Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114207
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
The 9.9 Percent
Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114207
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114207
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
American Aristocracy
Author: Clemens David Heymann
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
Wasps
Author: Michael Knox Beran
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643137077
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and state of mind. Charming, witty, and vigorously researced, WASPS traces the rise and fall of this distinctly American phenomenon through the lives of prominent icons from Henry Adams and Theodore Roosevelt to George Santayana and John Jay Chapman. Throughout this dynamic story, Beran chronicles the efforts of WASPs to better the world around them as well as the struggles of these WASPs to break free from their restrictive culture. The death of George H. W. Bush brought about reflections on the end of patrician WASP culture, where privilege reigned, but so did a genuine desire to use that privilege for public service. In the time of Trump—who is the antithesis of true WASP culture—people look at the John Kerry, Bobby Kennedy, and Philip and Kay Grahams of the world with wistfulness. And even though we are a more diverse and pluralistic nation now than ever before, there is something about WASP culture that remains enduringly aspirational and fascinating. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, Beran’s saga dramatizes the evolving American aristocracy that forever changed a nation—and what we can still glean from WASP culture as we enter a new era.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643137077
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and state of mind. Charming, witty, and vigorously researced, WASPS traces the rise and fall of this distinctly American phenomenon through the lives of prominent icons from Henry Adams and Theodore Roosevelt to George Santayana and John Jay Chapman. Throughout this dynamic story, Beran chronicles the efforts of WASPs to better the world around them as well as the struggles of these WASPs to break free from their restrictive culture. The death of George H. W. Bush brought about reflections on the end of patrician WASP culture, where privilege reigned, but so did a genuine desire to use that privilege for public service. In the time of Trump—who is the antithesis of true WASP culture—people look at the John Kerry, Bobby Kennedy, and Philip and Kay Grahams of the world with wistfulness. And even though we are a more diverse and pluralistic nation now than ever before, there is something about WASP culture that remains enduringly aspirational and fascinating. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, Beran’s saga dramatizes the evolving American aristocracy that forever changed a nation—and what we can still glean from WASP culture as we enter a new era.
American Dynasty
Author: Kevin Phillips
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141941316
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525
Book Description
An acerbic, withering account of the ascent of the Bush family to the pinnacle of the American political and social elite and the implications of the dynasty's hold on power for democracy in America. With an unerring instinct for fakery and humbug,Phillips traces the convoluted trail of Bush mendacity through three generations. The picture he paints of a family willing to do ANYTHING to hold power and a country so craven as to vote for it is both very funny and completely dismaying in equal measure.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141941316
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525
Book Description
An acerbic, withering account of the ascent of the Bush family to the pinnacle of the American political and social elite and the implications of the dynasty's hold on power for democracy in America. With an unerring instinct for fakery and humbug,Phillips traces the convoluted trail of Bush mendacity through three generations. The picture he paints of a family willing to do ANYTHING to hold power and a country so craven as to vote for it is both very funny and completely dismaying in equal measure.
An American Aristocracy
Author: Daniel Kilbride
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570036569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Placing class rather than race or gender at the center of this comparative study of North and South, Kilbride exposes the close connections that united privileged southerners and Philadelphians in the years leading to the Civil War. He finds that the bonds between these similarly educated and socialized groups to be so durable that they resisted sectional warfare. Kilbride notes that southern planters were drawn particularly to Philadelphia because of its proximity to the South and perception of the city as being untainted by northern radicalism. In addition, Philadelphia possessed well-regarded schools, prestigious intellectual societies, historical landmarks, and fashionable shopping districts. In the city's parlors, ballrooms, and classrooms, privileged northerners and southerners forged a republican aristocracy that ignored the Mason-Dixon line.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570036569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Placing class rather than race or gender at the center of this comparative study of North and South, Kilbride exposes the close connections that united privileged southerners and Philadelphians in the years leading to the Civil War. He finds that the bonds between these similarly educated and socialized groups to be so durable that they resisted sectional warfare. Kilbride notes that southern planters were drawn particularly to Philadelphia because of its proximity to the South and perception of the city as being untainted by northern radicalism. In addition, Philadelphia possessed well-regarded schools, prestigious intellectual societies, historical landmarks, and fashionable shopping districts. In the city's parlors, ballrooms, and classrooms, privileged northerners and southerners forged a republican aristocracy that ignored the Mason-Dixon line.
