A thorough survey of the origins and development of the major distinct American commercial entertainments that emerged over the course of the 19th century and into the 20th, including P.T. Barnum's American Museum, freak show, and circus, as well as blackface minstrelry, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and vaudeville.

zachomikowany

5,5 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

John Springhall - The Genesis of Mass Culture, Sho w Business Live in America, 1840 to 1940 (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

15 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Joseph J. Ellis - American Sphinx, The Character o f Thomas Jefferson (1998).jpg

At different times Thomas Jefferson has been claimed by Southern secessionists and Northern abolitionists, New Deal liberals and neoconservatives Now historian Joseph J. Ellis restores our most elusive national icon to human dimensions with insight, sympathy, and superb style, shrewdly sifting the facts from the legends and the rumors. From the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Ellis unravels the contradictions of his character, giving us the slaveholding libertarian, the enemy of government power who exercised it audaciously as president; and the visionary who remained blind to his own inconsistencies. A marvel of scholarship and a delight to read, American Sphinx is a book whose appeal transcends history buffs and biography fans and pres an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.

zachomikowany

33 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Margret A. Winzer - The History of Special Educati on, From Isolation to Integration (1993).jpg

This book is one of the best written and researched books on education that I've had the good luck to come across. Winzer did a phenomenol job on what could be a dry subject. She also provides a great bibliography section which can further be used for references and research. I came across this book while doing research on deaf education and eugenics in the U.S. Not only does she have all the information that I had previously seen in books on the eugenics movement, but she provides more details and further references that the other books did not provide. The struggle for educational equality for those with disabilities has been a long, ongoing battle.

zachomikowany

12,5 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Margret A. Winzer - The History of Special Educati on, From Isolation to Integration (1993).chm

zachomikowany

59 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Michael Anthony - Mass Casualties, A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in I raq (2009).jpg

USA Books - Michael Anthony - Mass Casualties, A Young Medics True...e Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq 2009.jpg

“Look around,” the drill sergeant said. “In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”
It was Week 7 of Basic Training . . . 18 years old and I was preparing myself to die.
They say the Army makes a man out of you—but for 18-year-old SPC Michael Anthony, that fabled rite of passage proved a very dark journey. After soliciting his parents’ approval to enlist at only 17, Anthony began his journey with an unshakeable faith in the military born of his family’s long tradition of service. But when thrust into a medical unit of misfits as lost as he was, SPC Anthony not only witnessed the unspeakable horror of war—but the undeniable misconduct of the military—firsthand. Everything he ever believed in dissolved, forcing Anthony to rethink his loyalties, and ultimately risk his career—and his freedom—to challenge the military he had so firmly believed in.
This searing memoir chronicles the iconic experiences that changed one young soldier forever. A seasoned veteran before the age of twenty-one, he faced the truth about the war—and himself—in this shocking and unprecedented eyewitness account.

zachomikowany

256 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Thomas Kiffmeyer - Reformers to Radicals, The Appa lachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty (2008).jpg

In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to do something for their country. Thousands of young people answered his call, launching an era of flourishing social activism that eclipsed any in U.S. history. Citizens rallied behind an endless variety of social justice organizations to change the country's social and political landscape. As these social movements gained momentum, the severe poverty of the Appalachian region attracted the attention of many spirited young Americans. In 1964, a group of them formed the Appalachian Volunteers, an organization intent on eradicating poverty in eastern Kentucky and the rest of the Southern mountains. In Reformers to Radicals: The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty, Thomas Kiffmeyer documents the history of this organization as their youthful enthusiasm led to radicalism and controversy. Known informally as the AVs, these reformers sought to improve the everyday lives of the Appalachian poor while also making strides toward lasting economic change in the region. Considering themselves "poverty warriors," the AVs helped residents by refurbishing schools and homes and by offering much-needed educational opportunities, including job training and remedial academic instruction. Their efforts brought temporary relief to the Appalachian poor, but controversy was soon to follow. Within two years of the group's formation, they faced nationwide accusations that they were "seditious" and "un-American." Kiffmeyer explains how these activists, who worked for a worthy cause, ignited a firestorm of public criticism that ultimately caused their mission to fail. Before the decade was over, the Volunteers had lost the support of the federal and state governments and of many Appalachian people -- an irreversible setback that caused the group to disband in 1970. The Appalachian Volunteers' failure was caused by multiple factors. They were overtly political, attracting divisive reactions from local and state governments. They were indecisive in defining the true nature of their cause, creating dissension within the group's ranks. They were engaged in a struggle to "integrate" the poor into mainstream American culture, which alienated the AVs from many of the very people they sought to help. They were also caught up in the unrest of the civil rights and anti--Vietnam War movements, which distracted them from their core mission. Reformers to Radicals chronicles a critical era in Appalachian history while also investigating the impact the 1960s' reform attitude had on one part of a broader movement in the United States. Kiffmeyer revisits an era in which idealistic young Americans, spurred on by President Kennedy's call to action, set out to remake America.

