Book Description
Americans today "know" that a majority of the population supports the death penalty, that half of all marriages end in divorce, and that four out of five prefer a particular brand of toothpaste. Through statistics like these, we feel that we understand our fellow citizens. But remarkably, such data--now woven into our social fabric--became common currency only in the last century. Sarah Igo tells the story, for the first time, of how opinion polls, man-in-the-street interviews, sex surveys, community studies, and consumer research transformed the United States public.
Igo argues that modern surveys, from the Middletown studies to the Gallup Poll and the Kinsey Reports, projected new visions of the nation: authoritative accounts of majorities and minorities, the mainstream and the marginal. They also infiltrated the lives of those who opened their doors to pollsters, or measured their habits and beliefs against statistics culled from strangers. Survey data underwrote categories as abstract as "the average American" and as intimate as the sexual self.
With a bold and sophisticated analysis, Igo demonstrates the power of scientific surveys to shape Americans' sense of themselves as individuals, members of communities, and citizens of a nation. Tracing how ordinary people argued about and adapted to a public awash in aggregate data, she reveals how survey techniques and findings became the vocabulary of mass society--and essential to understanding who we, as modern Americans, think we are.
Amazon.com
Few people outside certain scholarly circles had heard the name Robert D. Putnam before 1995. But then this self-described "obscure academic" hit a nerve with a journal article called "Bowling Alone." Suddenly he found himself invited to Camp David, his picture in People magazine, and his thesis at the center of a raging debate. In a nutshell, he argued that civil society was breaking down as Americans became more disconnected from their families, neighbors, communities, and the republic itself. The organizations that gave life to democracy were fraying. Bowling became his driving metaphor. Years ago, he wrote, thousands of people belonged to bowling leagues. Today, however, they're more likely to bowl alone:
Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values--these and other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness.
The conclusions reached in the book Bowling Alone rest on a mountain of data gathered by Putnam and a team of researchers since his original essay appeared. Its breadth of information is astounding--yes, he really has statistics showing people are less likely to take Sunday picnics nowadays. Dozens of charts and graphs track everything from trends in PTA participation to the number of times Americans say they give "the finger" to other drivers each year. If nothing else, Bowling Alone is a fascinating collection of factoids. Yet it does seem to provide an explanation for why "we tell pollsters that we wish we lived in a more civil, more trustworthy, more collectively caring community." What's more, writes Putnam, "Americans are right that the bonds of our communities have withered, and we are right to fear that this transformation has very real costs." Putnam takes a stab at suggesting how things might change, but the book's real strength is in its diagnosis rather than its proposed solutions. Bowling Alone won't make Putnam any less controversial, but it may come to be known as a path-breaking work of scholarship, one whose influence has a long reach into the 21st century. --John J. Miller
Book Description
Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified and describes in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone.
Drawing on vast new data from the Roper Social and Political Trends and the DDB Needham Life Style -- surveys that report in detail on Americans' changing behavior over the past twenty-five years -- Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether the PTA, church, recreation clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. Our shrinking access to the "social capital" that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing is a serious threat to our civic and personal health.
Putnam's groundbreaking work shows how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction. For example, he reports that getting married is the equivalent of quadrupling your income and attending a club meeting regularly is the equivalent of doubling your income. The loss of social capital is felt in critical ways: Communities with less social capital have lower educational performance and more teen pregnancy, child suicide, low birth weight, and prenatal mortality. Social capital is also a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, as it is of our health: In quantitative terms, if you both smoke and belong to no groups, it's a close call as to which is the riskier behavior.
A hundred years ago, at the turn of the last century, America's stock of social capital was at an ebb, reduced by urbanization, industrialization, and vast immigration that uprooted Americans from their friends, social institutions, and families, a situation similar to today's. Faced with this challenge, the country righted itself. Within a few decades, a range of organizations was created, from the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, and YWCA to Hadassah and the Knights of Columbus and the Urban League. With these and many more cooperative societies we rebuilt our social capital.
We can learn from the experience of those decades, Putnam writes, as we work to rebuild our eroded social capital. It won't happen without the concerted creativity and energy of Americans nationwide.
Like defining works from the past that have endured -- such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society -- and like C. Wright Mills, Richard Hofstadter, Betty Friedan, David Riesman, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, and Theodore Roszak, Putnam has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Data, Interesting Story... may be limited by logical fallacy.......2007-09-19
This is a well written book about the decline of certain activities that have historically been central to the "social capital" of American society and the pervasive consequences on American lives. While I think much of Putnam's story is on the mark, I believe his diagnosis of the problem depends on several logical flaws and this could potentially imply that different conclusions should be reached. Let me explain:
The book basically says, "here's a laundry list of activities that Americans don't do as often as they used to including clubs, religious activities, unions, house parties, picnics, etc." The evidence is overwhelming that all of these activities have become less common as a share of American activities. They're all major components of what we typically consider social activities. Putnam therefore concludes that Americans are building less social capital. Does this evidence lead to this conclusion? Let's replace some of the words and concepts and perhaps we can illustrate why it may not.
Assume Americans are spending less money (or a smaller percentage of their income) on makeup, perfume, and hair salons (I don't necessarily believe this is true, but for the sake of the example). We consider all of these activities beautification. Now would a reduction in the share of household wealth spent on these activities necessarily imply that Americans care less about beauty or are less beautiful? What if we "forget" to mention (or simply miss) that people are now spending a huge share of wealth on plastic surgery and that this didn't even exist in our "reference period?" What if people are spending less on makeup because they get far more "beauty" for the same amount of money today?
