National Book Award Longlist Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Winner of the Foreword INDIE Editor's Choice Prize for Nonfiction "Rebecca Solnit is essential feminist reading." --The New Republic "Solnit's exquisite essays move between the political and the personal, the intellectual and the earthy." --Elle Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestseller Men Explain Things to Me. Called "the voice of the resistance" by the New York Times, she has emerged as an essential guide to our times, through her incisive commentary on feminism, violence, ecology, hope, and everything in between. In this powerful and wide-ranging collection, Solnit turns her attention to battles over meaning, place, language, and belonging at the heart of the defining crises of our time. She explores the way emotions shape political life, electoral politics, police shootings and gentrification, the life of an extraordinary man on death row, the pipeline protest at Standing Rock, and the existential threat posed by climate change. The work of changing the world sometimes requires changing the story, the names, and inventing or popularizing new names and terms and phrases. Calling things by their true names can also cut through the lies that excuse, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness in the face of injustice and violence.

2017 Reprint of 1925 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed during the years after its publication in 1925. Yet it is "a fundamental book, essential if one proposes to come to terms with American literature" (Times Literary Supplement). William Carlos Williams was not a historian, but he was fascinated by the texture of American history. Beginning with Columbus's discovery of the Indies and moving on through Sir Walter Raleigh, Cotton Mather, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Aaron Burr, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln, Williams found in the fabric of familiar episodes new shades of meaning and configurations of character. He brought a poetic imagination to the task of reconstructing a live tradition for Americans, and what results is one of the finest works of prose to have been penned by any writer of the twentieth century.

"Titillating and provocative essays from one of the freshest voices in science today -- Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does "free will" really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins. With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you are interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come"--

Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars. "Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant."--CosmopolitanAward-winning Mary McCarthy's most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives -- traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. Through the years, some of the friends grow apart and some become entangled in each other's affairs, but all vow not to become like their mothers and fathers. It is only when one of them passes away that they all come back together again to mourn the loss of a friend, a confidante, and most importantly, a member of the group.

Bill Bryson meets Thomas Frank in this deeply insightful, unexpectedly hilarious story of how politicians hijacked American democracy and how we can take it back The democracy you live in today is different--completely different--from the democracy you were born into. You probably don't realize just how radically your republic has been altered during your lifetime. Yet more than any policy issue, political trend, or even Donald Trump himself, our redesigned system of government is responsible for the peril America faces today. What explains the gap between what We, the People want and what our elected leaders do? How can we fix our politics before it's too late? And how can we truly understand the state of our democracy without wanting to crawl under a rock? That's what former Obama speechwriter David Litt set out to answer. Poking into forgotten corners of history, translating political science into plain English, and traveling the country to meet experts and activists, Litt explains how the world's greatest experiment in democracy went awry. (He also tries to crash a party at Mitch McConnell's former frat house. It goes poorly.) The result of Litt's journey is something you might not have thought possible: a page-turner about the political process. You'll meet the Supreme Court justice charged with murder, learn how James Madison's college roommate broke the Senate, encounter a citrus thief who embodies what's wrong with our elections, and join Belle the bill as she tries to become a law (a quest far more harrowing than the one in Schoolhouse Rock!). Yet despite his clear-eyed assessment of the dangers we face, Litt remains audaciously optimistic. He offers a to-do list of bold yet achievable changes--a blueprint for restoring the balance of power in America before it's too late.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A powerful collection of the influential columnist's most important works--featuring rare speeches and a major new essay about today's populist movements and the future of global democracy "Charles will be remembered as one of the greatest public intellects of his generation."--John McCain In his decades of work as America's preeminent political commentator, whether writing about statecraft and foreign policy or reflecting on more esoteric topics such as baseball, spaceflight and medical ethics, Charles Krauthammer elevated the opinion column to a form of art. This collection features the columns, speeches and unpublished writings that showcase the best of his original thought and his last, enduring words on the state of American politics, the nature of liberal democracy and the course of world history. The book also includes a deeply personal section offering insight into Krauthammer's beliefs about what mattered most to him: friendship, family and the principles he lived by. The Point of It All is a timely demonstration of what made Charles Krauthammer the most celebrated American columnist and political thinker of his generation, a revealing look at the man behind the words and a lasting testament to his belief that anyone with an open and honest mind can grapple deeply with the most urgent questions in politics and in life.

