National Culture

By the time their obituary was being written in the late 1980s, Yuppies—the elite, uber‑educated faction of the Baby Boom generation—had become a cultural punchline. But amidst the Yuppies' preoccupation with money, work, and the latest status symbols, something serious was happening, too, something that continues to have profound ramifications on American culture four decades later.

Are you happy? Right now? Happy enough? As happy as everyone else? Could you be happier if you tried harder? After she packed up her British worldview (that most things were basically rubbish) and moved to America, journalist and documentary filmmaker Ruth Whippman found herself increasingly perplexed by the American obsession with one topic above all others: happiness. The subject came up everywhere: at the playground swings, at the meat counter in the supermarket, and even at the gynecologist.

Wright's lively study also focuses on the role comic books played in transforming children and adolescents into consumers; the efforts of parents, politicians, religious organizations, civic groups, and child psychologists to link juvenile delinquency to comic books and impose censorship; and the changing economics of comic book publishing over the course of the century. Comic Book Nation is at once a serious study of popular culture and an entertaining look at an enduring American art form.

In recent decades, the NFL has simultaneously become an athletic, financial, and cultural powerhouse—and a League that can’t seem to go more than a few weeks without a scandal. Whether it’s about domestic violence, performance-enhancing drugs, racism, or head trauma, the NFL always seems to be in some kind of trouble. Yet no matter the drama, the TV networks keep showing games, the revenue keeps rising, and the viewers keep tuning in.

The US Army entered World War II unprepared. Lacking Germany's blitzkrieg approach of coordinated armor and air power, the army was organized to fight two wars: one on the ground and one in the air. Previous commentators have blamed Congressional funding and public apathy for the army's unprepared state. David E. Johnson believes instead that the principal causes were internal: army culture and bureaucracy, and their combined impact on the development of weapons and doctrine.

In A New America, Tommy Mottola explores the societal and cultural impact the Latino community and its music has had on America by sharing behind-the-scenes stories from his own life and his connection to the Latin sound throughout the decades - from his initial fascination with Latin music which started with Puente, to the mainstream success of Ritchie Valens, to the groove-laden guitar wizardry of Carlos Santana. >But A New America is more than a story about music and musicians. It is the story of a culture that continues to grow and influence America.

This audiobook offers five proven principles so multinational companies can advance diversity, equity, and inclusion with a nuanced understanding of local contexts across countries and cultures. Local relevance - understanding markets and acknowledging local beliefs, regulations, and history - is essential for global success. This groundbreaking audiobook explicitly details how to take local histories, laws, and practices into account in DEI transformation work while promoting social justice worldwide.

The twin acts of singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand tells an essential part of that story. With lyrics penned by James Weldon Johnson and music composed by his brother Rosamond, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was embraced almost immediately as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of black Americans. Since the song's creation, it has been adopted by the NAACP and performed by countless artists in times of both crisis and celebration, cementing its place in African American life.

In the last 20 years, pets have gone from the backyard to sleeping on our beds, then showing up in every corner of America. Pet Nation tells the story of this seismic shift and the economic, media, legal, political, and social dramas springing from this cultural transformation. Since 1998, the pet population in the US has almost doubled - about two-thirds of the country now owns a pet. No longer left to wander the neighborhood, dogs and cats eat special food, get individualized medical attention, and even fly in the cabin.

After a lifetime of blocking the ghosts who tried to talk to her, Carole found the courage to overcome her fear to speak with her father’s ghost. Their conversations helped Carole understand her father’s reluctance to share his story about his journey from China to the U.S. and guided her to the Louie family ancestral villages. Their conversations were more than a genealogical exploration; they were the beginning of a spiritual journey, a journey into the spirit world and past lives, a path of healing and love.

James Howard Kunstler's critically acclaimed and best-selling The Long Emergency, originally published in 2005, quickly became a grassroots hit, going into nine printings in hardcover. Kunstler's shocking vision of our post-oil future caught the attention of environmentalists and business leaders alike, and stimulated widespread discussion about our dependence on fossil fuels and our dysfunctional financial and government institutions.

Read Between the Lines Poetry Book, by author Reneé Drummond-Brown, depicts precept upon precept, line upon line, little here and a little there, stroke by stroke, mark by mark, ink by ink, stripe by stripe, link by link, stain by stain, and blood by blood.

What does a circus, a ship, and a dance hall for teens have in common? God used each one of them to set Reinhard Bonnke on course for a very special mission: To share the love of Jesus with millions of people around the world. The Boy Whose Life Touched Millions tells the real-life adventures that Reinhard Bonnke faced along his journey from post-war Germany to the mission-fields of Africa. Evangelist Bonnke fills this first-hand account with daring escapes, supernatural encounters, and miraculous conversions.

Charles E. Hires and the Drink That Wowed a Nation chronicles the humble origin and meteoric business success of this extraordinary entrepreneur. Author Bill Double uses published interviews, correspondence, newspaper reports, magazine articles, financial data, and a small family archive to tell this story of native ingenuity. Here, the rough-hewn capitalism of the gilded age, the evolution of the neighborhood drugstore, the rise of advertising in creating mass markets, and the emerging temperance movement all come together in a biography that fizzes with entrepreneurial spirit.

In an unparalleled collaboration, two leading global thinkers in technology and foreign affairs give us their widely anticipated, transformational vision of the future: a world where everyone is connected - a world full of challenges and benefits that are ours to meet and to harness. Eric Schmidt is one of Silicon Valley’s great leaders, having taken Google from a small startup to one of the world’s most influential companies. Jared Cohen is the director of Google Ideas and a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

The first time Dieter Schmidt meets Mad Maggie is at a blockade on a logging road. He’s there to threaten the local First Nations band with court action if they don’t allow his client’s heavy equipment access to Deadman’s Island. Maggie emerges from the forest, but rather than chastise the lawyer for his part in trying to replace this unique ecosystem of magnificent old-growth trees with a housing development, she gives him an ultimatum. She will cure his yet-to-be-diagnosed terminal cancer if he saves the trees. Dieter dismisses Maggie's prediction as the delusions of someone ...

There’s no denying that women of color are portrayed as exceptional gems with oceanic depths in Reneé Drummond-Brown’s Black Exotic Pearls: Poetry Book. The ebony beauties are very aware of what to hold inside and what can be shared openly. She knows that she’s the original Mother of all living Pearls. She’s real. She’s authentic. She’s sincere. Her culture is from the west-south side of the northeast sea. Where foreign seas meet and mingle it’s indisputable that black pearls are always a good choice (catch if you will). But those that channel-surf that colorful ocean and ...

Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton’s powerful story of an Inuvialuit girl standing up to the bullies of residential school in the far North has been reissued to commemorate the memoir’s 10th anniversary with updates to the text, reflections on the book’s impact, and a bonus chapter from the acclaimed follow-up, A Stranger at Home.

Smartphone Nation will transform the way you–and your children–understand your devices and how they affect you. In this practical, agenda-setting audiobook, Kaitlyn Regehr–a celebrated researcher and professor of digital literacy–proposes a new, food-pyramid like framework for understanding and improving our digital consumption. She lays out how you can keep the advantages of the internet while identifying often hidden dangers and stepping away when you’re over-reliant.

Get ready for an exciting journey through the wondrous landscapes of the United States National Parks! In this book, young listeners embark on an educational adventure, discovering the beauty, mystery, and natural wonders found within our treasured national parks.