When America Stopped Being Great

When America Stopped Being Great PDF Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472985494
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
'Nick Bryant is brilliant. He has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story whilst never leaving you feeling stupid.' – Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity, a Brit who understands America' – Washington Post In When America Stopped Being Great, veteran reporter and BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant reveals how America's decline paved the way for Donald Trump's rise, sowing division and leaving the country vulnerable to its greatest challenge of the modern era. Deftly sifting through almost four decades of American history, from post-Cold War optimism, through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant unpacks the mistakes of past administrations, from Ronald Reagan's 'celebrity presidency' to Barack Obama's failure to adequately address income and racial inequality. He explains how the historical clues, unseen by many (including the media) paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. As Bryant writes, 'rather than being an aberration, Trump's presidency marked the culmination of so much of what had been going wrong in the United States for decades – economically, racially, politically, culturally, technologically and constitutionally.' A personal elegy for an America lost, unafraid to criticise actors on both sides of the political divide, When America Stopped Being Great takes the long view, combining engaging storytelling with recent history to show how the country moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. It concludes with some of the most dramatic events in recent memory, in an America torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, the national catastrophe of the coronavirus and the threat to US democracy evidenced by the storming of Capitol Hill.

When America Stopped Being Great

When America Stopped Being Great PDF Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472985494
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Nick Bryant is brilliant. He has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story whilst never leaving you feeling stupid.' – Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity, a Brit who understands America' – Washington Post In When America Stopped Being Great, veteran reporter and BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant reveals how America's decline paved the way for Donald Trump's rise, sowing division and leaving the country vulnerable to its greatest challenge of the modern era. Deftly sifting through almost four decades of American history, from post-Cold War optimism, through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant unpacks the mistakes of past administrations, from Ronald Reagan's 'celebrity presidency' to Barack Obama's failure to adequately address income and racial inequality. He explains how the historical clues, unseen by many (including the media) paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. As Bryant writes, 'rather than being an aberration, Trump's presidency marked the culmination of so much of what had been going wrong in the United States for decades – economically, racially, politically, culturally, technologically and constitutionally.' A personal elegy for an America lost, unafraid to criticise actors on both sides of the political divide, When America Stopped Being Great takes the long view, combining engaging storytelling with recent history to show how the country moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. It concludes with some of the most dramatic events in recent memory, in an America torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, the national catastrophe of the coronavirus and the threat to US democracy evidenced by the storming of Capitol Hill.

Rise and Fall of Australia, The

Rise and Fall of Australia, The PDF Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0857989022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside. Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. It's the planet's great lifestyle superpower. Its artistic exports win unprecedented acclaim. But never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as being such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story. The country should be enjoying The Australian Moment, so vividly described by the best-selling author George Megalogenis. But that description may turn out to be inadvertently precise. It could end up being just that: a fleeting moment. At present the country seems to be in speedy regression, with the nation's leaders, on both sides, mired in relatively small problems, such as the arrival of boat people, rather than mapping out a larger and more inspiring national future. In The Rise and Fall of Australia, BBC correspondent and author Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished. In this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking book, dealing with politics, racism, sexism, the country's place in the region and the world, culture and sport, the author argues that Australia needs to discard the out-dated language used to describe itself, to push back against Lucky Country thinking, to celebrate how the cultural creep has replaced the cultural cringe and to stop negatively typecasting itself. Rejecting most of the national stereotypes, Nick Bryant sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but Australians themselves.

Tears We Cannot Stop

Tears We Cannot Stop PDF Author: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250136008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
“A hard-hitting sermon on the racial divide, directed specifically to a white congregation.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review A New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe Bestseller As the country grapples with racial division at a level not seen since the 1960s, Michael Eric Dyson’s voice is heard above the rest. In Tears We Cannot Stop, a provocative and deeply personal call or change, Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, and discounted. In the tradition of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time—short, emotional, literary, powerful—this is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations need to read. Praise for Tears We Cannot Stop Named a Best/Most Anticipated Book of 2017 by: The Washington Post • Bustle • Men’s Journal • The Chicago Reader • StarTribune • Blavity• The Guardian • NBC New York’s Bill’s Books • Kirkus Reviews • Essence “Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish.” —Toni Morrison “Here’s a sermon that’s as fierce as it is lucid . . . If you’re black, you’ll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you’re white, Dyson tells you what you need to know—what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen.” —Stephen King “One of the most frank and searing discussions on race . . . a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and King’s Why We Can’t Wait.” —The New York Times Book Review

