The De-valuing of America

The De-valuing of America
Author: William John Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 274
Release: 1994
Genre: Cultural pluralism
ISBN: 0671797190

Discusses the need to reclaim American culture and how to protect and nurture the children of our country.

The Children's Book of America

The Children's Book of America
Author: William J. Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 128
Release: 1998-11-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0684849305

Presents stories of significant events and people in American history, patriotic songs, and American folk tales and poems.

Who Wants to Run?

Who Wants to Run?
Author: Andrew B. Hall
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022660960X

The growing ideological gulf between Democrats and Republicans is one of the biggest issues in American politics today. Our legislatures, composed of members from two sharply disagreeing parties, are struggling to function as the founders intended them to. If we want to reduce the ideological gulf in our legislatures, we must first understand what has caused it to widen so much over the past forty years. Andrew B. Hall argues that we have missed one of the most important reasons for this ideological gulf: the increasing reluctance of moderate citizens to run for office. While political scientists, journalists, and pundits have largely focused on voters, worried that they may be too partisan, too uninformed to vote for moderate candidates, or simply too extreme in their own political views, Hall argues that our political system discourages moderate candidates from seeking office in the first place. Running for office has rarely been harder than it is in America today, and the costs dissuade moderates more than extremists. Candidates have to wage ceaseless campaigns, dialing for dollars for most of their waking hours while enduring relentless news and social media coverage. When moderate candidates are unwilling to run, voters do not even have the opportunity to send them to office. To understand what is wrong with our legislatures, then, we need to ask ourselves the question: who wants to run? If we want more moderate legislators, we need to make them a better job offer.

Know Your Price

Know Your Price
Author: Andre M. Perry
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 9780815737278

Changing perceptions about the worth of African Americans and their communities Know Your Price establishes new means of determining value of Black communities. The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities, stemming from America's centuries-old history of slavery, racism, and other state-sanctioned policies like redlining have tangible, far-reaching, and negative economic and social impacts. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives, the book gives fresh insights on these impacts and provides a new value paradigm to limit them. In the book, noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a guided tour of five Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins the tour in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Perry gives an overview of Black-majority cities and spotlights four where he has a deep connection to--Detroit, New Orleans, Birmingham and Washington, D.C.--providing an intimate look at the assets residents should demand greater value from. Know Your Price demonstrates through rigorous research and thorough analysis the worth of Black people's intrinsic strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. All of these assets are means of empowerment, as Perry argues for shifting away from simplified notions of equality and moving towards maximizing equity.

Closing of the American Mind

Closing of the American Mind
Author: Allan Bloom
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2008-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1439126267

The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants

The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants
Author: Fariborz Ghadar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2022-11-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Despite deep divisions on the issue of immigration, this book shows that immigration promotes economic innovation, expands the job market, and contributes to diversity and creativity in the United States. Immigration, as a conduit for bringing new talent, ideas, and inventions into the United States, is essential to the success and vitality of our economy and society. This timely book, researched and written by the Immigration Book Project Team at Penn State University, approaches immigration from historical, economic, business, and sociological perspectives in order to argue that treatment of immigrants must reflect and applaud their critical roles in supporting and leading the economic, social, cultural, and political institutions of civil society. Approaching immigration as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a matter of public policy, The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants offers demographics and statistics on workforce participation and job creation along with stories of individual immigrants' contributions to the economy and society. It supports the idea that, when immigration is challenged in the political sphere, we must not lose sight of the valuable contributions that immigrants have made-and will continue to make-to our democracy.

America

America
Author: William John Bennett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2006
Genre: United States
ISBN: 9781595550576

Endeavors to present the history of the United States from a balanced perspective, describing both positive and negative events, and illuminating the powerful leaders who steered the country on the path of freedom.

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1982130849

Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in today’s fractured America. Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.” Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. In the revised edition of his classic work, Putnam shows how our shrinking access to the “social capital” that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing still poses a serious threat to our civic and personal health, and how these consequences have a new resonance for our divided country today. He includes critical new material on the pervasive influence of social media and the internet, which has introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation. At the time of its publication, Putnam’s then-groundbreaking work showed how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction, and how the loss of social capital is felt in critical ways, acting as a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, and affecting our health in other ways. While the ways in which we connect, or become disconnected, have changed over the decades, his central argument remains as powerful and urgent as ever: mending our frayed social capital is key to preserving the very fabric of our society.

Why America Failed

Why America Failed
Author: Morris Berman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2011-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118087968

Why America Failed shows how, from its birth as a nation of "hustlers" to its collapse as an empire, the tools of the country's expansion proved to be the instruments of its demise Why America Failed is the third and most engaging volume of Morris Berman's trilogy on the decline of the American empire. In The Twilight of American Culture, Berman examined the internal factors of that decline, showing that they were identical to those of Rome in its late-empire phase. In Dark Ages America, he explored the external factors—e.g., the fact that both empires were ultimately attacked from the outside—and the relationship between the events of 9/11 and the history of U.S. foreign policy. In his most ambitious work to date, Berman looks at the "why" of it all Probes America's commitment to economic liberalism and free enterprise stretching back to the late sixteenth century, and shows how this ideology, along with that of technological progress, rendered any alternative marginal to American history Maintains, more than anything else, that this one-sided vision of the country's purpose finally did our nation in Why America Failed is a controversial work, one that will shock, anger, and transform its readers. The book is a stimulating and provocative explanation of how we managed to wind up in our current situation: economically weak, politically passe, socially divided, and culturally adrift. It is a tour de force, a powerful conclusion to Berman's study of American imperial decline.