After America's Midlife Crisis

After America's Midlife Crisis PDF Author: Michael Gecan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262258218
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
A longtime community organizer outlines a way to reverse the fifty-year decline in social mobility and economic progress. Michael Gecan, a longtime community organizer, offers in this book a disturbing conclusion: the kinds of problems that began to afflict large cities in the 1970s have now spread to the suburbs and beyond. The institutional cornerstones of American life are on an extended decline. No longer young, no longer without limitations or constraints, the country is facing a midlife crisis. Drawing on personal experiences and the stories of communities in Illinois, New York, and other areas, Gecan draws a vivid picture of civic, political, and religious institutions in trouble, from suburban budget crises to failing public schools. Gecan shows that the loss of social capital has followed closely upon institutional failure. He looks in particular at the two main support systems of social mobility and economic progress for the majority of working poor Americans in the first half of the last century—the Roman Catholic school system and the American public high school. As these institutions that generated social progress have faded, those depending on social regression—prisons, jails, and detention centers—have thrived. Can we reverse the trends? Gecan offers hope and a direction forward. He calls on national and local leadership to shed old ways of thinking and face new realities, which include not only the substantial costs of change but also its considerable benefits. Only then will we enjoy the next rich phase of our local and national life.

After America's Midlife Crisis

After America's Midlife Crisis PDF Author: Michael Gecan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262258218
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
A longtime community organizer outlines a way to reverse the fifty-year decline in social mobility and economic progress. Michael Gecan, a longtime community organizer, offers in this book a disturbing conclusion: the kinds of problems that began to afflict large cities in the 1970s have now spread to the suburbs and beyond. The institutional cornerstones of American life are on an extended decline. No longer young, no longer without limitations or constraints, the country is facing a midlife crisis. Drawing on personal experiences and the stories of communities in Illinois, New York, and other areas, Gecan draws a vivid picture of civic, political, and religious institutions in trouble, from suburban budget crises to failing public schools. Gecan shows that the loss of social capital has followed closely upon institutional failure. He looks in particular at the two main support systems of social mobility and economic progress for the majority of working poor Americans in the first half of the last century—the Roman Catholic school system and the American public high school. As these institutions that generated social progress have faded, those depending on social regression—prisons, jails, and detention centers—have thrived. Can we reverse the trends? Gecan offers hope and a direction forward. He calls on national and local leadership to shed old ways of thinking and face new realities, which include not only the substantial costs of change but also its considerable benefits. Only then will we enjoy the next rich phase of our local and national life.

Why We Can't Sleep

Why We Can't Sleep PDF Author: Ada Calhoun
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802147860
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
The acclaimed author explores the hidden crises of Gen X women in this “engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage [and] pop culture analysis” (The New Republic). Ada Calhoun was married with children and a good career—and yet she was miserable. She thought she had no right to complain until she realized how many other Generation X women felt the same way. What could be behind this troubling trend? To find out, Calhoun delved into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw that Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age—problems that were being largely overlooked. Calhoun spoke with women across America who were part of the generation raised to “have it all.” She found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. And instead of being heard, they were being told to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order. In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament. She offers practical advice on how to ourselves out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.

America's Midlife Crisis

America's Midlife Crisis PDF Author: Gary R. Weaver
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 9781931930079
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
America's Midlife Crisis examines the culture of America at a crucial point in its history and development. Along the way something happened to the fundimental nature of American culture: a midlife crisis. From the founding of the republic through the many conflicts over the years, from the Puritan roots to recent waves of immigration, from race to religion. America's Midlife Crisis examines the values, beliefs and behavior of an increasingly complex society that is struggling with its place in the new world order. There has been a seismic shift, far beyond normal cyclic changes, in cultural and political trends in the United States. Following 9/11--no longer as confident in the protection of two vast oceans, a powerful military structure and a dominant economy-- the U.S. government instituted policies and practices that have produced results exactly opposite of what was intended. Rather than making America safer, they have generated great consternantion about its intentions, further enraging America's critics and confusing and alienating its longtime allies. America's Midlife Crisis shows how a superpower got to this point and what this midlife crisis means for the nation's future.

