How The States Got Their Shapes

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The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA

Author : Doug Mack
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393247619
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA by : Doug Mack

Download or read book The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA written by Doug Mack and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To truly understand the United States, one must understand the 'not-quite states of America." —Mark Stein, best-selling author of How the States Got Their Shapes Everyone knows that America is 50 states and…some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states—American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they’re filled with American flags, U.S. post offices, and Little League baseball games. How did these territories come to be part of the United States? What are they like? And why aren’t they states? When Doug Mack realized just how little he knew about the territories, he set off on a globe-hopping quest covering more than 30,000 miles to see them all. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers’ arguments over expansion. He explores Polynesia’s outsize influence on American culture, from tiki bars to tattoos, in American Samoa. He tours Guam with members of a military veterans’ motorcycle club, who offer personal stories about the territory’s role in World War II and its present-day importance for the American military. In the Northern Mariana Islands, he learns about star-guided seafaring from one of the ancient tradition’s last practitioners. And everywhere he goes in Puerto Rico, he listens in on the lively debate over political status—independence, statehood, or the status quo. The Not-Quite States of America is an entertaining account of the territories’ place in the USA, and it raises fascinating questions about the nature of empire. As Mack shows, the territories aren’t mere footnotes to American history; they are a crucial part of the story.

Overstated

Author : Colin Quinn
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1250268451
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Overstated by : Colin Quinn

Download or read book Overstated written by Colin Quinn and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Colin Quinn's new book, the popular comedian, social commentator, and star of the shows Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional tackles the condition of our union today. Utah: The Church of States Vermont: The Old Hippie State Florida: The Hot Mess State Arizona: The Instagram Model State Wisconsin: The Diet Starts Tomorrow State The United States is in a fifty-states-wide couples’ counseling session, thinking about filing for divorce. But is that really what we want? Can a nation composed of states that are so different possibly hang together? Colin Quinn, comedian, social commentator, and writer and star of Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional, calls us out state-by-state, from Connecticut to Hawaii. He identifies the hypocrisies inherent in what we claim to believe and what we actually do. Within a framework of big-picture thinking about systems of government—after all, how would you put this country together if you started from scratch today?—to dead-on observations about the quirks and vibes of the citizens in each region, Overstated skewers us all: red, blue, and purple. It’s ultimately infused with the same blend of optimism and practicality that sparked the U.S. into being.

Oh, Florida!

Author : Craig Pittman
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1250071208
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Oh, Florida! by : Craig Pittman

Download or read book Oh, Florida! written by Craig Pittman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fun- and fact-filled investigation into why the Sunshine State is the weirdest but also the most influential state in the Union.

50 States

Author : Erin McHugh
Publisher : Black Dog & Leventhal Pub
ISBN 13 : 1579128513
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (791 download)

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Book Synopsis 50 States by : Erin McHugh

Download or read book 50 States written by Erin McHugh and published by Black Dog & Leventhal Pub. This book was released on 2010 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kid characters guide readers through the states, pointing out the capital, historic landmarks, famous residents, geographical and natural wonders, local delicacies and interesting facts, in a title which includes a fold-out jigsaw puzzle and a 50-state quarter collector map.

Deep Roots

Author : Avidit Acharya
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691203725
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Deep Roots by : Avidit Acharya

Download or read book Deep Roots written by Avidit Acharya and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative. Southerners are more likely to support Republican candidates, gun rights, and the death penalty, and southern whites harbor higher levels of racial resentment than whites in other parts of the country. Why haven't these sentiments evolved or changed? Deep Roots shows that the entrenched political and racial views of contemporary white southerners are a direct consequence of the region's slaveholding history, which continues to shape economic, political, and social spheres. Today, southern whites who live in areas once reliant on slavery--compared to areas that were not--are more racially hostile and less amenable to policies that could promote black progress. Highlighting the connection between historical institutions and contemporary political attitudes, the authors explore the period following the Civil War when elite whites in former bastions of slavery had political and economic incentives to encourage the development of anti-black laws and practices. Deep Roots shows that these forces created a local political culture steeped in racial prejudice, and that these viewpoints have been passed down over generations, from parents to children and via communities, through a process called behavioral path dependence. While legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act made huge strides in increasing economic opportunity and reducing educational disparities, southern slavery has had a profound, lasting, and self-reinforcing influence on regional and national politics that can still be felt today. A groundbreaking look at the ways institutions of the past continue to sway attitudes of the present, Deep Roots demonstrates how social beliefs persist long after the formal policies that created those beliefs have been eradicated."--Jacket.

