Uniting America

Author : Wayne Baker
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781939880291
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book United America written by Wayne Baker and published by . This book was released on 2014-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First, this book is unique in subject. Dr. Wayne Baker is reporting a surprising truth about Americans: We are united by 10 Core Values. This truth is empowering because it enables us to rise above and see beyond political polarization, Washington gridlock, the imagery of Red/Blue states, and the rhetoric of culture wars and class warfare. In these pages, Dr. Baker shows how Americans agree on a surprising number of principles, based on years of nonpartisan, scientifically balanced polling and research. Second, this book is exceptional in its format, designed for individual reading and flexible use in classes, small groups and other settings where men and women enjoy civil discussion about the urgent issues of our day. Educators and business leaders will find this book very useful, partly because it is so easy to adapt for your setting. You may choose to read it cover to cover or tailor it to your particular interests and preferences. You can select the chapters and values you are most eager to read about and read them in any order. Within each chapter you will find topics to contemplate and discuss, along with questions that will stimulate reflection and respectful discussion about a value, what it means, and the challenges of applying it. Dr. Baker defines a Core American Value as a value that is strongly held by a large majority of Americans, stable over time, and shared across diverse demographic, religious, and political lines. A core value is not a prescription of what Americans ought to believe, but what Americans actually do believe. The meaning of "core values" can be seized, manipulated, and wielded by either side of the political aisle. This book is an attempt to reclaim the concept of "core values" from those who would usurp it, and make it a more neutral term. The idea that we share certain basic values is valuable and empowering-it's an insight that can bridge political chasms rather than deepen them.

Author : Charles Wheelan
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393347133
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Centrist Manifesto written by Charles Wheelan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-04-19 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vision—and detailed road map to power—for a new party that will champion America’s rational center. From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized—or paralyzed—than it is today. As best-selling author and public policy expert Charles Wheelan writes, now is the time for a pragmatic Centrist party that will identify and embrace the best Democratic and Republican ideals, moving us forward on the most urgent issues for our nation. Wheelan—who not only lectures on public policy but practices it as well (he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2009)—brings even more than his usual wit and clarity of vision to The Centrist Manifesto. He outlines a realistic ground game that could net at least five Centrist senators from New England, the Midwest, and elsewhere. With the power to deny a red or blue Senate majority, committed Centrists could take the first step toward giving voice and power to America’s largest, and most rational, voting bloc: the center.

Author : Walter Johnson
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 1541646061
Total Pages : 502 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Broken Heart of America written by Walter Johnson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

Author : Daniel J. Hopkins
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022653040X
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Increasingly United States written by Daniel J. Hopkins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

Author : Hannah Farber
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469663643
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Underwriters of the United States written by Hannah Farber and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens. Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law. Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation's institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers. Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era.

Author : Norton Garfinkle
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300133189
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Uniting America written by Norton Garfinkle and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Uniting America, some of the country’s most prominent social thinkers—among them Francis Fukuyama, Daniel Yankelovich, Amitai Etzioni, Alan Wolfe, Uwe Reinhardt, and Thomas E. Mann—reject the myth of polarization. On topics ranging from the war on terrorism, health care, economic policy, and Social Security to religion, diversity, and immigration, the authors argue that there are sensible, centrist solutions that are more in keeping with prevailing public sentiment and that would better serve the national interest. On issue after issue, the authors show how the conventional framing of the debate in Washington has misled Americans, creating a series of false dilemmas and forcing choices between two extremes—at the expense of more balanced and pragmatic policy solutions based on enduring American values. Uniting America provides a blueprint for a fresh approach to American politics, grounded in moderation, pragmatism, and the shared values that unite Americans.

Author : Lars Schoultz
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674256042
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beneath the United States written by Lars Schoultz and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-15 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbor, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped. This perception of inferiority was apparent from the beginning. John Quincy Adams, who first established diplomatic relations with Latin America, believed that Hispanics were "lazy, dirty, nasty...a parcel of hogs." In the early nineteenth century, ex-President John Adams declared that any effort to implant democracy in Latin America was "as absurd as similar plans would be to establish democracies among the birds, beasts, and fishes." Drawing on extraordinarily rich archival sources, Schoultz, one of the country's foremost Latin America scholars, shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries. We have combined self-interest with a "civilizing mission"--a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects. William Howard Taft felt the way to accomplish this task was "to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace," while in 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles warned that "the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children." Schoultz shows that the policies pursued reflected these deeply held convictions. While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America. Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbors as equals can it anticipate a constructive hemispheric alliance.

Author : Erika Lee
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 1541672593
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book America for Americans written by Erika Lee and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive history of American xenophobia is "essential reading for anyone who wants to build a more inclusive society" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist). The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported. Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an epilogue reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen.

Author : Howard Zinn
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 9780060528423
Total Pages : 764 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A People's History of the United States written by Howard Zinn and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-02-04 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.

Author : Lee Drutman
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190913851
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Breaking the Two-party Doom Loop written by Lee Drutman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American democracy is in deep crisis. But what do we do about it? That depends on how we understand the current threat.In Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, Lee Drutman argues that we now have, for the first time in American history, a genuine two-party system, with two fully-sorted, truly national parties, divided over the character of the nation. And it's a disaster. It's a party system fundamentally at odds withour anti-majoritarian, compromise-oriented governing institutions. It threatens the very foundations of fairness and shared values on which our democracy depends.Deftly weaving together history, democratic theory, and cutting-edge political science research, Drutman tells the story of how American politics became so toxic and why the country is now trapped in a doom loop of escalating two-party warfare from which there is only one escape: increase the numberof parties through electoral reform. As he shows, American politics was once stable because the two parties held within them multiple factions, which made it possible to assemble flexible majorities and kept the climate of political combat from overheating. But as conservative Southern Democrats andliberal Northeastern Republicans disappeared, partisan conflict flattened and pulled apart. Once the parties became fully nationalized - a long-germinating process that culminated in 2010 - toxic partisanship took over completely. With the two parties divided over competing visions of nationalidentity, Democrats and Republicans no longer see each other as opponents, but as enemies. And the more the conflict escalates, the shakier our democracy feels.Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop makes a compelling case for large scale electoral reform - importantly, reform not requiring a constitutional amendment - that would give America more parties, making American democracy more representative, more responsive, and ultimately more stable.