As old as a roadway that was once a Native trail, as new as the suburban subdivisions spreading across the American countryside, the cultural landscape is endlessly changing. The study of cultural landscapes--a far more recent development--has also undergone great changes, ever broadening, deepening, and refining our understanding of the intricate webs of social and ecological spaces that help to define human groups and their activities. Everyday America surveys the widening conceptions and applications of cultural landscape writing in the United States and, in doing so, offers a clear and compelling view of the state of cultural landscape studies today.These essays--by distinguished journalists, historians, cultural geographers, architects, landscape architects, and planners--constitute a critical evaluation of the field's theoretical assumptions, and of the work of John Brinckerhoff Jackson, the pivotal figure in the emergence of cultural landscape studies. At the same time, they present exemplary studies of twentieth-century landscapes, from the turn-of-the-century American downtown to the corporate campus and the mini-mall. Assessing the field's accomplishments and shortcomings, offering insights into teaching the subject, and charting new directions for its future development, Everyday America is an eloquent statement of the meaning, value, and potential of the close study of human environments as they embody, reflect, and reveal American culture.

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Chris Wilson, Paul Groth - Everyday America, Cultu ral Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson (2003).pdf

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Feng-Hsiung Hsu - Behind Deep Blue, Building the C omputer that Defeated the World Chess Champion (20 02).jpg

In 1997, a computer developed by a team of researchers at IBM shocked the world by defeating world chess champion Gary Kasparov in a six-game match. Hsu began developing Deep Blue, the first computer to achieve such a feat, as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Here he focuses on the events in his career that led to his involvement with the project. He tells the story of how the basic technical ideas took shape in the computer science department and describes the further evolution and culmination of the project at IBM. Not merely a rehashing of the engineering that was poured into creating the "mother of all chess machines," Hsu's account goes beyond the typical man vs. machine angle and attempts to capture the true essence of the contest between men in two distinct roles: Kasparov as performer and Hsu's team as toolmaker. The result is an intelligent, well-written account of a milestone in the history of computer science that stands out from the other books on Deep Blue. Recommended for general readers attracted to the history of chess and computing.

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Marc Stears - Progressives, Pluralists, and the Pr oblems of the State, Ideologies of Reform in the U nited States and Britain, 1906-1926 (2002).jpg

USA Books1 - Marc Stears - Progressives, Pluralists, and the Proble...form in the United States and Britain, 1906-1926 2002.jpg

Employing new methods of conceptual and institutional analysis, and drawing on extensive original archival research, this book examines the efforts of leading political theorists to transform the initially distinctive theories of the British and American lefts into a single unified ideology. In so doing it challenges traditional narratives emphasising the exceptional development the American and British lefts, and argues instead that the central theoretical and practical commitments of both movements were constantly shaped and reshaped by international ideological exchange

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Marc Stears - Progressives, Pluralists, and the Pr oblems of the State, Ideologies of Reform in the U nited States and Britain, 1906-1926 (2002).pdf

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Patrick J. Jung - The Black Hawk War of 1832 (2007 ).jpg

In 1832, facing white expansion, the Sauk warrior Black Hawk attempted to forge a pan-Indian alliance that would preserve the homelands of the confederated Sauk and Fox tribes on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. However, the ensuing war with the United States decimated Black Hawk's band. The conflict has captured the imagination of historians for more than a century, and Patrick J. Jung here re-examines its causes, course, and consequences. Correcting mistakes that plagued previous histories, Jung focuses on the complex nature of Indian resistance and the role of intertribal conflict in the war.

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Patrick J. Jung - The Black Hawk War of 1832 (2007 ).pdf

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Saul Cornell - A Well-Regulated Militia, The Found ing Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in Amer ica (2008).jpg

USA Books1 - Saul Cornell - A Well-Regulated Militia, The Founding ...athers and the Origins of Gun Control in America 2008.jpg

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern "individual right" view emerged only in the nineteenth century. The modern debate, Cornell reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the "collective rights" theory to preeminence and set the terms for constitutional debate over this issue for the next century. A Well Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read.

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Steve Hindy, Tom Potter - Beer School, Bottling S uccess at the Brooklyn Brewery (2005).jpg

This winning tale of the rise of the Brooklyn Brewery follows the basic pattern of every entrepreneur's memoir: a restless visionary sets out to accomplish a dream, barely survives a series of setbacks, emerges victorious—and ready to tell readers how they can do the same. But this account serves up more than the usual suds and foam—its counsel is sound and its prose lively, and it should appeal to both wannabe industrialists and beer drinkers, not that those categories are mutually exclusive. In fact, the authors, foreign correspondent Hindy and banker Potter, decided to found their New York brewery, now 17 years in business and among the top 40 in the U.S. in sales, after consuming many bottles of Hindy's homebrew. The longtime partners tell their story in engaging, candid voices, delivering cautionary anecdotes, reflections on longstanding disagreements and lingering resentments, and brutally frank self-assessments. It helps the story immeasurably that beer is a more colorful subject than, say, spreadsheet software, a fact that gets the reader past the inevitable chapter on financing. Though Hindy and Potter may not help the aspiring entrepreneur strike gold, they offer a compelling model and a heartening story.

