San Antonio College Library

"Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of "alternative facts" and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us."--

"In this book, H.W. Brands confronts the vital question of why an ever-increasing number of Americans do not trust the federal government to improve their lives and to heal major social ills. How is it that government has come to be seen as the source of many of our problems, rather than the potential means of their solution? How has the word liberal become a term of abuse in American political discourse?" "From the Revolution on, argues Brands, Americans...

What are we to make of the speed with which the new climate of national solidarity emerged after September 11? Does it not look strange against a backdrop of the much-touted divisiveness of American life? In truth, The Fractious Nation? makes clear, the contrast of the time of divisiveness before and the time of unity that followed is much too stark, indeed. Less than a year before two planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the 2000 presidential...

Nina Eliasoph's vivid portrait of American civic life reveals an intriguing culture of political avoidance. Open-ended political conversation among ordinary citizens is said to be the fount of democracy, but many Americans try hard to avoid appearing to care about politics. To discover how, where, and why Americans create this culture of avoidance, the author accompanied suburban volunteers, activists, and recreation club members for two and a half...

In A Cross of Iron, one of the country's most distinguished diplomatic historians addresses the domestic underside of America's expanding global role in the first decade of the Cold War. The result is the fullest account yet of one of the most important developments in recent American history - the emergence of a national security state where none had existed before. Drawing on prodigious research in archival and manuscript materials, Michael J. Hogan...

Perhaps, as is often noted, the American Revolution was not as convulsive or transforming as its French and Russian counterparts. Yet this sparkling analysis from Wood impressively argues that it was anything but conservative. The rebellion left fundamental institutions scathed. Wood pictures colonial society as overwhelmingly deferential--to king, to family patriarch, and to aristocrats--with "personal obligations and reciprocity that ran through...

"People around the world are confused and concerned. Is it a sign of strength or of weakness that the US has suddenly shifted from a politics of consensus to one of coercion on the world stage? Closely argued but clearly written, David Harvey, a leading social theorist of his generation, builds a conceptual framework to expose the underlying forces at work behind these momentous shifts in US policies and politics. The compulsions behind the projection...

Looks at how the energy resources in Texas have influenced politicians and advanced economic interests of the oil industry.

Drawing on a wide array of sources--including tabloid journalism, popular fiction, movies, and television shows--Philip Jenkins argues that a remarkable confluence of panics, scares, and a few genuine threats created a climate of fear that led to the conservative reaction. He identifies 1975 to 1986 as the watershed years. During this time, he says, there was a sharp increase in perceived threats to our security at home and abroad. At home, America...