Hellfire Nation

Author : James A. Morone
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300105177
Total Pages : 589 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hellfire Nation written by James A. Morone and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. Although the US is proud of being a secular state, religion lies at the heart of American politics. This volume looks at how the country came to have the soul of a church & the consequences - the moral crusades against slavery, alcohol, witchcraft & discrimination that time & again have prevailed upon the nation.

Author : Peter Andreas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199301611
Total Pages : 1815 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Smuggler Nation written by Peter Andreas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-16 with total page 1815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Contraband capitalism, it turns out, has been an integral part of American capitalism. Providing a sweeping narrative history from colonial times to the present, Smuggler Nation is the first book to retell the story of America--and of its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world--as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce. As Peter Andreas demonstrates in this provocative and fascinating account, smuggling has played a pivotal and too often overlooked role in America's birth, westward expansion, and economic development, while anti-smuggling campaigns have dramatically enhanced the federal government's policing powers. The great irony, Andreas tells us, is that a country that was born and grew up through smuggling is today the world's leading anti-smuggling crusader. In tracing America's long and often tortuous relationship with the murky underworld of smuggling, Andreas provides a much-needed antidote to today's hyperbolic depictions of out-of-control borders and growing global crime threats. Urgent calls by politicians and pundits to regain control of the nation's borders suffer from a severe case of historical amnesia, nostalgically implying that they were ever actually under control. This is pure mythology, says Andreas. For better and for worse, America's borders have always been highly porous. Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just decades but centuries. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting U.S. laws but also helping to fuel America's evolution from a remote British colony to the world's pre-eminent superpower.

Author : Jake Tapper
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0316472336
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Hellfire Club written by Jake Tapper and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young Congressman stumbles on the powerful political underworld of 1950's D.C. in this "potent thriller" (David Baldacci) and New York Times bestseller from CNN correspondent Jake Tapper. Charlie Marder is an unlikely Congressman. Thrust into office by his family ties after his predecessor died mysteriously, Charlie is struggling to navigate the dangerous waters of 1950s Washington, DC, alongside his young wife Margaret, a zoologist with ambitions of her own. Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful political leaders and deal makers, a mysterious fatal car accident thrusts Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history. When Charlie discovers a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of governance, he has to fight not only for his principles and his newfound political career...but for his life.

Author : Bierbauer Alec
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1510720928
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves written by Bierbauer Alec and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An extraordinary, riveting, page-turning account—finally cleared for publication by the CIA—of the once highly classified effort by the CIA and special military units to develop a truly game-changing, transformational capability: armed drones."—General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and former Director of the CIA​ The Inside Story of How a CIA Officer and an Air Force Officer Joined Forces to Develop America’s Most Powerful Tool in the War on Terror. Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves is the story behind the origins of the Predator drone program and the dawn of unmanned warfare. A firsthand account told by an Air Force team leader and a CIA team leader, Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves takes readers into the back offices and secret government hangars where the robotic revolution went from a mad scientist idea to a pivotal part of global airpower. Featuring a foreword by Charlie Allen, an introduction by Lieutenant General John Campbell, USAF (Ret.), and an afterword by Lieutenant Colonel Gabe Brown, the story reveals the often conflicting perspectives between the defense and intelligence communities and puts the reader inside places like the CIA’s counterterrorism center on the morning of 9/11. Through the eyes of the men and women who lived it, you will experience the hunt for Usama bin Laden and the evolution of a program from passive surveillance to the complex hunter-killers that hang above the battlespace like ghosts. Poised at the junction between The Right Stuff and The Bourne Identity, Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves documents the way a group of cowboys, rogues, and bandits broke rules and defied convention to change the shape of modern warfare

Author : Kathryn Gin Lum
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199843112
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Damned Nation written by Kathryn Gin Lum and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: hell and eternal damnation. The fear of fire and brimstone and the worm that never dies exerted a profound and lasting influence on Americans' ideas about themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of the world. Kathryn Gin Lum poses a number of vital questions: Why did the fear of hell survive Enlightenment critiques in America, after largely subsiding in Europe and elsewhere? What were the consequences for early and antebellum Americans of living with the fear of seeing themselves and many people they knew eternally damned? How did they live under the weighty obligation to save as many souls as possible? What about those who rejected this sense of obligation and fear? Gin Lum shows that beneath early Americans' vaunted millennial optimism lurked a pervasive anxiety: that rather than being favored by God, they and their nation might be the object of divine wrath.

Author : Meg Jacobs
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400825822
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Democratic Experiment written by Meg Jacobs and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of fascinating essays that explore topics in American politics from the nation's founding to the present day , The Democratic Experiment opens up exciting new avenues for historical research while offering bold claims about the tensions that have animated American public life. Revealing the fierce struggles that have taken place over the role of the federal government and the character of representative democracy, the authors trace the contested and dynamic evolution of the national polity. The contributors, who represent the leading new voices in the revitalized field of American political history, offer original interpretations of the nation's political past by blending methodological insights from the new institutionalism in the social sciences and studies of political culture. They tackle topics as wide-ranging as the role of personal character of political elites in the Early Republic, to the importance of courts in building a modern regulatory state, to the centrality of local political institutions in the late twentieth century. Placing these essays side by side encourages the asking of new questions about the forces that have shaped American politics over time. An unparalleled example of the new political history in action, this book will be vastly influential in the field. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Brian Balogh, Sven Beckert, Rebecca Edwards, Joanne B. Freeman, Richard R. John, Ira Katznelson, James T. Kloppenberg, Matthew D. Lassiter, Thomas J. Sugrue, Michael Vorenberg, and Michael Willrich.