An Aristocracy of Color
Author: D. Michael Bottoms
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806188863
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
In the South after the Civil War, the reassertion of white supremacy tended to pit white against black. In the West, by contrast, a radically different drama emerged, particularly in multiracial, multiethnic California. State elections in California to ratify Reconstruction-era amendments to the U.S. Constitution raised the question of whether extending suffrage to black Californians might also lead to the political participation of thousands of Chinese immigrants. As historian D. Michael Bottoms shows in An Aristocracy of Color, many white Californians saw in this and other Reconstruction legislation a threat to the fragile racial hierarchy they had imposed on the state’s legal system during the 1850s. But nonwhite Californians—blacks and Chinese in particular—recognized an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the state’s race relations. Drawing on court records, political debates, and eyewitness accounts, Bottoms brings to life the monumental battle that followed. Bottoms begins by analyzing white Californians’ mid-century efforts to prohibit nonwhite testimony against whites in court. Challenges to these laws by blacks and Chinese during Reconstruction followed a trajectory that would be repeated in later contests. Each minority challenged the others for higher status in court, at the polls, in education, and elsewhere, employing stereotypes and ideas of racial difference popular among whites to argue for its own rightful place in “civilized” society. Whites contributed to the melee by occasionally yielding to blacks in order to keep the Chinese and California Indians at a disadvantage. These dynamics reverberated in other state legal systems throughout the West in the mid- to late 1800s and nationwide in the twentieth century. As An Aristocracy of Color reveals, Reconstruction outside of the South briefly promised an opportunity for broader equality but in the end strengthened and preserved the racial hierarchy that favored whites.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806188863
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
In the South after the Civil War, the reassertion of white supremacy tended to pit white against black. In the West, by contrast, a radically different drama emerged, particularly in multiracial, multiethnic California. State elections in California to ratify Reconstruction-era amendments to the U.S. Constitution raised the question of whether extending suffrage to black Californians might also lead to the political participation of thousands of Chinese immigrants. As historian D. Michael Bottoms shows in An Aristocracy of Color, many white Californians saw in this and other Reconstruction legislation a threat to the fragile racial hierarchy they had imposed on the state’s legal system during the 1850s. But nonwhite Californians—blacks and Chinese in particular—recognized an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the state’s race relations. Drawing on court records, political debates, and eyewitness accounts, Bottoms brings to life the monumental battle that followed. Bottoms begins by analyzing white Californians’ mid-century efforts to prohibit nonwhite testimony against whites in court. Challenges to these laws by blacks and Chinese during Reconstruction followed a trajectory that would be repeated in later contests. Each minority challenged the others for higher status in court, at the polls, in education, and elsewhere, employing stereotypes and ideas of racial difference popular among whites to argue for its own rightful place in “civilized” society. Whites contributed to the melee by occasionally yielding to blacks in order to keep the Chinese and California Indians at a disadvantage. These dynamics reverberated in other state legal systems throughout the West in the mid- to late 1800s and nationwide in the twentieth century. As An Aristocracy of Color reveals, Reconstruction outside of the South briefly promised an opportunity for broader equality but in the end strengthened and preserved the racial hierarchy that favored whites.
Aristocracy in America. From the Sketch-book of a German Nobleman
Author: Francis Joseph Grund
Publisher: London : R. Bentley
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Publisher: London : R. Bentley
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Golden Clan
Author: John Corry
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493086928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
John Corry’s chronicle of the Murrays and the McDonnells is the quintessential story of a successful Irish American clan—perhaps the most successful in sheer numbers and influence. Thomas E. Murray, the patriarch, was born in 1860 in Albany, New York. At his death in 1929, he left $9 million, eight children, forty-eight grandchildren, and a record of industrial accomplishment ranging from 1,110 patented inventions to the consolidation of Con Edison. His faith never left him. Murray’s children, the “lace curtain” generation, nurtured, increased, and occasionally squandered the new wealth, made feudal marriages with the offspring of other Irish climbers, built great houses on Fifth Avenue and the shore, and a tight, exclusive society upon the twin rocks of Catholicism and respectability. A third generation was raised in the great houses, convent schools, and the Southampton “compound” (prototype for the parvenu Kennedys’ in Hyannis). Their inevitable entry into secular society found them ill-prepared: marriages with a Ford and Vanderbilt ended in failure. The most recent crop of Murray-McDonnells moves in St. Tropez and St. Mortiz, scenes of the celebrated Charlotte Food–Starvos Niarchos liaison. The author remarks and regrets the loss-through-assimilation of what was distinctively Irish in this and other great families, closing with a memorable firsthand portrait of the indomitable Anna Murray McDonnell. Corry’s history of the “golden clan” is set against the larger context of the Irish experience in America: tales of Colonial grandees and early nineteenth-century “fashionables”; how the historic emigrations radically changed the nation’s perception of the Irish; how families like the Murrays and the McDonnells came by their values and passed them on; fascinating details of the relationship between the rich Irish and their clergy. Writing with their proper shade of a lilt, John Corry offers a fond and discerning view of a great American Irish family that “arrived”— and never looked back.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493086928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