zachomikowany

10,7 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Thomas Kiffmeyer - Reformers to Radicals, The Appa lachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

152 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

David Blumenthal, James Morone - The Heart of Powe r, Health and Politics in the Oval Office, With a New Preface (2010).jpg

USA Books - David Blumenthal, James Morone - The Heart of Power, H... Politics in the Oval Office, With a New Preface 2010.jpg

Starred Review. In this engrossing text, the history of American health-care policy, from the New Deal to the Medicare Modernization Act of George W. Bush, becomes a frame through which the authors illuminate the leadership qualities of late-20th-century presidents in the arena of domestic affairs. The authors present biographies of presidents from FDR on, investigating potential influences (e.g., heart attacks, abusive parents, deceased siblings) on their attitudes toward health policy. Blumenthal, a Harvard Medical School professor, and Brown University political scientist Morone (The Democratic Wish) draw on White House telephone tapes and memos in a laudatory chapter on Johnson's role in passing Medicare, and reserve their harshest criticism for Jimmy Carter, whose administration unwittingly killed the late effort at health reform. The authors offer evenhanded critiques and conclude with lessons for future chief executives about the importance of political savvy, economic flexibility and popular appeal in determining the success of health-care initiatives. More than an excellent primer on American health policy, the book offers a thorough, incisive look at the presidency as an institution and the men who have occupied the office.

zachomikowany

1,8 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

David Blumenthal, James Morone - The Heart of Powe r, Health and Politics in the Oval Office, With a New Preface (2010).pdf

zachomikowany

208 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Edward M. Graham and David M. Marchick - U.S. Nati onal Security and Foreign Direct Investment (2006).jpg

Does foreign ownership Does foreign ownership of American businesses pose a threat to the United States (like the abortive attempt by CNOOC, a Chinese company, to purchase Unocal during the summer of 2005)? This important new book examines foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States, the national security concerns associated with this investment, and treatment of these concerns under US policy. It asks whether the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) process can be improved and answers in the affirmative. The book starts by looking at the review process for foreign takeovers of US fifi rms (including a historical review), looks at the economic and political impact on the United States of foreign direct investment, takes a detailed look at issues relating to FDI posed by the rise of China as an economic and geopolitical power and finally suggests some changes to the Exon-Florio process. Includes a section on the Dubai Ports World controversy.

zachomikowany

1,2 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Edward M. Graham and David M. Marchick - U.S. Nati onal Security and Foreign Direct Investment (2006).pdf

zachomikowany

86 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Edward O. Guerrant - The Galax Gatherers, The Gosp el among the Highlanders (2005).jpg

Perhaps no group has had such a controversial place in the literature of Appalachian studies as the home missionaries. Accused of cultural and religious imperialism, many scholars fault home missionaries for casting mountain peoples in the role of "other." as well as for partnering with economic interests to exploit the region's resources. Edward O. Guerrant, a Kentucky-born physician and Presbyterian minister, has been singled out as one of the worst offenders. For most of his adult life, Guerrant traveled the hills and hamlets of southern Appalachia, spreading gospel, building churches, and recording his keen observations of the landscape and the people. In 1910, Guerrant published "The Galax Gatherers: The Gospel among the Highlanders, an account of these travels. Reissued here for the first time, "The Galax Gatherers is a fascinating look at Guerrant's beliefs, prejudices, and vision for a people "left behind" by the modern world. Guerrant's interest in Appalachia began when he served as a soldier in the Confederate army, during which time he traveled the mountains of southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and eastern Kentucky. When the war ended in 1865, he began training to become a medical doctor, eventually setting up practice near Mt. Sterling. Kentucky, where population was sparse. But Guerrant was just as interested in saving the souls of his mountain neighbors as their bodies; in 1873 he went to seminary, and by 1877 he was named to the Presbyterian Church's Home Missions Committee. So began Guerrant's famously contentious career as a mountain missionary. Using his medical expertise to entice followers. Guerrant recruited nearly three thousand new Church members in hisfirst four-year term as "Synodical Evangelist," organized twenty-five congregations, and built fifteen houses of worship. In 1897, Guerrant founded the Society of Soul Winners, a non-denominational organization that trained ministers and teachers for mountain work and constructed churches, mission schools, colleges, an orphanage, and a hospital. In a new introduction to the text, Mark Huddle notes that the lingering picture of Guerrant is more complex than scholars have heretofore acknowledged. "The Galax Gatherers is the story of the mountain missionaries in the words of one of their own and an absorbing record of early twentieth-century Appalachian life.

