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Articles 141 à 160 sur 1868
Face Value: The Consumer Revolution and the Colonizing of America
Par Cary Carson. 2016
The Industrial Revolution was previously understood as having awakened an enormous, unquenchable thirst for material consumption. People up and down…
the social order had discovered and were indulging in the most extraordinary passion for consumer merchandise in quantities and varieties that had been unimaginable to their parents and grandparents. It was indeed a revolution, but a consumer revolution at the start.In Face Value, Cary Carson expands and updates his groundbreaking earlier work to address the intriguing question of how Americans became the world’s consummate consumers. Prior to the rise of gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America, there was still a decided sameness to people’s material lives. About mid-century, though, a lust for fancy goods, coupled with social aspiration, began to transform American society.Carson here addresses the intriguing question of how Americans developed the reputation for avid consumption. Both elegantly written and engagingly argued, the book reveals how the rise of the gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America gave rise to a consumer economy.Humboldt and Jefferson explores the relationship between two fascinating personalities: the Prussian explorer, scientist, and geographer Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859)…
and the American statesman, architect, and naturalist Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). In the wake of his famous expedition through the Spanish colonies in the spring of 1804, Humboldt visited the United States, where he met several times with then-president Jefferson. A warm and fruitful friendship resulted, and the two men corresponded a good deal over the years, speculating together on topics of mutual interest, including natural history, geography, and the formation of an international scientific network. Living in revolutionary societies, both were deeply concerned with the human condition, and each vested hope in the new American nation as a possible answer to many of the deficiencies characterizing European societies at the time.The intellectual exchange between the two over the next twenty-one years touched on the pivotal events of those times, such as the independence movement in Latin America and the applicability of the democratic model to that region, the relationship between America and Europe, and the latest developments in scientific research and various technological projects. Humboldt and Jefferson explores the world in which these two Enlightenment figures lived and the ways their lives on opposite sides of the Atlantic defined their respective convictions.Establishing Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Statute in Virginia
Par Thomas E. Buckley. 2014
The significance of the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom goes far beyond the borders of the Old Dominion. Its…
influence ultimately extended to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the separation of church and state. In his latest book, Thomas Buckley tells the story of the statute, beginning with its background in the struggles of the colonial dissenters against an oppressive Church of England. When the Revolution forced the issue of religious liberty, Thomas Jefferson drafted his statute and James Madison guided its passage through the state legislature. Displacing an established church by instituting religious freedom, the Virginia statute provided the most substantial guarantees of religious liberty of any state in the new nation.The statute's implementation, however, proved to be problematic. Faced with a mandate for strict separation of church and state--and in an atmosphere of sweeping evangelical Christianity--Virginians clashed over numerous issues, including the legal ownership of church property, the incorporation of churches and religious groups, Sabbath observance, protection for religious groups, Bible reading in school, and divorce laws. Such debates pitted churches against one another and engaged Virginia’s legal system for a century and a half.Fascinating history in itself, the effort to implement Jefferson’s statute has even broader significance in its anticipation of the conflict that would occupy the whole country after the Supreme Court nationalized the religion clause of the First Amendment in the 1940s.Collegiate Republic: Cultivating an Ideal Society in Early America (Jeffersonian America)
Par Margaret Sumner. 2014
Collegiate Republic offers a compellingly different view of the first generation of college communities founded after the American Revolution. Such…
histories have usually taken the form of the institutional tale, charting the growth of a single institution and the male minds within it. Focusing on the published and private writings of the families who founded and ran new colleges in antebellum America--including Bowdoin College, Washington College (later Washington and Lee), and Franklin College in Georgia--Margaret Sumner argues that these institutions not only trained white male elites for professions and leadership positions but also were part of a wider interregional network of social laboratories for the new nation. Colleges, and the educational enterprise flourishing around them, provided crucial cultural construction sites where early Americans explored organizing elements of gender, race, and class as they attempted to shape a model society and citizenry fit for a new republic.Within this experimental world, a diverse group of inhabitants--men and women, white and "colored," free and unfree--debated, defined, and promoted social and intellectual standards that were adopted by many living in an expanding nation in need of organizing principles. Priding themselves on the enlightened and purified state of their small communities, the leaders of this world regularly promoted their own minds, behaviors, and communities as authoritative templates for national emulation. Tracking these key figures as they circulate through college structures, professorial parlors, female academies, Liberian settlements, legislative halls, and main streets, achieving some of their cultural goals and failing at many others, Sumner's book shows formative American educational principles in action, tracing the interplay between the construction and dissemination of early national knowledge and the creation of cultural standards and social conventions.The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration (Carter G. Woodson Institute Series)