Franklin Scandal

Franklin Scandal PDF Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Trine Day
ISBN: 1936296446
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 774

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Book Description
A chilling exposé of corporate corruption and government cover-ups, this account of a nationwide child-trafficking and pedophilia ring in the United States tells a sordid tale of corruption in high places. The scandal originally surfaced during an investigation into Omaha, Nebraska's failed Franklin Federal Credit Union and took the author beyond the Midwest and ultimately to Washington, DC. Implicating businessmen, senators, major media corporations, the CIA, and even the venerable Boys Town organization, this extensively researched report includes firsthand interviews with key witnesses and explores a controversy that has received scant media attention.

Why America Needs a Left

Why America Needs a Left PDF Author: Eli Zaretsky
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745656560
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The United States today cries out for a robust, self-respecting, intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a left appears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, Eli Zaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments in American history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of New Left movements in the 1960s and after including the civil rights movement, the women's movement and gay liberation.In each period, he argues, the active involvement of the left - especially its critical interaction with mainstream liberalism - proved indispensable. American liberalism, as represented by the Democratic Party, is necessarily spineless and ineffective without a left. Correspondingly, without a strong liberal center, the left becomes sectarian, authoritarian, and worse. Written in an accessible way for the general reader and the undergraduate student, this book provides a fresh perspective on American politics and political history. It has often been said that the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and is distinctively European; Zaretsky argues, by contrast, that America has always had a vibrant and powerful left. And he shows that in those critical moments when the country returns to itself, it is on its left/liberal bases that it comes to feel most at home.

The Bystander

The Bystander PDF Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9780465008278
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this, the first comprehensive history of Kennedy's civil rights record over the course of his entire political career, Nick Bryant shows that Kennedy's shrewd handling of the race issue in his early congressional campaigns blinded him as President to the intractability of the simmering racial crisis in America. By focusing on mainly symbolic gestures, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform, his inertia emboldening white supremacists and forced black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics.

It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here PDF Author: Sinclair Lewis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698152700
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press. Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. Includes an Introduction by Michael Meyer and an Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst

Forgotten Americans

Forgotten Americans PDF Author: Isabel Sawhill
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Latin Lessons

Latin Lessons PDF Author: Hal Weitzman
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9780470481912
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The mistakes the United States has made in Latin America—and the high price it will pay for them Could it be that for the first time in history, the United States needs Latin America more than the other way round? Since the early 1800s, the United States regarded the region as its “backyard,” but in the past decade South America’s leaders have increasingly snubbed US efforts to persuade them to adopt free-market economics and sign trade agreements. While Washington has been distracted by military campaigns elsewhere, rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran have expanded their clout in Latin America, and US influence in the region has fallen to a historic low—at the very time that the United States has become more dependent than ever on exporting to Latin America and importing its oil. Combining sharp wit and great storytelling with trenchant analysis, Hal Weitzman examines how America “lost the South” and argues that if the United States is to find a new role in a world of emerging superpowers, it must reengage with Latin America. Charts the rise of resource nationalism—in which governments take increasing control of natural resources and squeeze multinational corporations—in South America and across the world Illustrates analytical points with vivid stories—such as the disappearance of the Panama hat or the sweater Evo Morales wore throughout a world tour—and interviews with presidents, policymakers, and protesters Written by a Financial Times journalist who formerly served as its Andes correspondent based in Lima, Peru

Behold, America

Behold, America PDF Author: Sarah Churchwell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541673425
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of 2018 The unknown history of two ideas crucial to the struggle over what America stands for In Behold, America, Sarah Churchwell offers a surprising account of twentieth-century Americans' fierce battle for the nation's soul. It follows the stories of two phrases -- the "American dream" and "America First" -- that once embodied opposing visions for America. Starting as a Republican motto before becoming a hugely influential isolationist slogan during World War I, America First was always closely linked with authoritarianism and white supremacy. The American dream, meanwhile, initially represented a broad vision of democratic and economic equality. Churchwell traces these notions through the 1920s boom, the Depression, and the rise of fascism at home and abroad, laying bare the persistent appeal of demagoguery in America and showing us how it was resisted. At a time when many ask what America's future holds, Behold, America is a revelatory, unvarnished portrait of where we have been.