The Bill of the Century

The Bill of the Century PDF Author: Clay Risen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608198243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A 50th anniversary tribute chronicles the historical struggle to bring the Civil Rights Act into law, profiling a wide range of contributing figures in religious, public and political arenas. 60,000 first printing.

The Bill of the Century

The Bill of the Century PDF Author: Clay Risen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608198243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A 50th anniversary tribute chronicles the historical struggle to bring the Civil Rights Act into law, profiling a wide range of contributing figures in religious, public and political arenas. 60,000 first printing.

Fight of the Century

Fight of the Century PDF Author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501190415
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The American Civil Liberties Union partners with award-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman in this “forceful, beautifully written” (Associated Press) collection that brings together many of our greatest living writers, each contributing an original piece inspired by a historic ACLU case. On January 19, 1920, a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, and Crystal Eastman, founded the American Civil Liberties Union. A century after its creation, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In collaboration with the ACLU, authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays “full of struggle, emotion, fear, resilience, hope, and triumph” (Los Angeles Review of Books) about landmark cases in the organization’s one-hundred-year history. Fight of the Century takes you inside the trials and the stories that have shaped modern life. Some of the most prominent cases that the ACLU has been involved in—Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona—need little introduction. Others you may never even have heard of, yet their outcomes quietly defined the world we live in now. Familiar or little-known, each case springs to vivid life in the hands of the acclaimed writers who dive into the history, narrate their personal experiences, and debate the questions at the heart of each issue. Hector Tobar introduces us to Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the now-iconic Miranda rights—which the police would later read to the man suspected of killing him. Yaa Gyasi confronts the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, in which the ACLU submitted a friend of- the-court brief questioning why a nation that has sent men to the moon still has public schools so unequal that they may as well be on different planets. True to the ACLU’s spirit of principled dissent, Scott Turow offers a blistering critique of the ACLU’s stance on campaign finance. These powerful stories, along with essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and many more, remind us that the issues the ACLU has engaged over the past one hundred years remain as vital as ever today, and that we can never take our liberties for granted. Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.

People of the Century

People of the Century PDF Author: CBS News
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684870932
Category : Biography
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
The one hundred most influential people of the twentieth century, as selected by the editors of Time magazine and featured in a series of documentaries produced by CBS.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

An Idea Whose Time Has Come PDF Author: Todd S. Purdum
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805096728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
A top Washington journalist recounts the dramatic political battle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law that created modern America, on the fiftieth anniversary of its passage It was a turbulent time in America—a time of sit-ins, freedom rides, a March on Washington and a governor standing in the schoolhouse door—when John F. Kennedy sent Congress a bill to bar racial discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. Countless civil rights measures had died on Capitol Hill in the past. But this one was different because, as one influential senator put it, it was "an idea whose time has come." In a powerful narrative layered with revealing detail, Todd S. Purdum tells the story of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, recreating the legislative maneuvering and the larger-than-life characters who made its passage possible. From the Kennedy brothers to Lyndon Johnson, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Hubert Humphrey and Everett Dirksen, Purdum shows how these all-too-human figures managed, in just over a year, to create a bill that prompted the longest filibuster in the history of the U.S. Senate yet was ultimately adopted with overwhelming bipartisan support. He evokes the high purpose and low dealings that marked the creation of this monumental law, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of new interviews that bring to life this signal achievement in American history. Often hailed as the most important law of the past century, the Civil Rights Act stands as a lesson for our own troubled times about what is possible when patience, bipartisanship, and decency rule the day.

One America in the 21st Century

One America in the 21st Century PDF Author: Steven F. Lawson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300153988
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Originally released in 2008, this book features the first publication in book form of the Clinton Commission on Race Initiative's report; a foreword by commission chair John Hope Franklin; President Clinton's speech that launched the commission; and other important materials for classes on American race relations. "The report, and this volume, will surely assume a place among the most significant works about race and the persistent challenge of racism in modern American life."--William A. Link, University of Florida

The Global Warming Reader

The Global Warming Reader PDF Author: Bill McKibben
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101577215
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Van Jones, Al Gore, Elizabeth Kolbert, Naomi Klein, and other essential voices on global warming, from its 19th-century discovery to the present, in a volume edited by Bill McKibben, our most widely respected environmental writer With the rise of extreme weather events worldwide--witness the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and Katrina, and the sustained drought across the American West--global warming has become increasingly difficult to deny. What is happening to our planet? And what can we do about it? The Global Warming Reader provides more than thirty-five answers to these burning questions, from more than one hundred years of engagement with the topic. Here is Elizabeth Kolbert's groundbreaking essay "The Darkening Sea," Michael Crichton's skeptical view of climate change, George Monbiot's biting indictment of those who are really using up the planet's resources, NASA scientist James Hansen's testimony before the U.S. Congress, and clarion calls for action by Al Gore, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Van Jones, and many others. The Global Warming Reader is a comprehensive resource, expertly edited by someone who lives and breathes this defining issue of our time.