Par Deborah E. McDowell, Claudrena N. Harold, and Juan Battle.. 2014
The Punitive Turn explores the historical, political, economic, and sociocultural roots of mass incarceration, as well as its collateral costs…
and consequences. Giving significant attention to the exacting toll that incarceration takes on inmates, their families, their communities, and society at large, the volume’s contributors investigate the causes of the unbridled expansion of incarceration in the United States. Experts from multiple scholarly disciplines offer fresh research on race and inequality in the criminal justice system and the effects of mass incarceration on minority groups' economic situation and political inclusion. In addition, practitioners and activists from the Sentencing Project, the Virginia Organizing Project, and the Restorative Community Foundation, among others, discuss race and imprisonment from the perspective of those working directly in the field. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the essays included in the volume provide an unprecedented range of perspectives on the growth and racial dimensions of incarceration in the United States and generate critical questions not simply about the penal system but also about the inner workings, failings, and future of American democracy.Contributors: Ethan Blue (University of Western Australia) * Mary Ellen Curtin (American University) * Harold Folley (Virginia Organizing Project) * Eddie Harris (Children Youth and Family Services) * Anna R. Haskins (University of Wisconsin–Madison) * Cheryl D. Hicks (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) * Charles E. Lewis Jr. (Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy) * Marc Mauer (The Sentencing Project) * Anoop Mirpuri (Portland State University) * Christopher Muller (Harvard University) * Marlon B. Ross (University of Virginia) * Jim Shea (Community Organizer) * Jonathan Simon (University of California–Berkeley) * Heather Ann Thompson (Temple University) * Debbie Walker (The Female Perspective) * Christopher Wildeman (Yale University) * Interviews by Jared Brown (University of Virginia) & Tshepo Morongwa Chéry (University of Texas–Austin)Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia
Par Lynn Rainville. 2014
In Hidden History, Lynn Rainville travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to…
the stories of the black families who lived and worked there for over two hundred years. The subjects of Rainville’s research are not statesmen or plantation elites; they are hidden residents, people who are typically underrepresented in historical research but whose stories are essential for a complete understanding of our national past.Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in over 150 historic African American cemeteries to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside offerings. Rainville’s findings shed light on family genealogies, the rise and fall of segregation, and attitudes toward religion and death. As many of these cemeteries are either endangered or already destroyed, the book includes a discussion on the challenges of preservation and how the reader may visit, and help preserve, these valuable cultural assets.The Grandees of Government: The Origins and Persistence of Undemocratic Politics in Virginia
Par Brent Tarter. 2014
From the formation of the first institutions of representative government and the use of slavery in the seventeenth century through…
the American Revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, and into the twenty-first century, Virginia’s history has been marked by obstacles to democratic change. In The Grandees of Government, Brent Tarter offers an extended commentary based in primary sources on how these undemocratic institutions and ideas arose, and how they were both perpetuated and challenged.Although much literature on American republicanism focuses on the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others, Tarter reveals how their writings were in reality an expression of federalism, not of republican government. Within Virginia, Jefferson, Madison, and others such as John Taylor of Caroline and their contemporaries governed in ways that directly contradicted their statements about representative—and limited— government. Even the democratic rhetoric of the American Revolution worked surprisingly little immediate change in the political practices, institutions, and culture of Virginia. The counterrevolution of the 1880s culminated in the Constitution of 1902 that disfranchised the remainder of African Americans. Virginians who could vote reversed the democratic reforms embodied in the constitutions of 1851, 1864, and 1869, so that the antidemocratic Byrd organization could dominate Virginia’s public life for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century.Offering a thorough reevaluation of the interrelationship between the words and actions of Virginia’s political leaders, The Grandees of Government provides an entirely new interpretation of Virginia’s political history.Elliot Rosen's Hoover, Roosevelt, and the Brains Trust focused on the transition from the Hoover administration to that of Roosevelt…
