State of the Union


Book Description

A political anthology from the front lines of American poetics.




A More Perfect Union


Book Description

America is at a pivotal crossroads. The soul of our nation is at stake and in peril. A new public narrative is needed to unite Americans around common values and to counter the increasing discord and acrimony in our politics and culture. The process of healing and creating a more perfect union in our nation must start now. The moral vision of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community, which animated and galvanized the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, provides a hopeful way forward. In A More Perfect Union, Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, reimagines a contemporary version of the Beloved Community that will inspire and unite Americans across generations, geographic and class divides, racial and gender differences, faith traditions, and ideological leanings. In the Beloved Community, neither privilege nor punishment is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status, and everyone is able to realize their full potential and thrive. Building the Beloved Community requires living out a series of commitments, such as true equality, radical welcome, transformational interdependence, E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one"), environmental stewardship, nonviolence, and economic equity. By building the Beloved Community we unify the country around a shared moral vision that transcends ideology and partisanship, tapping into our most sacred civic and religious values, enabling our nation to live up to its best ideals and realize a more perfect union.




Union


Book Description

Two friends—a Democrat and a Republican—travel across America "on a deeply personal journey through the heart of a divided nation . . . to find growth, hope and fundamental strength in their own lives" (Bob Woodward) and the country they love, in good times and bad. In the year before Donald Trump was elected president, Jordan Blashek, a Republican Marine, and Chris Haugh, a Democrat and son of a single mother from Berkeley, CA, formed an unlikely friendship. Jordan was fresh off his service in the Marines and feeling a bit out of place at Yale Law School. Chris was yearning for a sense of mission after leaving Washington D.C. Over the months, Jordan and Chris's friendship blossomed not in spite of, but because of, their political differences. So they decided to hit the road in search of reasons to strengthen their bond in an era of strife and partisanship. What follows is a three-year adventure story, across forty-four states and along 20,000 miles of road to find out exactly where the American experiment stands at the close of the second decade of the twenty-first century. In their search, Jordan and Chris go from the tear gas-soaked streets of a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona to the Mexican highways running between Tijuana and Juarez. They witness the full scope of American life, from lobster trawlers and jazz clubs of Portland and New Orleans to the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma and the prisons of Detroit, where former addicts and inmates painstakingly put their lives back together. Union is a road narrative, a civics lesson, and an unforgettable window into one epic friendship. We ride along with Jordan and Chris for the whole journey, listening in on front-seat arguments and their conversations with Americans from coast to coast. We also peer outside the car to understand America's hot-button topics, including immigration, mass incarceration, and the military-civilian divide. And by the time Jordan and Chris kill the engine for the last time, they answer one of the most pressing questions of our time: How far apart are we really?




State of the Union


Book Description

A heartbreaking, funny, and honest look inside of a marriage falling apart and the lengths a couple would go to in order to fix it from the bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, About a Boy and High Fidelity Now an Emmy award winning SundanceTV series starring Rosamund Pike and Chris O'Dowd Tom and Louise meet in a pub before their couple's therapy appointment. Married for years, they thought they had a stable home life--until a recent incident pushed them to the brink. Going to therapy seemed like the perfect solution. But over drinks before their appointment, they begin to wonder: what if marriage is like a computer? What if you take it apart to see what's in there, but then you're left with a million pieces? Unfolding in the minutes before their weekly therapy sessions, the ten-chapter conversation that ensues is witty and moving, forcing them to look at their marriage--and, for the first time in a long time, at each other.




Our Union


Book Description

The post-war period witnessed dramatic changes in the lives of working-class families. Wages rose, working hours were reduced, pension plans and state social security measures offered greater protection against unemployment, illness, and old age, the standard of living improved, and women and members of immigrant communities entered the labour market in growing numbers. Existing studies of the post-war period have focused above all on unions at the national and international levels, on the "post-war settlement," including the impact of Fordism, and on the chiefly economic issues surrounding collective bargaining, while relatively scant attention has been paid to the role of the union local in daily working-class experience. In Our Union, Jason Russell argues that the union local, as an institution of working-class organization, was a key agent for the Canadian working class as it sought to create a new place for itself in the decades following World War II. Using UAW/CAW Local 27, a broad-based union in London, Ontario, as a case study, he offers a ground-level look at union membership, including some of the social and political agendas that informed union activities. As he writes in the introduction, "This book is as much an outgrowth of years of rank-and-file union activism as it is the result of academic curiosity." Drawing on interviews with former members of UAW/CAW Local 27 as well as on archival sources, Russell offers a narrative that will speak not only to labour historians but to the people about whom they write.