zachomikowany

11,0 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Edward O. Guerrant - The Galax Gatherers, The Gosp el among the Highlanders (2005).pdf

zachomikowany

144 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Frank Lambert - Religion in American Politics, A S hort History (2008).jpg

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when Federalist clergymen charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a "Christian nation," to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been part of American politics. In Religion in American Politics, Frank Lambert tells the fascinating story of the uneasy relations between religion and politics from the founding to the twenty-first century.
Lambert examines how antebellum Protestant unity was challenged by sectionalism as both North and South invoked religious justification; how Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" competed with the anticapitalist "Social Gospel" during postwar industrialization; how the civil rights movement was perhaps the most effective religious intervention in politics in American history; and how the alliance between the Republican Party and the Religious Right has, in many ways, realized the founders' fears of religious-political electoral coalitions. In these and other cases, Lambert shows that religion became sectarian and partisan whenever it entered the political fray, and that religious agendas have always mixed with nonreligious ones.
Religion in American Politics brings rare historical perspective and insight to a subject that was just as important--and controversial--in 1776 as it is today.

zachomikowany

55 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Gérard Duménil, Dominique Lévy - Capital Resurgent , Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution (2004).jpg

USA Books - Grard Dumnil, Dominique Lvy - Capital Resurgent, Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution 2004.jpg

The advent of economic neoliberalism in the 1980s triggered a shift in the world economy. In the three decades following World War II, now considered a golden age of capitalism, economic growth was high and income inequality decreasing. But in the mid-1970s this social compact was broken as the world economy entered the stagflation crisis, following a decline in the profitability of capital. This crisis opened a new phase of stagnating growth and wages, and unemployment. Interest rates as well as dividend flows rose, and income inequality widened.
Economists Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy show that, despite free market platitudes, neoliberalism was a planned effort by financial interests against the postwar Keynesian compromise. The cluster of neoliberal policies--including privatization, liberalization of world trade, and reduction in state welfare benefits--is an expression of the power of finance in the world economy.
The sequence of events initiated by neoliberalism was not unprecedented. In the late nineteenth century, when economic conditions were similar to those of the 1970s, a structural crisis led to the first financial hegemony culminating in the speculative boom of the late 1920s. The authors argue persuasively for stabilizing the world economy before we run headlong into another economic disaster.

zachomikowany

10,6 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Gérard Duménil, Dominique Lévy - Capital Resurgent , Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution (2004).pdf

zachomikowany

113 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Gerard Henrotin - The Savage model 1907 automatic pistol (2000).jpg

Content: Savage 1907 pistol - historical background; Savage 1907 pistol - pocket line; Savage 1907 pistol - field stripping; Savage 1907 pistol - mechanical features; locking mecanism; Savage gallery.

zachomikowany

7,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Gerard Henrotin - The Savage model 1907 automatic pistol (2000).pdf

zachomikowany

102 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

James Lincoln Collier - Jazz, The American Theme S ong (1995).jpg

Praised by the Washington Post as a "tough, unblinkered critic," James Lincoln Collier is probably the most controversial writer on jazz today. His acclaimed biographies of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman continue to spark debate in jazz circles, and his iconoclastic articles on jazz over the past 30 years have attracted even more attention. With the publication of Jazz: The American Theme Song, Collier does nothing to soften his reputation for hard-hitting, incisive commentary. Questioning everything we think we know about jazz--its origins, its innovative geniuses, the importance of improvisation and spontaneous inspiration in a performance--and the jazz world, these ten provocative essays on the music and its place in American culture overturn tired assumptions and will alternately enrage, enlighten, and entertain.
Jazz: The American Theme Song offers music lovers razor-sharp analysis of musical trends and styles, and fearless explorations of the most potentially explosive issues in jazz today. In "Black, White, and Blue," Collier traces African and European influences on the evolution of jazz in a free-ranging discussion that takes him from the French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to the orderly classrooms where most music students study jazz today. He argues that although jazz was originally devised by blacks from black folk music, jazz has long been a part of the cultural heritage of musicians and audiences of all races and classes, and is not black music per se. In another essay, Collier provides a penetrating analysis of the evolution of jazz criticism, and casts a skeptical eye on the credibility of the emerging "jazz canon" of critical writing and popular history. "The problem is that even the best jazz scholars keep reverting to the fan mentality, suddenly bursting out of the confines of rigorous analysis into sentimental encomiums in which Hot Lips Smithers is presented as some combination of Santa Claus and the Virgin Mary," he maintains. "It is a simple truth that there are thousands of high school music students around the country who know more music theory than our leading jazz critics." Other, less inflammatory but no less intriguing, essays include explorations of jazz as an intrinsic and fundamental source of inspiration for American dance music, rock, and pop; the influence of show business on jazz, and vice versa; and the link between the rise of the jazz soloist and the new emphasis on individuality in the 1920s.
Impeccably researched and informed by Collier's wide-ranging intellect, Jazz: The American Theme Song is an important look at jazz's past, its present, and its uncertain future. It is a book everyone who cares about the music will want to read.

