The American Dream turned into a nightmare when the housing bubble burst, and people have been trying to figure out who to blame- Greedy bankers? Corrupt politicians? Ignorant homeowners? In American Nightmare: How Government Undermines the Dream of Homeownership, Randal O'Toole explores the forces at play in the housing market and shows how we can rebuild the American dream of homeownership by eliminating federal, state, and local policies that distort the free market for housing.

Jonathan Fairchild saw a side of his father that he'd never seen before on April 3, 1974-the night the tornadoes touched down in Oakwood Falls, Alabama. The coming of the tornadoes seems to foretell a terrifying passage in young Jonathan's life, and all too soon he learns the dark secrets of his small town.

“A very powerful and unsettling story of our nation’s century-long ‘pogrom’ by vengeful white Southerners against their black neighbors.” —The Washington Times For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, a quarter of all Americans lived under a system of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial “etiquette,” these rules governed nearly every aspect of life—and outlined draconian punishments for infractions. The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa’s notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being, how it was lived, how it was justified, and how, at long last, it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly, this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery. Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard, Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge—and an understanding of how it happened—remain alive in the nation’s collective memory. “Sweeping history . . . Packard compels us to remember that one cannot effectively confront the challenges posed by contemporary race relations without recognizing the agonies of the American past.” —The Christian Science Monitor

In this celebration of contemporary American fiction, Kathryn Hume explores how estrangement from America has shaped the fiction of a literary generation, which she calls the Generation of the Lost Dream. In breaking down the divisions among standard categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, Hume identifies shared core concerns, values, and techniques among seemingly disparate and unconnected writers including T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ralph Ellison, Russell Banks, Gloria Naylor, Tim O'Brien, Maxine Hong Kingston, Walker Percy, N. Scott Momaday, John Updike, Toni Morrison, William Kennedy, Julia Alvarez, Thomas Pynchon, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Don DeLillo. Hume explores fictional treatments of the slippage in the immigrant experience between America's promise and its reality. She exposes the political link between contemporary stories of lost innocence and liberalism's inadequacies. She also invites us to look at the literary challenge to scientific materialism in various searches for a spiritual dimension in life. The expansive future promised by the American Dream has been replaced, Hume finds, by a sense of tarnished morality and a melancholy loss of faith in America's exceptionalism. American Dream, American Nightmare examines the differing critiques of America embedded in nearly a hundred novels and points to the source for recovery that appeals to many of the authors.

This text offers an insight into the political challenges to free trade and US trade policy and explores the fragile ecosystem of multinational trade alliances in the face of insurgent political protests from both the left and the right. It also takes a close look at WTO obstacles such as the failure of member countries to follow dispute settlement arrangements; conflict surrounding the imminent membership of China; and the mercurial administration of trade law in the US. The author presents a case for the incoherence of American trade policy but also analyzes the systematic problems involved in free trade and suggests solutions.

THE STORY: THUNDER IN THE INDEX. The action takes place in the psychiatric ward of a large city hospital, where Joshua Noon, a hip young black man, lies bound in a straitjacket. His pleas to be unshackled lead to a sharp, funny and exacerbating ver

The American Nightmare: Don DeLillo's Falling Man and Cormac McCarthy's The Road presents an extensive analysis of two novels by the two most prominent contemporary American writers.The book searches into the stylistic and linguistic complexities of those two post-9/11 novels and explores the ways in which they respond to the public discourse produced in the aftermath of the event. Szalan's reading of the texts offer valuable insights into the inscription of ideology in literary works which simultaneously reinstate and resist its hegemony.

The son of pro wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes, Cody has wrestling in his blood. He wrestled for the WWE for many years before striking out as an indie wrestler. In 2019, he helped launch a new pro wrestling company, All-Elite Wrestling. His incredible story of pursuing a dream and working hard to make it happen will inspire readers. Lower-level text for a high-interest biography and full-color photographs from the span on Cody's career make this book a must-read for both sports fans and future entrepreneurs.

Conflicts in Western societies have been on the rise, and not just since the financial crisis of 2008. This is generally explained in economic terms - with growing disparities in wealth and income. The left should benefit from this with its redistribution philosophy. However, the right is on the upswing, even though its neoliberalism is fueling social conflicts. How is that? Behind the economic tensions lies a deep crisis of meaning. The right is exploiting this by offering simplistic set pieces of meaning. With success, because people strive for nothing so much as meaning in their own lives. The example of the USA shows how neoliberalism destroys people and societies. Possible solutions also come from there.

Every time Matthew Altobelli tried to picture his life after high school, he couldn’t see anything. But a conversation with his guidance counselor in January 2006 gave him clarity: He would join the Air Force. But after returning home from Afghanistan, he found himself battling a host of physical issues as well as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He began to look forward to hospital stays when he’d be numbed by drugs. Under the influence, he could escape his mental demons or the physical world. While many veterans suffer from PTSD and its related symptoms, it can affect anyone who has suffered trauma. Drawing on his personal experiences, the author explains what it means and how he’s fought it. Take a journey down a winding path of heartache as a former staff sergeant seeks to find his place in the civilian world while battling demons from the past.