The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea--deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans--to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure. With stark poignancy and political dispassion, Tightrope draws us deep into an "other America." The authors tell this story, in part, through the lives of some of the...

Slavery Remembered is the first major attempt to analyze the slave narratives gathered as part of the Federal Writers' Project. Paul Escott's sensitive examination of each of the nearly 2,400 narratives and his quantitative analysis of the narratives as a whole eloquently present the differing beliefs and experiences of masters and slaves. The book describes slave attitudes and actions; slave-master relationships; the conditions of slave life, including...

When The Culture of Narcissism was first published in 1979, Christopher Lasch was hailed as a "biblical prophet" (Time). Lasch's identification of narcissism as not only an individual ailment but also a burgeoning social epidemic was groundbreaking. His diagnosis of American culture is even more relevant today, predicting the limitless expansion of the anxious and grasping narcissistic self into every part of American life. The Culture of Narcissism...

In this groundbreaking work, Jane Addams, a pioneering figure in the realms of social reform and activism, delves deep into the heart of societal structures, examining the intricate interplay between democracy and social ethics. As the founder of Hull House, a renowned settlement house in Chicago, Addams dedicated her life to addressing the pressing social issues of her time, from poverty and inequality to women's rights and peace activism. With keen...

"There's no such thing as rural America. Or, rather, as Steven Conn argues, "rural America" is a phrase that has been made to mean so many things that it doesn't mean anything. In fact, he maintains, rural America--so often characterized as in crisis or in danger of being left behind--has been shaped by the same major forces as the rest of the country since at least the end of the Civil War: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and...

This critique of the white American class structure argues that the paths of social mobility that once advanced the nation are now serving to further isolate an elite upper class while enforcing a growing and resentful white underclass. In this book the author explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The New York Times best-selling author of Maine brings us a sparkling tale of friendship and a fascinating portrait of the first generation of women who have all the opportunities in the world, but no clear idea about what to choose.
"Inviting ... Strong, warmly believable three-dimensional characters who have fun, have fights and fall into intense love affairs." —The New York Times

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Frank Chodorov adored the work of Albert Jay Nock, particularly Nock's writings on the State, and so Chodorov set out to rework Nock's book in his own style-with this book being the result. It describes in detail the difference between the "State" and "Society" and highlights issues current to this day, such as high tax, high spend and loss of freedom. The book illustrates the formation of a society, its government, and the eventual dismantling of...

A collection of stories that follows a bewildered bartender, a grieving beautician, a jilted urban planner and others as their lives unravel in unexpected ways, revealing primal urges and raw emotions against the backdrop of a fractured, overwhelmed America.

In late 1921, then secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover decided to distill from his experiences a coherent understanding of the American experiment he cherished. The result was the 1922 book American Individualism. In it, Hoover expounded and vigorously defended what has come to be called American exceptionalism: the set of beliefs and values that still makes America unique. He argued that America can make steady, sure progress if we preserve our...