The Deal of the Century

The Deal of the Century PDF Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504045033
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
A New York Times–bestselling author’s “superbly reported” account of the dismantling of the world’s largest corporation (The Washington Post). Written by the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ghost Wars and Private Empire, The Deal of the Century chronicles the decade-long war for control of AT&T. When the US Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T in 1974, the telecommunications giant held a monopoly on phone service throughout the country. Over the following decade, an army of lawyers, executives, politicians, and judges spent countless hours clashing over what amounted to the biggest corporate breakup in American history. From boardroom to courtroom, Steve Coll untangles the myriad threads of this complex and critical case and gives readers “an excellent behind-the-scenes look” at the human drama involved in the remaking of an entire industry (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “rich, intricate and convincing,” The Deal of the Century is the definitive narrative of a momentous turning point in the way America does business.

Letters of the Century

Letters of the Century PDF Author: Lisa Grunwald
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN: 0385315937
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Book Description
"Immediate and evocative, letters witness and fasten history, catching events as they happen," write Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler in their introduction to this remarkable book. In more than 400 letters from both famous figures and ordinary citizens, Letters of the Century encapsulates the people and places, events and trends that shaped our nation during the last 100 years. Here is Mark Twain's hilarious letter of complaint to the head of Western Union, an ecstatic letter from a young Charlie Chaplin upon receiving his first movie contract, Einstein's letter to Franklin Roosevelt warning about atomic warfare, Mark Rudd's "generation gap" letter to the president of Columbia University during the student riots of the 60s, and a letter from young Bill Gates imploring hobbyists not to share software so that innovators can make some money... In these pages, our century's most celebrated figures become everyday people and everyday people become part of history. Here is a veteran's wrenching letter left at the Vietnam Wall, a poignant correspondence between two women trying to become mothers, a heart-breaking letter from an AIDS sufferer telling his parents how he wants to be buried, an indignant e-mail from a PC user to his on-line server... "Letters," write Grunwald and Adler, "give history a voice." Arranged chronologically by decade, illustrated with over 100 photographs, Letters of the Century creates an extraordinary chronicle of our history, through the voices of the men and women who have lived its greatest moments.

Between Hope and History

Between Hope and History PDF Author: Bill Clinton
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 9780812929133
Category : Current Events
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
"Between Hope and History is President Clinton's credo, a concise statement of the fundamental principles that have guided his administration and its policies since its inception nearly four years ago. It continues, he writes, "the conversation I have had with the American people about our destiny as a nation."" "In the three main sections of the book - Opportunity, Responsibility, Community - the President explores the most important challenges we face today: making the American Dream available to every citizen willing to work for it; ensuring that individuals, families, businesses, and government shoulder their fair share of responsibility for themselves and one another; and seeking strength through diversity in a community of citizens united in a democracy whose achievements and glory are unrivaled." "America, the President observes, stands at a pivotal moment in its history. At the edge of a new century, we must decide between two visions of America. One vision foresees an "every man for himself" society that seems calculated to divide our people rather than unite us, to weaken rather than strengthen the bonds of community, to pay lip service to the importance of families without assuring the tools by which families can succeed. It is, the President declares, "a vision that is bereft of the simple understanding that in America we must go forward together, and we don't have a single person to waste.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Bill of the Century

The Bill of the Century PDF Author: Clay Risen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608198251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history. It gave the government sweeping powers to strike down segregation, to enforce fair hiring practices, and to rectify bias in law enforcement and in the courts. The Act so dramatically altered American society that, looking back, it seems preordained-as Everett Dirksen, the GOP leader in the Senate and a key supporter of the bill, said, “no force is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” But there was nothing predestined about the victory: a phalanx of powerful senators, pledging to “fight to the death” for segregation, launched the longest filibuster in American history to defeat it. The journey of the Civil Rights Act was nothing less than a moral and political epic, a sweeping tale of undaunted activism, political courage, historic speeches, backroom deal-making and finally, hand-to-hand legislative combat. The larger-than-life cast of characters ranges from Senate lions like Hubert Humphrey and Strom Thurmond to NAACP lobbyist Charles Mitchell, called “the 101st senator” for his Capitol Hill clout, and industrialist J. Irwin Miller, who helped mobilize a powerful religious coalition for the bill. Looming over all was the figure of Lyndon Johnson, who deployed all his legendary skills to steer the controversial act through Congress. This critical turning point in American history has never been thoroughly explored in a full-length narrative. Now, New York Times editor and acclaimed author Clay Risen delivers the full story, in all its complexity and drama.