True stories that reveal why hard work and determination still count—and how the promise of America is still very much alive. The book is a collection of compelling stories from people that overcame a variety of adversities to achieve their American Dream. Featuring accounts of people facing a wide variety of challenges and coming from a wide variety of backgrounds, this book will turn skeptics into believers by way of everyday life examples. It instills inspiration and hope—reminding us that no matter the obstacles, this is still the land of opportunity.

Today we are politically polarized as never before. The presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 will be remembered as two of the most contentious political events in American history. Yet despite the recent election upheaval, The American Voter Revisited discovers that voter behavior has been remarkably consistent over the last half century. And if the authors are correct in their predictions, 2008 will show just how reliably the American voter weighs in, election after election. The American Voter Revisited re-creates the outstanding 1960 classic The American Voter---which was based on the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956---following the same format, theory, and mode of analysis as the original. In this new volume, the authors test the ideas and methods of the original against presidential election surveys from 2000 and 2004. Surprisingly, the contemporary American voter is found to behave politically much like voters of the 1950s. "Simply essential. For generations, serious students of American politics have kept The American Voter right on their desk. Now, everyone will keep The American Voter Revisited right next to it." ---Larry J. Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of A More Perfect Constitution "The American Voter Revisited is destined to be the definitive volume on American electoral behavior for decades. It is a timely book for 2008, with in-depth analyses of the 2000 and 2004 elections updating and extending the findings of the original The American Voter. It is also quite accessible, making it ideal for graduate students as well as advanced undergrads." ---Andrew E. Smith, Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center "A theoretically faithful, empirically innovative, comprehensive update of the original classic." ---Sam Popkin, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego Michael S. Lewis-Beck is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. William G. Jacoby is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Helmut Norpoth is Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University. Herbert F. Weisberg is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University.

The poems first capture sorrow and pain but through the spiritual journey, a transformation takes hold. In the background is a depiction of the world of New York City and the human dramas that unfold, from the petty to the sublime.

In North America between 1894 and 1930, the rise of the "New Woman" sparked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world. As she demanded a public voice as well as private fulfillment through work, education, and politics, American journalists debated and defined her. Who was she and where did she come from? Was she to be celebrated as the agent of progress or reviled as a traitor to the traditional family? Over time, the dominant version of the American New Woman became typified as white, educated, and middle class: the suffragist, progressive reformer, and bloomer-wearing bicyclist. By the 1920s, the jazz-dancing flapper epitomized her. Yet she also had many other faces. Bringing together a diverse range of essays from the periodical press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Martha H. Patterson shows how the New Woman differed according to region, class, politics, race, ethnicity, and historical circumstance. In addition to the New Woman's prevailing incarnations, she appears here as a gun-wielding heroine, imperialist symbol, assimilationist icon, entrepreneur, socialist, anarchist, thief, vamp, and eugenicist. Together, these readings redefine our understanding of the New Woman and her cultural impact.

This is a book about the American Dream: how to understand this central principle of American public philosophy, the ways in which it is threatened by a number of winner-take-all economic trends, and how to make it a reality for workers and their families in the 21st century. Integrating political philosophy and the history of political thought with recent work in economics, political science, and sociology, this book calls for renewed political and policy commitment to “just work.” Such a commitment is essential to combat the negative moral externalities of an economy where the fruits of growth are increasingly claimed by a relatively small portion of the population: slower growth, rising inequality, declining absolute mobility, dying communities, the erosion of social solidarity, lack of faith in political leaders and institutions, exploding debt, ethnic and nationalist backlash, widespread hopelessness, and the rapid rise in what economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case call deaths of despair. Covid-19 threatens to pour gasoline on these winner-take-all fires, further concentrating economic and political power in the hands of those best suited to withstand (and even profit from) the pandemic-driven economic crisis. In this book, the author provides a model for understanding the American Dream and making it a reality in a post-Covid-19 economy. A tour de force, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of political philosophy, political economy, political theory, and economics, as well as for the layperson trying to make sense of the post-pandemic world.