Age of Union


Book Description

Age of Union is a compelling guide for igniting today's changemaker—those ready to take action for our planet and its inhabitants. We have seen growing divisions between people on either side of gender, religious, political and cultural borders for too long. Meanwhile, global health crises, environmental degradation, and human-accelerated climate change pose immense challenges to our future that we must now face quickly and cooperatively. Separation has to be confronted head-on. We can do this each and every day with meaningful, impactful acts of union. There is a greater need for unity than ever before. Dax Dasilva presents a guide to take simple measures to promote our collective well-being and union. Grounded in four pillars—leadership, culture, spirituality, and nature—the book advocates that the time for change is now and that our choices are the catalyst. We are all in this together, so let us move toward an Age of Union. May it strengthen your resolve to start building a kinder, greener and more livable world where everyone and everything can thrive. You are the changemaker. For more information visit www.ageofunion.com Reviews "A compassionate call for the cultural revolution needed to take care of each other and our planet." —Marika Anthony-Shaw, Founder & CEO of Plus1.org “Humans are finally evolving and are becoming more aware of the fact that saving the world is a priority for everyone today.’ —Carmen Busquets, WWF Council Member, Humanitarian and FashionTech Entrepreneur (Net-a-Porter, Moda Operandi, FarFetched, and BoF) “This book is a lens that helps focus on what really matters. We get so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget how our actions affect our environment daily. This book is very relevant today, as it’s time for everyone to become leaders of change and inspire others to do the same. Dax Dasilva portrays that an Age of Union is here and empowers others to rise to the occasion.” —Ekaterina Sky, Wildlife Conservation Artist “Age of Union is the much needed call to action our world needs right now. Dax Dasilva speaks to the inherent leader in every one of us and provides a guide so that the future changemakers of tomorrow can get started today.” —Jonathan Kanevsky MD “The first of its kind, Age of Union brings readers along an intimate journey that perfectly balances spiritual, entrepreneurial, and environmental guidance, all of which got me wanting to take action now.” —Shira Laza, on-air personality and founder, What’s Trending "Now more then ever we need to be more connected and share ideas to collectively save the planet. This book is a great starting point and guide while trying to shift to this new paradigm”. —Seth Troxler, International DJ “Age of Union is a well rounded read for anyone who wants to explore the subject of growth, change and connectedness. Especially in times like these, it gives hope and helps to understand how we can make a difference by transforming our relationship with ourselves and the world around us.“ —Annette & Daniela Fedler, Sustainable Luxury Design Consultants & Eco Friendly Fashion Designers "In Age of Union, Dax Dasilva shares with us a manifesto for the guiding principles that makes him a true leader in the ecological transition and the social evolution for a kinder world that will take us to the next phase of humanity. Age of Union is a mirror to be held for us to become leaders in that transition as well." —Damian Siqueiros, MFA, Artist and Activist




The Union of Their Dreams


Book Description

Named one of the Best Books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle A Los Angeles Times Notable Book




Union


Book Description

About the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge, for the first time, an American nationhood. Tells the dramatic tale of how the story of America's national origins, identity, and purpose was intentionally created and fought over in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries




Mending Our Union


Book Description




State of the Union


Book Description

In a fresh and timely reinterpretation, Nelson Lichtenstein examines how trade unionism has waxed and waned in the nation's political and moral imagination, among both devoted partisans and intransigent foes. From the steel foundry to the burger-grill, from Woodrow Wilson to John Sweeney, from Homestead to Pittston, Lichtenstein weaves together a compelling matrix of ideas, stories, strikes, laws, and people in a streamlined narrative of work and labor in the twentieth century. The "labor question" became a burning issue during the Progressive Era because its solution seemed essential to the survival of American democracy itself. Beginning there, Lichtenstein takes us all the way to the organizing fever of contemporary Los Angeles, where the labor movement stands at the center of the effort to transform millions of new immigrants into alert citizen unionists. He offers an expansive survey of labor's upsurge during the 1930s, when the New Deal put a white, male version of industrial democracy at the heart of U.S. political culture. He debunks the myth of a postwar "management-labor accord" by showing that there was (at most) a limited, unstable truce. Lichtenstein argues that the ideas that had once sustained solidarity and citizenship in the world of work underwent a radical transformation when the rights-centered social movements of the 1960s and 1970s captured the nation's moral imagination. The labor movement was therefore tragically unprepared for the years of Reagan and Clinton: although technological change and a new era of global economics battered the unions, their real failure was one of ideas and political will. Throughout, Lichtenstein argues that labor's most important function, in theory if not always in practice, has been the vitalization of a democratic ethos, at work and in the larger society. To the extent that the unions fuse their purpose with that impulse, they can once again become central to the fate of the republic. State of the Union is an incisive history that tells the story of one of America's defining aspirations.