To be truly conclusive, Putnam needs to not only prove that people are spending less total time on social activities but that these social activities are less rewarding on the whole (and what we've replaced them with are not more rewarding than our losses).
Critical to this point is the question, "what is it that social capital is supposed to deliver?" I took the time to write this review instead of socializing. I won't necessarily receive any direct compensation from a reader as I might have gotten from the friend (emotional support, contact to a job, introduction to a significant other, fun of company). It appears that I've lost social capital. BUT, how many of your friends would you have needed to ask before you got a review like this (or others submitted here). How many friendships would I have had to make to get the benefit of the other reviews that I've read on Amazon. Am I worse off or have I simply participated in a less personal exchange that is of much greater value to society (and in the long run to myself)?
In the same vein, I may not go hang out with my friends the way my parents did, but I can IM and TXT my friends no matter where they are in the country. I may not meet my neighbor but I can share interest in games or politics or economics with people around the country and I'd like to think I get a lot out of my participation in these kinds of communities. Is my life really worse if I can't invite all of these people to the bowling alley with me? Is my life or my participation in society really diminished if I don't attend a meeting in their physical presence?
If I had no friends in town, certainly the cost would be real. But I would never trade my deep personal relationships with friends in New York, Pittsburgh, and Chicago for a dozen bowling buddies here in Columbus.
Despite my concerns regarding the specific arguments and conclusions, I actually enjoyed the book and encourage people to read it. However, the book only receives 4 stars because the data may not necessarily justify the conclusions and readers are therefore cautioned about taking it all at face value.
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.......2007-09-10
Why does the idea of community seem to have vanished? Why are we not as close to our neighbors as our grandparents used to be? What are the changes that have accorded in these last few generations that have caused such isolation? Read Bowling Alone to find out what has killed the spirit of neighborliness and volunteerism.
Social Capital without a shared vision??.......2007-07-12
Putnam has done a good job of marshalling an incredible amount of graphs, tables, charts, etc. while still keeping the reader's (my!) interest. He makes an impressive case on 2 fronts: one, that we're less socially connected today, and not as socially invested as we once were; and two, this state of affairs is not a good thing in many ways (personal and social health, etc.). The book is far less convincing when it appears to suggest that the great template for a generation that DID invest heavily in social capital was the generation that had its heyday in the post-war years. In other words, the "greatest generation." While I believe that they were heavily socially invested, and developed many and wide-ranging ways to increase that social capital, I do NOT believe that our (or future) generations can replicate that. We now celebrate tolerance and diversity today, in fact worship at their feet. Previous generations in this country did not, and that's the rub. You need a society that's pretty much agreed on what makes a good life or a good person before you can get large numbers of people to sign on to groups that nourish that idea. Today, we live in a circus atmosphere in which there is no right or wrong way to live, as long as you stay out of my hair. That might be well and good, but HARDLY a vision that will inspire any investature of social capital. I don't think Putnam sees this difficulty clearly enough (although he does mention it) because if this difficulty is insurmountable (as I think it is unless society undergoes a sea-change in belief) there is NO remedy for modern society's fragmentation. I guess what I'm saying is that you need a vision of community that the vast majority of movers, shakers, and regular folks have bought into, before you can talk about recapturing that sense of community. And today we don't have that, not even close. Tolerance and diversity both act to fragment community and that process is only accelerated when such attitudes are held by societal leaders. Putnam also needs to focus more on the decade of the 60s (say from 1963 - 1973) and fess up to the fact that people--whether they totally bought into the cult of the individual that sprang from that time or not--were ALL affected by that decade. Society simply looked at things differently (specifcally authority-mediated knowledge) when they came out this end of that decade. We can't go back, and Putnam ought to know that every time he sits in a faculty meeting at Harvard and looks at the non-conformist dress, jewelry and lifestyles that are exhibited there (imagine their wardrobe and attire on 1950s' Harvard faculty!). Each generation learns its knowledge base from authority-mediated knowledge transfer--either formally or informally, from sacred texts to how to use a crescent wrench. The post-60s generations simply do not and cannot look or accept authority like the generations that Putnam praises for their civic involvement. He castigates television for much of the problem but to me that's more symptom of this deeper cause (else why is the older generation somehow nearly immune to watching TV as much as the younger). I also wonder when Putnam tries to make a case for how social involvement can help the individual but using a quick vignette of an affluent couple who try and increase social involvement and capital by NOT taking their kid out of public school. This coming from a professor at the most well-known PRIVATE institution of higher learning in the country?? I wonder how many of his colleagues have their children in public schools, or would put them in some of the worse public schools, far from Cambridge, Mass? still, this is a thoughtful book and societal critique, whether you agree with his assessment or not. It will engage you.
A thoroughly researched opus -- a must-read for anyone interested in American society.......2007-06-18
As I read through Putnam's book, I was repeatedly impressed by how thoroughly researched his points were. Bowling Alone has over 100 figures and tables dispersed throughout, and while that would be considered an "overly academic" death knell for most books, this book comes out as both interesting and highly readable. The points are backed up by hard facts and Putnam is very careful to state which opinions are his own as opposed to some other source's. His style of reasoning and argument always includes an examination of possible alternative explanations, which is something all non-fiction writing of this type should require.
