Poetry has often been defined by its closure, its condensation of meaning and value into discrete, self-referential textual objects. Affect, Psychoanalysis and American Poetry challenges the dominant metaphor of poetic containers by turning to recent poetic texts that represent the contagious and uncontainable feelings of anxiety, grief, shame, and rage. From modernists Wallace Stevens to mid-century poets Randall Jarrell, Robert Creeley and Ted Berrigan, and finally to contemporary practitioners Aaron Kunin and Claudia Rankine, John Steen argues that new poetic techniques arise from the poetic productivity of negative affects, and that a new model of poetic value can be found in poems that are-instead of containers-permeable, social spaces of intimacy, attachment, and withdrawal. Drawing from object relations, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and affect theory, Affect, Psychoanalysis, and American Poetry finds poetry's singularity in its unique capacity to represent anew the transmissible, relational, and uncontainable valences of feeling that structure and destabilize social life.
This book is the most comprehensive review of all the major proposals to rewrite, revise, or even replace the U.S. Constitution, covering more than 170 proposals from the nation's beginnings to the present day. The U.S. Constitution was carefully written by a remarkable group of men, but subsequent generations of Americans have devoted enormous time and energy to "improving" it. From colonial times to the present day, Americans of all political persuasions have campaigned to reform, remake, or replace this key document. The growth of the Internet and self-publishing has spawned a virtual explosion of such proposals. This book documents the numerous ideas for change—some practical, some idealistic, and some bordering on fanatical—that reflect America's Constitutional heritage and could shape the nation's future. Re-Framers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution sets the stage for this review by describing various prequels to the U.S. Constitution and explaining how the final document emerged at the Constitutional Convention. The subsequent chapters examine many proposed alternatives and revisions to the Constitution from its establishment until the present, illuminating perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current document as well as the pros and cons of possible amendments. Readers ranging from lay citizens who are interested in constitutional issues to historians, political scientists, law professors, and reference librarians will all benefit from this unparalleled examination of proposed constitutional amendment.
Fighting fascism at home and abroad begins with the consolidation of a progressive politics Seventy-five years ago, Henry Wallace, then the sitting Vice President of the United States, mounted a campaign to warn about the persisting "Danger of American Fascism." As fighting in the European and Japanese theaters drew to a close, Wallace warned that the country may win the war and lose the piece; that the fascist threat that the U.S. was battling abroad had a terrifying domestic variant, growing rapidly in power: wealthy corporatists and their allies in the media. Wallace warned that if the New Deal project was not renewed and expanded in the post-war era, American fascists would use fear mongering, xenophonbia, and racism to regain the economic and political power that they lost. He championed an alternative, progressive vision of a post-war world-an alternative to triumphalist "American Century" vision then rising--in which the United States rejected colonialism and imperialism. Wallace's political vision - as well as his standing in the Democratic Party - were quickly sidelined. In the decades to come, other progressive forces would mount similar campaigns: George McGovern and Jesse Jackson more prominently. As John Nichols chronicles in this book, they ultimately failed - a warning to would-be reformers today - but their successive efforts provide us with insights into the nature of the Democratic Party, and a strategic script for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world, reaching back to the Ancient Greeks, although it has become popular only in the past century or so. But, in some ways, it is a rather complicated sport since – to avoid unnecessary harm – it has been endowed with rules to keep it clean, referees to see the rules are obeyed, and organizations to regulate the sport. Boxing was once largely amateur, although the professional bouts attracted the most attention, but now it is also an Olympic sport. And, over the years, there has been one champion after another who symbolized what boxing was all about, such Joe Louis, Mohammad Ali and Cassius Clay. Naturally, these champions are the focus of the Historical Dictionary of Boxing as well, and they have the biggest entries in the dictionary section, but they had to fight against someone and there are dozens and dozens of other boxers with smaller entries. More of these boxers come from the United States than elsewhere, but there are others from Europe, Asia and Latin America, and there are also entries on the major boxing countries as well. Plus entries on the rules, on the organizations, and on the technical terminology and jargon you have to know just to follow the bouts. The introduction provides a broad view of boxing’s history while the chronology traces events from 688 B.C. to 2012 A.D. Not all that much has been written on boxing that is not ephemeral, but much of that literature can be found in the bibliography. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the sport of boxing.
