Drawing heavily on the theories of the great Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, this politico-military assessment of the Vietnam War analyzes the... strategic and tactical ideologies of the U.S. Army during the 20th century. Particularly relevant today, it stresses the futility of any military action without the full support of the people.

This book provides a comprehensive review of all the critical elements relevant to the growing phenomenon of gang life. It is designed to provide the... necessary background material of gangs so that readers gain a clear idea of the cultural and structural components of gang activity. This book provides an examination of the history of gangs, socio-psychological aspects of individual and group behavior, the major theories and socio-economic reasons as to why gangs exist, descriptions of all types of gangs, as well as law enforcement techniques. For those in law enforcement and criminal justice careers as well as the sociology field.

American Studies is a vigorous, bold account of the changes in the field of American Studies over the last thirty-five years. Through this set of... carefully selected key essays by an editorial board of expert scholars, the book demonstrates how changes in the field have produced new genealogies that tell different histories of both America and the study of America. Charts the evolution of American Studies from the end of World War II to the present day by showcasing the best scholarship in this fieldAn introductory essay by the distinguished editorial board highlights developments in the field and places each essay in its historical and theoretical contextExplores topics such as American politics, history, culture, race, gender and working lifeShows how changing perspectives have enabled older concepts to emerge in a different context

What becomes of "national knowledge" in our age of globalization? If dramatic changes in technology, commerce, and social relations are undermining... familiar connections between culture and place, what happens to legacies of learning that put the nation at the center of the study of history, culture, language, politics, and geography? In short, what remains of American Studies? At a critical moment, this book offers a richly textured historical perspective on where our notions of national knowledge-and our sense of American Studies-have come from and where they may lead in a future of new ideas about culture and community. The America that seems to be disappearing before our very eyes is, George Lipsitz argues, actually the cumulative creation of yesterday's struggles over identity, culture, and power. With examples from statistics and history, poster designs and music lyrics, Lipsitz shows how American Studies has been shaped by the social movements of the 1930s, 1960s, and 1980s. His analysis reveals the sedimented history of social movement contestation contained in contemporary popular music, visual art, and cinema. Finally, Lipsitz identifies the ways in which the globalization of commerce and culture are producing radically new understandings of politics, performance, consumption, knowledge, and nostalgia; the changing realities present not so much a danger as a clear challenge to a still-evolving American Studies-a challenge that this book helps us to confront wisely, flexibly, and effectively. George Lipsitz is professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego, where he serves as director of the Thurgood Marshall Institute. He is the author of many books, including Time Passages (see right), The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (1998), and Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Poetics of Place (1997). Critical American Studies Series, volume 1

A brilliant new collection by Elizabeth Alexander, whose "poems bristle with the irresistible quality of a world seen fresh" (Rita Dove, The Washington... Post)Too many people have seen too muchand lived to tell, or not tell, or tellwith their silent, patterned bodies,their glass eyes, gone legs, flower-printed flesh . . .-from "Notes From"In her fourth remarkable collection, Elizabeth Alexander voices the outcries, dreams, and histories of an African American tradition that goes back to the slave rebellion on the Amistad and to the artists' canvases of nineteenth-century America. In persona poems, historical narratives, jazz riffs, sonnets, elegies, and a sequence of ars poetica, American Sublime is Alexander's most vivid and varied collection and affirms her place as one of America's most lively and gifted writers. "Alexander is an unusual thing, a sensualist of history, a romanticist of race. She weaves biography, history, experience, pop culture and dream. Her poems make the public and private dance together."--Chicago Tribune

The ultimate collection of weird and frightening American fiction As Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has... only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation's brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and-of course- Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics.

American Swastika takes readers through hidden enclaves of hate in America, exploring how White Supremacy movements thrive nationwide, even as the... country on the surface advocates racial equality. The authors explain the difference between movements such as the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and Skinheads, among others, then discuss the various ways White Supremacists cultivate, maintain, and spread their beliefs, largely under the radar of most Americans. Authors Pete Simi and Robert Futrell draw on over a decade of research and interviews, from the infamous Hayden Lake Aryan compound in Northern Idaho, to private homes in L.A., to hate music concerts around the country. Through descriptive case studies, the authors look at hate in the home, talking with parents who aim to raise 'little Hitler' and discussing the impact home schooling and cultural isolation can have on children. The authors also describe Aryan crash pads, Bible studies, and rituals, take readers through the hate music scene from underground bars to massive rallies, and examine how the internet has shaped communication and created disturbing new virtual communities. American Swastika shows how White Power groups sustain themselves and grow, even in a nation that preaches equality and tolerance, and looks toward how we can work to prevent future violence.

Stunning portraits and stirring words of brave citizens from all walks of life. As we in the United States have the right to speak the truth, we also... have the need to be told the truth. Americans have used this freedom to motivate and empower others to challenge the status quo. Artist Robert Shetterly?s fifty portraits offer a powerful perspective on what it means to be American and to be part of a democratic society.

We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination--in the underworld that connects Miami, Los... Angeles, Chicago, D.C. . . . Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy . . . Where the right drugs, the right amount of cash, the right murder, buys a moment of a man's loyalty . . . Where three renegade law-enforcement officers--a former L.A. cop and two FBI agents--are shaping events with the virulence of their greed and hatred, riding full-blast shotgun into history. . . .James Ellroy's trademark nothing-spared rendering of reality, blistering language, and relentless narrative pace are here in electrifying abundance, put to work in a novel as shocking and daring as anything he's written: a secret history that zeroes in on a time still shrouded in secrets and blows it wide open.

 In American Taxation, American Slavery, Robin Einhorn shows the deep, broad, and continuous influence of slavery on America’s fear and loathing of... taxes. From the earliest colonial times right up to the Civil War, slaveholding elites feared strong and democratic government as a threat to the institution of slavery. Einhorn reveals how the heated battles over taxation, the power to tax, and the distribution of tax burdens were rooted not in debates over personal liberty but rather in the rights of slaveholders to hold human beings as property. Along the way, she exposes the antidemocratic origins of the enduringly popular Jeffersonian rhetoric about weak government, showing that state governments were actually more democratic—and stronger—where most people were free.            A strikingly original look at the role of slavery in the making of the United States, American Taxation, American Slavery will prove essential to anyone interested in the history of American government and politics.       “For those seeking to understand complex and ever-changing systems of taxation, their relationship to local and national politics, and how the state and local systems were shaped by the ‘peculiar institution,’ this seminal and innovative investigation will provide many answers.”—Loren Schweninger, American Historical Review      “[Einhorn] tells what might have been a complicated story in an engaging and accessible manner. It is her contention that slavery and the reaction to it to a great extent shaped the kind of nation we are today, because it shaped the kind of tax policies we constructed to fund the kind of government we got. . . . Required reading for anyone who ponders the impact of slavery on our lives today.”—James Srodes, Washington Times