Buncombe Bob

Buncombe Bob PDF Author: Julian M. Pleasants
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861073
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Robert Rice Reynolds (1884-1963), U.S. senator from North Carolina from 1933 to 1945, was one of the most eccentric politicians in American history. His travels, his five marriages, his public faux pas, and his flamboyant campaigns provided years of amusement for his constituents. This political biography rescues Reynolds from his cartoon-character reputation, however, by explaining his political appeal and highlighting his genuine contributions without overlooking his flaws. Julian Pleasants argues that Reynolds must be understood in the context of Depression-era North Carolina. He capitalized on the discontent of the poverty-stricken lower class by campaigning in tattered clothes while driving a ramshackle Model T--a sharp contrast to his wealthy, chauffeur-driven opponent, incumbent senator Cam Morrison. In office, Reynolds supported Roosevelt's New Deal. Although he was not pro-Nazi, his isolationist stance and his association with virulent right-wingers enraged his constituents and ultimately led to his withdrawal from politics. Pleasants reveals Reynolds to be a showman of the first order, a skilled practitioner of class politics, and a unique southern politician--the only one who favored the New Deal while advocating isolationist views.

Buncombe Bob

Buncombe Bob PDF Author: Julian M. Pleasants
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807850640
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Buncombe Bob

Buncombe Bob

Buncombe Bob PDF Author: Julian M. Pleasants
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861073
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
Robert Rice Reynolds (1884-1963), U.S. senator from North Carolina from 1933 to 1945, was one of the most eccentric politicians in American history. His travels, his five marriages, his public faux pas, and his flamboyant campaigns provided years of amusement for his constituents. This political biography rescues Reynolds from his cartoon-character reputation, however, by explaining his political appeal and highlighting his genuine contributions without overlooking his flaws. Julian Pleasants argues that Reynolds must be understood in the context of Depression-era North Carolina. He capitalized on the discontent of the poverty-stricken lower class by campaigning in tattered clothes while driving a ramshackle Model T--a sharp contrast to his wealthy, chauffeur-driven opponent, incumbent senator Cam Morrison. In office, Reynolds supported Roosevelt's New Deal. Although he was not pro-Nazi, his isolationist stance and his association with virulent right-wingers enraged his constituents and ultimately led to his withdrawal from politics. Pleasants reveals Reynolds to be a showman of the first order, a skilled practitioner of class politics, and a unique southern politician--the only one who favored the New Deal while advocating isolationist views.

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics PDF Author: Rob Christensen
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1442995874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Drawing on more than thirty years of reporting experience, Rob Christensen combines firsthand analysis of modern politics with a well-researched look at the past. Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, when North Carolina was a racially charged one-party state, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics profiles an electorate that has embraced bo...

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics PDF Author:
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1442995823
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description


The Federal Theatre Project in the American South

The Federal Theatre Project in the American South PDF Author: Cecelia Moore
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498526837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The Federal Theatre Project in the American South introduces the people and projects that shaped the regional identity of the Federal Theatre Project. When college theatre director Hallie Flanagan became head of this New Deal era jobs program in 1935, she envisioned a national theatre comprised of a network of theatres across the country. A regional approach was more than organizational; it was a conceptual model for a national art. Flanagan was part of the little theatre movement that had already developed a new American drama drawn from the distinctive heritage of each region and which they believed would, collectively, illustrate a national identity. The Federal Theatre plan relied on a successful regional model – the folk drama program at the University of North Carolina, led by Frederick Koch and Paul Green. Through a unique partnership of public university, private philanthropy and community participation, Koch had developed a successful playwriting program and extension service that built community theatres throughout the state. North Carolina, along with the rest of the Southern region, seemed an unpromising place for government theatre. Racial segregation and conservative politics limited the Federal Theatre’s ability to experiment with new ideas in the region. Yet in North Carolina, the Project thrived. Amateur drama units became vibrant community theatres where whites and African Americans worked together. Project personnel launched The Lost Colony, one of the first so-called outdoor historical dramas that would become its own movement. The Federal Theatre sent unemployed dramatists, including future novelist Betty Smith, to the university to work with Koch and Green. They joined other playwrights, including African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who came to North Carolina because of their own interest in folk drama. Their experience, told in this book, is a backdrop for each successive generation’s debates over government, cultural expression, art and identity in the American nation.

