captures the passionate spirit of legendary houses such as Knopf; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Grove Press; and Harper & Row, and profiles larger-than-life executives and editors, including Alfred and Blanche Knopf, Bennett Cerf, Roger Straus, Seymour Lawrence, and Cass Canfield. More than one hundred and twenty publishing insiders share their behind-the-scenes stories about how some of the most famous books in American literary history—from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich to The Silence of the Lambs—came into being and why they’re still being read today. A joyful tribute to the hard work and boundless energy of professionals who dedicate their careers to getting great books in front of enthusiastic readers, The Time of Their Lives will delight bibliophiles and anyone interested in this important and ever-evolving industry.


The Great American Read: The Book of Books

The Great American Read: The Book of Books

Author: PBS

Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0316417548

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A blockbuster illustrated book that captures what Americans love to read, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is the gorgeously-produced companion book to PBS's ambitious summer 2018 series. What are America's best-loved novels? PBS will launch The Great American Read series with a 2-hour special in May 2018 revealing America's 100 best-loved novels, determined by a rigorous national survey. Subsequent episodes will air in September and October. Celebrities and everyday Americans will champion their favorite novel and in the finale in late October, America's #1 best-loved novel will be revealed. The Great American Read: The Book of Books will present all 100 novels with fascinating information about each book, author profiles, a snapshot of the novel's social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts. Also included are themed articles about banned books, the most influential book illustrators, reading recommendations, the best first-lines in literature, and more. Beautifully designed with rare images of the original manuscripts, first-edition covers, rejection letters, and other ephemera, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is a must-have book for all booklovers.


The Great American Dirtbags

The Great American Dirtbags

Author: Luke Mehall

Publisher:

Published: 2014-04-14

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9780615981291

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"Following in the prose of the beatniks, the athletic counterculture of the dirtbags is carrying the torch with the belief that a simple, rewarding life, close to nature, is still possible in this modern world. In The great American dirtbags, these people and their wild stories come alive..." -- BACK COVER.


Land of Hope

Land of Hope

Author: Wilfred M. McClay

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2020-09-22

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 1594039380

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For too long we’ve lacked a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and compulsively readable book that offers American readers a clear, informative, and inspiring narrative account of their country. Such a fresh retelling of the American story is especially needed today, to shape and deepen young Americans’ sense of the land they inhabit, help them to understand its roots and share in its memories, all the while equipping them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in American society The existing texts simply fail to tell that story with energy and conviction. Too often they reflect a fragmented outlook that fails to convey to American readers the grand trajectory of their own history. This state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious consequences. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding and its aspirations; and it needs to be able to convey that narrative to its young effectively. Of course, it goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale of the past. It will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But as Land of Hope brilliantly shows, there is no contradiction between a truthful account of the American past and an inspiring one. Readers of Land of Hope will find both in its pages.


A Good American Family

A Good American Family

Author: David Maraniss

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1501178393

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Pulitzer Prize–winning author and “one of our most talented biographers and historians” (The New York Times) David Maraniss delivers a “thoughtful, poignant, and historically valuable story of the Red Scare of the 1950s” (The Wall Street Journal) through the chilling yet affirming story of his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, David’s father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact. In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father’s story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital 20th-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. “Remarkably balanced, forthright, and unwavering in its search for the truth” (The New York Times), A Good American Family evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is “clear-eyed and empathetic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.