Author : James A. Morone
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300147124
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Democratic Wish written by James A. Morone and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This prize-winning book reinterprets more than 200 years of American political history as the interplay between the public’s dread of government power and its yearning for communal democracy. James Morone argues that Americans will never solve their collective problems as long as they instinctively fear all public power as a threat to liberty. This revised edition includes a new final chapter about contemporary populism, government bashing, and democratic wishes.Winner of the 1991 Gladys M. Kammerer Award“The Democratic Wish merits the highest compliments one can accord a public policy book. It spotlights a problem that can no longer be evaded. And it makes you think.”-Alan Tonelson, New York Times Book Review“Morone writes with flair and passion. The fact that he puts forth a provocative argument and provides concise histories of labor, civil rights, and health care politics makes this book especially useful for teaching American politics.”-R. Shep Melnick, Journal of Interdisciplinary History“Morone’s contribution to our understanding of state building . . . is substantial and profound.”-John S. Dryzek, American Political Science Review“This stimulating reinterpretation of American political history will interest both scholars concerned about the past and citizens concerned about the future.”-Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.“This is a persuasive, illuminating study in American political ideas and the disappointments of reform.”-Dean McSweeney, American Politics Review.

Author : Jason C Bivins
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199887691
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion of Fear written by Jason C Bivins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservative evangelicalism has transformed American politics, disseminating a sometimes fearful message not just through conventional channels, but through subcultures and alternate modes of communication. Within this world is a "Religion of Fear," a critical impulse that dramatizes cultural and political conflicts and issues in frightening ways that serve to contrast "orthodox" behaviors and beliefs with those linked to darkness, fear, and demonology. Jason Bivins offers close examinations of several popular evangelical cultural creations including the Left Behind novels, church-sponsored Halloween "Hell Houses," sensational comic books, especially those disseminated by Jack Chick, and anti-rock and -rap rhetoric and censorship. Bivins depicts these fascinating and often troubling phenomena in vivid (sometimes lurid) detail and shows how they seek to shape evangelical cultural identity. As the "Religion of Fear" has developed since the 1960s, Bivins sees its message moving from a place of relative marginality to one of prominence. What does it say about American public life that such ideas of fearful religion and violent politics have become normalized? Addressing this question, Bivins establishes links and resonances between the cultural politics of evangelical pop, the activism of the New Christian Right, and the political exhaustion facing American democracy. Religion of Fear is a significant contribution to our understanding of the new shapes of political religion in the United States, of American evangelicalism, of the relation of religion and the media, and the link between religious pop culture and politics.

Author : Andrew R. Murphy
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190454210
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Prodigal Nation written by Andrew R. Murphy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-05 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Original and wide-ranging, Murphy's discerning and important study is another reminder that America is 'the nation with the soul of a church.'" -Journal of American History "A wide-ranging and thoughtful meditation on how the theo-political stories we Americans tell ourselves resonate with and sometimes even create the communities we inhabit. This book deserves an honored place among the oeuvre of work by political scientists and historians on the jeremiad." -- Politics and Religion "A significant contribution to the historical account of the role of religion in American politics." --Perspectives on Politics "Prodigal Nation is a careful account of how theologies function politically and deserves attention from political scientists, political theologians, American historians, and others interested in the interface of religion and culture." --Religious Studies Review "This highly original and wonderfully written analysis will be invaluable to anyone interested in the meaning of America." --Harry S. Stout, author of The New England Soul and Upon the Altar of the Nation "A brilliant analysis of the American jeremiad. Elegant, powerful, hopeful, and wise - Prodigal Nation is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the fitful history of the American spirit." --James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation and The Democratic Wish

Author : Anna M. Grzymała-Busse
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400866456
Total Pages : 439 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nations under God written by Anna M. Grzymała-Busse and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why churches in some democratic nations wield enormous political power while churches in other democracies don't In some religious countries, churches have drafted constitutions, restricted abortion, and controlled education. In others, church influence on public policy is far weaker. Why? Nations under God argues that where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gain enormous moral authority—and covert institutional access. These powerful churches then shape policy in backrooms and secret meetings instead of through open democratic channels such as political parties or the ballot box. Through an in-depth historical analysis of six Christian democracies that share similar religious profiles yet differ in their policy outcomes—Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the United States and Canada—Anna Grzymała-Busse examines how churches influenced education, abortion, divorce, stem cell research, and same-sex marriage. She argues that churches gain the greatest political advantage when they appear to be above politics. Because institutional access is covert, they retain their moral authority and their reputation as defenders of the national interest and the common good. Nations under God shows how powerful church officials in Ireland, Canada, and Poland have directly written legislation, vetoed policies, and vetted high-ranking officials. It demonstrates that religiosity itself is not enough for churches to influence politics—churches in Italy and Croatia, for example, are not as influential as we might think—and that churches allied to political parties, such as in the United States, have less influence than their notoriety suggests.