America Transformed

America Transformed PDF Author: Dean A. Herrin
Publisher: Amer Society of Civil Engineers
ISBN: 9780784405291
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Herrin (former staff historian for the Historic American Engineering Record program) presents an illustrative history of the engineering infrastructure of the 19th century United States. Photographs and drawings provide details of aqueducts, mills, bridges, mines, manufacturing devices, railroads, canals, dams, water works, and other structural asp

America Transformed

America Transformed PDF Author: Dean A. Herrin
Publisher: Amer Society of Civil Engineers
ISBN: 9780784405291
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Herrin (former staff historian for the Historic American Engineering Record program) presents an illustrative history of the engineering infrastructure of the 19th century United States. Photographs and drawings provide details of aqueducts, mills, bridges, mines, manufacturing devices, railroads, canals, dams, water works, and other structural asp

Polk

Polk PDF Author: Walter R. Borneman
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 158836772X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
In Polk, Walter R. Borneman gives us the first complete and authoritative biography of a president often overshadowed in image but seldom outdone in accomplishment. James K. Polk occupied the White House for only four years, from 1845 to 1849, but he plotted and attained a formidable agenda: He fought for and won tariff reductions, reestablished an independent Treasury, and, most notably, brought Texas into the Union, bluffed Great Britain out of the lion’s share of Oregon, and wrested California and much of the Southwest from Mexico. On reflection, these successes seem even more impressive, given the contentious political environment of the time. In this unprecedented, long-overdue warts-and-all look at Polk’s life and career, we have a portrait of an expansionist president and decisive statesman who redefined the country he led, and we are reminded anew of the true meaning of presidential accomplishment and resolve.

America Transformed

America Transformed PDF Author: Richard M. Abrams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139455184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
America has seen a multitude of transformations since its founding. This 2006 book examines the period 1941–2001 during which time the character of American life changed rapidly, culminating in the shattering of the Liberal Democratic coalition. Revolutions in the areas of affluence, foreign policy, the military, business systems, racial relations, gender roles, sexual behavior and attitudes, and disregard for privacy are discussed. Rather than cite historical facts as they occurred, America Transformed analyzes them and offers a fresh and often controversial perspective. Abrams' draws on a wealth of published sources to highlight his original arguments on McCarthyism, the Cold War, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Johnson, to name a few topics. The synthesis of information and the depth of insight are simply unparalleled in any other book of American social history from 1941–2001.

Over Here

Over Here PDF Author: Edward Humes
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1626812578
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Extraordinary stories of ordinary men and women whose lives were changed forever by landmark legislation—and how they went on to change the country. Inspiring war stories are familiar. But what about after-the-war stories? From a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Over Here is the Greatest Generation’s after-the-war story—vivid portraits of how the original G.I. Bill empowered an entire generation and reinvented the nation. The G.I. Bill opened college education to the masses, transformed America from a nation of renters into a nation of homeowners, and enabled an era of prosperity never before seen in the world. Doctors, teachers, engineers, researchers, and Nobel Prize winners who had never considered college an option rewrote the American Dream thanks to this most visionary legislation. “Vivid . . . Deeply moving, alive with the thrill of people from modest backgrounds discovering that the opportunities available to them were far greater than anything they had dreamed of.” —Los Angeles Times “Poignant . . . The human dramas scattered throughout the narrative are irresistible.” —The Denver Post “Fascinating . . . The book’s statistics are eye-opening, but it’s the numerous personal vignettes that bring this account to life. . . . At its best, these passages are reminiscent of Studs Terkel’s Depression-era and World War II oral histories.” —The Plain Dealer

The Book That Changed America

The Book That Changed America PDF Author: Randall Fuller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.

