American Civilization PDF Download

Author: C. L. R. James
Publisher: Verso Trade
ISBN: 9781784787721
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In his study of Herman Melville, Mariners, Renegades and Castaways, C.L.R. James wrote- 'My ultimate aim...is to write a study of American Civilization'. This project, long in gestation, at last sees the light of day in this posthumous publication of what may be seen as the most wide-ranging expression of James's thought, the link between his mature writings on politics and his semi-autobiographical work, Beyond a Boundary. In the tradition of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, James addresses the fundamental question of the 'right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. Ranging across American politics, society and culture, C.L.R. James sets out to integrate his analysis of American society in transition with a commentary on the popular arts of cinema and literature.

Author: Regis Debray
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788734068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
American civilization’s dominance over Europe—and what to do about it In 1900, an American of taste was a European in exile; in 2000, a trendy European is a frustrated American—or one waiting for a visa. Régis Debray explores America’s global cultural ascendancy in this provocative and witty analysis of our contemporary condition. Whereas Europe once foregrounded the importance of time and writing, America is a civilization of spectacle and kinetics, blind to the tragic complexities of human life. A measure of America’s success is how its jargon has been adopted by European languages, but there is much more than that to the States’ infiltration into all aspects of modern life. For Debray, the dominance of American civilization is a historical fait accompli. Yet he envisions a sanctuary for the best of Europe modelled on Vienna at the cusp of the twentieth century, where art and literature flowered in the rich soil of a decaying empire. For decades to come, Europe can still offer a rich cultural seedbed. “Some will call it decadence,” writes Debray, “others liberation. Why not both?”

Author: David Mauk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136021205
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
This revised and updated edition of the hugely successful American Civilization provides students of American studies with the perfect background and introductory information on contemporary American life. This sixth edition examines the central dimensions of American society from geography and the environment, government and politics, to religion, education, sports, media and the arts. This book: covers all core American studies topics at introductory level. contains essential historical background for American studies students in the twenty-first century analyzes issues of gender, class, race, and minorities in America’s cosmopolitan population. contains color photos, case studies, questions and terms for discussion, bibliographical references and lists of websites central to each chapter. accompanied by a fully integrated companion website featuring extensive references for further reading, links to key primary sources, filmographies and advice for students on how to approach essay questions. Featuring new color illustrations and case studies, this edition includes expanded sections on the environment, immigration, foreign policy, media and the arts, sport and leisure cultures as well as a new section on the LGBT community and detailed coverage of the 2012 election and shifting economic situation.

Author: David Mauk
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415358316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This introduction to contemporary American life examines the key institutions of American society, including state and local government, geography, education, law, media and culture, with the emphasis placed on the people of America.

Author: Andrew F. Lang
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469660083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
Most mid-nineteenth-century Americans regarded the United States as an exceptional democratic republic that stood apart from a world seemingly riddled with revolutionary turmoil and aristocratic consolidation. Viewing themselves as distinct from and even superior to other societies, Americans considered their nation an unprecedented experiment in political moderation and constitutional democracy. But as abolitionism in England, economic unrest in Europe, and upheaval in the Caribbean and Latin America began to influence domestic affairs, the foundational ideas of national identity also faced new questions. And with the outbreak of civil war, as two rival governments each claimed the mantle of civilized democracy, the United States' claim to unique standing in the community of nations dissolved into crisis. Could the Union chart a distinct course in human affairs when slaveholders, abolitionists, free people of color, and enslaved African Americans all possessed irreconcilable definitions of nationhood? In this sweeping history of political ideas, Andrew F. Lang reappraises the Civil War era as a crisis of American exceptionalism. Through this lens, Lang shows how the intellectual, political, and social ramifications of the war and its meaning rippled through the decades that followed, not only for the nation's own people but also in the ways the nation sought to redefine its place on the world stage.

Author: Graham Hancock
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250153743
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.

Author: Al Lacy
Publisher: Multnomah
ISBN: 1601420056
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Can Breanna warn her husband in time? Will Natalie lose her love...again? Both nurses need a miracle. Tears fill the eyes of Nurse Natalie Fallon when she discovers old flame Rex Rawlins in the hospital emergency room, paralyzed from the waist down. They find they're still in love - but Rex refuses to let Natalie marry a man who can't walk. Will a miracle grant them a life together? Meanwhile, Natalie's friend and fellow nurse - Breanna Baylor Brockman - is terror-stricken when she learns that her husband, John Brockman, is riding into a trap with an impostor who plans to kill him. Can Breanna warn John before it's too late?

Author: Michael D. Coe
Publisher: New Word City
ISBN: 1640190007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
Here is the story of America's oldest - and oddest - civilization, the Olmecs of the southern Mexican jungles. Virtually unknown to archaeologists until the early twentieth century, their true importance is only now being realized and shedding new light on how the Indian peoples of the Americas came to be here.

Author: April Merleaux
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469622521
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In the weeks and months after the end of the Spanish-American War, Americans celebrated their nation's triumph by eating sugar. Each of the nation's new imperial possessions, from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, had the potential for vastly expanding sugar production. As victory parties and commemorations prominently featured candy and other sweets, Americans saw sugar as the reward for their global ambitions. April Merleaux demonstrates that trade policies and consumer cultures are as crucial to understanding U.S. empire as military or diplomatic interventions. As the nation's sweet tooth grew, people debated tariffs, immigration, and empire, all of which hastened the nation's rise as an international power. These dynamics played out in the bureaucracies of Washington, D.C., in the pages of local newspapers, and at local candy counters. Merleaux argues that ideas about race and civilization shaped sugar markets since government policies and business practices hinged on the racial characteristics of the people who worked the land and consumed its products. Connecting the history of sugar to its producers, consumers, and policy makers, Merleaux shows that the modern American sugar habit took shape in the shadow of a growing empire.

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publisher: Random House Canada
ISBN: 0307359972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
For the first time, Jeffrey Sachs, the pre-eminent economist of our times, turns his attention to his homeland, the United States, to reveal the stunning inadequacy of American-style capitalism and to offer a bold and ambitious plan to change it. Jeffrey Sachs has visited more than a hundred countries on five continents, invited to help diagnose and cure seemingly intractable economic problems. Now, in the wake of the worst recession in recent history, Sachs turns his focus on the United States. The complexity of the world economy means that the American form of capitalism, which has been exported around the globe, brought the world to the brink of the precipice--and it will do so again, if measures aren't taken to fix it. This will require not only government action but for US citizens to reach a consensus on their government's role in everyday life and on their basic values--hugely controversial issues in recent years. The scary thing is if they don't, it will affect us all. The good news is that Sachs, in this book, clearly and persuasively leads his readers to an understanding of what the common ground of reform can and should--indeed, must--be.