An Alternative History of Pittsburgh

An Alternative History of Pittsburgh
Author: Ed Simon
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1953368131

“[An] epic, atomic history of the Steel City . . . a work of literature, a series of linked creative nonfiction essays, an historical story cycle.” ―Phillip Maciak, Los Angeles Review of Books The land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans for millennia. Over the past four centuries, however, it has been transformed countless times by the many people who call it home. In this brief, lyrical, and idiosyncratic collection, Ed Simon, a staff writer at The Millions, follows the story of Pittsburgh through a series of interconnected segments, covering all manner of beloved people, places, and things, including: • Paleolithic Pittsburgh • The Whiskey Rebellion • The attempted assassination of Henry Frick • The Harmonists • The Mystery, Pittsburgh’s radical, Black nationalist newspaper • The myth of Joe Magarac • Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Andy Warhol, and much, much more. Accessible and funny, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh is a must-read for anyone curious about this storied city, and for Pittsburghers who think they know it all too well already. “[A] rich and idiosyncratic history . . . Even Pittsburgh history buffs will learn something new.” —Publishers Weekly “Simon tells the story of the city and all the changes that made it what it is today in a way that's entirely new, by the hand of someone who is deeply familiar.” ―Juliana Rose Pignataro, Newsweek “A sparkling new take on everyone’s favorite Rust Belt metropolis.” ―Justin Velluci, Jewish Chronicle “A brilliant look at how geology and art, politics and religion, disaster and luck combine to build America’s great cities―one that will leave you wondering what secrets your own hometown might be hiding.” ―Anjali Sachdeva, author of All the Names They Used for God

There Is No Alternative

There Is No Alternative
Author: Claire Berlinski
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2011-11-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0465031226

Great Britain in the 1970s appeared to be in terminal decline -- ungovernable, an economic train wreck, and rapidly headed for global irrelevance. Three decades later, it is the richest and most influential country in Europe, and Margaret Thatcher is the reason. The preternaturally determined Thatcher rose from nothing, seized control of Britain's Conservative party, and took a sledgehammer to the nation's postwar socialist consensus. She proved that socialism could be reversed, inspiring a global free-market revolution. Simultaneously exploiting every politically useful aspect of her femininity and defying every conventional expectation of women in power, Thatcher crushed her enemies with a calculated ruthlessness that stunned the British public and without doubt caused immense collateral damage. Ultimately, however, Claire Berlinski agrees with Thatcher: There was no alternative. Berlinski explains what Thatcher did, why it matters, and how she got away with it in this vivid and immensely readable portrait of one of the towering figures of the twentieth century.

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Author: Mary Norris
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2015-04-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0393246604

New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal "Hilarious…This book charmed my socks off." —Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris has spent more than three decades working in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department, helping to maintain its celebrated high standards. In Between You & Me, she brings her vast experience with grammar and usage, her good cheer and irreverence, and her finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.

Cherry Season

Cherry Season
Author: Trish Morey
Publisher: Trish Morey
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2020-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0648835901

When orchardist, Dan Faraday’s sisters buy him a dating subscription for his 37th birthday, Dan is unimpressed. He doesn’t need help. He knows exactly the kind of wife he needs – someone sensible and grounded, someone looking to settle, down just like him. Enter Lucy. Hired as a cherry picker for the season, Lucy is everything Dan’s not. A free spirit who lives for the moment, it’s not long before Dan and Lucy rub each other up the wrong way, and sparks start flying. As the season progresses, inconvenient spark turns to unintended sizzle, and Lucy and Dan find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. But Lucy’s not looking for permanent and Dan’s not looking for temporary, so as cherry season draws to a close, can these two very different people find common ground before it’s too late?

Sex, Breath, and Force

Sex, Breath, and Force
Author: Ellen Mortensen
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780739114674

Provides a reassessment of the question of sexual difference, taking into account shifts in feminist thought, post-humanist theories, and queer studies. This collection of essays offers insights into the question of sexual difference from a post-feminist perspective, and how it is reformulated in various related areas of study, such as ontology.

Another Now

Another Now
Author: Yanis Varoufakis
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1612199569

What would a fair and equal society actually look like? The world-renowned economist and bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis presents his radical and subversive answer in a work of speculative fiction that recalls William Morris and William Gibson The year: 2035. At a funeral for Iris, a revolutionary leftist feminist, Yango is approached by Costa, Iris’s closest comrade, who urges him to carry out Iris’s last wish: plough into her secret diaries to tell their story. “But”, Costa insists “leave out anything that might help Big Tech replicate my technologies!” That night Yango delves into Iris’s diaries. In them he discovers a chronicle of how Costa’s revolutionary technologies had unveiled an actually existing, fully democratized, postcapitalist society. Suddenly he understands Costa’s obsession with the hackers trying to steal his secrets. So begins Yanis Varoufakis’s extraordinary novelistic thought-experiment, where the world-famous economist offers an invigorating and deeply moving vision of an alternative reality. Another Now tells the story of Costa, a brilliant but deeply disillusioned, computer engineer, who creates a revolutionary technology that will allow the user a “glimpse of a life beyond their dreams” but will not enslave them. But an accident during one of its trial runs unveils a cosmic wormhole where Costa meets his DNA double, who is living in a 2025 very different than the one Costa is living in. In this parallel 2025 a global hi-tech uprising, begun in the wake of the collapse of 2008, has birthed a post-capitalist world in which work, money, land, digital networks and politics have been truly democratized. Banks have been eliminated, as well as predatory, data-mining digital monopolies; the gig economy is no more; and the young are free to experiment with different careers and to study ”non-lucrative topics, from Sumerian pottery to astrophysics.” Intoxicated, Costa travels to England to tell Iris, his old comrade, and her neighbor, Eva, a recovering banker turned neoliberal economics professor, of the parallel universe he has discovered. Costa eventually leads them back to his workshop in America where Iris and Eva meet their own doubles, and confront hard truths about themselves and the daunting political challenge that "the Other Now" presents. But, as their obsession with the Other Now deepens, time begins to run out, as the wormhole begins to deteriorate and hackers begin to unleash new attacks on Costa’s technology. The trio have to make a choice: which 2025 do they want to live in? Varoufakis has been claiming for a while that we already live in postcapitalist times. That, since the 2008 crisis, capitalism has been morphing into technofeudalism. Another Now, a riveting work of speculative fiction, shows that there is a realistic, democratic alternative to the technofeudalpostcapitalist dystopia taking shape all around us. It also confronts us with the greatest question: how far are we willing to go to bring it about?

The Alternative

The Alternative
Author: Lisa Nandy
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-08-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1785901125

The 2015 election result was a disaster for progressives in British politics, delivering a majority Conservative government at Westminster. And the outlook for the next election is not auspicious either, particularly amid the aftershocks of the momentous 2016 EU referendum result and with possible boundary changes in the offing. There is a growing recognition, however, that cross-party cooperation among the progressives could reinvigorate politics and inspire a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Those who want a good society can and must work together - and, by doing so, they can deliver better answers and more inclusive government. With contributions from a broad range of left and centre-left voices - including Siân Berry, Mhairi Black, Frances O'Grady, Tim Farron, Peter Hain, Carys Afoko, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Zoe Williams and Neal Lawson - The Alternative sets out a base of core values around which progressives can unite, proposes a number of big policy ideas that embody those values and, crucially, explores an urgently needed new form of politics to achieve them.