The America That I Didn’t Know Existed

The America That I Didn’t Know Existed
Author: Francis Kwarteng
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2020-09-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1664127291

The American Dream is a popular concept. It is a celebrated mantra. But does it really exist? Even if it does, is it for everyone? The American experiment tells a different story. Examples abound of many for whom the American Dream is an empty rhetoric. Although America prides itself on liberal ideas of equity, social justice and equality for all, harnessing the potential benefits of the American Dream is far from true for many hardworking, educated Americans. Inasmuch as the American Dream may exist for some, white privilege, employment and educational discrimination, racism...may stand in the way of achieving one's fullest potential. This is compounded by the Eurocentric content of the American curriculum which denies equal representation to non-white Americans in the marketplace of ideas, reinforcing their sociopolitical and epistemic marginalization. "In a remarkably wide ranging and moving book Francis Kwarteng has provided us with one of the most honest and earnest assessments of what immigrants find in the United States. The book The America That I Didn't Know Existed reminds me of the complex reasons people are attracted to the American society and the disappointment that they find when they sometimes discover that what one reads about America is not truly the best way to know America. Kwarteng has lived, studied, and learned in America and he counts these experiences as blessings as anyone would who has seen possibilities. However, this determined intellectual has shown us a path forward with acceptance and humanity. This riveting book has the making of an incredibly powerful drama as well." Molefi Kete Asante, author of Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation "Francis Kwarteng's book recounts his personal journey to America by reliving the challenges and struggles he had to overcome to realize that the dream he once imagined was only a mirage. The author provides the rationale behind his decision to come to America and the subsequent disillusion with the gap between his aspirations and realities on American soil. Framed within the intellectual lens of Afrocentricity, Kwarteng exposes and critiques the prevailing dominance of Eurocentric constructs that systemically dehumanizes, and perforce disempowers, persons of African descent. The result of this is a readable, empowering page-turning memoir that will resonate with every African immigrant." Kwame Akonor is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall University (USA), founding director of the New York-based African Development Institute, and author of African Economic Institutions.

Forgotten Americans

Forgotten Americans
Author: Isabel Sawhill
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2018-09-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300241062

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

The America That I Didn't Know Existed

The America That I Didn't Know Existed
Author: Francis Kwarteng
Publisher: Xlibris Us
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2020-09-09
Genre:
ISBN: 9781664127302

The American Dream is a popular concept. It is a celebrated mantra. But does it really exist? Even if it does, is it for everyone? The American experiment tells a different story. Examples abound of many for whom the American Dream is an empty rhetoric. Although America prides itself on liberal ideas of equity, social justice and equality for all, harnessing the potential benefits of the American Dream is far from true for many hardworking, educated Americans. Inasmuch as the American Dream may exist for some, white privilege, employment and educational discrimination, racism...may stand in the way of achieving one's fullest potential. This is compounded by the Eurocentric content of the American curriculum which denies equal representation to non-white Americans in the marketplace of ideas, reinforcing their sociopolitical and epistemic marginalization. "In a remarkably wide ranging and moving book Francis Kwarteng has provided us with one of the most honest and earnest assessments of what immigrants find in the United States. The book The America That I Didn't Know Existed reminds me of the complex reasons people are attracted to the American society and the disappointment that they find when they sometimes discover that what one reads about America is not truly the best way to know America. Kwarteng has lived, studied, and learned in America and he counts these experiences as blessings as anyone would who has seen possibilities. However, this determined intellectual has shown us a path forward with acceptance and humanity. This riveting book has the making of an incredibly powerful drama as well." Molefi Kete Asante, author of Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation "Francis Kwarteng's book recounts his personal journey to America by reliving the challenges and struggles he had to overcome to realize that the dream he once imagined was only a mirage. The author provides the rationale behind his decision to come to America and the subsequent disillusion with the gap between his aspirations and realities on American soil. Framed within the intellectual lens of Afrocentricity, Kwarteng exposes and critiques the prevailing dominance of Eurocentric constructs that systemically dehumanizes, and perforce disempowers, persons of African descent. The result of this is a readable, empowering page-turning memoir that will resonate with every African immigrant." Kwame Akonor is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall University (USA), founding director of the New York-based African Development Institute, and author of African Economic Institutions.

Teaching What Really Happened

Teaching What Really Happened
Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018-09-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807759481

“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”— Howard Zinn James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled "Truth" that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery. Book Features: An up-to-date assessment of the potential and pitfalls of U.S. and world history education. Information to help teachers expect, and get, good performance from students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Strategies for incorporating project-oriented self-learning, having students conduct online historical research, and teaching historiography. Ideas from teachers across the country who are empowering students by teaching what really happened. Specific chapters dedicated to five content topics usually taught poorly in today’s schools.

50 Things You Didn't Know about Colonial America

50 Things You Didn't Know about Colonial America
Author: Sean O'Neill
Publisher: 50 Things You Didn't Know abou
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2020
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1634407962

Toothless at twenty in Colonial America? Discover some of the most amazing and amusing facts about life in Colonial America and how the pilgrims survived it all.

The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America
Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2004-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547345313

Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history—the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president—is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. "A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review

Fantasyland

Fantasyland
Author: Kurt Andersen
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1588366871

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The single most important explanation, and the fullest explanation, of how Donald Trump became president of the United States . . . nothing less than the most important book that I have read this year.”—Lawrence O’Donnell How did we get here? In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA. Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails. Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE “This is a blockbuster of a book. Take a deep breath and dive in.”—Tom Brokaw “[An] absorbing, must-read polemic . . . a provocative new study of America’s cultural history.”—Newsday “Compelling and totally unnerving.”—The Village Voice “A frighteningly convincing and sometimes uproarious picture of a country in steep, perhaps terminal decline that would have the founding fathers weeping into their beards.”—The Guardian “This is an important book—the indispensable book—for understanding America in the age of Trump.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci

These Truths: A History of the United States

These Truths: A History of the United States
Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 773
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393635252

“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 1595583262

Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a more accurate approach to teaching American history.

Searching for the American Dream

Searching for the American Dream
Author: Cassandra L. Atherton
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2013-07-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1443850985

Searching for the American Dream is a theoretical and practical exploration of genius loci. Beginning with John Dewey and an investigation into the importance of experiential learning, Moore invites a range of scholars, curators, teachers and students to distil their experiences into a series of essays on the importance of ‘place’. From visiting the tenement museum in the Lower East Side in New York, to watching live history in the form of the Trial of Bridget Bishop in Salem, to having a private audience with state department officials, to attending an AFL-CIO meeting and taking classes with scholars in American studies, animal rights and education, Glenn Moore’s book ‘takes you there’. At a time when university teachers are looking for ways to energize students who all too often are questioning the relevance of their degrees, this is a timely study. It explains the theory of experiential learning, and outlines the rewards available to the lecturer brave enough to take students out of the classroom and expose them to real world experiences. The ground breaking feature of the book, however, is that it offers practical advice on how to plan, organize and conduct an international study tour.