This book is a great anthology of American plays. It includes plays from the the 1700's and the 1990's, a plethora of plays. And this book not only... covers a large time span, it also includes plays written by playwrights from a variety of different cultures.

A panoramic yet intimate history of the American left—of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who have fought for a more just and humane society,... from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky—that gives us a revelatory new way of looking at two centuries of American politics and culture. Michael Kazin—one of the most respected historians of the American left working today—takes us from abolitionism and early feminism to the labor struggles of the industrial age, through the emergence of anarchists, socialists, and communists, right up to the New Left in the 1960s and ’70s. While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been, in the traditional view, a story of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In American Dreamers, Kazin tells a new history: one in which many of these movements, although they did not fully succeed on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society that led to equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; multiculturalism in the media and the schools; and the popularity of books and films with altruistic and antiauthoritarian messages. Deeply informed, at once judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, American Dreamers is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it.

An intimate history of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who fought for a different America, from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam... Chomsky.  While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been a story of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In American Dreamers, Michael Kazin--one of the most respected historians of the American left working today--tells a new history of the movements that, while not fully succeeding on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society. Among these culture shaping events are the fight for equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; the inclusion of multiculturalism in the media and school curricula; and the creation of books and films with altruistic and anti-authoritarian messages. Deeply informed, judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, this is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it.

American Dreaming chronicles in rich detail the struggles of immigrants who have fled troubled homelands in search of a better life in the United... States, only to be marginalized by the society that they hoped would embrace them. Sarah Mahler draws from her experiences living among undocumented Salvadoran and South American immigrants in a Long Island suburb of Manhattan. In moving interviews they describe their disillusionment with life in the United States but blame themselves individually or as a whole for their lack of economic success and not the greater society. As she explores the reasons behind this outlook, the author argues that marginalization fosters antagonism within ethnic groups while undermining the ethnic solidarity emphasized by many scholars of immigration.Mahler's investigation leads to conditions that often bar immigrants from success and that they cannot control, such as residential segregation, job exploitation, language and legal barriers, prejudice and outright hostility from their suburban neighbors. Some immigrants earn surplus income by using private cars as taxis, subletting space in apartments to lower rent burdens, and filling out legal forms and applications--in essence generating institutions largely parallel to those of the mainstream society whereby only a small group of entrepreneurs can profit. By exacting a price for what used to be acts of reciprocal good will in the homeland, these entrepreneurs leave people who had expected to be exploited by "Americans" feeling victimized by their own.

This book presents the struggle for dialogue and understanding between teachers and refugee and immigrant families, in their own words. Forging a... stronger connection between teachers, newcomers, and their families is one of the greatest challenges facing schools in the United States. Teachers need to become familiar with the political, economic, and sociocultural contexts of these newcomers' lives, and the role of the U.S. in influencing these contexts in positive and negative ways. The important contribution of American Dreams, Global Visions is to bring together global issues of international politics and economics and their effects on migration and refugee situations, national issues of language and social policy, and local issues of education and finding ways to live together in an increasingly diverse society. Narratives of four immigrant families in the United States (Hmong, Mexican, Assyrian/Kurdish, Kosovar) and the teacher-researchers who are coming to know them form the heart of this work. The narratives are interwoven with data from the research and critical analysis of how the narratives reflect and embody local, national, and global contexts of power. The themes that are developed set the stage for critical dialogues about culture, language, history, and power. Central to the book is a rationale and methodology for teachers to conduct dialogic research with refugees and immigrants--research encompassing methods as once ethnographic, participatory, and narrative--which seeks to engage researchers and participants in dialogues that shed light on economic, political, social, and cultural relationships; to represent these relationships in texts; and to extend these dialogues to promote broader understanding and social justice in schools and communities. American Dreams, Global Visions will interest teachers, social workers, and others who work with immigrants and refugees; researchers, professionals, and students across the fields of education, language and culture, ethnic studies, American studies, and anthropology; and members of the general public interested in learning more about America's most recent newcomers. It is particularly appropriate for courses in foundations of education, multicultural education, comparative education, language and culture, and qualitative research.

American Dreams explores the evolution and multiple meanings of “the American Dream,” inviting students to consider how the concept has... changed over time, which groups have—and have not—been included in the dream, and how rhetoric has enabled the dreams of a few to be shared by millions.

"Here is the raw material for one thousand novels….incomparable."—Margaret AtwoodIn this unique look at one of our most pervasive national myths,... Studs Terkel persuades an extraordinary range of Americans to articulate their version of "The American Dream." Beginning with an embittered winner of the Miss U.S.A. contest who sees the con behind the dream of success and including an early interview with a highly ambitious Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terkel explores the diverse landscape of the promise of the United States—from farm kids dreaming of the city to city kids determined to get out, from the Boston Brahmin to the KKK member, from newly arrived immigrants to families who have lived in this country for generations, these narratives include figures both famous and infamous. Filtered through the lens of our leading oral historian, the chorus of voices in American Dreams highlights the hopes and struggles of coming to and living in the United States.Originally published in 1980, this is a classic work of oral history that provides an extraordinary and moving picture of everyday American lives.