and the formulation of the early New Deal program. Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Economics of Recovery emphasized long-term and structural recovery programs as well as the 1937–38 recession. Rosen’s final book in the trilogy, The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt, situates distrust of the federal government and the consequent transformation of the party. Domestic and foreign policies introduced by the Roosevelt administration created division between the parties. The Hoover doctrine, which sought to restrict the reach of independent agencies at the federal level in order to restore business confidence and investment, intended to reverse the New Deal and to curb the growth of federal functions. In his new book, Elliot Rosen holds that economic thought regarding appropriate functions of the federal government has not changed since the Great Depression. The political debate is still being waged between advocates for direct intervention at the federal level and those for the Hoover ethic with its stress on individual responsibility. The question remains whether preservation of an unfettered marketplace and our liberties remain inseparable or whether enlarged governmental functions are required in an increasingly complex national and global environment. By offering a well-researched account of the antistatist and nationalist origins not only of the debate over legitimate federal functions but also of the modern Republican Party, this book affords insight into such contemporary political movements as the Tea Party.Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War (A Nation Divided)
Par Colin Edward Woodward. 2014
The Confederate army went to war to defend a nation of slaveholding states, and although men rushed to recruiting stations…
for many reasons, they understood that the fundamental political issue at stake in the conflict was the future of slavery. Most Confederate soldiers were not slaveholders themselves, but they were products of the largest and most prosperous slaveholding civilization the world had ever seen, and they sought to maintain clear divisions between black and white, master and servant, free and slave.In Marching Masters Colin Woodward explores not only the importance of slavery in the minds of Confederate soldiers but also its effects on military policy and decision making. Beyond showing how essential the defense of slavery was in motivating Confederate troops to fight, Woodward examines the Rebels’ persistent belief in the need to defend slavery and deploy it militarily as the war raged on. Slavery proved essential to the Confederate war machine, and Rebels strove to protect it just as they did Southern cities, towns, and railroads. Slaves served by the tens of thousands in the Southern armies—never as soldiers, but as menial laborers who cooked meals, washed horses, and dug ditches. By following Rebel troops' continued adherence to notions of white supremacy into the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, the book carries the story beyond the Confederacy’s surrender. Drawing upon hundreds of soldiers’ letters, diaries, and memoirs, Marching Masters combines the latest social and military history in its compelling examination of the last bloody years of slavery in the United States.Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry
Par Adrian Goldsworthy. 2023
A &“magnificent&” (Spectator) history of the epic rivalry between the ancient world&’s two great superpowers The Roman empire was like…
no other. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Its only true rival lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyond. This was the region Alexander the Great had swept through, creating a dream of glory and conquest that tantalized Greeks and Romans alike. Tracing seven centuries of conflict between Rome and Persia, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how these two great powers evolved together. Despite their endless clashes, trade between the empires enriched them both, and a mutual respect prevented both Rome and Persia from permanently destroying the other. Epic in scope, Rome and Persia completely reshapes our understanding of one of the greatest rivalries of world history.The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis
Par Paul A. Offit. 2008
A history and analysis of the tragic 1955 American pharmaceutical disaster involving one company’s polio vaccine.Vaccines have saved more lives…
than any other single medical advance. Yet today only four companies make vaccines, and there is a growing crisis in vaccine availability. Why has this happened? This remarkable book recounts for the first time a devastating episode in 1955 at Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, California, that has led many pharmaceutical companies to abandon vaccine manufacture.Drawing on interviews with public health officials, pharmaceutical company executives, attorneys, Cutter employees, and victims of the vaccine, as well as on previously unavailable archives, Dr. Paul Offit offers a full account of the Cutter disaster. He describes the nation’s relief when the polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk in 1955, the production of the vaccine at industrial facilities such as the one operated by Cutter, and the tragedy that occurred when 200,000 people were inadvertently injected with live virulent polio virus: 70,000 became ill, 200 were permanently paralyzed, and 10 died. Dr. Offit also explores how, because of the tragedy, one jury’s verdict set in motion events that eventually suppressed the production of vaccines already licensed and deterred the development of new vaccines that