In this book you will learn a good deal about the advantages and disadvantages of community groups and why America -- as a society -- has drifted away from the close-knit communities of the 1950s and early 60s. Bowling Alone is one of those rare books that has a little bit of everything: sociology, psychology, urban planning, political commentary, and good old-fashioned statistical analysis. And these topics are all covered in a way that bring the social phenomena to light without getting bogged down in the numbers. Putnam's book is truly an impressive piece of work.
does not make an adequate argument.......2007-04-07
This is a fairly academic description of the decline of civil society. It is well written and the information is clearly presented. The arguments are clear and easy to understand although not truly persuasive. This book spends an inordinate amount of time hammering a point that is obvious enough- Americans join and participate in fewer groups than they used to. I like most people already believed that when I read the book synopsis. Instead of detailed data about the mempership decline in churches and bridge clubs etc., more analysis about the causes and effects of this decline should have been included.
As for the argument of this book, did not convince me. The chapter on the dark side of social groups provided a superficial argument for why social groups promote equality and fraternity. I did not care for the reliance on constructs such as the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity (those are just part of french enlightenment ideals, they are not some kind of measurable benchmarks to make sweeping judgements about society with).
In the end, I am the generation x-y child of parents that were active in a number of social organizations, PTA, neighborhood get togethers etc. I belong to no groups and do not spend time with my neighbors. Like most people my age, I have observed my parents involvement in groups and do not wish to follow suit. The author did not seem to take any time to analyze why people would willingly abandon a civic life when they know exactly what they are missing. I do not see America degenerating because of people's desire to live highly independant existances.
Average customer rating:
- 4 1/2* Psychedelic Music and Culture in 1960's S.F.
- Quite Disappointed
- Yawn and great disapointment!
- It's beautiful, man!
- beautiful addition for all libraries
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Beneath the Diamond Sky: Haight Ashbury 1965 1970
Barney Hoskyns
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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ASIN: 0684841800 |
Book Description
Tells the story of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, in the years 1965-1970, the years "the Haight" emerged as the mecca of the countercultural scene. Hoskyns begins his history of this 8-block-wide area during the Beat period, which created the aesthetic for the psychedelic period that followed. He goes on to document the era's end with the defining moment of Altamont. Between these signal events, he analyzes the place & the people that became the catalyst for the greatest social revolution of 20th-century America. Includes more than 100 reproductions of the great bands, the fashions, & the psychedelic posters/artwork
Customer Reviews:
4 1/2* Psychedelic Music and Culture in 1960's S.F........2004-10-25
This nicely illustrated musical history explains how the "psychedelic" sound of mid- to late- 60's San Francisco bands (e.g., the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, and others) were an extension of folk music with roots in 1950's beat culture. Thus, Kesey, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burrows figure prominently in the book, giving the music its foundation, it's apolitical ethos, and (as Hoskyns repeatedly emphasize) its acid and other drugs. The author's most fascinating and best writing occurs when he explores the roots and evolution of the San Francisco sound, and its love/hate relationship with the subcultures in which it was embedded.. For example, his analysis of the tension between the Berkeley radicals and the hippies is surprisingly astute and well documented (especially since there is inadequate analysis in much of the book).
The end of the psychedelic scene is a familiar and shallow account that includes legions of teen runaways, rampant drugs and violence, and, (must we hear this again?) the conveniently symbolic disaster at Altamount. More instructive is his description of how the music industry co-opted the scene (with help from musicians who actually wanted to make money!), the organizational talent of promoter Bill Graham who competed with the established but looser "Family Dog" outfit, the overdoses, and the dissolution of the beat-inspired ethos. Hoskyns writes that some of this was dissolution was inevitable, as the once young hippie musicians became the establishment, and a new generation rebelled against it. However, while San Francisco was a major part of the 60's scene, it was not the only part, and Hoskyns doesn't place it within the national context of the Nixon presidency, the increasing military/police complex, and the growing politicalization and militancy of women and other disenfranchised groups.
More importantly, for a music history Hoskyns' musical analysis is fairly weak, you don't get an idea of what the music was like, nor is there much discussion of how the groups differed. But that would have required a more serious, even scholarly book. "Beneath the Diamond Sky" is meant to appear a bit trippy, with different fonts and font SIZES and various tie-dye colors thrown in to replicate the feeling of the period. This mostly doesn't work; it's too much artifice, but at least you get some feeling for the creative impulse of the time. Finally, the book would have been better with a epilogue tracing what more of what happened to the S.F. musical and cultural leaders after the 60's ended, and what their influence has been on others.
However, that's not really what this book is about (despite its excellent early cultural analysis). The book is best for its great photographs of these seminal musicians and cultural icons in their prime, including pictures of street scenes, posters, and free concerts at Golden Gate park Still, the book can be annoying because of typos and other mistakes, and seemingly contradictory statements. It appears there was no single Haight Ashbury scene, and that's why this book may offend some who were actually there. However, I can strongly recommend this for its photos, and as an introduction to the subject (especially if you can find it used or discounted}. A short bibliography--but no discography!--may encourage further research into "Hashbury" history. Note: The book title is taken from Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tangerine Man."
Quite Disappointed.......2001-08-30
I am quite pleased I ordered a used copy of this book, and would have been quite disappointed if I had paid the [money on the] price tag.. Nice photos and much ado about music. In short, I lived in the Haight-Ashbury during those wonderful years. And this book reflects nothing of what life was really like. At all, to us that were not directly tied to a band. I partied at ...Ashbury and other places. I had hopes this would address what street life was truly like back then. It does not.
Yawn and great disapointment!.......2001-08-30
...Great photos and much ado about music. In short, I lived in the Haight-Ashbury during those wonderful years. And this book reflects nothing of what life was really like. At all, to us that were not directly tied to a band. I partied at 710 Ashbury and other places. I had hopes this would address what street life was truly like back then. It does not.