2015 Reprint of 1948 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "On Tyranny" is Leo Strauss's classic reading of Xenophon's dialogue "Hiero," or "Tyrannicus," in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. Strauss taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards extreme relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism. The first was a "brutal" nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. In "On Tyranny," he wrote that these ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics, and moral standards and replace them by force under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. The second type-the "gentle" nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies-was a kind of value-free aimlessness and a hedonistic "permissive egalitarianism", which he saw as permeating the fabric of contemporary American society. In the belief that 20th century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this situation. The resultant study led him to advocate a tentative return to classical political philosophy as a starting point for judging political action. "On Tyranny is a complex and stimulating book with its 'parallel dialogue' made all the more striking since both participants take such unusual, highly provocative positions and so force readers to face substantial problems in what are often wholly unfamiliar, even shocking ways." --Robert Pippin History and Theory

America's most inspirational voices, in their own words: "If you're looking for a reason to act and dream again, you'll find it in the pages of this book" ( Chicago Tribune ). Published when Studs Terkel was ninety-one years old, this astonishing oral history tackles one of the famed journalist's most elusive subjects: Hope. Where does it come from? What are its essential qualities? How do we sustain it in the darkest of times? An alternative, more personal chronicle of the "American century," Hope Dies Last is a testament to the indefatigable spirit that Studs has always embodied, and an inheritance for those who, by taking a stand, are making concrete the dreams of today. A former death row inmate who served nearly twenty years for a crime he did not commit discusses his never-ending fight for justice. Tom Hayden, author of The Port Huron Statement , contemplates the legacy of 1960s student activism. Liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith reflects on the enduring problem of corporate malfeasance. From a doctor who teaches his young students compassion to the retired brigadier general who flew the Enola Gay over Hiroshima, these interviews tell us much about the power of the American dream and the force of individuals who advocate for a better world. With grace and warmth, Terkel's subjects express their secret hopes and dreams. Taken together, this collection of interviews tells an inspiring story of optimism and persistence, told in voices that resonate with the eloquence of conviction. "The value of Hope Dies Last lies not in what it teaches readers about its narrow subject, but in the fascinating stories it reveals, and the insight it allows into the vast range of human experience." -- The A.V. Club "Very Terkelesque--by now the man requires an adjective of his own." --Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Review of Books "An American treasure." --Cornel West

A collection of the New Yorker's groundbreaking writing on race in America, including work by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hilton Als, Zadie Smith, and more From the pages of the New Yorker comes a bold and telling portrait of Black life in America, with astonishing early work from Rebecca West's account of a lynching trial and James Baldwin's 'Letter from a Region in My Mind' (which later formed the basis of The Fire Next Time) to more recent writing by Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Zadie Smith, Hilton Als, Jamaica Kincaid, Malcolm Gladwell, Elizabeth Alexander, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Doreen St. Félix, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Kelefa Sanneh, and more. Reaching back across the last century, The Matter of Black Lives includes a wide array of material from the New Yorker archives ranging across essays, reported pieces, profiles, criticism, and historical pieces. This book addresses everything from the arts to civil rights, matters of justice, and politics, and brings us up to the present day with accounts of what Jelani Cobb calls "The American Spring." The result is a startling, nuanced and, ultimately, indelible portrait of America's complex relationship with race.

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, edited by Steven Pinker, is another "provocative and thoroughly enjoyable [collection] from start to finish" (Publishers Weekly). Here is the best and newest on science and nature: the psychology of suicide terrorism, desperate measures in surgery, the weird world of octopuses, Sex Week at Yale, the linguistics of click languages, the worst news about cloning, and much more.

"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.

This is the story of a 30 year, one-man war. The author confesses his bias - in favor of labor, in friendship with Lewis, but he manages to present Lewis convincingly, with his complicated personality, his inconsistencies, his dynamic power, his ruthless use of any means to his end. He traces the steps by which he reached the peak from the pits of Illinois mines. He tells how he created C.I.O. in protest over the limitations of A.F. of L.; of how he secured his own U.M.W. even at the cost of dictatorship. He goes behind the scenes for his breaks with Green, with Murray, with Roosevelt. But the end-all is gains for his miners - in pay, in safety, in security. Brilliant analysis, an unflaggingly interesting chapter in American labor, it provides an interesting insight into a fascinating part of American history. It's a reminder of what unions did achieve and it is a contrast to the comparative powerless of unions these days.