How has Singapore's environment and location in a zone of extraordinary biodiversity influenced the economic, political, social, and intellectual history of the island since the early 19th century? What are the antecedents to Singapore's image of itself as a City in a Garden? Grounding the story of Singapore within an understanding of its environment opens the way to an account of the past that is more than a story of trade, immigration, and nation-building. Each of the chapters in this volume focusing on topics ranging from tigers and plantations to trade in exotic animals and the greening of the city, and written by botanists, historians, anthropologists, and naturalists examines how humans have interacted with and understood the natural environment on a small island in Southeast Asia over the past 200 years, and conversely how this environment has influenced humans. Between the chapters are travelers' accounts and primary documents that provide eyewitness descriptions of the events examined in the text. In this regard, Nature Contained: Environmental Histories of Singapore provides new insights into the Singaporean past, and reflects much of the diversity, and dynamism, of environmental history globally.
Drugs as Weapons Against Us meticulously details how a group of opium-trafficking families came to form an American oligarchy and eventually achieved global dominance. This oligarchy helped fund the Nazi regime and then saved thousands of Nazis to work with the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA operations such as MK-Ultra pushed LSD and other drugs on leftist leaders and left-leaning populations at home and abroad. Evidence supports that this oligarchy further led the United States into its longest-running wars in the ideal areas for opium crops, while also massively funding wars in areas of coca plant abundance for cocaine production under the guise of a &“war on drugs&” that is actually the use of drugs as a war on us. Drugs as Weapons Against Us tells how scores of undercover U.S. Intelligence agents used drugs in the targeting of leftist leaders from SDS to the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Latin Kings, and the Occupy Movement. It also tells how they particularly targeted leftist musicians, including John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Tupac Shakur to promote drugs while later murdering them when they started sobering up and taking on more leftist activism. The book further uncovers the evidence that Intelligence agents dosed Paul Robeson with LSD, gave Mick Jagger his first hit of acid, hooked Janis Joplin on amphetamines, as well as manipulating Elvis Presley, Eminem, the Wu Tang Clan, and others.
A comprehensive collection of biographies of the most prominent military leaders in American history. American Military Leaders contains over 400 A–Z biographies of individuals such as Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who ended hundreds of years of tradition by allowing women to serve on Navy ships; and, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, whose rules of clandestine warfare are still followed by the U.S. Special Forces. Coverage centers on the outstanding generals, sergeants, fighter aces, militiamen, theorists, doctors, and nurses who make up America's military history. This volume presents their backgrounds, contributions, and significance to America's fortunes in war. This title also cites works for further research, includes a list of leaders organized by their military titles, and a comprehensive index.
In his compelling reinterpretation of American history, The Public and Its Possibilities, John Fairfieldargues that our unrealized civic aspirations provide the essential counterpoint to an excessive focus on private interests. Inspired by the revolutionary generation, nineteenth-century Americans struggled to build an economy and a culture to complement their republican institutions. But over the course of the twentieth century, a corporate economy and consumer culture undercut civic values, conflating consumer and citizen. Fairfield places the city at the center of American experience, describing how a resilient demand for an urban participatory democracy has bumped up against the fog of war, the allure of the marketplace, and persistent prejudices of race, class, and gender. In chronicling and synthesizing centuries of U.S. history—including the struggles of the antislavery, labor, women’s rights movements—Fairfield explores the ebb and flow of civic participation, activism, and democracy. He revisits what the public has done for civic activism, and the possibility of taking a greater role. In this age where there has been a move towards greater participation in America's public life from its citizens, Fairfield’s book—written in an accessible, jargon-free style and addressed to general readers—is especially topical.
EU Cohesion policy accounts for a major share of the EU budget and is central to economic and social development in many European countries. This book provides a comprehensive and theoretically-informed analysis of how Cohesion policy has evolved over time, in particular the budgetary and policy dynamics of the 2007-13 reform. In the context of the budgetary politics of the EU, the book examines the process by which the reform of Cohesion policy has been shaped; it identifies the key factors that explain the allocation of funding, assesses the roles of the Member States, European Commission and European Parliament, and tests whether the process and outcome are consistent with the expectations of EU decision-making and integration theories. Based on extensive, EU-wide research over a ten-year period, the book provides new insights into both the process and outcomes of EU policy reform. Presenting original research in an accessible format, this book will be of interest to scholars as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of European integration and policy studies.
Follow Scotland's bard: the Burns trail provides a splendid introduction to Burns and a new challenge to Burns fanatics. John Cairney visits more than 100 places connected with Burns. He has been described as a living embodiment of Burns and has written and performed Burns for stage, radio, film, television, and festivals around the world. His use of Burns' own poems and correspondence helps to set the scene and the mood of Burns' travels as well as his own. -- Includes Burn's poems and correspondence -- Detailed maps and comprehensive map references.