John Corry’s chronicle of the Murrays and the McDonnells is the quintessential story of a successful Irish American clan—perhaps the most successful in sheer numbers and influence. Thomas E. Murray, the patriarch, was born in 1860 in Albany, New York. At his death in 1929, he left $9 million, eight children, forty-eight grandchildren, and a record of industrial accomplishment ranging from 1,110 patented inventions to the consolidation of Con Edison. His faith never left him. Murray’s children, the “lace curtain” generation, nurtured, increased, and occasionally squandered the new wealth, made feudal marriages with the offspring of other Irish climbers, built great houses on Fifth Avenue and the shore, and a tight, exclusive society upon the twin rocks of Catholicism and respectability. A third generation was raised in the great houses, convent schools, and the Southampton “compound” (prototype for the parvenu Kennedys’ in Hyannis). Their inevitable entry into secular society found them ill-prepared: marriages with a Ford and Vanderbilt ended in failure. The most recent crop of Murray-McDonnells moves in St. Tropez and St. Mortiz, scenes of the celebrated Charlotte Food–Starvos Niarchos liaison. The author remarks and regrets the loss-through-assimilation of what was distinctively Irish in this and other great families, closing with a memorable firsthand portrait of the indomitable Anna Murray McDonnell. Corry’s history of the “golden clan” is set against the larger context of the Irish experience in America: tales of Colonial grandees and early nineteenth-century “fashionables”; how the historic emigrations radically changed the nation’s perception of the Irish; how families like the Murrays and the McDonnells came by their values and passed them on; fascinating details of the relationship between the rich Irish and their clergy. Writing with their proper shade of a lilt, John Corry offers a fond and discerning view of a great American Irish family that “arrived”— and never looked back.
America's Soul in Balance
Author: Gregory Wallance
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1608322947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
After America entered World War II, a genuine opportunity arose to save at least 70,000 Romanian Jews who had been deported to the killing fields of Transnistria. This title presents the true story of the senior officials of the US State Department at the height of World War II, whom some accused of being accomplices of Hitler.
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1608322947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
After America entered World War II, a genuine opportunity arose to save at least 70,000 Romanian Jews who had been deported to the killing fields of Transnistria. This title presents the true story of the senior officials of the US State Department at the height of World War II, whom some accused of being accomplices of Hitler.
A Speaking Aristocracy
Author: Christopher Grasso
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 9780807847725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532
Book Description
As cultural authority was reconstituted in the Revolutionary era, knowledge reconceived in the age of Enlightenment, and the means of communication radically altered by the proliferation of print, speakers and writers in eighteenth-century America began to describe themselves and their world in new ways. Drawing on hundreds of sermons, essays, speeches, letters, journals, plays, poems, and newspaper articles, Christopher Grasso explores how intellectuals, preachers, and polemicists transformed both the forms and the substance of public discussion in eighteenth-century Connecticut. In New England through the first half of the century, only learned clergymen regularly addressed the public. After midcentury, however, newspapers, essays, and eventually lay orations introduced new rhetorical strategies to persuade or instruct an audience. With the rise of a print culture in the early Republic, the intellectual elite had to compete with other voices and address multiple audiences. By the end of the century, concludes Grasso, public discourse came to be understood not as the words of an authoritative few to the people but rather as a civic conversation of the people.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 9780807847725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532
Book Description
As cultural authority was reconstituted in the Revolutionary era, knowledge reconceived in the age of Enlightenment, and the means of communication radically altered by the proliferation of print, speakers and writers in eighteenth-century America began to describe themselves and their world in new ways. Drawing on hundreds of sermons, essays, speeches, letters, journals, plays, poems, and newspaper articles, Christopher Grasso explores how intellectuals, preachers, and polemicists transformed both the forms and the substance of public discussion in eighteenth-century Connecticut. In New England through the first half of the century, only learned clergymen regularly addressed the public. After midcentury, however, newspapers, essays, and eventually lay orations introduced new rhetorical strategies to persuade or instruct an audience. With the rise of a print culture in the early Republic, the intellectual elite had to compete with other voices and address multiple audiences. By the end of the century, concludes Grasso, public discourse came to be understood not as the words of an authoritative few to the people but rather as a civic conversation of the people.