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The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2020 (The Best American Series)
Par Michio Kaku, Jaime Green. 2020
A collection of the best science and nature writing published in North America in 2019, guest edited by New York…
Times best-selling author and ground-breaking physicist Dr. Michio Kaku.&“Scientists and science writers have a monumental task: making science exciting and relevant to the average person, so that they care,&” writes renowned American physicist Michio Kaku. &“If we fail in this endeavor, then we must face dire consequences.&” From the startlingly human abilities of AI, to the devastating accounts of California&’s forest fires, to the impending traffic jam on the moon, the selections in this year&’s Best American Science and Nature Writing explore the latest mysteries and marvels occurring in our labs and in nature. These gripping narratives masterfully translate the work of today&’s brightest scientists, offering a clearer view of our world and making us care. THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2020 INCLUDES RIVKA GALCHEN • ADAM GOPNIK • FERRIS JABR • JOSHUA SOKOL • MELINDA WENNER MOYER • SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE • NATALIE WOLCHOVER and othersLetters to a Young Doctor
Par Richard Selzer. 1996
A timeless collection of advice, operating-room wisdom, and reflections on the practice of medicine, from the &“best of the writing…
surgeons&” (Chicago Tribune). &“Richard Selzer does for medicine what Jacques Cousteau does for the sea,&” raved The New York Times of this extraordinary collection. &“He transports the reader to a world that most of us never see, a world that is vivid and powerful, often overwhelming, occasionally fantastic.&” In this collection of highly candid, insightful, and unexpectedly humorous essays, the erstwhile surgeon turned Yale School of Medicine professor addresses both the brutality and the beauty of a profession in which saving and losing lives is all in a day&’s work. A number of these pieces take the form of letters offering counsel to aspiring physicians. Featuring wry and witty observations on matters of life and death, medical ethics, and the awesome responsibilities of being a surgeon, Letters to a Young Doctor should be required reading for all medical students—and anyone interested in the endless miracle that is the human body. "No one writes about the practice of medicine with Selzer's unique combination of mystery and wonder,&” observed the Los Angeles Times, while The New York Times praised Selzer&’s &“marvelous insight and potent imagery&” for making &“his tales of surgery and medicine both works of art and splendid tools of instruction.&”I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays
Par Tim Kreider. 2019
*A People Top 10 Book of 2018*The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains…
his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.Psychologists have told him he&’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he&’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider&’s humor).&“Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness&” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim&’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it&’s the most enduring relationship he&’ll ever have.&“In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris&” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is &“heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious&” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider&’s place among the best essayists working today.The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
Par Will Durant. 2002
A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time—listed in accessible and…
succinct form—by one of the world's greatest scholars.From the &“Hundred Best Books&” to the &“Ten Greatest Thinkers&” to the &“Ten Greatest Poets,&” here is a concise collection of the world&’s most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon—and wrote about—the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. His selections have finally been brought together in a single, compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of the greatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers into forming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed their surroundings and biases and enter &“The Country of the Mind,&” a timeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell.From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in the human species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant's optimism. This is a book containing the absolute best of our heritage, passed on for the benefit of future generations. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple and exciting terms, this is a pocket-size liberal arts and humanist curriculum in one volume.Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing
Par Jennifer Weiner. 2016
A “fiercely funny, powerfully smart, and remarkably brave” memoir from a #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Cheryl Strayed, #1 New…