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Steve Hindy, Tom Potter - Beer School, Bottling S uccess at the Brooklyn Brewery (2005).pdf

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Charles E. Gannon - Rumors of War and Infernal Mac hines, Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American a nd British Speculative Fiction (2005).jpg

USA Books1 - Charles E. Gannon - Rumors of War and Infernal Machin...ting in American and British Speculative Fiction 2005.jpg

This provocative and unique work reveals the remarkably influential role of futuristic literature on contemporary political power in America. Tracing this phenomenon from its roots in Victorian Britain, Gannon convincingly demonstrates that military fiction anticipated and even influenced the evolution of the tank, the development of the airplane, and also the bitter political battles within Britain's War Office and the Admiralty. In the United States, future-fictions and Cold-War thrillers were an officially acknowledged factor in the Pentagon's R&D agendas, and often gave rise and shape to the strategic development of technologies as diverse as automation, atomic weaponry, aerospace vehicles, and Star Wars. With its detailed political, historical, and literary analysis of the American and European fascination with hi-tech warfare, this lively, informative, and revealing study will appeal to students, general readers, literary and cultural scholars, and military and history enthusiasts.

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Charles E. Gannon - Rumors of War and Infernal Mac hines, Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American a nd British Speculative Fiction (2005).pdf

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Dickson D. Bruce - The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865 (2001).jpg

From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works contemporary with Emancipation, African American literature has been a dialogue across color lines and a medium through which black writers have been able to exert considerable authority on both sides of that racial demarcation. Dickson D. Bruce argues that contrary to prevailing perceptions of African American voices as silenced and excluded from American history, those voices were loud and clear. Within the context of the wider culture, these writers offered powerful, widely read, and widely appreciated commentaries on American ideals and ambitions. The Origins of African American Literature provides strong evidence to demonstrate just how much writers engaged in a surprising number of dialogues with society as a whole. Along with an extensive discussion of major authors and texts, including Phillis Wheatley's poetry, Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Martin Delany's Blake, Bruce explores less prominent works and writers as well, thereby grounding African American writing in its changing historical settings. The Origins of African American Literature is an invaluable revelation of the emergence and sources of the specifically African American literary tradition and the forces that helped shape it.

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Dickson D. Bruce - The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865 (2001).pdf

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Cory Gideon Gunderson - The Boston Tea Party (2004 ).jpg

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Cory Gideon Gunderson - The Boston Tea Party (2004 ).pdf

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George C. Becker - Fishes Of Wisconsin (1983).jpg

This magnificent, encyclopedic reference to 157 fish species-which are found not only in Wisconsin but also in much of the Great Lakes region and Mississippi River watershed-has been a model for all other such works. In addition to comprehensive species accounts, Becker discusses water resources and fisheries management from both historical and practical policy perspectives.

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George C. Becker - Fishes Of Wisconsin (1983).djvu

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Cory Gideon Gunderson - The Battle of the Alamo (2 004).jpg

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Cory Gideon Gunderson - The Battle of the Alamo (2 004).pdf

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Peter Glazer - Radical Nostalgia, Spanish Civil Wa r Commemoration in America (2005).jpg

Nostalgia can serve as a vital tool in the emotional reconstitution and preservation of suppressed histories, rather than sentimentally privileging the past at the expense of present concerns and limiting a culture's progressive potential. Between 1936 and 1938, responding to a military coup in Spain led by Francisco Franco with the support of both Hitler and Mussolini, over 2700 US anti-fascists joined 30,000 volunteers from around the world to form the International Brigade. They came together to defend the democratically elected Spanish government against this early manifestation of the fascist Axis. After three bloody years, Franco's rebellion succeeded, and his dictatorship lasted until his death in 1975. From the moment the first American volunteers returned home, and to this day, they have been holding commemorative events recalling the struggle. For nearly seventy years, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade have cited and re-cited their activist past in theatrically eclectic, highly emotional commemorative performances, a site for both nostalgia and progressive politics. Literary recitations, scripted dramaticpieces, songs, films, photographs, and celebrity appearances have been juxtaposed with speeches, fundraising, and a rigorous attention to pressing political and social concerns of the day. The history and content of these events is detailed and analyzed here based on a combination of archival and ethnographic evidence. The exemplary role of songs from the war, as both nostalgic triggers and historical artifacts, is also examined. Commemorations of the Spanish Civil War have provided necessary anchors for a period in US history when views now thought extreme were an accepted part of mass political discourse. Through this rich, inter-generational performance practice, a marginalized, vernacular political minority has deployed radical nostalgia as a necessary corrective to an official culture disinterested in America's leftist past, and threatened by its implications.

