An American Obsession

An American Obsession
Author: Jennifer Terry
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 560
Release: 1999-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226793665

Jennifer Terry has written a nuanced and textured history of how the century-old obsession with homosexuality is deeply tied to changing American anxieties about social and sexual order in the modern age.

Winning

Winning
Author: Francesco Duina
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2010-08-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400836689

Why winning doesn’t always lead to happiness Most of us are taught from a young age to be winners and avoid being losers. But what does it mean to win or lose? And why do we care so much? Does winning make us happy? Winning undertakes an unprecedented investigation of winning and losing in American society, what we are really after as we struggle to win, our collective beliefs about winners and losers, and much more. Francesco Duina argues that victory and loss are not endpoints or final destinations but gateways to something of immense importance to us: the affirmation of our place in the world. But Duina also shows that competition is unlikely to provide us with the answers we need. Winning and losing are artificial and logically flawed concepts that put us at odds with the world around us and, ultimately, ourselves. Duina explores the social and psychological effects of the language of competition in American culture. Primarily concerned with our shared obsessions about winning and losing, Winning proposes a new mind-set for how we can pursue our dreams, and, in a more satisfying way, find our proper place in the world.

Race

Race
Author: Studs Terkel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Oral history
ISBN: 9781595588104

Presents the feelings of nearly one hundred Americans on such issues as affirmative action, changing neighborhoods, and secret prejudices.

Football

Football
Author: Mark F. Bernstein
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2001-09-19
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780812236279

Mark Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League. With their long winning streaks, distinctive traditions, and impressive victories, Ivy teams started a national obsession with football in the first decades of the twentieth century that remains alive today. In so doing they have helped develop our ideals about the role of athletics in college life.

The Lie Detectors

The Lie Detectors
Author: Ken Alder
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803224599

In this fascinating history of the lie detector, Ken Alder exposes some persistent truths about our culture: why we long to know the secret thoughts of our fellow citizens; why we believe in popular science; and why we embrace ?truthiness.? For centuries people searched in vain for a way to unmask liars, seeking clues in the body?s outward signs: in blushing cheeks and shifty eyes. Not until the 1920s did a cop with a PhD team up with an entrepreneurial high school student and claim to have invented a foolproof machine capable of peering directly into the human heart. Scientists repudiated the technique, and judges banned its results from criminal trials, but in a few years their polygraph had transformed police work, seized headlines, and enthralled the nation.ø In this book, Alder explains why America?and only America?has embraced this mechanical method of reading the human soul. Over the course of the twentieth century, the lie detector became integral to our justice system, employment markets, and national security apparatus, transforming each into a game of bluff and bluster. The lie detector device may not reliably read the human mind, but this lively account shows that the instrument?s history offers a unique window into the American soul.

Reinventing Richard Nixon

Reinventing Richard Nixon
Author: Daniel Frick
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2023-04-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0700635629

"Nixon's the One!" proclaimed his campaign paraphernalia. "Tricky Dick!" retorted his detractors. From presidential savior for conservative America to bte noire for the political Left, the Richard Nixon persona has worn many masks and labels. In fiction and poetry and pop songs, in television and film, no other national political figure has so thoroughly saturated our public consciousness with so many contrasting images. Focusing on the process of Nixon's continuous reinvention, Daniel Frick reveals a figure who continues to expose key fault lines in the nation's self-definition. Drawing on references ranging from All in the Family to Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, he shows how Nixon has become one of America's most durable and multifaceted icons in the ongoing and fierce debates over the import and meaning of the last sixty years of national life. Examining Nixon's autobiographies and political memorabilia, Frick offers far-reaching perceptions not only of the man but of Nixon's version of himself-contrasted with those who would interpret him differently. He cites reinventions of Nixon from the late 1980s, particularly the museum at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, to demonstrate the resilience of certain national mythic narratives in the face of liberal critiques. And he recounts how celebrants at Nixon's state funeral, at which Bob Dole's eulogy depicted a God-fearing American hero, attempted to bury the sources of our divisions over him, rendering in some minds the judgment of "redeemed statesman" to erase his status as "disgraced president." With dozens of illustrations-Nixon posing with Elvis (the National Archives' most requested photo), Nixonian cultural artifacts, classic editorial cartoons—no other book collects in one place such varied images of Nixon from so many diverse media. These reinforce Frick's probing analysis to help us understand why we disagree about Nixon—and why it matters how we resolve our disagreements. Whether your image of Nixon is shaped by his autobiography Six Crises, Oliver Stone's surprisingly sympathetic film Nixon, John Adams's landmark opera Nixon in China, or by the saga of Watergate, Reinventing Richard Nixon expands on all perspectives. It shows how, through these contradictory mythic stories, we continue to reinvent, much like Nixon himself, our own sense of national identity.