This text comprises contemporary and historical readings, mostly short essays, organized around nine themes relevant to various aspects of the American... Dream. In addition to the 87 reading selections in Part II, this relatively compact reader offers five substantive chapters on reading and writing; each of these includes instruction, sample readings, and exercises. Substantial, unintrusive apparatus includes chapter introductions and suggested topics for writing, selection headnotes, vocabulary lists with definitions, and questions for discussion.

The story of our nation from the A-bomb to the iPhone-from bestselling historian H.W. Brands With keen insight and an impeccable sense of the spirit of... the times, H. W. Brands, one of today's preeminent historians, captures the American experience through the last six decades. As he chronicles politics, pop culture, and everything in between, Brands traces the changes we have gone through as a nation, recounting the great themes and events that have driven America- from the Yalta conference to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Apollo 11 to 9/11, My Lai to "shock and awe." In his adroit hands, movements and trends unfold through a character- driven narrative that shines a brilliant light on America's watershed moments and reveals a still unfolding legacy of dreams.

In this definitive work, two-time Pulitzer finalist Jason DeParle cuts between the mean streets of Milwaukee and the corridors of Washington to produce... a masterpiece of literary journalism. At the heart of the story are three cousins whose different lives follow similar trajectories. Leaving welfare, Angie puts her heart in her work. Jewell bets on an imprisoned man. Opal guards a tragic secret that threatens her kids and her life. DeParle traces  their family history back six generations to slavery and weaves poor people, politicians, reformers, and rogues into a spellbinding epic. With a vivid sense of humanity, DeParle demonstrates that although we live in a country where anyone can make it, generation after generation some families don’t. To read American Dream is to understand why.

As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented,... provocative, and timely anthology, gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries. Classics of the environmental imagination?the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold?s A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson?s Silent Spring?are set against the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. Here are some of America?s greatest and most impassioned writers, taking a turn toward nature and recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of ?nature? join ecologists? memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page color portfolio of illustrations.

During a twelve-month period in 1930 and 1931, Edmund Wilson wrote a series of lengthy articles which he then collected in a book called American... Jitters: A Year of the Slump. The resulting chronicle was hailed by the New York Times as "the best reporting that the period of depression has brought forth in the United States," and forms the heart of the present volume. In prose that is by turns dramatic and naturalistic, inflammatory and evocative, satirical and droll, Wilson painted an unforgettable portrait of a time when "the whole structure of American society seemed actually to be going to pieces." The American Earthquake bookends this chronicle with a collection of Wilson's non-literary articles—including criticism, reportage, and some fiction—from the years of "The Follies," 1923–1928, and the dawn of the New Deal, 1932–1934. During this period, Wilson had grown from a little-known journalist to one of the most important American literary and social critics of the century. The American Earthquake amply conveys the astonishing breadth of Wilson's talent, provides an unparalleled vision of one of the most troubling periods in American history, and, perhaps inadvertently, offers a self-portrait comparable to The Education of Henry Adams.

The long and complex history of the Eastern American Catholic Churches, in their many ethnic varieties, has been difficult to understand. This... clearly-written, engaging book changes all that. The author, Fr. Fred Saato, examines the long and often difficult history of the Eastern Catholics, e.g., Melkites, Maronites, Ruthenians, Armenians,Ukrainians, and their relationship, often tenuous, with Rome. The fascinating tale of the movement of these Churches from their embattled homelands to "separate-church-and-state" United States poses serious concerns for the languages, cultures, and traditions of these ancient faiths. At the same time, the flowering of their churches in an English-speaking context has caused many of these Eastern Churches to receive a new Pentecost, examined in this text.Unlike the other pamphlets and booklets on the Eastern Churches that generally speak only of the differences/likenesses between East and West, this text acts as pastoral aid for both the Western Catholic who wants to better understand the Churches of the East, and the Eastern Catholic American who may have lost touch with the singular attributes of their Eastern pedigree.  About the author: A priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton, Fr. Saato formerly served as its director of educational services. He is currently director of God With Us Publications, the catechetical publishing arm of the Eastern Catholic Bishops in the United States. 

This extraordinary text offers a proven combination of scholarship from an insightful economist and a renowned American historian. It recounts the... development of capitalism and the age of machines through the voices of business leaders, working people, inventors, and an unusual cast of presidents, generals, and patriots. Unlike other books in the field of economic history, this text tells a story. While not ignoring statistics and percentages, this narrative focuses on the fact that America's economic transformation is an extraordinary drama--a drama that continues today.

The Sixth Edition of American Economic History offers a non-technical presentation of U.S. economic history rich in both quantitative techniques and... economic theory. While retaining previous editions' hallmark readability and elegant writing style, as well as a focus on laws and institutions, the Sixth Edition brings the study of American economic history into the twenty-first century through updated coverage reflective of the latest scholarship. An expanded emphasis on current economic topics demonstrates the importance of viewing economic events as intricately connected to their historical context.