zachomikowany

12,9 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

James Lincoln Collier - Jazz, The American Theme S ong (1995).pdf

zachomikowany

30 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jeremy M. Wilson - Police Recruitment and Retentio n for the New Millennium, The State of Knowledge ( 2010).jpg

Many police departments report difficulties in creating a workforce that represents community demographics, is committed to providing its employees the opportunity for long-term police careers, and effectively implements community policing. This book summarizes lessons on recruiting and retaining effective workforces.

zachomikowany

1,4 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jeremy M. Wilson - Police Recruitment and Retentio n for the New Millennium, The State of Knowledge ( 2010).pdf

zachomikowany

135 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jill St. Germain - Broken Treaties, United States and Canadian Relations with the Lakotas and the Pl ains Cree, 1868-1885 (2009).jpg

USA Books - Jill St. Germain - Broken Treaties, United States and ...s with the Lakotas and the Plains Cree, 1868-1885 2009.jpg

Broken Treaties is a comparative assessment of Indian treaty negotiation and implementation focusing on the first decade following the United States–Lakota Treaty of 1868 and Treaty Six between Canada and the Plains Cree (1876). Jill St. Germain argues that the “broken treaties” label imposed by nineteenth-century observers and perpetuated in the historical literature has obscured the implementation experience of both Native and non-Native participants and distorted our understanding of the relationships between them. As a result, historians have ignored the role of the Treaty of 1868 as the instrument through which the United States and the Lakotas mediated the cultural divide separating them in the period between 1868 and 1875. In discounting the treaty historians have also failed to appreciate the broader context of U.S. politics, which undermined a treaty solution to the Black Hills crisis in 1876. In Canada, on the other hand, the “broken treaties” tradition has obscured the distinctly different understanding of Treaty Six held by Canada and the Plains Cree. The inability of either party to appreciate the other’s position fostered the damaging misunderstanding that culminated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. In the first critical assessment of the implementation of these treaties, Broken Treaties restores Indian treaties to a central position in the investigation of Native–non-Native relations in the United States and Canada.

zachomikowany

11,0 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jill St. Germain - Broken Treaties, United States and Canadian Relations with the Lakotas and the Pl ains Cree, 1868-1885 (2009).pdf

zachomikowany

219 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Laurie Collier Hilstrom - The Attack on Pearl Harb or (2009).jpg

This book is divided into three well-organized sections. Part one provides a narrative overview detailing the events leading up to the attack, the attack itself, and the aftermath, including the U.S. victory in the Pacific as well as the occupation and reconstruction of Japan after World War II. Part two is composed of eight two- to three-page biographies of the important figures such as Yamamoto, Roosevelt, and Doris Miller, the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross. A final section of primary documents from the Japanese attack plan to Truman's announcement of the end of the war provides insight into the war in the Pacific. The quality of Hillstrom's clear prose and meticulous research is first-rate. Events are clearly and extensively chronicled to give readers a sense of what transpired. Black-and-white photos appear throughout. This work is a must-have for reports and assignments; it makes an excellent companion to Jacqueline Laks Gorman's Pearl Harbor: A Primary Source History.

zachomikowany

6,0 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Laurie Collier Hilstrom - The Attack on Pearl Harb or (2009).pdf

zachomikowany

87 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Lord Windlesham - Politics, Punishment, and Populi sm (1998).jpg

In this timely, challenging book, a former minister and current legislator in the British government examines the wave of American federal crime-control laws that surfaced both before and after the 1994 "Republican Revolution" in Congress. Lord Windlesham focuses on the pressure that populist opinion and special interests can exert in shaping crime policy. Several law-making actions and arguments are explored, such as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (thought by many to be the key legislative achievement of President Clinton's first term), the Brady Act, the "three strikes and you're out" rule, Megan's Law, and so forth. Furthermore, in presenting controversial views on the NRA and its competitors, the book ultimately asks how long America can continue to tolerate the private possession of deadly weapons.

zachomikowany