It's beautiful, man!.......1999-07-10
If you are like me, the subject matter of Beneath the Diamond Sky will be quite familiar turf: Haight-Ashbury in the sixties. In this case familiarity does not breed contempt. It breeds Love (as in "Summer of"). This bygone pop culture big bang has never been more concisely or attractively typified as in this book.
I fell in love with this book at first sight. I held it in my hands and yea, it was beautiful. I paged through it's rainbow-hued, lavishly illustrated pages and was filled with Satisfaction. I read the text and it was Righteous, dude. I admired the posters and buttons, rare photos and it was all very far out. This is a very reassuring book, a chronicle of the time when the universe swirled psychodynamically around Haight-Ashbury. It betokens all things Hippie and San Francisco without being sugar-coated.
Previous books addressing this topic have not found the right mix of form and content. "Summer of Love" by Joel Selvin, for instance was a pop history document which lacked the design and illustrative qualities of this book. Also, Selvin tended to rewrite things to the chagrin of the psychedelic cognoscenti enough to bring doubt upon the enterprise. "Diamond Sky" tends to neglect revisionism in favor of what is actually known.
Hoskyns does an admirable job of running all of the characters across the page for our scrutiny. The quotes, the deeds, the legends are all covered. I can't quibble with any of it, it's there and its familiar and as I stated before, it is beautifully presented. Hello to Jerry, Janis, Skip, Grace, Chet et. al.
Barney Hoskyns is a very adept pop music writer whose work appears quite often in 'serious pop music' magazines like Mojo. What I like about him here is that he doesn't seem to intrude upon the luminous subject matter at all. He lets the Haight speak for itself, which it continues to do quite well.
beautiful addition for all libraries.......1999-07-03
This book is small in size only! Author Barney Hoskyns' historical narrative of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury 1965-1970 reads like a fascinating novel. I read this book in one siting and when I reluctantly turned the last page I suddenly realized that I had just received an intense lession in California history and the world of music. What a joy! I went out and bought three more copies for some close friends. Buy it!
Amazon.com
Gunfighter Nation concludes Richard Slotkin's three-volume study, which began in 1973 with the publication of Regeneration Through Violence, of the significance of the frontier in the American imagination. Looking primarily at pulp novels and films, Slotkin takes a painstakingly thorough look at the relationship between imagery of the West in industrial mass culture and U.S. foreign policy during the 20th century. Specifically, he looks at how the previous century's "frontier aristocrat" served as the model diplomat for America's agenda of economic imperialism from the Spanish American War to the "police action" in Vietnam.
As the U.S. gained international stature, the archetype of the frontier aristocrat articulated the goals and ideals of the American populace. But Slotkin shows how, as time progressed, the increasing irrelevance of the frontier myth on foreign soil foiled the prowess of the U.S. war machine. At the book's conclusion, in which images of the My Lai Massacre are juxtaposed against the final shootout of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, the contradiction between faith and experience becomes painfully evident. Gunfighter Nation delivers the satisfaction of a historian with the acquired wisdom to address directly the issues that inspired his lifelong work. --John M. Anderson
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant Examination of pop culture as history.......1999-04-11
Winner of countless praise, Gunfighter Nation changed the way we view almost all aspects of American history. It is a well-crafted critical work that articulates earlier French theories of common mythologies and their influences on history but frames them in purely American terms.
Viewing the fictional works of Zane Gray, James Fenimore Cooper, the historical work of Teddy Roosevelt and Frederick Jackson Turner, the influence of popular entertainment like Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and the genres of the western film and film noir Slotkin methodically describes the construction of the American frontier myth. He explores how this myth has influenced the personal lives of great figures of American history and subsequently affected all forms of American policy both foreign and domestic.
The book connects the myth of the frontier to common perceptions of race, class and gender and illustrates how integral that myth was in America's attempts to expand into the Caribbean, battle the forces of Communism in Europe and project power into Southeast Asia. There are some particularly interesting sections that deal specifically with how the frontier myth inspired the strategic and tactical mindset of the war in Vietnam.
Without the slightest hyperbole this book is truly revolutionary. Slotkin was one of the first to tell the story of American history through its influence on pop culture and one of the first to show the influences of pop culture on history. His theories of American myth making have become the backbone of almost all work being done in American Studies and this series is among the most commonly cited resources in academic works over many broad fields.
Clearly the source and still the best for any serious (and even amateur) student of American history. Its innumerable accolades are well deserved.
Good Book in Showing Old West Influence.......1999-03-19
"Gunfighter Nation" follows the influence of the Old West and the Frontier (both real and how it was percieved; sometimes the two are at odds) in American history from the 1800's to modern times. It makes a good point in showing how Western movies mirror the times in which they are made and how the frontier experience is still with us today. The two drawbacks of the book is its EXTREMELY long length and its Leftist ideology that pops up toward the end.
Book Description
The bestselling Route 66: The Mother Road sparked an unprecendented revival of the forgotten towns, diners, and motels along Route 66, transforming the road from a distant memory into a vibrant, internationally recognized destination in its own right. In this 75th anniversary edition, filled with colour and b/w photos, Wallis revisits the people and places that make Route 66 what it is.
Customer Reviews:
Take the trip!.......2007-09-22
Everything you would like to know about Route 66. This book and it's author served as the main source of infromation & inspiration for the Disney/Pixar classic animated movie "Cars". A must have for the motoring history buff.
Route 66.......2007-08-09
As we get older we appreciate memories from our youth more and more. I can remember riding in my parents car on trips along Route 66. This book is full of memories and interesting information about this historic road. We plan to take the Lincoln Highway from California to New York and come home on Route 66. We bought this book as our travel guide home and plan to visit many of the places listed in its pages. We also bought The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast for our guide book east. Both books are a must for the adventure we are planning; a cross country trip in our 1941 Oldsmobile street rod.