Time magazine called Mortimer J. Adler a ''philosopher for everyman.'' In this guide to considering the big questions, Adler addresses the topics all men and women ponder in the course of life, such as ''What is love?'', ''How do we decide the right thing to do?'', and, ''What does it mean to be good?'' Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Western literature, history, and philosophy, the author considers what is meant by democracy, law, emotion, language, truth, and other abstract concepts in light of more than two millennia of Western civilization and discourse. Adler's essays offer a remarkable and contemplative distillation of the Great Ideas of Western Thought.

What is the exact nature of the consumption function? Can this term be defined so that it will be consistent with empirical evidence and a valid instrument in the hands of future economic researchers and policy makers? In this volume a distinguished American economist presents a new theory of the consumption function, tests it against extensive statistical J material and suggests some of its significant implications. Central to the new theory is its sharp distinction between two concepts of income, measured income, or that which is recorded for a particular period, and permanent income, a longer-period concept in terms of which consumers decide how much to spend and how much to save. Milton Friedman suggests that the total amount spent on consumption is on the average the same fraction of permanent income, regardless of the size of permanent income. The magnitude of the fraction depends on variables such as interest rate, degree of uncertainty relating to occupation, ratio of wealth to income, family size, and so on. The hypothesis is shown to be consistent with budget studies and time series data, and some of its far-reaching implications are explored in the final chapter.

Surveys a decade of the attempt to reconstruct and understand the meaning and value of butch-femme relations for the contemporary lesbian, drawing on oral history, fiction, poetry, and fantasy. -- From the Amazon

Ben Hecht: 1001 Afternoons in Chicago is a compilation of more than 60 columns written for the Chicago Daily News that Hecht's editor called "journalism extraordinary; journalism that invaded the realm of literature." The hardboiled audacity and wit that became Ben Hecht's signature as Hollywood's most celebrated screen-writer are conspicuous in these vignettes. Most of them are comic and sardonic, some strike muted tragic or somber atmospheric notes. . . . The best are timeless character sketches that have taken on an added interest as shards of social history. Ben Hecht's collection, as presented in 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, is a timeless caricature of urban American life in the jazz age. From the glittering opulence of Michigan Avenue to the darkest ruminations of an escaped convict, from captains of industry to immigrant day laborers, Ben Hecht captures 1920s Chicago in all its furor, intensity, and absurdity. Hecht's book offers scruffy time capsules of an earlier Chicago, an era that is long gone but still recognizable to readers'' imaginations. Michigan Avenue, Lake Michigan, street names such as Dearborn and Adams and LaSalle and Wabansia, places such as the Art Institute of Chicago--they''re all here. In Ben Hecht's words, Chicago is a razzle-dazzle of dreams, tragedies, fantasies, and his tales capture gorgeous scraps of it, vivid vignettes starring businessmen and hobos and cops and socialites and janitors. . . . Thanks to 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, Chicago of 1922 and the Chicago of 2009 bump into each other, shake hands, exchange greetings. Then, this being Chicago, they go for a drink and talk about old times.

The Ojibwa Woman is a book written by Ruth Landes that explores the life and culture of the Ojibwa people, specifically focusing on the experiences of Ojibwa women. The book is based on Landes' fieldwork among the Ojibwa people in the early 1930s, during which she lived among the tribe and conducted extensive interviews with women to gain a better understanding of their lives, beliefs, and customs.The book covers a wide range of topics related to Ojibwa women, including their roles in the community, their relationships with men and other women, their experiences of motherhood and childbirth, and their spiritual beliefs and practices. Landes also explores the impact of colonialism and Christianity on the Ojibwa people, and the ways in which these forces have affected the lives of Ojibwa women.Throughout the book, Landes presents a nuanced and empathetic portrait of the Ojibwa people and their culture, drawing on her own observations and the insights of the women she interviewed. The book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history and culture of indigenous peoples, as well as for those interested in the experiences of women in different cultures and societies.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

For some 30 years, Adam Hochschild's voice has been one of the most distinctive in American journalism. With grace and wit, he has brought to a startling variety of subjects a combination of adventurous reporting and personal honesty. Hochschild's readers can count on an unobtrusive erudition, a sense of justice, and an irrepressible curiosity about life. Admirers of Hochschild's Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son will find in these articles the same warm autobiographical voice that made that book so memorable: He revisits his time as a civil rights worker in Mississippi, as a New England prep school student, and as a teenager seeing apartheid firsthand in South Africa. But readers will find much more as well: profiles of an adoptive Gypsy and of a governor general's son turned revolutionary, essays about Ernest Hemingway and John F. Kennedy, a journey to one of the most remote corners of the Amazon rain forest, and a remarkable evocation of two of Hochschild's personal heroes—who, in hillside trenches at the height of the Russian Civil War, faced each other across a battlefield.