hold the promise of preventing other fatal diseases.Praise for The Cutter Incident“Offit . . . has written a fascinating and highly readable account of the development of the polio vaccine. He also offers a compelling plea for a strengthened law to provide relief to companies that produce vaccines so that our nation may be afforded the most cost-effective and long-lasting form of prevention against many infectious diseases—an effective vaccine.” —Stanley Goldfarb, New York Post“The best account you will ever read about the interplay between big drug companies and bigger government.” —Peter Huber, Forbes“The book is very well written and reads almost like a detective story, with a nice balance between personal anecdotes and new materials not discussed in other accounts of the Cutter incident. It draws on meticulous archival documentation and on interviews with public health officers, pharmaceutical company executives, Cutter employees, and victims of the partially inactivated vaccine. . . . An important and valuable contribution.” —Nadav Davidovitch, Isis“Well written and easily understood, yet balanced with enough technical detail for medical professionals to read informatively cover to cover.” —Journal of the American Medical AssociationUnderstand everything you need to know about our democratic system—from the Constitution to present-day elections—with The Everything American Government Book.If…
the confusion following the last presidential election is any indication, the average citizen knows precious little about the democratic system and the laws that affect their daily lives. The Everything American Government Book unravels the complexities of our democracy and provides you with the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions and take an active role in the management of our country. From the roots of American government and the challenges that have helped shape it over the years to its current structure and systems, this thoroughly researched work is ideal for anyone brushing up on civics, as well as students of all ages.You&’ll learn about: -The personalities and events that gave rise to our current system -The real significance of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution -The functions of each branch of government and how they work together -Private sector&’s influence on public policy and decision-making -Ways to get involved and make a differenceSpecially designed to inform and empower the average citizen during this critical election year, The Everything American Government Book provides the keys to understanding the ins and outs of the most powerful democracy in the world.Mr. Lincoln Goes to War
Par William Marvel. 2006
An account of how America&’s greatest crisis began, by &“the Civil War&’s master historical detective&” (Stephen W. Sears, author of Chancellorsville).…
This groundbreaking book investigates the mystery of how the Civil War began, reconsidering the big question: Was it inevitable? The award-winning author of Andersonville and Lincoln&’s Autocrat vividly recreates President Abraham Lincoln&’s first year in office, from his inauguration through the rising crisis of secession and the first several months of the war. Drawing on original sources and examining previously overlooked factors, he leads the reader inexorably to the conclusion that Lincoln not only missed opportunities to avoid war but actually fanned the flames—and often acted unconstitutionally in prosecuting the war once it had begun. With a keen eye for the telling detail, on the battlefield as well as in the White House, this is revisionist history at its best, not sparing anyone, even Abraham Lincoln. &“A brilliant narrative that reveals the possibilities of the past that were squandered by historical figures who seem so unassailable and godlike to us today.&” —Peter S. Carmichael, author of The Last Generation &“The most provocative account of events in 1861 in a generation. Readers who think they understand the Civil War&’s first year and the roles played by Abraham Lincoln, Nathanial Lyon, Charles Stone, and a host of others should brace themselves for a bold new perspective.&” —A. Wilson Greene, author of Breaking the Backbone of the RebellionGeorge B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (Quality Paperbacks Ser.)
Par Stephen W. Sears. 2014
&“Sears has finally unraveled the mystique of this complex, brilliant Civil War general . . . A fascinating story&” (James M. McPherson, author…
of Battle Cry of Freedom). &“Commander of the Northern army in the Civil War, Gen. George McClellan saw himself as God&’s chosen instrument for saving the Union. Self-aggrandizing, with a streak of arrogant stubbornness, he set himself above President Lincoln, whom he privately called &‘the Gorilla.&’ To &‘the young Napoleon,&’ as McClellan&’s troops dubbed him, abolition was an &‘accursed doctrine.&’ Fond of conspiracy plots, he insisted that the Lincoln administration had traitorously conspired to set him up for military defeat. Although he constantly anticipated one big, decisive battle that would crush the South, he squandered one military opportunity after another, and, if Sears is correct, he was the worst strategist the Army of the Potomac ever had. Based on primary sources, letters, dispatch books, diaries, newspapers, this masterly biography is an astonishing portrait of an egotistical crank who could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.&” —Publishers Weekly &“Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, Sears&’s persuasive critique is the best and most complete biography of this controversial general.&” —Library Journal &“The best biography of McClellan ever published. Sears uses intensive research, including new material, to document the tormented, wasted military career of a talented man . . . The enigma of McClellan has never been explained so well . . . Historians should be grateful.&” —The Washington Post Book WorldDiscover a forgotten chapter of American history with Steven Cowie's riveting account of the Battle of Antietam.The Battle of Antietam,…