A Class Act!.......2007-07-19
My Ex & I traveled on 66 in the mid to late 80's. Met a lot of the Roadies, took a ton of 66 Pix(mostly ruins at the time). Went
"from Chicago to L.A." 2 full times & actually MET Michael & Suz when we were in OK. In fact, we are on page 41 of the Original book! We began a trend as, when we stopped at a 66 biz, we had the owners autograph the book! We LOVE Ramona/Angel/Bob Waldmire & are sad at the loss of Jerry Richard, Juan D. Bobby T. & other lost legends. It was a fun time in my life & I have many great memories & Road Stories.
Tulsa Author Does Good!!.......2007-05-17
Michael Wallis is an excellent writer, one to be emulated by any aspiring writer.
Excellent front to back historical coverage of Rt. 66........2007-03-12
This is a great book for just kicking back and taking a virtual ride on Rt. 66. I, myself, have never been down the road as I am an East Coaster and never yet made the western trek to California. However, I always dreamed of doing such in a RV and now I know for sure what road to take.
While I have heard of Rt. 66 before, I (never prior to reading this book) knew much about the road. What got me started on Rt. 66. was the fairly recent Disney movie "Cars" (of which I highly recommend seeing). The movie touched upon what Rt. 66 means to America and it's past and also the effects of the Interstate system and I-40 on Rt. 66.
The author of the book, Michael Wallis, has a cameo in "Cars" as the voice of the police car. So it was quite obvious to me that if Mr. Wallis' knowledge is good enough for Disney...Well, this made my decision very clear on what Rt. 66 book to purchase.
Wallis's knowledge of the road is fantastic and expansive. He takes you from the road's beginnings both literally and historically. You go through each state and further to each town along the route, explaining in detail how the roads beginnings were to how they are today. After reaching California, Wallis then has a dedicated chapter on how a recent movement is presently undergoing to restore Rt. 66. highlighting those business's that remain and new and old attractions to visit.
As other reviews pointed out, this book does create a very vivid image in one's mind that does allow you to virtually go down Rt. 66. It is a great 'primer' for those who want to brush up on thier Rt.66 history and also gives you a good idea of places to visit once you plan a trip on the historic road.
Created in sections by state, you can either choose to go through the book front to back as I have or choose to reach each state in more detail. Everything is here.
The only gripe I would have with the book is that while it is an excellent historical document on Rt. 66, I was hoping that key places would be easier to find and laid out more like a reference book. This way I could easily look up attractions in each state and see how they were and how they are now. I am assuming I would get this wish by buying Russ Olsen's "Route 66: Then and Now" book.
As for traveling, I know I would want a quick reference. If you are traveling Route 66, using this book as a reference will have you fumbling through pages. So this book is best read BEFORE one takes on the trip. For the road trip itself I was recommended "Route 66 Adventure Handbook" by Drew Knowles and also the "EZ66 guide for travlers" by Jerry McClanahan. (I have still yet to read these). From what I gathered by other reviewers these two books supplemented with Wallis's book would give anyone everything they would need to know about Rt. 66.
So bottom line, for overall history and just about everything you need to know about Rt 66. while taking a virtual tour of the road, well, this is it. This is where this book shines. A fantastic book best read from cover to cover.
However for a quick reference to take on an actual Rt. 66 road trip, that is where this book falls short. There are probably better sources for that task.
Overall a great buy for the price and it would make a great addition to anyone's American history library and it would also make a great coffee table book (especially if they made a hardcover edition).
Book Description
"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?" As if in answer to this poignant question from John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, Stephen Whitfield examines the impact of the Cold War--and its dramatic ending--on American culture in an updated version of his highly acclaimed study. In a new epilogue to this second edition, he extends his analysis from the McCarthyism of the 1950s, including its effects on the American and European intelligensia, to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond.
Whitfield treats his subject matter with the eye of a historian, reminding the reader that the Cold War is now a thing of the past. His treatment underscores the importance of the Cold War to our national identity and forces the reader to ask, Where do we go from here? The question is especially crucial for the Cold War historian, Whitfield argues. His new epilogue is partly a guide for new historians to tackle the complexities of Cold War studies.
Customer Reviews:
Solid overview of US cultural history from 1946-1962.......2004-06-11
Whitfield's book serves as a succinct overview of American Cold War culture, which he defines as ending in the early 1960s (a questionable decision but one made by many scholars who employ the "Cold War Culture" rubric).
What sets apart this book from other entries in the literature is Whitfield's recognition of the importance of religion to Cold War America and his willingness to grapple with the Cold War's full range of moral implications (an element lacking in most academic studies of the domestic side of the Cold War, which tend to fixate endlessly on McCarthy, who is used to tar and discredit all variants of American anti-Communism). This is not to suggest that Whitfield is an apologist for McCarthy, not at all, but to commend Whitfield for understanding that, to paraphrase Arthur Koestler, the Cold War was the story of the United States fighting for a half-truth against a total lie.
Culture of Cold War -- Whitfield.......2001-07-14
Whitfield's book is extremely informative. The connections he makes are fascinating. The book made me want to go out to the library and Blockbuster and look at the popular books and movies he talks about for a second time in a fresh light.
Intelectually Challenging.......2001-02-17
This was rated a "3" by me because it was a little redundant as well as choppy. The book was great in the sense of intelecutal reading but lacked the story like atmosphere. I wouldn't recommend this book to be read for enjoyment, but it would be great if it were used as research on a paper. The chapters are broken up into sections 1,2,3,..etc, so once you have read one section the rest are really just other examples of what the author is trying to get across, easy to skim through for good facts and info. Good Luck!