Souled American

Souled American PDF Author: Kevin Phinney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
From Jim Crow to Eminem, white culture has been transformed by black music. To be so influenced by the boundless imagination of a race brought to America in chains sets up a fascinating irony, andSouled American, an ambitious and comprehensive look at race relations as seen through the prism of music, examines that irony fearlessly—with illuminating results. Tracing a direct line from plantation field hollers to gangsta rap, author Kevin Phinney explains how blacks and whites exist in a constant tug-of-war as they create, re-create, and claim each phase of popular music. Meticulously researched, the book includes dozens of exclusive celebrity interviews that reveal the day-to-day struggles and triumphs of sharing the limelight. Unique, intriguing, Souled Americanshould be required reading for every American interested in music, in history, or in healing our country’s troubled race relations. • Combines social history and pop culture to reveal how jazz, blues, soul, country, and hip-hop have developed • Includes interviews with Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, B. B. King, David Byrne, Sly Stone, Donna Summer, Bonnie Raitt, and dozens more • Confronts questions of race and finds meaningful answers • Ideal for Black History Month

America on Trial

America on Trial PDF Author: Alan M. Dershowitz
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0759511039
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1061

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Book Description
The renowned attorney and bestselling author reveals how notable trials throughout our history have helped to shape our nation. Offering insights into the human condition, these trials serve as a historical document, chronicling the struggles and passions of their time.

From Battlefields Rising

From Battlefields Rising PDF Author: Randall Fuller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199792658
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
When Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Walt Whitman declared it "the volcanic upheaval of the nation"--the bloody inception of a war that would dramatically alter the shape and character of American culture along with its political, racial, and social landscape. Prior to the war, America's leading writers had been integral to helping the young nation imagine itself, assert its beliefs, and realize its immense potential. When the Civil War erupted, it forced them to witness not only unimaginable human carnage on the battlefield, but also the disintegration of the foundational symbolic order they had helped to create. The war demanded new frameworks for understanding the world and new forms of communication that could engage with the immensity of the conflict. It fostered both social and cultural experimentation. Now available in paperback, From Battlefields Rising explores the profound impact of the war on writers including Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Frederick Douglass. As the writers of the time grappled with the war's impact on the individual and the national psyche, their responses multiplied and transmuted. Whitman's poetry and prose, for example, was chastened and deepened by his years spent ministering to wounded soldiers; off the battlefield, the anguish of war would come to suffuse the austere, elliptical poems that Emily Dickinson was writing from afar; and Hawthorne was rendered silent by his reading of military reports and talks with soldiers. Calling into question every prior presumption and ideal, the war forever changed America's early idealism-and consequently its literature-into something far more ambivalent and raw. An absorbing group portrait of the period's most important writers, From Battlefields Rising flashes with forgotten historical details and elegant new ideas. It alters previous perceptions about the evolution of American literature and how Americans have understood and expressed their common history.

The Eve of Destruction

The Eve of Destruction PDF Author: James T. Patterson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465013589
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Argues that 1965, not 1968, was the most transformative year of the 1960s, discussing attacks on civil rights demonstrators, increased African American militancy, the Watts riots, anti-war protests, and a growing national pessimism.

America 1844

America 1844 PDF Author: John Bicknell
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613730101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The presidential election of 1844 was one of the two or three most momentous elections in American history. Had Henry Clay won instead of James K. Polk, we'd be living in a very different country today. It cemented the westward expansion that brought Texas, California, and Oregon into the union. It also took place amid religious turmoil that included anti-Mormon and anti-Catholic violence, and the "Great Disappointment" in which thousands of followers of an obscure preacher named William Miller believed Christ would return to earth in October 1844. Author and journalist John Bicknell details even more compelling, interwoven events that occurred during this momentous year-the murder of Joseph Smith, the religious fermentation of the Second Great Awakening, John C. Frémont's exploration of the West, Charles Goodyear's patenting of vulcanized rubber, the near-death of President John Tyler in a freak naval explosion, and much more. All of these elements illustrate the competing visions of the American future-Democrats v. Whigs, Mormons v. Millerites, nativists v. Catholics, those who risked the venture westward and those who stayed safely behind-and how Polk's victory cemented the vision of a continental nation. John Bicknell has written and edited for FCW, Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, and was coeditor of the 2012 edition of Politics in America, CQ's 1200-page guide to the US Congress. He lives in Haymarket, Virginia.