The American Senate

The American Senate PDF Author: Neil MacNeil
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199710112
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
Winner of the Society for History in the Federal Government's George Pendleton Prize for 2013 The United States Senate has fallen on hard times. Once known as the greatest deliberative body in the world, it now has a reputation as a partisan, dysfunctional chamber. What happened to the house that forged American history's great compromises? In this groundbreaking work, a distinguished journalist and an eminent historian provide an insider's history of the United States Senate. Richard A. Baker, historian emeritus of the Senate, and the late Neil MacNeil, former chief congressional correspondent for Time magazine, integrate nearly a century of combined experience on Capitol Hill with deep research and state-of-the-art scholarship. They explore the Senate's historical evolution with one eye on persistent structural pressures and the other on recent transformations. Here, for example, are the Senate's struggles with the presidency--from George Washington's first, disastrous visit to the chamber on August 22, 1789, through now-forgotten conflicts with Presidents Garfield and Cleveland, to current war powers disputes. The authors also explore the Senate's potent investigative power, and show how it began with an inquiry into John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. It took flight with committees on the conduct of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and World War II; and it gained a high profile with Joseph McCarthy's rampage against communism, Estes Kefauver's organized-crime hearings (the first to be broadcast), and its Watergate investigation. Within the book are surprises as well. For example, the office of majority leader first acquired real power in 1952--not with Lyndon Johnson, but with Republican Robert Taft. Johnson accelerated the trend, tampering with the sacred principle of seniority in order to control issues such as committee assignments. Rampant filibustering, the authors find, was the ironic result of the passage of 1960s civil rights legislation. No longer stigmatized as a white-supremacist tool, its use became routine, especially as the Senate became more partisan in the 1970s. Thoughtful and incisive, The American Senate: An Insider's History transforms our understanding of Congress's upper house.

Charles Darwin Slept Here

Charles Darwin Slept Here PDF Author: John Woram
Publisher: Rockville Press, Inc.
ISBN: 0976933608
Category : Galapagos Islands
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Tales of human history at world's end -- of the explorers, adventurers and settlers who have ventured to the Galápagos Islands since their discovery four centuries ago.

Bar Harbor Babylon

Bar Harbor Babylon PDF Author: Dan Landrigan
Publisher: Down East Books
ISBN: 1608939022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Mount Desert Island has attracted scoundrels and scandals for more than 100 years. Steady as the tide, every summer brings a rush of summer residents from eastern cities to the island and nothing thrilled them so much as a good scandal. In its heyday, Mount Desert was a wild oasis where the summercators could carry on in comparative privacy. Today, unfortunately, unlike Las Vegas, what happened on Mount Desert doesn’t always stay on Mount Desert. The scandals that were the talk of the picnics and outings that filled the summer visitors' days are brought back to life in Bar Harbor Babylon. Murderers, thieves, cheaters and scammers have all made their mark on the tiny towns of Mount Desert. This book will take the reader on a tour of the misadventures and misfortunes that punctuate the island's wealthy and privileged past.

Prequel

Prequel PDF Author: Rachel Maddow
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593444523
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis. “A ripping read—well rendered, fast-paced and delivered with the same punch and assurance that she brings to a broadcast. . . . The parallels to the present day are strong, even startling.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule. That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection. At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court. None of it went as planned. While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality it involved a large number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation. That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.

Dollars for Dixie

Dollars for Dixie PDF Author: Katherine Rye Jewell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107174023
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
In Dollars for Dixie, Katherine Rye Jewell demonstrates how conservative southern industrialists pursued a political campaign to preserve regional economic arrangements.