Through personal essays and poetry, short fiction and painting, book reviews, interviews, performance pieces, and hybrid creations of text and image, Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba opens a window onto the meaning of nationality, transnationalism, and homeland in our time. For more than thirty-five years U.S.-Cuban relations have been couched in terms of the Cold War, often pitting Cubans in the diaspora against Cubans who remain in their homeland. Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba celebrates the informal networks that Cubans in both countries have maintained through artistic, academic, family, and other ties. The book brings together for the first time in English Cuban voices of the second generation, both on the island and in the diaspora. The multivocal and multigenre collection includes both scholarly and creative writing and an impressive range of visual art. The participants are earnest, angry, witty, and hopeful. They are sometimes visionaries, but they are not deluded about Cuban or North American realities. Their voices offer testimony to the continuing efforts of Cubans and Cuban-Americans to look beyond the animosities and failings of their respective societies and find possibilities for personal and international reconciliation, dialogue, and renewal. "Ruth Behar, as editor of Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, leaps across conventional intellectual boundaries in an effort to show the complexity of nationhood, exile, and revolution in the Cuban experience of the last thirty years. An important book about the possibility and impossibility of building cultural and political bridges."--Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones, Princeton University "Behar narrows the straits of Florida with a richly textured dialogue of voices in and out of Cuba. Bridges to Cuba is sure to make history."--Liz Balmaseda, Miami Herald "A vital and interesting anthology about contemporary Cuba."--Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love " Bridges to Cuba is the first U.S. anthology that looks at Cuban creativity from an integrated perspective, refusing to kneel before the painful and often arbitrary divisions that have split the voices of this passionate culture into forever separate bands. The results are magnificent. Read this book and get a long overdue understanding of contemporary Cuban literature and art."--Margaret Randall, author of Women in Cuba: Twenty Years Later "In order for memory to be recovered, there must be a community that remembers and tells the story. . . . Bridges to Cuba displays a wealth of insights that leave the reader with a sense of having experienced first hand the intricate web of thought and feeling that is Cuban life."--Latino Review of Books "Ruth Behar's anthology represents one of the most important and moving bridges yet published on contemporary Cuba and its condition as the island that is still absent from the Western world. Bridges to Cuba is an extraordinary example of the faith and ability of Latin American intellectuals to cross true bridges, bridges of solidarity."--Marjorie Agosín, Wellesley College Ruth Behar is author of Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story and coeditor, with Deborah Gordon, of Women Writing Culture. She has been the recipient of awards from the MacArthur and Guggenheim foundations.

Fiorello LaGuardia is known best as the tempestuous mayor of New York City in the days when Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat in the White House. There had been, however, an earlier time, which matched his mayoralty years in sheer drama and perhaps surpassed them in lasting achievement-LaGuardia's years in Congress. He served in the House of Representative almost continuously from 1917 to 1933, representing two ethnically diverse congressional districts: the Fourteenth (Greenwich Village), from 1917 to 1919, and the Twentieth (East Harlem), from 1923 to 1933. Although barred from important committee posts because of his political independence and thus denied from playing a direct role in lawmaking, he was a tireless and vocal champion of Progressive causes, from allowing more immigration and removing U.S. troops from Nicaragua to speaking up for the rights and livelihoods of striking miners, impoverished farmers, oppressed minorities, and struggling families. A goad to the era's plutocrats and their enablers in government, LaGuardia fought for progressive income taxes, greater government oversight of Wall Street, and national employment insurance for workers idled by the Great Depression. In this book, first published by Cornell University Press in 1959, Howard Zinn establishes LaGuardia's tenure in Congress as a vital link between the Progressive and New Deal eras, offering a lively and informative account of his many legislative battles, his political philosophy, and the distinctly urban (specifically, New York City) sensibilities he brought to the Progressive movement.