How the States Got Their Shapes

Author : Mark Stein
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061431389
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (614 download)

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Book Synopsis How the States Got Their Shapes by : Mark Stein

Download or read book How the States Got Their Shapes written by Mark Stein and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-05-27 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake? We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand. How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey. How the States Got Their Shapes examines: Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

Ralph Ellison

Author : Arnold Rampersad
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0375707980
Total Pages : 706 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis Ralph Ellison by : Arnold Rampersad

Download or read book Ralph Ellison written by Arnold Rampersad and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage. Starting with Ellison’s hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma and his ordeal as a student in Alabama, Rampersad documents his improbable, painstaking rise in New York to a commanding place on the literary scene. With scorching honesty but also fair and compassionate, Rampersad lays bare his subject’s troubled psychology and its impact on his art and on the people about him.This book is both the definitive biography of Ellison and a stellar model of literary biography.

American Panic

Author : Mark Stein
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1137279028
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis American Panic by : Mark Stein

Download or read book American Panic written by Mark Stein and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What political panics—from the Salem Witch Trials to the Tea Party—can tell us about our modern society

Know Your States

Author : Frank Schaffer
Publisher : Frank Schaffer Publications
ISBN 13 : 9780768205145
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Know Your States by : Frank Schaffer

Download or read book Know Your States written by Frank Schaffer and published by Frank Schaffer Publications. This book was released on 2001-09-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students see the U.S. in relation to the world and the states in relation to each other.

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

Author : Margaret MacMillan
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1984856146
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis War: How Conflict Shaped Us by : Margaret MacMillan

Download or read book War: How Conflict Shaped Us written by Margaret MacMillan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.

The Texanist

Author : David Courtney
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477312978
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

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Book Synopsis The Texanist by : David Courtney

Download or read book The Texanist written by David Courtney and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393069222
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies written by Jared Diamond and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

The Electric State

Author : Simon Stålenhag
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501181432
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis The Electric State by : Simon Stålenhag

Download or read book The Electric State written by Simon Stålenhag and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NPR Best Books of 2018 A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story, perfect for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

Arbitrary Lines

Author : M. Nolan Gray
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1642832545
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (428 download)

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Book Synopsis Arbitrary Lines by : M. Nolan Gray

Download or read book Arbitrary Lines written by M. Nolan Gray and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up

Seventh Flag

Author : Sid Balman
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1684630150
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (846 download)

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Book Synopsis Seventh Flag by : Sid Balman

Download or read book Seventh Flag written by Sid Balman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US and Europe have unraveled since World War II and radicalism has metastasized into every community, tearing away the decency, optimism, and security that shaped those robust democracies for more than eight decades. No place is immune, including the small West Texas town of Dell City, where four generations of an iconic American family and a Syrian Muslim family carve a farming empire out of the unforgiving high desert. These families’ partnership is as unlikely as the idea of a United States, and their powerful friendship can be traced back to a bloody knife fight in a Juarez cantina just after World War II. The bond forged that night between Jack Laws, an Irish American who staked his claim in West Texas after the war, and Ali Zarkan, whose great-grandfather sailed from the Middle East to Texas in the mid-1800s as part of President Franklin Pierce’s attempt to create the US Army Camel Corps, shapes each generation of the families as they come of age and adapt to shifting paradigms of gender, commerce, patriotism, loyalty, religion, and sexuality. From the beaches of the Western Pacific to the battlefields of the Middle East and from the lawless streets of Juarez to the darkest corners of the Internet, the two families fight real and perceived enemies—journeying, as they do, through the football fields of Texas and West Point, the hippie playgrounds of Asia, the music halls of Austin, the terrorist cells of Europe and the political backrooms where fortunes are gained or lost over the rights to Western water. Underlying their experiences is the basic question of what constitutes identity and citizenship in America, or in Texas, a land over which six flags have flown. The seventh flag, ultimately, is not one of a state or a nation, but of a mosaic of cultures, religions, and people from every corner of the world—all struggling to define what it means to be unified under an ambiguous banner.

They Called Us Enemy - Expanded Edition

Author : George Takei
Publisher : Top Shelf Productions
ISBN 13 : 1684068827
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis They Called Us Enemy - Expanded Edition by : George Takei

Download or read book They Called Us Enemy - Expanded Edition written by George Takei and published by Top Shelf Productions. This book was released on 2020-08-26 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling graphic memoir from actor/author/activist George Takei returns in a deluxe edition with 16 pages of bonus material! Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love. George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his magnetic performances, sharp wit, and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in STAR TREK, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. THEY CALLED US ENEMY is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the terrors and small joys of childhood in the shadow of legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's tested faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? George Takei joins cowriters Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

Classics for Pleasure

Author : Michael Dirda
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780156033855
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (338 download)

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Book Synopsis Classics for Pleasure by : Michael Dirda

Download or read book Classics for Pleasure written by Michael Dirda and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these delightful essays, Pulitzer Prize winner Dirda introduces nearly 90 of the world's most entertaining books, covering masterpieces of fantasy, science fiction, horror, adventure, epics, history, and children's literature.