York Times–bestselling author of Wild).Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee. In this “unflinching look at her own experiences” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer fashions uproarishly funny and moving tales of modern-day womanhood.No subject is off-limits in these intimate and honest essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother’s coming out of the closet, her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to hearing her six-year-old daughter say the F word—fat—for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experience, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.“Generous and entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to read it again.” —TheSkimm“I’m mad Jennifer’s Weiner’s first book of essays is as wonderful as her fiction. You will love this book and wish she was your friend.” —Mindy Kaling, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Why Not Me?The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays
Par Joan Acocella. 2024
A collection of the New Yorker critic's finest essays, which examine the books that reveal and record our world.Joan Acocella…
was “one of our finest cultural critics” (Edward Hirsch), and she had the rare ability to examine literature and unearth the lives contained within it—its authors, its subjects, and the communities from which it springs. In her hands, arts criticism was a celebration and an investigation, and her essays pulse with unadulterated enthusiasm. As Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “Hers is a vision that allows art its mystery but not its pretensions, to which she is acutely sensitive. What better instincts could a critic have?”The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays gathers twenty-four essays from the final decade and a half of Acocella’s career, as well as an introduction that frames her simple preoccupations: “life and art.” In agile, inspired prose, she moves from J. R. R. Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf to the life of Richard Pryor, from surveying profanity to untangling the book of Job. Her appetite (and reading list) knew no bounds. This collection is a joy and a revelation, a library in itself, and Acocella is our dream companion among its shelves.Includes 25 black-and-white imagesThe Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
Par Will Durant. 2002
A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time—listed in accessible and…
succinct form—by one of the world's greatest scholars.From the &“Hundred Best Books&” to the &“Ten Greatest Thinkers&” to the &“Ten Greatest Poets,&” here is a concise collection of the world&’s most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon—and wrote about—the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. His selections have finally been brought together in a single, compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of the greatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers into forming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed their surroundings and biases and enter &“The Country of the Mind,&” a timeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell.From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in the human species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant's optimism. This is a book containing the absolute best of our heritage, passed on for the benefit of future generations. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple and exciting terms, this is a pocket-size liberal arts and humanist curriculum in one volume.I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays
Par Tim Kreider. 2019
*A People Top 10 Book of 2018*The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains…
his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.Psychologists have told him he&’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he&’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider&’s humor).&“Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness&” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim&’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it&’s the most enduring relationship he&’ll ever have.&“In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris&” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is &“heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious&” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider&’s place among the best essayists working today.Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers (John Gierach's Fly-fishing Library)
Par John Gierach. 2020
Witty, shrewd, and always a joy to read, John Gierach, &“America&’s best fishing writer&” (Houston Chronicle) and favorite streamside philosopher,…
has earned the following of &“legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life&” (Kirkus Reviews).&“After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master&” (Forbes). Now, in his latest original collection, Gierach shows us why fly-fishing is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong with the world.&“Gierach&’s deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller…His alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber&” (Publishers Weekly). In Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, Gierach looks back to the long-ago day when he bought his first resident fishing license in Colorado, where the fishing season never ends, and just knew he was in the right place. And he succinctly sums up part of the appeal of his sport when he writes that it is &“an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives.&”Lifelong fisherman though he is, Gierach can write with self-deprecating humor about his own fishing misadventures, confessing that despite all his experience, he is still capable of blowing a strike by a fish &“in the usual amateur way.&” &“Arguably the best fishing writer working&” (The Wall Street Journal), Gierach offers witty, trenchant observations not just about fly-fishing itself but also about how one&’s love of fly-fishing shapes the world that we choose to make for ourselves.Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases
