A first-person account of race and class in the Jim Crow SouthJohn Andrew Rice's autobiography, first published to critical acclaim in 1942, is a remarkable tour through late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. When the book was suppressed by the publisher soon after its appearance because of legal threats by a college president described in the book, the nation lost a rich first-person historical account of race and class relations during a critical p...

This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings.The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture.For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down p...

This definitive work on the perils and promise of the social- media revolution collects writings by today's best thinkers and cultural commentators, with an all-new introduction by Bauerlein.Twitter, Facebook, e-publishing, blogs, distance-learning and other social media raise some of the most divisive cultural questions of our time. Some see the technological breakthroughs we live with as hopeful and democratic new steps in education, information gathering, and hu...

The Pragmatic Mind is a study of the pragmatism of Emerson, James, and Peirce and its overlooked relevance for the neopragmatism of thinkers like Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Stanley Fish, and Cornel West. Arguing that the "original" pragmatists are too-often cited casually and imprecisely as mere precursors to this contemporary group of American intellectuals, Mark Bauerlein explores the explicit consequences of the earlier group’s work for current debates among and around the ...

The Founders of this nation believed that the government they were creating required a civically educated populace. Such an education aimed to cultivate enlightened, informed, and vigilant citizens who could perpetuate and improve the nation. Unfortunately, America’s contemporary youth seem to lack adequate opportunities, if not also the ability or will, to critically examine the foundations of this nation. An even larger problem is an increasing ambivalence toward education in general. St...

In Teaching America, more than 20 leading thinkers sound the alarm over a crisis in citizenship—and lay out a powerful agenda for reform. The book’s unprecedented roster of authors includes Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Senator Jon Kyl, Senator Bob Graham, Secretary Rod Paige, Alan Dershowitz, Juan Williams, Glenn Reynolds, Michael Kazin, Frederick Hess, Andrew Rotherham, Mike Feinberg, Seth Andrew, Mark Bauerlein and more.Their message: To remain America, our country has to give it...

Let's take stock of young America. Compared to previous generations, American youth have more schooling (college enrollments have never been higher); more money ($100 a week in disposable income); more leisure time (five hours a day); and more news and information (Internet, The Daily Show, RSS feeds).What do they do with all that time and money? They download, upload, IM, post, chat, and network. (Nine of their top ten sites are for social networking.) They watch televisi...

Twitter, Facebook, e-publishing, blogs, distance-learning and other social media raise some of the most divisive cultural questions of our time. Some see the technological breakthroughs we live with as hopeful and democratic new steps in education, information gathering, and human progress. But others are deeply concerned by the eroding of civility online, declining reading habits, withering attention spans, and the treacherous effects of 24/7 peer pressure on our young.With Th...

New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of...

**#1 New York Times Business Bestseller#1 Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller#1 Washington Post bestsellerFrom the bestselling author of Drive: the insightful and pragmatic book that explores the powerful role selling plays in our lives.**According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a p...

Bestselling author and world-renowned historian Niall Ferguson has won widespread acclaim for thought-provoking works such as Civilization and High Financier. The Great Degeneration tackles nothing less than the decline of Western civilization. Ferguson posits that slowing growth, outrageous debt, and antisocial behavior are contributing to the erosion of the West's once rock-solid foundations. Ferguson excavates the causes and shows how heroic leadership and radical reform are needed to r...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Gillian Flynn’s Edgar Award-winning homage to the classic ghost story, published for the first time as a standalone.A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman e...