Robert, a 30-something independent filmmaker in Los Angeles, is hearing voices in his head. Alice Hershlug, a Jewish movie star who recently won the Academy Award, is slowly torturing him via The Grapevine, a kind of mental telephone.Hoovey Weinerschniztel, a movie producer in New York City, is in love with his plastic telephone and blas� about his recent rape and imprisonment in his office closet of one of his former employees.The novel appears to be an Anti-Semitic rant, written by a lonely Jew who has apparently been accused of being a child molester. It cuts rapidly back and forth between the narrator's vitriolic prose poems which accuse American Jews and other plutocrats of ruining the country, the trials and tribulations of Robert as he navigates Hollywood and the mental health system, and the machinations of several Hollywood insiders as they stab each other in the back to rise to the top.The island of Manhattan turns into a sailing ship and blasts through the strait of Gibraltar on the way to visit Jerusalem, a psychiatric treatment facility gets possessed by some kind of evil demon named Cheeto, and Hoovey Weinerschnitzel abandons his religion to found an evil cult.Part political diatribe, part philosophical essay, part picaresque, the novel explores the implications of the new post-2008 U.S. economy on the human psyche, relations between Jew and Gentile, between American and Israeli Jews, between thought and reality, and tries to figure out where the hell America can go next.

Economic Development in American Cities addresses the roles of municipal leaders and civic partners in promoting social equity by examining the experiences of five American cities in the 1990s—Austin, Cleveland, Rochester, Savannah, and Seattle. These five cities were chosen for their activist municipal administrations, robust policy agendas, and viable partnerships. Contributors familiar with each city evaluate the impact of equity investments and extract lessons for municipal leaders and policy agendas. Building on the past experiences of progressive cities, each case study city offers fresh perspectives and examples, told through a rigorous analysis of socioeconomic data and program outcomes combined with engaging stories about specific municipal administrations and policy agendas.

The compelling history of how Latino immigrants revitalized the nation's cities after decades of disinvestment and white flight Thirty years ago, most people were ready to give up on American cities. We are commonly told that it was a "creative class" of young professionals who revived a moribund urban America in the 1990s and 2000s. But this stunning reversal owes much more to another, far less visible group: Latino and Latina newcomers. Award-winning historian A. K. Sandoval-Strausz reveals this history by focusing on two barrios: Chicago's Little Village and Dallas's Oak Cliff. These neighborhoods lost residents and jobs for decades before Latin American immigration turned them around beginning in the 1970s. As Sandoval-Strausz shows, Latinos made cities dynamic, stable, and safe by purchasing homes, opening businesses, and reviving street life. Barrio America uses vivid oral histories and detailed statistics to show how the great Latino migrations transformed America for the better.

In his presidential inaugural address of January 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson offered an uplifting vision for America, one that would end poverty and racial injustice. Elected in a landslide over the conservative Republican Barry Goldwater and bolstered by the so-called liberal consensus, economic prosperity, and a strong wave of nostalgia for his martyred predecessor, John F. Kennedy, Johnson announced the most ambitious government agenda in decades. Three years later, everything had changed. Johnson's approval ratings had plummeted; the liberal consensus was shattered; the war in Vietnam splintered the nation; and the politics of civil rights had created a fierce white backlash. A report from the National Committee for an Effective Congress warned of a "national nervous breakdown." The election of 1968 was immediately caught up in a swirl of powerful forces, and the nine men who sought the nation's highest office that year attempted to ride them to victory-or merely survive them. On the Democratic side, Eugene McCarthy energized the anti-war movement; George Wallace spoke to the working-class white backlash; Robert Kennedy took on the mantle of his slain brother. Entangled in Vietnam, Johnson, stunningly, opted not to run again, scrambling the odds. On the Republican side, 1968 saw the vindication of Richard Nixon, who outhustled Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and George Romney by navigating between the conservative and moderate wings of the Republican Party. The assassinations of the first Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Kennedy, seemed to push the country to the brink of chaos, a chaos reflected in the Democratic Convention in Chicago, a televised horror show. Vice President Hubert Humphrey emerged as the nominee, and, finally liberating himself from Johnson's grip, nearly overcame the lead long enjoyed by Nixon, who, by exploiting division and channeling the national yearning for order, would be the last man standing. In American Maelstrom, Michael A. Cohen captures the full drama of this watershed election, establishing 1968 as the hinge between the decline of political liberalism, the ascendancy of conservative populism, and the rise of anti-governmental attitudes that continue to dominate the nation's political discourse. In this sweeping and immersive book, equal parts compelling analysis and thrilling narrative, Cohen takes us to the very source of our modern politics of division.

Polls through the '90s show that many Americans believe the nation is in a period of spiritual decline, yet public religious display and discussion often is deemed politically incorrect. Philosopher John K. Roth feels that more outward sharing of religious beliefs, thoughts, and ideas would bridge the gap between our private needs and our public selves--and would give Americans of differing faiths a common identity.

This is a biography of mayor Richard J. Daley. It is the story of his rise from the working-class Irish neighbourhood of his childhood to his role as one of the most important figures in 20th century American politics.

Brown in the Windy City is the first history to examine the migration and settlement of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in postwar Chicago. Lilia Fernández reveals how the two populations arrived in Chicago in the midst of tremendous social and economic change and, in spite of declining industrial employment and massive urban renewal projects, managed to carve out a geographic and racial place in one of America’s great cities. Through their experiences in the city’s central neighborhoods over the course of these three decades, Fernández demonstrates how Mexicans and Puerto Ricans collectively articulated a distinct racial position in Chicago, one that was flexible and fluid, neither black nor white.

This book focuses on principles and practices in digital wine marketing. By providing a global overview of social media and e-commerce strategies and practices in the wine business, this book allows readers to understand how consumers and producers deal with these modern communication and selling platforms.

A fascinating look at the artistically productive reign of Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh in ancient Egypt