Par Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jacqueline Woodson, Ann Patchett, Brit Bennett, Steven Okazaki, David Handler, Geraldine Brooks, Yaa Gyasi, Sergio De La Pava, Dave Eggers, Timothy Egan, Li Yiyun, Meg Wolitzer, Hector Tobar, Aleksandar Hemon, Elizabeth Strout, Rabih Alameddine, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Jonathan Lethem, Salman Rushdie, Lauren Groff, Jennifer Egan, Scott Turow, Morgan Parker, Victor Lavalle, Michael Cunningham, Neil Gaiman, Jesmyn Ward, Moses Sumney, George Saunders, Marlon James, William Finnegan, Anthony Doerr, C. J. Anders, Brenda J. Childs, Andrew Sean Greer, Louise Erdrich, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. 2020
The American Civil Liberties Union partners with award-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman in this &“forceful, beautifully written&” (Associated…
Press) collection that brings together many of our greatest living writers, each contributing an original piece inspired by a historic ACLU case. On January 19, 1920, a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, and Crystal Eastman, founded the American Civil Liberties Union. A century after its creation, the ACLU remains the nation&’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.In collaboration with the ACLU, authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays &“full of struggle, emotion, fear, resilience, hope, and triumph&” (Los Angeles Review of Books) about landmark cases in the organization&’s one-hundred-year history. Fight of the Century takes you inside the trials and the stories that have shaped modern life. Some of the most prominent cases that the ACLU has been involved in—Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona—need little introduction. Others you may never even have heard of, yet their outcomes quietly defined the world we live in now. Familiar or little-known, each case springs to vivid life in the hands of the acclaimed writers who dive into the history, narrate their personal experiences, and debate the questions at the heart of each issue.Hector Tobar introduces us to Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the now-iconic Miranda rights—which the police would later read to the man suspected of killing him. Yaa Gyasi confronts the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, in which the ACLU submitted a friend of- the-court brief questioning why a nation that has sent men to the moon still has public schools so unequal that they may as well be on different planets. True to the ACLU&’s spirit of principled dissent, Scott Turow offers a blistering critique of the ACLU&’s stance on campaign finance.These powerful stories, along with essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and many more, remind us that the issues the ACLU has engaged over the past one hundred years remain as vital as ever today, and that we can never take our liberties for granted.Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.On Death (On Series)
Par John Donne. 2024
Dean of St. Paul' s, John Donne was feted in his day not just as a poet but also as…
an inspired and inspiring preacher, and these four extended meditations on death are amongst his most powerful and dramatic writings. The magnificent “ Death' s Duel” is published here alongside his Lent sermons for the two previous years (1628 and 1629), along with his Easter Day sermon of 1619, preached on the occasion of the King' s sickness. Together they create a fascinating study of early 17th-century attitudes towards death.Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin
Par Andre Dubus III. 2024
From the literary master and best-selling author of Townie, reflections on a life of challenges, contradictions, and fulfillments. During childhood…
summers in Louisiana, Andre Dubus III’s grandfather taught him that men’s work is hard. As an adult, whether tracking down a drug lord in Mexico as a bounty hunter or grappling with privilege while living with a rich girlfriend in New York City, Dubus worked—at being a better worker and a better human being. In Ghost Dogs, Dubus’s nonfiction prowess is on full display in his retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs, and pain. In his longest essay, “If I Owned a Gun,” Dubus reflects on the empowerment and shame he felt in keeping a gun, and his decision, ultimately, to give it up. Elsewhere, he writes of a violent youth and of settled domesticity and fatherhood, about the omnipresent expectations and contradictions of masculinity, about the things writers remember and those they forget. Drawing upon kindred literary spirits from Rilke to Rumi to Tim O’Brien, Ghost Dogs renders moments of personal revelation with emotional generosity and stylistic grace, ultimately standing as essential witness and testimony to the art of the essay.Fiscal Choices: Canada after the Pandemic (The Johnson-Shoyama Series on Public Policy)