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein
Author: Andrew Cockburn
Publisher: Verso
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2002
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781859844229

.The idea of direct invasion is the greatest threat to Saddam. It avoids the problems of securing local allies, inside and outside Iraq, which bedevil any indirect approach to get rid of him. But it has one immense disadvantage from the US point of view . if the US invades Iraq to install its own government it will be taking direct physical control of an area containing more than half the world.s oil reserves. It will look like the founding of a new American empire based on physical force and will be deeply resented . It would outrage the Arabs at a moment when the Israel-Palestine conflict is in a particularly bloody phase. America could find that it has overplayed its hand, just as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait twelve years ago...From the new Prologue At the outset of the 1991 Gulf War, US leaders resolved the .Iraqis will pay the price., so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. This book makes chillingly clear just how terrible that price has been. Eleven years ago Saddam was caught by surprise; his preparations since September 11 show that lessons have been learnt. In a substantial new prologue the authors analyse these preparations and the terrifying consequences of a military invasion of Iraq.

Naming the Antichrist

Naming the Antichrist
Author: Robert C. Fuller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195109791

A history of Anti-christ doctrines in the United States.

American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn

American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn
Author: Ted Steinberg
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006-03-17
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 0393866998

“Ted Steinberg proves once again that he is a master storyteller as well as our foremost environmental historian.”—Mike Davis The rise of the perfect lawn represents one of the most profound transformations in the history of the American landscape. American Green, Ted Steinberg's witty exposé of this bizarre phenomenon, traces the history of the lawn from its explosion in the postwar suburban community of Levittown to the present love affair with turf colorants, leaf blowers, and riding mowers.

Americanon

Americanon
Author: Jess McHugh
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1524746657

“An elegant, meticulously researched, and eminently readable history of the books that define us as Americans. For history buffs and book-lovers alike, McHugh offers us a precious gift.”—Jake Halpern, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author “With her usual eye for detail and knack for smart storytelling, Jess McHugh takes a savvy and sensitive look at the 'secret origins' of the books that made and defined us. . . . You won't want to miss a one moment of it.”—Brian Jay Jones, author of Becoming Dr. Seuss and the New York Times bestselling Jim Henson The true, fascinating, and remarkable history of thirteen books that defined a nation Surprising and delightfully engrossing, Americanon explores the true history of thirteen of the nation’s most popular books. Overlooked for centuries, our simple dictionaries, spellers, almanacs, and how-to manuals are the unexamined touchstones for American cultures and customs. These books sold tens of millions of copies and set out specific archetypes for the ideal American, from the self-made entrepreneur to the humble farmer. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Webster's Dictionary, Emily Post’s Etiquette: Americanon looks at how these ubiquitous books have updated and reemphasized potent American ideals—about meritocracy, patriotism, or individualism—at crucial moments in history. Old favorites like the Old Farmer’s Almanac and Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book are seen in this new way—not just as popular books but as foundational texts that shaped our understanding of the American story. Taken together, these books help us understand how their authors, most of them part of a powerful minority, attempted to construct meaning for the majority. Their beliefs and quirks—as well as personal interests, prejudices, and often strange personalities—informed the values and habits of millions of Americans, woven into our cultural DNA over generations of reading and dog-earing. Yet their influence remains uninvestigated--until now. What better way to understand a people than to look at the books they consumed most, the ones they returned to repeatedly, with questions about everything from spelling to social mobility to sex. This fresh and engaging book is American history as you’ve never encountered it before.