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Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2012-09-25
Total Pages: 834
ISBN-13: 0143122010
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFaced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Author: Gertrude Stein
Publisher: Virago Press
Published: 1988
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 9780860689911
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Nathaniel Philbrick
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-09-14
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 0525562184
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick—a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement.” —The Boston Globe Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington’s unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative. When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing—Americans. In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called “the infant woody country” to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington’s presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington’s and Philbrick’s eyes. Written at a moment when America’s founding figures are under increasing scrutiny, Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington’s legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery. At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history’s flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth-century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way—and how his all-consuming belief in the union helped to forge a nation.
Author: Nolan McCarty
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2006-06-16
Total Pages: 253
ISBN-13: 0262134640
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn analysis of how the increasing polarization of American politics has been accompanied and accelerated by greater income inequality, rising immigration, and other social and economic changes.
Author: Morris P. Fiorina
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2012-11-09
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0806184787
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRed states, blue states . . . are we no longer the United States? Morris P. Fiorina here examines today’s party system to reassess arguments about party polarization while offering a cogent overview of the American electorate. Building on the arguments of Fiorina’s acclaimed Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, this book explains how contemporary politics differs from that of previous eras and considers what might be done to overcome the unproductive politics of recent decades. Drawing on polling results and other data, Fiorina examines the disconnect between an unrepresentative “political class” and the citizenry it purports to represent, showing how politicians have become more polarized while voters remain moderate; how politicians’ rhetoric and activities reflect hot-button issues that are not public priorities; and how politicians’ dogmatic, divisive, and uncivil style of “debate” contrasts with the more civil discourse of ordinary Americans, who tend to be more polite and open to compromise than their leaders. Disconnect depicts politicians out of touch with the larger public, distorting issues and information to appeal to narrow interest groups. It can help readers better understand the political divide between leaders and the American public—and help steer a course for change.
Author: Randy Pausch
Publisher:
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780340978504
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.
Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2018-09-18
Total Pages: 733
ISBN-13: 0393635252
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.
Author: Thomas E. Patterson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2019-10-03
Total Pages: 227
ISBN-13: 0806165685
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmericans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.
Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard + ORM
Published: 2011-02-01
Total Pages: 183
ISBN-13: 0674261364
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Audacious . . . offers a fierce critique of democracy’s most dangerous adversary: the abuse of democratic power by democratically elected chief executives.” (Benjamin R. Barber, New York Times bestselling author of Jihad vs. McWorld ) Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of the last half-century have transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for political extremism and lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another?from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century?and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward. “The questions [Ackerman] raises regarding the threat of the American Executive to the republic are daunting. This fascinating book does an admirable job of laying them out.” —The Rumpus “Ackerman worries that the office of the presidency will continue to grow in political influence in the coming years, opening possibilities for abuse of power if not outright despotism.” —Boston Globe “A serious attention-getter.” —Joyce Appleby, author of The Relentless Revolution “Those who care about the future of our nation should pay careful heed to Ackerman’s warning, as well as to his prescriptions for avoiding a constitutional disaster.” —Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times
Author: Arthur C. Brooks
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-03-12
Total Pages: 218
ISBN-13: 0062883771
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNATIONAL BESTSELLER To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right? Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a “culture of contempt”—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right? Wrong. In Love Your Enemies, social scientist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are not the right formula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work that offers a better way to lead based on bridging divides and mending relationships. Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act. Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.