Book Description
In this true story of our nation's love affair with firearms, Clayton E. Cramer debunks the myths and takes readers along a winding historical trail full of surprising revelations and riveting anecdotes, explaining the roots of America's gun culture.
Customer Reviews:
Who will debunk the debunkers?.......2007-07-28
Michael Bellisiles wrote a book that, for some reason, scared the NRA. Bellisiles argued that America's gun culture didn't develop until around the time of the Civil War. He did not argue that America does not have a gun culture. Why the right got so exorcized about whether gun lust has a 17th century or 19th century origin is beyond me. But anyway, Mr. Cramer, we are told, figures prominently in the anti-Bellisiles crusade. This is not a good omen. Yes, Bellisiles lost his post at Emory -- that's in the liberal stronghold of Georgia, folks, where their idea of a historian is Newt Gingrich (can you say 'political pressure?' I knew you could.) Yes the Bancroft prize was withdrawn (ditto). Does any of this lend credence to the claims of Mr. Cramer and his NRA allies that Bellisiles work has been revealed to be a complete 'sham' and discredited in toto? Not at all. The official disciplinary committee that backed his dismissal from Emory took issue with only a few items in Arming America, notably one specific chart of probate data that proved to be in error. The vast majority of professional historians though, however they may feel about the bits of Arming America that have been repeatedly challenged, concede that the vast bulk of this large book is accurate. That leaves Cramer more or less alone in trying to debunk the whole enchilada. As the other negative reviews here indicate, there's a lot of questionable assertion going on here. If Cramer draws different conclusions from the same facts Bellisiles notes, we might compare the logic behind the arguments. Both authors note that laws in early America encouraged gun ownership for the purpose of strengthening militias -- lest the Brits return etc., as they did in 1812. Cramer seems to think this proves guns were popular. Bellisiles argues that the fact people had to have all this coaxing to acquire guns indicates the public was not keen on acquiring them of their own accord. Did the laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s encouraging the addition of safety devices and improved fuel economy in automobiles indicate that these features were in demand, or the opposite?
I wonder how many of the folks who laud Cramer's expose of Bellisiles have actually read Arming America and compared the two cases, and how many only have Cramer's version of Bellisiles to go on. This seems to me a pretty common phenomenon on both right and left: we tend to take reports of someone else's supposed outrageous conduct for granted and join the outrage, without carefully examining whether the actual facts fit the outraged reporter's description.
Interesting ideological footnote: look at the Amazon 'Better together' feature that offers to pair the book on the page you're viewing with another similar book. For Armed America, Amazon suggests another pro-gun book. For Arming America, Amazon suggests... Armed America. Not a bad idea if was reciprocated, eh. So go ahead and buy this book if you're interested in the topic, but buy Bellisiles book as well, and try to think for yourself.
Good book, but it won't convince those who "know" it isn't so.......2007-07-16
A few years ago Michael Bellsiles wrote a book claiming that early Americans didn't own guns, didn't have them, and that historical documentation proved it. He was widely discredited even by many of his anti-gun peers when it was found that much of his research was false or totally inaccurate.
Clayton Cramer spent five years researching the same records Bellesiles "used" and found totally opposite results, guns were very common all over the colonies (the book covers a period from the 1600's to the 1840's). Divided into 3 sections, Colonial America, the Revolutionary war, and the early Republic- Cramer gives exhaustive detail on what America was really like. The author is even careful to note that sometimes a modern reader can't be sure just what some statements from the past meant.
There are a lot of footnotes (unfortunately he gives no indication of just how hard it is for the average person to get at the original documents to read them, he does mention that Bellesiles usually reported just the opposite of what sommething actually said in print.) and a 12 page bibliography to back up his statements.
My worst problem with the book was that the few included photographs are too dark, hard to get any detail from them. It's a good fascinating book that I don't regret owning, it just won't convince anyone who doesn't believe it is true.
Excellent scholarly work.......2007-05-13
This is definitely a book for people who enjoy history through original sources. Mr. Cramer brings together a wealth of material that many "professional" historians can't seem to be bothered with.
Guns and Apple Pie--You left out Baseball and Mom, Mr. Gun Nut!.......2007-05-11
The title alone is so over the top and ridiculous as to invite uncontrollable laughter. Cramer is the almost perfect incarnation of the type "Creepily gun obsessed loner" of which we see many poorer examples in the cheerleading reviews posted here.
Really, these people are to be pitied, lonely and frightened little boys trying to be men and failing so utterly, caressing their rifles in the darkness in the absence of human warmth and comfort, fantasizing psychotically about being John Wayne or Rambo and constantly being drawn back to the cruel truth that they are merely anti-social, hateful, angry, psychologically unbalanced hermits, many of whom will never know emotionally real human companionship, and who are far more likely to use their guns to intimidate or kill their family members or blow their own brains out than to heroically defeat Evil in the form of a 15 year old kid trying to steal a ten speed bike off their front porch at night. What a sad bunch.
