eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 353
ISBN-13: 0195341589
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Draws on tabloid journalism, popular fiction, movies, and television, in an exploration of the confluence of panics, scares, and a few genuine threats that created a climate of fear that lead to America's conservative reaction to a decade of radicalism and an ascent into the landscape of the political Right.
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-03-15
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780198039723
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Why did the youthful optimism and openness of the sixties give way to Ronald Reagan and the spirit of conservative reaction--a spirit that remains ascendant today? 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 seemed to be threatened by monstrous criminals--serial killers, child abusers, Satanic cults, and predatory drug dealers, to name just a few. On the international scene, we were confronted by the Soviet Union and its evil empire, by OPEC with its stranglehold on global oil, by the Ayatollahs who made hostages of our diplomats in Iran. Increasingly, these dangers began to be described in terms of moral evil. Rejecting the radicalism of the '60s, which many saw as the source of the crisis, Americans adopted a more pessimistic interpretation of human behavior, which harked back to much older themes in American culture. This simpler but darker vision ultimately brought us Ronald Reagan and the ascendancy of the political Right, which more than two decades later shows no sign of loosening its grip. Writing in his usual crisp and witty prose, Jenkins offers a truly original and persuasive account of a period that continues to fascinate the American public. It is bound to captivate anyone who lived through this period, as well as all those who want to understand the forces that transformed--and continue to define--the American political landscape.
Author: Xiang-wu Liu
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2018-08-08
Total Pages: 505
ISBN-13: 1546249028
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Written in the form of satire, this tragic story begins with a false report of two signal flares fired by a class enemy in a small town in South China during Mao Zedongs Cultural Revolution. From 1966 to 1976, a haze of persecution, confusion, and hate befell China. The so-called class enemies were paraded through the streets, and schools were closed. Domestic calamities went head to head with political rebellions while spies ran rampant and property was cruelly confiscated. There was an eventual fight for power as brothers mistreated brothers, wives were stolen, and families murdered. Now, decades later, these silenced voices are remembered in order to avoid the repetition of history. A Decade of Nightmares reminds us of what is true, good, and beautiful but also what is false, evil, and ugly. This book dissects the soul of a nation from a historical cross-section. It calls for the return of dignity and reveals the brutal persecution of the soul. From the vicissitudes of fate, we see clearly the extent and depth of the devastation caused by a decade of disaster.
Author: Kim Newman
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 2011-04-18
Total Pages: 641
ISBN-13: 1408805030
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Now over twenty years old, the original edition ofNightmare Movies has retained its place as a true classic of cult filmcriticism. In this new edition, Kim Newman brings his seminal work completelyup to date, both reassessing his earlier evaluations and adding a second partthat analyses the last two decades of horror films with all the wit,intelligence and insight for which he is known. Since the publication of thefirst edition, horror has been on a gradual upswing and has gained a new andstronger hold over the film industry. Newman negotiates his way through a vastback catalogue of horror and charts the on-screen progress of our collectivefears and bogeymen, from the low-budget slasher movies of the 1960s, through tothe slick releases of the 2000s. Nightmare Movies is an invaluable companion that not onlyprovides a newly updated history of the darker side of film but also acts as atruly entertaining guide with which to explore the less well-trodden paths ofhorror and rediscover the classics with a newly instructed eye.
Author: Anne-Marie Cusac
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2009-03-17
Total Pages: 333
ISBN-13: 0300155492
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The statistics are startling. Since 1973, America’s imprisonment rate has multiplied over five times to become the highest in the world. More than two million inmates reside in state and federal prisons. What does this say about our attitudes toward criminals and punishment? What does it say about us? This book explores the cultural evolution of punishment practices in the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac first looks at punishment in the nation’s early days, when Americans repudiated Old World cruelty toward criminals and emphasized rehabilitation over retribution. This attitude persisted for some 200 years, but in recent decades we have abandoned it, Cusac shows. She discusses the dramatic rise in the use of torture and restraint, corporal and capital punishment, and punitive physical pain. And she links this new climate of punishment to shifts in other aspects of American culture, including changes in dominant religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, politics, television shows, movies, and more. America now punishes harder and longer and with methods we would have rejected as cruel and unusual not long ago. These changes are profound, their impact affects all our lives, and we have yet to understand the full consequences.
Author: Phil Tinline
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
Published: 2022-06-23
Total Pages: 556
ISBN-13: 1787388840
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? To find out, journalist Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born. How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again? Tinline brings to life those times, past and present, when the great compromise holding democracy together has come apart; when the political class has been forced to make a choice of nightmares. This lively, original account of panic and chaos reveals how apparent catastrophes can clear the path to a new era. The Death of Consensus will make you see British democracy differently.
Author: Andreas Killen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2008-12-10
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 159691999X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →1973 marked the end of the 1960s and the birth of a new cultural sensibility. A year of shattering political crisis, 1973 was defined by defeat in Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the oil crisis and the Watergate hearings. It was also a year of remarkable creative ferment. From landmark movies such as The Exorcist, Mean Streets, and American Graffiti to seminal books such as Fear of Flying and Gravity's Rainbow, from the proto-punk band the New York Dolls to the first ever reality TV show, The American Family, the cultural artifacts of the year reveal a nation in the middle of a serious identity crisis. 1973 Nervous Breakdown offers a fever chart of a year of uncertainty and change, a year in which post-war prosperity crumbled and modernism gave way to postmodernism in a lively and revelatory analysis of one of the most important periods in the second half of the 20th century.
Author: William L. Shirer
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Published: 2014-01-30
Total Pages: 963
ISBN-13: 0795334265
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The famous journalist and author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich documents his front row seat at the pivotal events leading up to World War II. In the second of a three-volume series, William L. Shirer tells the story of his own eventful life, detailing the most notable moments of his career as a journalist stationed in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. Shirer was there while Hitler celebrated his new domination of Germany, unleashed the Blitzkrieg on Poland, and began the conflict that would come to be known as World War II. This remarkable account tells the story of an American reporter caught in a maelstrom of war and politics, desperately trying to warn Europe and the United States about the dangers to come. This memoir gives readers a chance to relive one of the most turbulent periods in twentieth century history—painting a stunningly intimate portrait of a dangerous decade. “Mr. Shirer stirs the ashes of memory in a personal way that results in both a strong view of world events and of the need for outspoken journalism. Had Mr. Shirer been merely a bland ‘objective’ reporter without passion while covering Hitler’s Third Reich, this book and his other histories could never have been written.” —The New York Times
Author: Galway Kinnell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1971
Total Pages: 92
ISBN-13: 9780395120989
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A book-length poem evokes the horror, anguish, and brutality of 20th century history.
Author: Irvine Welsh
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780393315639
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →While lying in a coma in an Edinburgh hospital, Roy Strang experiences strange hallucinatory adventures that recount how he came to be in his current state, from his struggles with his disturbed family to a bizarre quest in Africa.
