Product Description: A gripping and inspiring book, Civic Passions examines innovative leadership in periods of crisis in American history. Starting from the late nineteenth century, when respected voices warned that America was on the brink of collapse, Cecelia Tichi explores the wisdom of practical visionaries who were confronted with a series of social, political, and financial upheavals that, in certain respects, seem eerily similar to modern times...read more

Product Description: The convergence of activists in Seattle during the World TradeOrganization meetings captured the headlines in 1999. Thesedemonstrations marked the first major expression on U.S. soil ofworldwide opposition to inequality, privatization, and political andintellectual repression...read more

A close-up look at country music argues that it has become a national art form, reflecting the same themes that have characterized American art and literature over three centuries

Shifting Gears is a richly illustrated exploration of the American era of gear-and-girder technology. From the 1890s to the 1920s machines and structures shaped by this technology emerged in many forms, from automobiles and harvesting machines to bridges and skyscrapers. The most casual onlooker to American life saw examples of the new technology on Main Street, on the local railway platform, and in the pages of popular magazines. A major consequence of this technology was its effect on the arts, in particular the literary arts. Three prominent American writers of the time -- Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and William Carlos Williams -- became designer-engineers of the word. Tichi reveals their use of prefabricated, manufactured components in poems and prose. As designers, they enacted in style and structure the new technological values. The writers, according to Tichi, thought of words themselves as objects for assembly into a design.Using materials from magazines, popular novels , movie reviews, the toy industry, and advertising, as well as the texts of the nation's major enduring writers, Tichi shows how turn-of-the-century technology pervaded every aspect of American culture and how this culture could be defined as a collaborative effort of the engineer, the architect, the fiction writer, and the poet. She demonstrates that a technological revolution is not a revolution only of science but of language as well.Originally published in 1987.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Product Description: After retiring from active business, Andrew Carnegie yielded to the earnest solicitations of friends, both in the United States and in Great Britain, and began to jot down from time to time recollections of his early days. He soon found, however, that instead of the leisure he expected, his life was more occupied with affairs than ever before, and the writing of these memoirs was reserved for his play-time in Scotland...read more