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Peter Glazer - Radical Nostalgia, Spanish Civil Wa r Commemoration in America (2005).pdf

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David Montgomery - Workers' Control in America, St udies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labo r Struggles (1980).jpg

USA Books1 - David Montgomery - Workers Control in America, Studie...History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles 1980.jpg

A collection of essays on workers' efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries to assert control over the processes of production in US. It describes the development of management techniques and includes discussions of various worker and union responses to unemployment.

This is a wonderful book on the breakdown of workers control over both the shop floor and the production process in the United States. The story begins in the post-civil war era when skilled/craft produciton still held sway. Via the influence of craft unions (most notably Gompers' American Federation of Labor and its numerous national unions) workers in many industries (Montgomery focuses heavily on machinists here) were able to hold great influence over the production process. Due to their high level of skill, and knowledge of their craft - generated a kind of structural leverage - craft unions were able to develop "cooperative" relationship with captial. However, between the 1880s and the 1900s increasing capital competition led to an employer offensive on worker's influece of the production process as a means of reducing costs, gaining control over the workplace, and augmenting profits. Their main aim was then to take the knowledge of the produciton process that the workers possessed and rationalize it - that is break it down into simple units, deskilling the particular work of the given craft...and the story goes on.

This is a higly recommended piece of labor history, one that would be well read in addition to Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital."

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David Montgomery - Workers' Control in America, St udies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labo r Struggles (1980).pdf

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Nelson W. Polsby - How Congress Evolves, Social Ba ses of Institutional Change (2003).jpg

From the end of the New Deal until quite recently, the U.S. House of Representatives was dominated by a conservative coalition that thwarted the Democratic majority and prevented the enactment of measures proposed by a succession of liberal Presidents. Today Presidents aren't necessarily liberal and the House of Representatives is not necessarily the graveyard of presidential proposals. What happened? Congress evolved. It all began with airconditioning. In this entertaining tale of one of our most august institutions, Nelson Polsby describes how the Democratic majority finally succeeded in overcoming the conservative coalition, changing the House. The evolution required among other things, the disappearance of Dixiecrats from the House Democratic caucus. Dixiecrats were replaced by the rise of the Republican party in the south. The Republican party in southern states was strengthened by an influx of migrants from the north, who came south to settle after the introduction of residential air conditioning, which made the climate more tolerable to Northerners. This evolutionary process led to the House's liberalization and concluded with the House's later transformation into an arena of sharp partisanship, visible among both Democrats and Republicans. A fascinating read by one of our most influential political scientists, How Congress Evolves breathes new life into the dusty corners of institutional history, and offers a unique explanation for important transformations in the congressional environment

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Edwin Burrows - Forgotten Patriots, The Untold Sto ry of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (2008).jpg

USA Books1 - Edwin Burrows - Forgotten Patriots, The Untold Story o... American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War 2008.jpg

Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners of war, most of them confined in New York City under conditions so atrocious that they perished by the thousands. Evidence suggests that at least 17,500 Americans may have died in these prisons—more than twice the number to die on the battlefield. It was in New York, not Boston or Philadelphia, where most Americans gave their lives for the cause of independence. New York City became the jailhouse of the American Revolution because it was the principal base of the Crown’s military operations. Beginning with the bumper crop of American captives taken during the 1776 invasion of New York, captured Americans were stuffed into a hastily assembled collection of public buildings, sugar houses, and prison ships. The prisoners were shockingly overcrowded and chronically underfed—those who escaped alive told of comrades so hungry they ate their own clothes and shoes. Despite the extraordinary number of lives lost, Forgotten Patriots is the first-ever account of what took place in these hell-holes. The result is a unique perspective on the Revolutionary War as well as a sobering commentary on how Americans have remembered our struggle for independence—and how much we have forgotten.

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Edwin Burrows - Forgotten Patriots, The Untold Sto ry of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (2008).pdf

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Robert Heilbroner - Visions of the Future, The Dis tant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1996).jpg

A prophetic vision of the shape of things to come, from one of America's most eloquent economists. Heilbroner gives a penetrating historical overview of how we have thought about the future through the ages, and issues a clarion call to face the challenges of the 21st century with a new awareness and resolve strengthened by the inspiration of our past.

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