Life Reimagined

Life Reimagined PDF Author: Barbara Bradley Hagerty
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101622970
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
A dynamic and inspiring exploration of the new science that is redrawing the future for people in their forties, fifties, and sixties for the better—and for good. There’s no such thing as an inevitable midlife crisis, Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in this provocative, hopeful book. It’s a myth, an illusion. New scientific research explodes the fable that midlife is a time when things start to go downhill for everybody. In fact, midlife can be a great new adventure, when you can embrace fresh possibilities, purposes, and pleasures. In Life Reimagined, Hagerty explains that midlife is about renewal: It’s the time to renegotiate your purpose, refocus your relationships, and transform the way you think about the world and yourself. Drawing from emerging information in neurology, psychology, biology, genetics, and sociology—as well as her own story of midlife transformation—Hagerty redraws the map for people in midlife and plots a new course forward in understanding our health, our relationships, even our futures.

Midlife Crisis at 30

Midlife Crisis at 30 PDF Author: Lia Macko
Publisher: Rodale
ISBN: 9781579548674
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
A guide for professional women struggling with burnout analyzes the social and psychological factors that affect a woman's career and relationships, and offers strategies for achieving a healthy personal and professional balance.

Midlife Crisis

Midlife Crisis PDF Author: Susanne Schmidt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022668699X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
The phrase “midlife crisis” today conjures up images of male indulgence and irresponsibility—an affluent, middle-aged man speeding off in a red sports car with a woman half his age—but before it become a gendered cliché, it gained traction as a feminist concept. Journalist Gail Sheehy used the term to describe a midlife period when both men and women might reassess their choices and seek a change in life. Sheehy’s definition challenged the double standard of middle age—where aging is advantageous to men and detrimental to women—by viewing midlife as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Widely popular in the United States and internationally, the term was quickly appropriated by psychological and psychiatric experts and redefined as a male-centered, masculinist concept. The first book-length history of this controversial concept, Susanne Schmidt’s Midlife Crisis recounts the surprising origin story of the midlife debate and traces its movement from popular culture into academia. Schmidt’s engaging narrative telling of the feminist construction—and ensuing antifeminist backlash—of the midlife crisis illuminates a lost legacy of feminist thought, shedding important new light on the history of gender and American social science in the 1970s and beyond.

Lurching Toward Happiness in America

Lurching Toward Happiness in America PDF Author: Claude S. Fischer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262322900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Amid confusing and alarmist media claims about our changing culture, Claude Fischer sets the record straight on social trends in America. The promise of America has long been conceived as the promise of happiness. Being American is all about the opportunity to pursue one's own bliss. But what is the good life, and are we getting closer to its attainment? In the cacophony of competing conceptions of the good, technological interventions that claim to help us achieve it, and rancorous debate over government's role in securing it for us, every step toward happiness seems to come with at least one step back. In Lurching toward Happiness in America, acclaimed sociologist Claude Fischer explores the data, the myths, and history to understand how far America has come in delivering on its promise. Are Americans getting lonelier? Is the gender revolution over? Does income shape the way Americans see their life prospects? In the end, Fischer paints a broad picture of what Americans say they want. And, as he considers how close they are to achieving that goal, he also suggests what might finally get them there.

After America

After America PDF Author: Mark Steyn
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1596983272
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Argues that President Barack Obama is a dangerous radical who wants not only big government, but the Europeanization of the United States, and explains how citizens can roll back the liberal establishment and return to fundamental American values.

The Upswing

The Upswing PDF Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982129166
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis that “offers superb, often counterintuitive insights” (The New York Times) to demonstrate how we have gone from an individualistic “I” society to a more communitarian “We” society and then back again, and how we can learn from that experience to become a stronger more unified nation. Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism—Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became—slowly, unevenly, but steadily—more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today’s disarray. In a “magnificent and visionary book” (The New Republic) drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back again. He draws on inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. This is Putnam’s most “remarkable” (Science) work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.

Men in Midlife Crisis

Men in Midlife Crisis PDF Author: Jim Conway
Publisher: David C Cook
ISBN: 9781564766984
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
This newly revised version still offers practical ways to deal with the crisis, but now the book has been updated with new research and quotes for the '90s and beyond. Conway's advice comes from his own personal experience as well as years of research and counseling. After 20 years as a bestseller, this revised edition is even better.