Revisionists' Bane, Or How The Standard Version Was Right All Along.......2007-04-19
Cramer writes a focused work, detailing the presence and use of firearms in the colonial, revolutionary and early Republic periods of American history. He compiles a wealth of specific examples based on primary sources like wills, newspapers, legislation, travel books, etc. He demonstrates a deep knowledge of the topic and the sources, showing the range and breadth of early American experience with firearms for use in personal defense and in a military context. Some of the material can be dry, and this book is not one for those looking for a rollicking story - it's a history, of the kind useful for professionals or amateurs with a specific, rather than a general interest in the topic. Occasionally Cramer restates the obvious - of course, given the inability of some of our countries "best" historical scholars on the Bancroft Committee to pick up on the obvious inconsistencies between Bellesiles' writing in Arming America and the original records, he should be forgiven. Armed America should be seen as a refutation of Bellesiles and his ilk - as the academic frauds that they have been demonstrated to be. After reading Armed America you will be convinced that Cramer had the right of it.
4 stars - it's a solid work, and well executed.
Book Description
In one compact volume, POP DREAMS analyzes the trends, events, and personalities that influenced American culture from 1945 to 1970. The discussion broadens students' understanding of major events in popular culture by putting those events in historical context.
Customer Reviews:
brief and well written.......2005-08-25
This little book could easily have been a fully fledged tome. Loss surveys the popular American media in the 1960s. He shows how it echoed and in turn fed back on the burning issues of the times. The Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
There is discussion of politics at the Federal level, with the actions of US Presidents being key events. But Loss manages to tie this all into a narrative that also encompasses analysis of the rock and roll scene and the counterculture.
The book is aimed at an undergraduate or high school reader, as a quick synopsis of trends that Loss traces back to 1945 and the emergence of the US from the Second World War. He hopes to whet the reader's appetite for more detailed reading of these vast topics.
Book Description
In the early 1960s, computers haunted the American popular imagination. Bleak tools of the cold war, they embodied the rigid organization and mechanical conformity that made the military-industrial complex possible. But by the 1990s—and the dawn of the Internet—computers started to represent a very different kind of world: a collaborative and digital utopia modeled on the communal ideals of the hippies who so vehemently rebelled against the cold war establishment in the first place.
From Counterculture to Cyberculture is the first book to explore this extraordinary and ironic transformation. Fred Turner here traces the previously untold story of a highly influential group of San Francisco Bay–area entrepreneurs: Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. Between 1968 and 1998, via such familiar venues as the National Book Award–winning Whole Earth Catalog, the computer conferencing system known as WELL, and, ultimately, the launch of the wildly successful Wired magazine, Brand and his colleagues brokered a long-running collaboration between San Francisco flower power and the emerging technological hub of Silicon Valley. Thanks to their vision, counterculturalists and technologists alike joined together to reimagine computers as tools for personal liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers.
Shedding new light on how our networked culture came to be, this fascinating book reminds us that the distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is not as great as we might think.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding.......2007-09-03
In lucid, incisive and engaging prose, Fred Turner tells the fascinating story of how innovative modes of working and thinking (born from the World War II military industrial complex) cross-pollinated with hippie counterculture (through the imagination and particular cultural anxieties of Stewart Brand) to produce the current ubiquitous mode of conceiving a world-wide networked reality.
The book isn't a hatchet job of Stewart Brand; but neither is it a celebration of him and his mythology.
It is a sharply-observed, consistently critical look at the ways in which Stewart Brand and his (almost overwhelmingly white, male and privileged) cohort built a particularly powerful ideology, narrative and network around themselves, with very real physical, political, environmental, industrial and ideological consequences.
Damn interesting, and a pleasurable read--Turner's sense of humor and irony are employed subtly but to very enjoyable effect.
An Important book about a major influence of the 60's through the 90's.......2007-05-22
As someone who was deeply and profoundly influenced by the WEC, WER, and the WELL, I found this to both reinvigorate the excitement of the different eras it discusses and, also, to tie them together and provide fresh insights. After I finished it I looked around my office and realized how much of my thinking was influenced by Steward Brand and his experiments. Easily 30% of the books in my library were originally recommended in either the Catalog or the Review. I was also an early WELL subscriber and a `Maniacal' Whole Earth Review subscriber so almost everything mentioned here I could relate to.
It may devolve into `professor-speak' at times but it is well worth it. If you want to know about one of the critical components of both the `counter culture' of the 60's and the internet revolution of the 90's this is a must read.
Interesting but too academic.......2007-05-21
Interesting people and times are covered in this book. The hippie counterculture, Whole Earth Catalog, computer bulletin boards morphing into The Internet, Wired magazine, etc. A good deal of information you probably didn't know, so it may give you a slightly different perspective of this time. Why did these early computer geeks think computers would change society and give power to all the people?
The down side is that it sometimes reads as if it was written by a college professor; but it was! To much theoretical framework for my taste. Still, if you are interested in this time, read the book. You can easily skip the tedious stuff.
An excellent record of an amazing life.......2006-11-26
Stewart Brand is a high-IQ Zelig, who has been a catalyst of so many important developments throughout the last 4 decades of the 20th century. This volume is more scholarly, and more revealing of the social forces at work, than Markoff's What the Dormouse Said. It focuses with great intensity on Brand, due to Turner's unique access to Brand's diaries in the Stanford Library. SB is shown to have been central to far more moments of incipient Renaissance than anyone since Lou Salome, friend of Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud: He joined Ken Kesey as an original Prankster, was the videographer for Engelbart's 'mother of all demos,' then linked up all kinds of communes (including Ant Farm) while founding and editing the Whole Earth Catalog. Besides all the events already mentioned, Turner dives deeply into the WELL, which was the primordial "virtual community", co-founded by Brand. With his vision of power as drawn from network affiliations, Brand then built a consulting company called the Global Business Network, which used scenario planning as a form of "corporate performance art", by fusing countercultural norms with the needs of corporate board rooms. Turner does a fairly good job posing critical questions about how the privileged white male perspective defined the unfolding story. He flags the problem of this privilege, but isn't able to concretely identify how it could have been solved. Read this book to learn how SB helped create the world we live in, and deployed his unique social entrepreneurial skills to stay in the center of the game.