fought in and around Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day in American history. Despite the large number of books and articles on the subject, the battle’s horrendous toll on area civilians is rarely discussed. When Hell Came to Sharpsburg: The Battle of Antietam and Its Impact on the Civilians Who Called It Home by Steven Cowie rectifies this oversight. By the time the battle ended about dusk that day, more than 23,000 men had been killed, wounded, or captured in just a dozen hours of combat—a grim statistic that tells only part of the story. The epicenter of that deadly day was the small community of Sharpsburg. Families lived, worked, and worshipped there. It was their home. And the horrific fighting turned their lives upside down. When Hell Came to Sharpsburg investigates how the battle and opposing armies wreaked emotional, physical, and financial havoc on the people of Sharpsburg. For proper context, the author explores the savage struggle and its gory aftermath and explains how soldiers stripped the community of resources and spread diseases. Cowie carefully and meticulously follows the fortunes of individual families like the Mummas, Roulettes, Millers, and many others—ordinary folk thrust into harrowing circumstances—and their struggle to recover from their unexpected and often devastating losses. Cowie’s comprehensive study is grounded in years of careful research. He unearthed a trove of previously unused archival accounts and examined scores of primary sources such as letters, diaries, regimental histories, and official reports. Packed with explanatory footnotes, original maps, and photographs, Cowie’s richly detailed book is a must-read for those seeking new information on the battle and the perspective of the citizens who suffered because of it. Antietam’s impact on the local community was an American tragedy, and it is told here completely for the first time.U.S. History 101: Historic Events, Key People, Important Locations, and More! (Adams 101)
Par Kathleen Sears. 2015
Perfect for readers of all ages, U.S. History 101 is a fact-filled and riveting introduction to the most important political…
events and figures from the last 300 years of our nation&’s history.The stories of politicos and historic events are often turned into snooze-worthy lectures that even Benjamin Franklin would reject. This guide cuts out all the boring details and instead provides you with a thrilling lesson in U.S. history.From Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence to Barack H. Obama and the Great Recession, each page takes you on an unforgettable journey through the moments that completely changed this country. You'll also uncover hundreds of entertaining historical facts and stories that you won't be able to find anywhere else.So whether you're looking to unravel the mysteries of America's past or just want to learn more about our country's presidents, U.S. History 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford
Par Richard Snow. 2013
From the acclaimed popular historian Richard Snow, who “writes with verve and a keen eye” (The New York Times Book…
Review), comes a fresh and entertaining account of Henry Ford and his invention of the Model T—the ugly, cranky, invincible machine that defined twentieth-century America.Every century or so, our republic has been remade by a new technology: 170 years ago the railroad changed Americans’ conception of space and time; in our era, the microprocessor revolutionized how humans communicate. But in the early twentieth century the agent of creative destruction was the gasoline engine, as put to work by an unknown and relentlessly industrious young man named Henry Ford. Born the same year as the battle of Gettysburg, Ford died two years after the atomic bombs fell, and his life personified the tremendous technological changes achieved in that span. Growing up as a Michigan farm boy with a bone-deep loathing of farming, Ford intuitively saw the advantages of internal combustion. Resourceful and fearless, he built his first gasoline engine out of scavenged industrial scraps. It was the size of a sewing machine. From there, scene by scene, Richard Snow vividly shows Ford using his innate mechanical abilities, hard work, and radical imagination as he transformed American industry. In many ways, of course, Ford’s story is well known; in many more ways, it is not. Richard Snow masterfully weaves together a fascinating narrative of Ford’s rise to fame through his greatest invention, the Model T. When Ford first unveiled this car, it took twelve and a half hours to build one. A little more than a decade later, it took exactly one minute. In making his car so quickly and so cheaply that his own workers could easily afford it, Ford created the cycle of consumerism that we still inhabit. Our country changed in a mere decade, and Ford became a national hero. But then he soured, and the benevolent side of his character went into an ever-deepening eclipse, even as the America he had remade evolved beyond all imagining into a global power capable of producing on a vast scale not only cars, but airplanes, ships, machinery, and an infinity of household devices. A highly pleasurable read, filled with scenes and incidents from Ford’s life, particularly during the intense phase of his secretive competition with other early car manufacturers, I Invented the Modern Age shows Richard Snow at the height of his powers as a popular historian and reclaims from history Henry Ford, the remarkable man who, indeed, invented the modern world as we know it.The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983