Par Michael M. Atkinson, Haizhen Mou. 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that governments can quickly respond to a fiscal crisis without becoming mired in unproductive wrangling. But…
the pandemic has also revealed the limits of traditional policy instruments in stabilizing the economy, controlling inflation, and fostering economic growth. Fiscal Choices sheds light on the economic dimensions of COVID-19 and examines the state of Canada’s fiscal policy and fiscal health following the pandemic. The book covers a cluster of key fiscal policy topics: the overall capacity of government, the growth of inequalities, the management of sovereign debt, and the troubled institutions of federalism and parliamentary government. The book draws upon candid, in-depth interviews with over 70 former and current politicians, public servants, and academic experts who aim to establish a sustainable future within an accountable political system. The book argues that although those who are entrusted with the instruments of power are intelligent and well meaning, they are reluctant to take risks or abandon well-known, if poorly performing, formulas. It concludes with a set of predictions and prescriptions rooted in a realistic interpretation of Canada’s political economy. Ultimately, Fiscal Choices presents a sober assessment of federalism and parliamentary government as instruments of democratic accountability.Understanding American Politics, Third Edition
Par Stephen Brooks, Donald E. Abelson, Melissa Haussman. 2024
Understanding American Politics provides a unique introduction to the contemporary political landscape of the United States. Placing the study of…
American politics within a broader context of other western democracies, this textbook reinforces the idea that in order to understand the American system, students need to begin by understanding their own democracy. This balanced, comparative perspective is integrated throughout to better explain and highlight the ways in which American politics and government work in relation to other democracies. Streamlined to fit easily in today’s US politics courses, the third edition is fully updated and revised to engage with key issues in American politics while providing an accessible entry to the foundations of American government that detangles the polarized analysis characterizing so much information on the study of American politics. New chapters on special interest groups and the distinct American mediascape feature alongside up-to-date analysis on civil rights and inequalities incorporated in all chapters. Ultimately, this textbook enables non-American readers to understand the how and why of American politics by relating the subject to the experience and institutions of their own countries.On Stony Ground presents a historical ethnographic account of a generation of Mennonites from the Soviet Union who, following Russia’s…
revolution and civil war, immigrated to Manitoba during the 1920s. James Urry examines how they came to terms with a new land and with their new neighbours, including other Mennonites, Ukrainians, French Canadians, and Indigenous Peoples. The book discusses the impact of the Great Depression and how the immigrants struggled with their identity in Canada as Hitler and Stalin rose to power in Germany and the USSR. It reveals the immigrants’ desire to maintain their faith, language, and culture while encouraging their children to take advantage of an education conducted mainly in English. On Stony Ground explores how prosperity following the Second World War helped the immigrants to build a community in conjunction with others, including Mennonites and non-Mennonites, and to accept their new home in Canada.Friends and Enemies: Essays in Canada’s Foreign Relations
Par J. L. Granatstein. 2024
Friends and Enemies presents a collection of essays on Canadian foreign policy written by J.L. Granatstein, one of the leading…
political and military historians in the country. The essays cover a period primarily from the Second World War through to the early 2000s and examine policy under prime ministers Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau. Based on interviews and extensive archival research, the essays reveal how Granatstein’s views shifted as he reacted to altered conditions in Canada, Canadian alliances, and the world situation.Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics
Par Jack Lucas. 2024
One of the most peculiar features of municipal politics in Canada is how frequently local politicians, activists, and scholars disagree…
about how to describe the municipal arena. For some, municipal politics is distinct from other levels of government, a world of non-ideological elections, pragmatic and technical policymaking, and issue-by-issue policy coalitions. Others argue that municipal politics is similar to politics at other scales, with persistent axes of political disagreement and a recognizable “left” and “right.” This recurring debate features prominently in municipal election campaigns across Canada. In Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics, Jack Lucas investigates municipal ideology in Canada. Using data from original surveys of municipal politicians and the Canadian public, the book reveals how municipal politics is clearly structured by left-right ideology. It shows that municipal politicians represent their constituents’ ideological preferences quite well: they understand their constituents’ ideological perspectives, they align with their constituents’ preferences, and they are elected in part because of their ideological alignment with voters. A lively and accessible study, Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics will appeal to readers interested in municipal politics, political ideology, and political representation.My Caesarean: Twenty-one Mothers On The C-section Experience And After