What one person can turn on within these vast systems within which we vibrate .......2006-10-26
Like one of his teachers and friends Buckminster Fuller, Stesart Brand is an archetypal example of the American individualist- inventor the man who Thoreau said ' hears the sound of his own drummer'. Paradoxically the super- individualist Brand is also perhaps the single person most responsible for making ordinary Americans connect with, show concern with the various systems cyber-systems, eco-systems, communications - systems we are moving within.
In this informed, detailed, and extremely well- written survey of the career of Brand, Fred Turner also provides a insightful and exciting look at America 's cultural, and especially 'alternative culture ' development from the sixties through the nineties. Brand meets up on his travels with 'Edge's' John Brockman, with Ken Kesey with whom he is a Merry Prankster, with Bucky Fuller who tries to help his projects,with Kevin Kelly of the 'Wired' world, with many of those seeking new ways of making the Technology connect with communal frameworks that will enable ( at least this is one of Brand's goals) the individual to truly be an individual .
Brand's most famous contribution 'The Whole Earth Catalogue' which was certainly one of the major cultural influences upon the Environmental Movement, and incidentally the Hippy Culture of the Sixties , told us the way we could get anything we needed to make our way into the rapidly changing future. Brand's work as editor and thinker also contributed to the World Wide Web to come, and the name and concept 'personal computer' is also one of his contributions.
This is an important work to read not only to learn about decisive moments in the life of a remarkable individual, but to better understand the world- in- the -making we are a part of.
Book Description
An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world.
The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company--due to its relentless pursuit of low prices--on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $26 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door.
Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.
Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.
Customer Reviews:
Impact beyond price.......2007-09-24
Having spent the past 18 months researching and writing on the negative impact on the economy of poor customer service, go to ACSI research at University of Michigan School of Business, I have found that Wal-Mart's fanitical focus on price, and consumers that focus only on price are having a very negative impact on our country and society. Of all of the books I have read on Wal-Mart, Fishman presents the most detailed factual and insightful information on which to base an opinion on the impact Wal-Mart has made on our communities.
Balanced & Comprehenisve .......2007-09-17
Like many, I begrudgingly shop at Wal-Mart familiar with the arguments of it's negative impact on locally owned business's, and it's poor wages and benefits--------trying in vain to strike a balance between social responsibility and self-interest. It's always struck me as large version of the beloved "five and dime" where I bought my baseball cards growing up. I marvel at the low prices, and the sheer variety of merchandise. Fishman has permanently purged me of the that nostalgia. His backstory on Wal-Mart is utterly convincing in it's pernicious effect on our economy. He ably tells the story of Wal-Mart's rise with it's hyperfocus on pricing. But he's after something bigger here, and that's corporate secrecy. Like many large corporations, Wal-Mart is a closed and secret society. Consumers are robbed of the information that would assist them in identifying the true cost of consumption. Fishman is saying that the rise of the mega-corporation, with their ability to dominate a whole sector of the economy, is both anti-free market and anti-consumer. Though vague, he argues that we must consider stronger governance and regulation. This is where his book left me wanting. I wanted to know what exactly that would look like. That said, this is a well-researched, balanced and important book for our times.
Costs of everyday low prices.......2007-09-16
Wal-Mart's obsessive focus on a single core value - delivering low prices - created the largest and most powerful company in history. Employing over 1.6 million people, Wal-Mart is so large that it can often defy the laws of supply, demand and competition. However, the same core values are also responsible for low wages, enormous pressure on suppliers, cheap quality and continuous off-shoring. Charles Fishman provides an insightful look at the growth and the careful balancing act that Wal-Mart has engaged in most recently: trying to find profit while moving beyond the simple slogan of `everyday low prices'. Given the scarce resources available on the company, `Wal-Mart Effect' offers a great overview of the largest corporation to date.
Wal-Mart---Made in China.......2007-09-02
An excellent book on the behind scenes of what shopping at Wal-Mart means to America and the world. Wal-Mart has sold out its fellow Americans for pure greed on its own behalf. Thousands of jobs lost to over-seas countries to cut costs and to bully the suppliers into submission. Everyone should think twice before shopping at Wal-Mart. A good DVD on this subject, "Is Wal-Mart Good For America"? by PBS Frontline.
Good or Bad, Fishman makes you think.......2007-08-30
Simply stated, Charles Fishman throws forth ideas and makes you think. Some reviews will say the book is great because it demonstrates Wal-Mart's 'evil' business model. Other will say that Fishman is just another anti-capitalist. As with all reading, and information for that matter, The Wal-Mart Effect should be read with an open mind but through a filter.
A great teacher will make a student think. Fishman, doubtlessly, is impressed with Wal-Mart's efficiency. But he remembers to state that efficiency and lower production costs can have long term effects that may not be in the consumer's long term interests.
Take the book how you would like. The Wal-Mart effect, like the bible, can be read to say many things. But read both with an open mind and you will have more information with which to approach life.
Books:
- The Cutting Edge: Fashion from Japan
- The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (Sight: Visual Culture)
- The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe
- The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas
- The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 5)
- The Jesus of Suburbia: Have We Tamed the Son of God to Fit Our Lifestyle?
- The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant
- The Little Book That Beats the Market
- The Luck of the Draw: The Memoir of a World War II Submariner: From Savo Island to the Silent Service
- The Motel in America (The Road and American Culture)
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