America Second

A timely, provocative exposé of American political and business leadership’s deep ties to China: a network of people who believe they are doing the right thing—at a profound and often hidden cost to U.S. interests. The past few years have seen relations between China and the United States shift, from enthusiastic economic partners, to wary frenemies, to open rivals. Americans have been slow to wake up to the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Why did this happen? And what can we do about it? In America Second, Isaac Stone Fish traces the evolution of the Party’s influence in America. He shows how America’s leaders initially welcomed China’s entry into the U.S. economy, believing that trade and engagement would lead to a more democratic China. And he explains how—although this belief has proved misguided--many of our businesspeople and politicians have become too dependent on China to challenge it. America Second exposes a deep network of Beijing’s influence in America, built quietly over the years through prominent figures like former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, Disney chairman Bob Iger, and members of the Bush family. And it shows how to fight that influence–without being paranoid, xenophobic, or racist. This is an authoritative and important story of corruption and good intentions gone wrong, with serious implications not only for the future of the United States, but for the world at large.

An exploration of the dialogue that emerged after 1776 between different visions of what it meant to use new technologies to transform the land. After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation. While mainstream Americans constructed technological foundation stories to explain their place in the New World, however, marginalized groups told other stories of destruction and loss. Native Americans protested the loss of their forests, fishermen resisted the construction of dams, and early environmentalists feared the exhaustionof resources. A water mill could be viewed as the kernel of a new community or as a new way to exploit labor. If passengers comprehended railways as part of a larger narrative about American expansion and progress, many farmers attacked railroad land grants. To explore these contradictions, Nye devotes alternating chapters to narratives of second creation and to narratives of those who rejected it.Nye draws on popular literature, speeches, advertisements, paintings, and many other media to create a history of American foundation stories. He shows how these stories were revised periodically, as social and economic conditions changed, without ever erasing the earlier stories entirely. The image of the isolated frontier family carving a homestead out of the wilderness with an axe persists to this day, alongside later images and narratives. In the book's conclusion, Nye considers the relation between these earlier stories and such later American developments as the conservation movement, narratives of environmental recovery, and the idealization of wilderness.

American narratives often celebrate the nation's rich heritage of religious freedom. There is, however, a less told and often ignored part of the story: the ways that intolerance and cultures of hate have manifested themselves within American religious history and culture. In the first ever documentary survey of religious intolerance from the colonial era to the present, volume editors John Corrigan and Lynn S. Neal define religious intolerance and explore its history and manifestations, including hate speech, discrimination, incarceration, expulsion, and violence. Organized thematically, the volume combines the editors' discussion with more than 150 striking primary texts and pictures that document intolerance toward a variety of religious traditions. Moving from anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan propaganda to mob attacks on Mormons, the lynching of Leo Frank, the kidnapping of "cult" members, and many other episodes, the volume concludes with a chapter addressing the changing face of religious intolerance in the twenty-first century, with examples of how the problem continues to this day.

"In America's Second Crusade, William Henry Chamberlin offers his perspective as a seasoned journalist on the United States' involvement in World War II. Written only five years after the unconditional surrenders of Germany and Japan, the book is a window into its time. Fresh from eliminating threats from fascist regimes, the United States then faced threats from the totalitarian Soviet Union. Chamberlin's analysis of the war is colored by his concern over the Gold War conflict." "The book focuses on the precursors to World War II and the war's aftermath, rather than on the events of the war itself, Chamberlin begins with an analysis of World War I and its consequences and describes the factors that led to the outbreak of war in Europe during the 1950s. He then turns to World War II and presents his opinions on the conflict at home regarding direct U.S. engagement in the war. He details the events and diplomatic decisions that eventually led to the U.S. entrance into the Atlantic and Pacific conflicts."--BOOK JACKET.

"Based on extensive research and their own unique personal experiences, the authors reveal that a significant number of Americans hold these beliefs, and that for better or worse, we undoubtedly live in a paranormal America. Readers will join the authors as they participate in psychic and palm readings, and have their auras photographed, join a Bigfoot hunt, follow a group of celebrity ghost hunters as they investigate claims of a haunted classroom, and visit a support group for alien abductees."--Provided by publisher.

The “unrivaled” history of America’s divided politics, now in a fully updated edition that examines the rise of Trump—and what comes next (New Republic). When it was published in 2015, Andrew Hartman’s history of the culture wars was widely praised for its compelling and even-handed account of how they came to define American politics at the close of the twentieth century. But it also garnered attention for Hartman’s declaration that the culture wars were over—and that the left had won. In the wake of Trump’s rise, driven by an aggressive fanning of those culture war flames, Hartman has brought A War for the Soul of America fully up to date, detailing the ways in which Trump’s success, while undeniable, represents the last gasp of culture war politics—and how the reaction he has elicited can show us early signs of the very different politics to come. “As a guide to the late twentieth-century culture wars, Hartman is unrivalled . . . . Incisive portraits of individual players in the culture wars dramas . . . . Reading Hartman sometimes feels like debriefing with friends after a raucous night out, an experience punctuated by laughter, head-scratching, and moments of regret for the excesses involved.” —New Republic

From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.

"Every American Interested in understanding the American character and the American past should read this book. There are vivid history lessons on almost every page. The constitution becomes not merely a brilliant blueprint for governance. It is-and was-also the only alternative to chaos. - Thomas Fleming, author of The Perils of Peace Acclaim for The Unexpected George Washington. "It's hard to imagine George Washington as playful, tender, or funny. But Harlow Unger searches to find these seldom-seen aspects of the private man, and the result is a fare more complete and believable founding father." - James C. Rees, Executive Director, Historic Mount Vernon "An intimate view of the American hero who managed to follow his ambitions to great power without being disdained for them." - Publishers Weekly