From his youthful days as a delivery boy for William Randolph Hearst's Baltimore newspapers through his many years as a journalist and commentator, Russell Baker has been a keen observer of American politics and culture. Now, in these eleven essays, all originally published in The New York Review of Books, he looks back on a group of iconic public figures from his own past.
Profiled here are presidents (Lyndon Johnson feuding with Robert F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon in his grasping, spectral exile), would-be presidents (Eugene V. Debs and Barry Goldwater, "gentlemen fallen among brutes"), and those who set their sights on something besides the presidency (Joe DiMaggio, and Martin Luther King, "the one indisputably great American of the century's second half"). Undeluded by the roar of what he calls "our national engines of ballyhoo, bushwah, and baloney," Russell Baker reflects on the strange fascination that these larger-than-life characters have held for the American imagination. With an elegiac yet shrewd sense of their accomplishments both enduring and ephemeral, he traces the impressions they left on twentieth-century America--and on him.
An overview of the people and events of the twentieth century follows America's rise to political and cultural preeminence
Presents the story of two activists who, after setting up a fake WTO website, are invited to lecture by unsuspecting organizations and subsequently deliver speeches at corporate functions criticizing the policies of the WTO.
Citizens of the Empire probes into the sense of disempowerment that has resulted from the Left's inability to halt the violent and repressive course of post-9/11 U.S. policy. In this passionate and personal exploration of what it means to be a citizen of the world's most powerful, affluent, and militarized nation in an era of imperial expansion, Jensen offers a potent antidote to despair over the future of democracy.
In a plainspoken analysis of the dominant political rhetoric-which is intentionally crafted to depress political discourse and activism-Jensen reveals the contradictions and falsehoods of prevailing myths, using common-sense analogies that provide the reader with a clear-thinking rebuttal and a way to move forward with progressive political work and discussions.
With an ethical framework that integrates political, intellectual, and emotional responses to the disheartening events of the past two years, Jensen examines the ways in which society has been led to this point and offers renewed hope for constructive engagement.
Praise for Citizens of the Empire:
"He couples his opinions with a solution for those progressive thinkers who want to help, making the book a sort of handbook for people who are looking for new ways to engage fully in the democratic process of citizenship."--Publishers Weekly
" . . . a small, thoughtful, eminently accessible book, Citizens of the Empire is intended to be a citizen's manual of sorts, an encouragement to a thinking, effective electorate. Jensen's message is meant to be one of optimism, an antidote to the resignation and despair about the future of democracy in the face of increasingly mindless group-think on the part of the electorate and unresponsive policy-making on the part of their elected leaders. The conclusion of this slim volume is to urge the reader, whether or not s/he shares Jensen's political views, to get up and get actively engaged, to reclaim the rights of a citizen of this country, and of the world, in a decisive election year."--Chapel Hill News
Can you name five military leaders who were transgendered?
Twelve cases of involuntary human experimentation by the U.S. government?
How about the four porn novels written by famous authors, 11 books left out of the Bible and over 50 side effects of NutraSweet that have been reported to the FDA?
In 1977, David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace published The Book of Lists, causing an immediate sensation. Not only did it lead to three direct sequels (in 1980, 1983 and 1993), it also created a new genre. Soon, shelves were lined with The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists (1978), The Book of Sports Lists (1979) and Meredith's Book of Bible Lists (1980), among many others. Using this popular, enduring format, Russ Kick's Disinformation Book of Lists delves into the murkier aspects of politics, current events, business, history, science, art and literature, sex, drugs, death and more. Despite such unusual subject matter, this book presents hard, substantiated facts with full references.
Among the lists presented:
- Innocent People Freed from Prison
- Members of the Skull & Bones Secret Society at Yale
- Drugs Pulled Off the
- Market After They Killed Too Many People
- Legal Substances that Will Get You High
- Scenes that Were Cut from Movies
- Raunchy Songs that Were Never Released
- Military Officers, Government Officials, Astronauts, and Airline Personnel Who Say UFOs Are Real
- Words and Phrases No Longer Allowed in Textbooks
First published in 1990, Songs of the Doomed is back in print -- by popular demand In this third and most extraordinary volume of the Gonzo Papers, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson recalls high and hideous moments in his thirty years in the Passing Lane -- and no one is safe from his hilarious, remarkably astute social commentary.
With Thompson's trademark insight and passion about the state of American politics and culture, Songs of the Doomed charts the long, strange trip from Kennedy to Quayle in Thompson's freewheeling, inimitable style. Spanning four decades -- 1950 to 1990 -- Thompson is at the top of his form while fleeing New York for Puerto Rico, riding with the Hell's Angels, investigating Las Vegas sleaze, grappling with the Dukakis problem, and finally, detailing his infamous lifestyle bust, trial documents, and Fourth Amendment battle with the Law. These tales -- often sleazy, brutal, and crude -- are only the tip of what Jack Nicholson called the most baffling human iceberg of our time.
Songs of the Doomed is vintage Thompson -- a brilliant, brazen, bawdy compilation of the greatest sound bites of Gonzo journalism from the past thirty years.
The first biography to combine the lives of Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt furnishes a fascinating portrait of the controversial lives of three courageous American leaders who changed the course of twentieth-century history. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.
"Sure to become the definitive account of the fire. . . . Triangle is social history at its best, a magnificent portrayal not only of the catastrophe but also of the time and the turbulent city in which it took place." --The New York Times Book Review Triangle is a poignantly detailed account of the 1911 disaster that horrified the country and changed the course of twentieth-century politics and labor relations. On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. People on the street watched in horror as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. The final toll was 146 people--123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in New York City history. Triangle is a vibrant and immensely moving account that Bob Woodward calls, "A riveting history written with flare and precision."
A deluxe illustrated edition of one of the most beloved books of our time, with nearly 150 historic photographs personally selected by the author
The spellbinding true story of how three men and a great racehorse captivated a nation, Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" became an immediate number one bestseller and cultural phenomenon upon its publication in 2001. Named one of the best books of the year by more than twenty publications--including "The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, People, USA Today, " and "The Economist"--Seabiscuit was also honored as the BookSense Nonfiction Book of the Year and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and was a finalist for several other major prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and the" Los Angeles Times" Book Prize.
For this lavishly illustrated special edition, author Laura Hillenbrand has written a new Introduction and selected nearly 150 rare photographs from historic archives and private collections. Seabiscuit tells the story of three remarkable men: Charles Howard, a bicycle repairman who made a fortune by introducing the automobile to the American West; Red Pollard, a failed prizefighter and failing jockey who was abandoned as a boy at a makeshift racetrack; and Tom Smith, an enigmatic mustang breaker who came from the vanishing frontier, bearing generations of lost wisdom about the secrets of horses.
In the sultry summer of 1936, the lives of these men converged around a bad-legged, floundering racehorse named Seabiscuit. Forming an improbable partnership, they transformed the horse into one of the most extraordinary competitors in sports history. In four tumultuous years, the rags-to-riches horse overcame a phenomenal run of misfortune to emerge as an American cultural icon, drawing an immense following, prompting an avalanche of merchandising, and establishing himself as the single biggest newsmaker of 1938--receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or any other public figure.
Seabiscuit is an inspiring tale of unlikely heroes, a classic story of three embattled individuals and a remarkable racehorse overcoming the odds in the Great Depression.