Winner of the Texas State Historical Association Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History, this authoritative study of red-baiting in Texas reveals that what began as a coalition against communism became a fierce power struggle between conservative and liberal politics.
School administration is more difficult today than at any time in our history. Whether addressing the needs of students, parents or staff at the building level, or facing the questions posed by the board of education, the media or the general public at the district level, administrators face constant calls for accountability. Demands for administrative accountability have steadily increased since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983. The most recent trend has been to tie administrative evaluations to student performance, increasing stress among administrators at all levels. The cumulative effect of three decades of challenges to administrative authority has undermined the publics view of educational administrators as experts. The author examines the current state of public education, including the influence of private individuals and foundations, and alternative approaches to the educational delivery model and then highlights successful examples of public education. He concludes by considering input of current administrators and school board members and presents a strategy which educational administrators can employ to win back public confidence and support.
Takes us into the bizarre and often humorous lives of such people as Lady Blount, who was sure that the earth is flat, Cyrus Teed, who believed that the earth is a hollow shell with us in the inside; Edward Hine, who believed that the British are the lost Tribes of Israel; and Baron de Guldenstubbe, who was sure that statues wrote him letters. British writer and housewife Nesta Webster devoted her life to exposing international conspiracies, and Father O'Callaghan devoted his to opposing interest on loans. The extraordinary characters in this book were and in some cases still are wholehearted enthusiasts for the various causes and outrageous notions they adopted, and John Michell describes their adventures with spirit and compassion.
Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine and John B. Gordon of Georgia led the Union and Confederate armies, respectively, at the formal surrender ceremony at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 12, 1865. In one of the most dramatic and memorable moments of the Civil War, as the Confederate soldiers marched through the Union lines to stack their weapons and flags, Chamberlain, moved by the historic moment and desiring to pay honor to a valiant, defeated foe, ordered his Union soldiers to salute Gordon's Confederates. Gordon, surprised but stirred by the same emotion, immediately responded, and ordered his men to return the salute. Both men had volunteered for military service, feeling a strong need to fight for their respective causes. They entered military service as low level officers with no formal military training. Repeatedly, they exhibited exceptional aptitude and responsibility, rising through the ranks as they received the glowing accolades of their superiors. Yet, they remained humble, continually demonstrating extraordinary courage, which earned them the respect of their men. Ultimately, their heroism and leadership culminated in their meeting as the commanders at the Appomattox Courthouse surrender. After the war, Chamberlain and Gordon entered politics in their respective states.
The story of South Carolina's heartland told from the prospective of a founding father, a plantation mistress, an African-American politician, an editor, a mayor, and other local residents.
The struggles and victories of the UAW form an important chapter in the story of American democracy. American Vanguard is the first and only history of the union available for both general and academic audiences. In this thorough and engaging narrative, John Barnard not only records the controversial issues tackled by the UAW, but also lends them immediacy through details about the workers and their environments, the leaders and the challenges that they faced outside and inside the organization, and the vision that guided many of these activists. Throughout, Barnard traces the UAW's two-fold goal: to create an industrial democracy in the workplace and to pursue a social-democratic agenda in the interest of the public at large. Part one explores the obstacles to the UAW's organization, including tensions between militant reformers and workers who feared for their jobs; ideological differences; racial and ethnic issues; and public attitudes toward unions. By the outbreak of World War II, however, the union had succeeded in redistributing power on the shop floor in its members' favor. Part two follows the union during Walter P. Reuther's presidency (1946-1970). During this time, pioneering contracts brought a new standard of living and income security to the workers, while an effort was made to move America toward a social democracy-which met with mixed results during the civil rights decade. Throughout, Barnard presents balanced interpretations grounded in evidence, while setting the UAW within the context of the history of the U.S. auto industry and national politics.
Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by the onset of a new, more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population. What caused this massive shift in the history of the earth? In this comprehensive study, John Bellamy Foster tells us that a globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism’s alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.
In 1940, for the first time since America’s founding, a sitting president sought a third term in office. But this was only one remarkable aspect of that year’s election, which was, as John Jeffries makes clear in his new book, one of the most interesting and important elections in American history. Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to pack the Supreme Court had failed; in the wake of a recent recession, his New Deal had hardened support and opposition among both parties; and the German advance across Europe, along with Japanese aggression in Asia, was stirring fierce debate over America’s role in the world. Adding to the moment of profound uncertainty was FDR’s procrastination over whether to run again. Jeffries explores how these tensions played out and what they meant, not just for the presidential election but also for domestic politics and policy generally, and for state and local contests. In the context of the Roosevelt Coalition and the New Deal party system, he parses the debates and struggles within both the Democratic and Republican parties as Roosevelt deliberated over running and Wendell Wilkie, a businessman from Indiana and New York City, got the nod from Republicans over a field including the rising moderate Thomas E. Dewey, the conservative Michigan senator Arthur Vandenburg, and the isolationist Ohio senator Robert Taft. A Third Term for FDR reveals how domestic policy more than international events influenced Roosevelt’s decision to run and his victory in November. A detailed analysis of the results offers insights into the impact of the year’s events on voting, and into the election’s long-term implications and ramifications—many of which continue to this day.