Par Marc Ambinder. 2018
&“An informative and often enthralling book…in the appealing style of Tom Clancy&” (Kirkus Reviews) about the 1983 war game that…
triggered a tense, brittle period of nuclear brinkmanship between the United States and the former Soviet Union.What happened in 1983 to make the Soviet Union so afraid of a potential nuclear strike from the United States that they sent mobile ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) into the field, placing them on a three-minute alertMarc Ambinder explains the anxious period between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984, with the &“Able Archer &’83&” war game at the center of the tension. With astonishing and clarifying new details, he recounts the scary series of the close encounters that tested the limits of ordinary humans and powerful leaders alike. Ambinder provides a comprehensive and chilling account of the nuclear command and control process, from intelligence warnings to the composition of the nuclear codes themselves. And he affords glimpses into the secret world of a preemptive electronic attack that scared the Soviet Union into action. Ambinder&’s account reads like a thriller, recounting the spy-versus-spy games that kept both countries—and the world—in check.From geopolitics in Moscow and Washington, to sweat-caked soldiers fighting in the trenches of the Cold War, to high-stakes war games across NATO and the Warsaw Pact, &“Ambinder&’s account of a serious threat of global annihilation…is spellbinding…a masterpiece of recent history&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The Brink serves as the definitive intelligence, nuclear, and national security history of one of the most precarious times in recent memory and &“shows the consequences of nuclear buildups, sometimes-careless language, and nervous leaders. Now, more than ever, those consequences matter&” (USA TODAY).The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II
Par Stephen E. Ambrose. 1999
From America’s preeminent military historian, Stephen E. Ambrose, comes the definitive telling of the war in Europe, from D-Day, June…
6, 1944, to the end, eleven months later, on May 7, 1945.This authoritative narrative account is drawn by the author himself from his five acclaimed books about that conflict, most particularly from the definitive and comprehensive D-Day and Citizen Soldiers, about which the great Civil War historian James McPherson wrote, “If there is a better book about the experience of GIs who fought in Europe during World War II, I have not read it. Citizen Soldiers captures the fear and exhilaration of combat, the hunger and cold and filth of the foxholes, the small intense world of the individual rifleman as well as the big picture of the European theater in a manner that grips the reader and will not let him go. No one who has not been there can understand what combat is like but Stephen Ambrose brings us closer to an understanding than any other historian has done.”The Victors also includes stories of individual battles, raids, acts of courage and suffering from Pegasus Bridge, an account of the first engagement of D-Day, when a detachment of British airborne troops stormed the German defense forces and paved the way for the Allied invasion; and from Band of Brothers, an account of an American rifle company from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment who fought, died, and conquered, from Utah Beach through the Bulge and on to Hitter's Eagle’s Nest in Germany.Stephen Ambrose is also the author of Eisenhower, the greatest work on Dwight Eisenhower, and one of the editors of the Supreme Allied Commander's papers. He describes the momentous decisions about how and where the war was fought, and about the strategies and conduct of the generals and officers who led the invasion and the bloody drive across Europe to Berlin.But, as always with Stephen E. Ambrose, it is the ranks, the ordinary boys and men, who command his attention and his awe. The Victors tells their stories, how citizens became soldiers in the best army in the world. Ambrose draws on thousands of interviews and oral histories from government and private archives, from the high command—Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton—on down through officers and enlisted men, to re-create the last year of the Second World War when the Allied soldiers pushed the Germans out of France, chased them across Germany, and destroyed the Nazi regime.The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
Par Christopher Caldwell. 2020
A major American intellectual and &“one of the right&’s most gifted and astute journalists&” (The New York Times Book Review)…
makes the historical case that the reforms of the 1960s, reforms intended to make the nation more just and humane, left many Americans feeling alienated, despised, misled—and ready to put an adventurer in the White House.Christopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences and his conclusion is this: even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high—in wealth, freedom, and social stability—and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations.Caldwell reveals the real political turning points of the past half-century, taking you on a roller-coaster ride through Playboy magazine, affirmative action, CB radio, leveraged buyouts, iPhones, Oxycotin, Black Lives Matter, and internet cookies. In doing so, he shows that attempts to redress the injustices of the past have left Americans living under two different ideas of what it means to play by the rules.Essential, timely, hard to put down, The Age of Entitlement &“is an eloquent and bracing book, full of insight&” (New York magazine) about how the reforms of the past fifty years gave the country two incompatible political systems—and drove it toward conflict.