Fifty years ago, David Matza wrote Delinquency and Drift, challenging the ways people thought about the development of criminals. Today, Delinquency and Drift Revisited reminds criminologists that they ignore Matza’s writings at their own intellectual peril. Matza’s work shows his insights on a range of core criminological issues, such as: the complex nature of culture and its connection to criminality; the extent to which rule-breakers are truly different from the "rest of us"; the importance of focusing on human agency in understanding the subjective side of offending; the interaction of propensity and peer influences in criminal involvement; the role of the state in signifying individuals as deviant and entrapping them in criminal roles; and the processes that lead offenders to desist from crime. This volume was not written to pay homage to Matza, but to show how his ideas remain relevant to criminology today by continuing to question conventional wisdom, by making us pay attention to realities we have overlooked, and by inspiring us to theorize more innovatively.

Th ere Are No Enemies explores a Practical Phi losophy of Life for huma nk ind based upon reverence for life and Th e Science of Being Altogether fi rst off ered by A ristotle, the Philosopher. Human beings are al l deemed to share a com mon spiritualit y which c an be accessed by the indiv idua l conscience and is div i ne, operating in the fi eld of understanding. Th e fi eld of science shares the same source as the fi eld of spir itua lity Writ ten by an arti st-scholar, the a r tistic suspension of disbelief is off ered to eff ect a vision of humanit y part icipating harmoniously in the Life Force of t he universe itsel f and using a s a touchstone for their common spirituality, their own religion, their own God, Allah, Yahwah, cal led by any name or no name. Following t he philosophy applicat ions of it are off ered concerni ng Iraq, Israel, Terrorists, the Money God, Hatred, Diplomacy, t he War Machine, Aust ralian Aboriginal Spiritual it y, Native American Peace Examples as well a s poetry excerpted from the authors other books: Th uGun and Natasha, Th e Round Table, Maria and the Comet and Anz ac to Understanding.

An evidence-based, practical guide to reflection on the most important goals in life, this book provides a unique framework and thought-provoking exercises to modify personal and professional goals to increase happiness. Why we pursue our most important goals in life is an important question, and the answer we give ourselves greatly influences our happiness. This book presents the goal-striving reasons framework to illustrate the essential positive and negative ingredients: pleasure, altruism, self-esteem, and necessity. This new framework and the practical exercises throughout the book will enable readers to change their reasons for pursuing goals and achieve the ultimate aim of becoming happier in life. There are many books on happiness – no other discusses happiness specifically from a goal-setting perspective. Human resources and mental health professionals, mindfulness practitioners, coaches, mentors, higher education staff, postgraduate students, and others will benefit from the hands-on guidance in this book.

Human progress is heading toward collapse. There are converging ecological crises looming on the horizon: climate change, peak oil, water shortages, fish depletion and food scarcities. The world is on a collision course against the limits of the ecosystem. Modern societies are consuming, polluting and growing as if there is no tomorrow. Indeed, there may not be one. In Progress or Collapse, Roberto De Vogli guides us through the multiple converging global crises of economic progress. He explores the connections between the environmental crisis and the psychological, social, cultural, political and economic emergencies affecting modern societies. It is not a coincidence, the author argues, that global ecological destruction is occurring in tandem with other crises: rising mental disorders, mindless consumerism, rampant conformism, status competition, civic disengagement, startling social inequalities, global financial instability, and widespread political impasse. In this hard-hitting analysis, Roberto De Vogli identifies the root cause of all these symptoms of societal breakdown: neoliberalism, defined as market greed. He argues that in recent decades, modern societies have been dominated by a suicidal economic doctrine based on two articles of faith: the greed creed and the market God. The greed creed states that people are nothing but selfish profiteers in a perpetual search for status and wealth. The market God is the belief that all societal and human affairs are best regulated as market exchanges. What is to be done? Can we stop progress toward collapse? Given the current distribution of power and wealth, and the state of psychological and political inertia in which we are trapped, our chances of redefining progress around alternative values and embracing a new philosophy of life are slim. Yet, the history of human emancipation has often been shaped by giant leaps forward. In the past, civic struggles have overcome "the limits of the possible". Whether this will happen again in the future is the central question of our time. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of ecology, psychology, public health, epidemiology, human development, political philosophy, economics, sociology and politics.