Par Amanda Fields and Rachel Moritz. 2019
Twenty-one vivid, moving essays on caesarean birth “No one talks about C-sections as surgery,” writes SooJin Pate. “They talk about…
it as if it’s just another way—albeit more convenient way—of giving birth.” The twenty-one essays in My Caesarean add back to the conversation the missing voices of a vast, invisible sisterhood. Robin Schoenthaler reflects: “A C-section for us meant life.” And yet, women who don’t give birth vaginally—by choice or necessity—often feel stigmatized. “My son’s birth was not a test I needed to pass,” writes Sara Bates. “As if growing a human inside another human for nine months then caring for it the rest of its life isn’t enough,” adds Mary Pan, herself a physician. Alongside their personal stories, the writers—decorated novelists, poets, and essayists—address the history of the C-section as well as its risks, social inequities, impact on the body, and psychological aftermath. My Caesarean is a heartfelt meditation, offering much-needed comfort through shared experience. Contributors include: Catherine Newman, Judy Batalion, Nicole Cooley, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lisa Solod, Misty Urban, Jacinda Townsend, Mary Pan, Robin Schoenthaler, Elizabeth Noll, Jen Fitzgerald, Tyrese Coleman, SooJin Pate, Daniela Montoya-Barthelemy, Cameron Dezen Hammon, LaToya Jordan, Sara Bates, Susan Hoffmann, and Alicia Jo Rabins.Sightlines: A Conversation with the Natural World
Par Kathleen Jamie. 2012
Winner of the 2014 Orion Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the John Burroughs Association 2014 Medal for Distinguished Natural…
History Book In Sightlines, Kathleen Jamie reports from the field—from her native Scottish “byways and hills” to the frigid Arctic in fourteen enthralling essays. She dissects whatever her gaze falls upon—vistas of cells beneath a hospital microscope, orcas rounding a headland, the aurora borealis lighting up the frozen sea. In so doing, she questions what, exactly, constitutes “nature,” and upends the idea that it is always picturesque. Written with precision, subtlety, and wry humor, Sightlines urges the reader: “Keep looking, even when there’s nothing much to see.”A Brief History of America (Brief Histories)
Par Jeremy Black. 2024
The next in this series of admirably concise yet nevertheless comprehensive titles looks at the history of all Americans as…
well as America; its environmental history and its linkage to economic history; the political shaping of America; and America in the world, from being a colony to post-Cold War America.Black examines the environmental history of America and its linkage to economic history, crucially, the clearing of forests; the spread of agriculture; mineral, coal and iron extraction; industrialisation; urbanisation; and current and growing climate-crisis concerns.He explores the political shaping of America: indigenous American polities; free European and unfree African settlements; the creation of an American State, and its successes and failures from 1783 to 1861; Civil War; democratisation; the rise of the federal Government from the 1930s; the Civil Rights movement from the 1950s onwards, and tensions in more recent governance. The book considers America in the World: as a pre-colonial and colonised space; as a newly-independent power, then a rising international one, the Cold War and the USA as the sole superpower in the post-Cold-War world. These key themes are tackled chronologically for the sake of clarity, beginning with the geological creation of North America, human settlement and native American cultures to 1500; the arrival of Europeans and enslaved Africans to 1770 - the Spanish and French in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, the English and French, and the Dutch and Swedes further north.The focus then shifts to settler conflicts with native Americans and between European powers leading to a British-dominated North America by 1770. Then the end of European rule and the foundation of an American trans-continental state. The section dealing with the years from 1848 to 1880 looks at the Civil War between North and South, reconstruction and the creation of a new society.Between 1880 and 1920, the United States became an industrial powerhouse and an international power, also a colonial power - the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico - and a participant in the First World War.The interwar years, 1921 to 1945, brought turmoil: the Roaring Twenties; the growth of Hollywood; Prohibition; jazz; the Great Depression and the New Deal; finally the Second World War. 1945 to 1968 was the American Age, brimming with confidence and success as the world's leading power, but also the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Subsequent years to 1992 brought crisis and recovery: Watergate, the Reagan years and the USA as the sole world superpower.In bringing the book right up to the present day, Black looks at factors that divide American society and economy, though it remains a country of tremendous energy.