This is the story of the search for human origins - from the Middle Ages, when questions of the earth's antiquity first began to arise, through to the latest genetic discoveries that show the interrelatedness of all living creatures. Central to the story is the part played by fossils - first, in establishing the age of the Earth; then, following Darwin, in the pursuit of possible 'Missing Links' that would establish whether or not humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. John Reader's passion for this quest - palaeoanthropology - began in the 1960s when he reported for Life Magazine on Richard Leakey's first fossil-hunting expedition to the badlands of East Turkana, in Kenya. Drawing on both historic and recent research, he tells the fascinating story of the science as it has developed from the activities of a few dedicated individuals, into the rigorous multidisciplinary work of today. His arresting photographs give a unique insight into the fossils, the discoverers, and the settings. His vivid narrative reveals both the context in which our ancestors evolved, and also the realities confronting the modern scientist. The story he tells is peopled by eccentrics and enthusiasts, and punctuated by controversy and even fraud. It is a celebration of discoveries - Neanderthal Man in the 1850s, Java Man (1891), Australopithecus (1925), Peking Man (1926), Homo habilis (1964), Lucy (1978), Floresiensis (2004), and Ardipithecus (2009). It is a story of fragmentary shards of evidence, and the competing interpretations built upon them. And it is a tale of scientific breakthroughs - dating technology, genetics, and molecular biology - that have enabled us to set the fossil evidence in the context of human evolution. John Reader's first book on this subject (Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man, 1981) was described in Nature as 'the best popular account of palaeoanthropology I have ever read'. His new book covers the thirty years of discovery that have followed.
For weeks in 1902 it commanded headlines. All of Wyoming and much of the West followed the trial of Tom Horn for the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy. John W. Davis’s book, the only full-length account of the trial, places it in perspective as part of a larger struggle for control of Wyoming’s grazing land. Davis also portrays an enigmatic defendant who, more than a century after his conviction and hanging, perplexes us still. Tom Horn was one of the most fascinating figures in the history of the West. Employed as a Pinkerton and then as a range detective, he had a reputation as a loner and a braggart with a brutal approach to law enforcement even before he was accused of murdering young Willie Nickell. Cattlemen saw Horn as protecting their way of life, but most people in Wyoming saw him as a hired assassin, an instrument of oppression by cattle barons willing to use violent intimidation to protect their assets. The story began on July 18, 1901, when Willie Nickell was shot by a gunman lying in ambush; the killer was apparently after Willie’s father, who had brought sheep into the area. Six months later Tom Horn was arrested. The trial pitted the Laramie County district attorney against a crack team of defense lawyers hired by big cattlemen. Against all predictions, the jury found Horn guilty of first-degree murder. Despite appeals that went all the way to the state supreme court and the governor, Horn was hanged in Cheyenne in 1903. The trial and conviction of Tom Horn marked a major milestone in the hard-fought battle against vigilantism in Wyoming. Davis, himself a trial lawyer, has mined court documents and newspaper articles to dissect the trial strategies of the participating attorneys. His detailed account illuminates a larger narrative of conflict between the power of wealth and the forces of law and order in the West.
In this cultural history of the origins of the Cold War, John Fousek argues boldly that American nationalism provided the ideological glue for the broad public consensus that supported U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War era. From the late 1940s through the late 1980s, the United States waged cold war against the Soviet Union not primarily in the name of capitalism or Western civilization--neither of which would have united the American people behind the cause--but in the name of America. Through close readings of sources that range from presidential speeches and popular magazines to labor union debates and the African American press, Fousek shows how traditional nationalist ideas about national greatness, providential mission, and manifest destiny influenced postwar public culture and shaped U.S. foreign policy discourse during the crucial period from the end of World War II to the beginning of the Korean War. Ultimately, he says, in the atmosphere created by apparently unceasing international crises, Americans rallied around the flag, eventually coming to equate national loyalty with global anticommunism and an interventionist foreign policy.
This will help us customize your experience to showcase the most relevant content to your age group
Please select from below
Login
Not registered?
Sign up
Already registered?
Success – Your message will goes here
We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.