Widespread media narratives portray an epidemic of neighborhood violence in urban areas—often ignoring the structural explanations advanced by community organizers fighting violence and activists such as those in the Movement for Black Lives. In this book, Dexter R. Voisin provides a compelling and social-justice-oriented analysis of current trends in neighborhood violence in light of the historical and structural factors that have reproduced entrenched patterns of racial and economic inequality. America the Beautiful and Violent is built around the powerful voices and insights of black youth in Chicago and their parents and communities. Voisin interweaves their narratives with data, research findings, and historical accounts that provide context for their experiences. He highlights the broad historical, political, economic, and racial factors that shape the construction, concentration, and narratives of violence in black neighborhoods. Voisin explores these forces and the violence they produce; the behavioral health consequences of repeated exposures to neighborhood violence; and the ways youth, families, and communities cope with such traumas. America the Beautiful and Violent offers a set of practice and policy recommendations to address the patchwork inequality that leads to concentrated violence and to support children and adolescents struggling with the precarious conditions and threat of violence in their daily lives.

Are the economy, the political environment, and the social structure of America headed for a crisis or a rebound? The evidence is massive but can be clearly used to support either conclusion. Predictions of gloom and doom flood the media, with soaring unemployment and underemployment, depopulated cities and demographic decline. At the same time, we are bombarded with declarations of robust economic growth, political cooperation, and social rebirth. Which is it? Voters need to know, or they cannot make a reasoned choice. Dr. Converse presents an easy to follow analysis of the facts that support both positions, enabling and encouraging readers to evaluate the evidence themselves. Whichever view one finds more valid, there is a general sense that America is at a turning point. It is up to the voters to elect those who share their interest, to make sure elected officials have that interest in mind, and to punish them if they fail to act upon that interest. A method is set forth indicating how this could be accomplished. This book is for Americans who are suffering from underemployment, unemployment, or general burnout from political gridlock, and it contains important clues for readers who are concerned by the claim that the traditional values of the United States are in serious decline. If you've read Mark Steyn'sAfter America or Charles Krauthammer's Things That Matter, you'll find building blocks for your arguments in the eye-opening data presented in these pages.

What is America becoming? Or, more importantly, what can she be if we reclaim a vision for the things that made her great in the first place? Join Dr. Ben Carson as he explores what made this nation great and discovers how we can find our way back. In America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carson helps us learn from our past in order to chart a better course for our future. From his personal ascent from inner-city poverty to international medical and humanitarian acclaim, Carson shares experiential insights that help us understand: What is already good about America Where we have gone astray Which fundamental beliefs have guided America from her founding into preeminence among nations Written by a man who has experienced America's best and worst firsthand, America the Beautiful is at once alarming, convicting, and inspiring. You'll gain new perspectives on our nation's origins, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our educational system, capitalism versus socialism, our moral fabric, healthcare, and much more. An incisive declaration of the values that shaped America's past and must shape her future, America the Beautiful calls us all to use our God-given talents to improve our lives, our communities, our nation, and our world.

“Not since Angela Davis’s 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, has a scholar so persuasively challenged our conventional understanding of the criminal legal system.” —Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Washington Post From one of our top historians, a groundbreaking story of policing and “riots” that shatters our understanding of the post–civil rights era. What began in spring 2020 as local protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police quickly exploded into a massive nationwide movement. Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation’s streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors—and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past. Even in the aftermath of Donald Trump, many Americans consider the decades since the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s as a story of progress toward greater inclusiveness and equality. Hinton’s sweeping narrative uncovers an altogether different history, taking us on a troubling journey from Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980 to Los Angeles in 1992 and beyond to chart the persistence of structural racism and one of its primary consequences, the so-called urban riot. Hinton offers a critical corrective: the word riot was nothing less than a racist trope applied to events that can only be properly understood as rebellions—explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order. As she suggests, if rebellion and the conditions that precipitated it never disappeared, the optimistic story of a post–Jim Crow United States no longer holds. Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson launched the “War on Crime,” sending militarized police forces into impoverished Black neighborhoods. Facing increasing surveillance and brutality, residents threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Hinton draws on exclusive sources to uncover a previously hidden geography of violence in smaller American cities, from York, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, to Stockton, California. The central lesson from these eruptions—that police violence invariably leads to community violence—continues to escape policymakers, who respond by further criminalizing entire groups instead of addressing underlying socioeconomic causes. The results are the hugely expanded policing and prison regimes that shape the lives of so many Americans today. Presenting a new framework for understanding our nation’s enduring strife, America on Fire is also a warning: rebellions will surely continue unless police are no longer called on to manage the consequences of dismal conditions beyond their control, and until an oppressive system is finally remade on the principles of justice and equality.

America is a nation among the nations, strictly founded on faith. The role of Christianity in developing a civilization and culture deeply rooted and intricately intertwined with the Christian faith and doctrines is unquestionable. The Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. (John Wycliffe) America was not born on one day. At the appointed time God conceived her and delivered her with much labor pain to the Founding Fathers, but with a repentant people, we shall be born anew, instantly. America's heritage and history are not for sale nor to be rewritten by generations who do not know the history nor interested in preserving history. We are exclusive in heritage, culture, and civilization rooted and built in Christ, but we are inclusive of all, the rich and the poor, the weak and strong, and multiethnic heritage of the land. Poor in the nation are the responsibility of the rich and the State. In America, the Beautiful: Our Vanishing Heritage, Dr. Cherian concludes, "America is the lit candle set in the West, a lighthouse for the world when deep darkness covers, and fear grips us." Let not vanishing faith and dishonesty destroy America.

A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary of the book and NOT the original book. America the Beautiful by Ben Carson, M.D - A 15-minute Instaread Summary Inside this Instaread Summary:Overview of the entire bookIntroduction to the important people in the bookSummary and analysis of all the chapters in the bookKey Takeaways of the bookA Reader's Perspective Preview of the earlier chapters: Chapter 1 Carson grew up in Detroit and Boston when the civil rights movement was changing the social landscape. He was aware of racism all around him. Carson belonged to a segment of the population that was often deprived of opportunities. Rather than cause him to stop fighting, racism inspired him to prove his worth by excelling in school. America was built on a legacy of rebellion. Early Americans fought for change at great personal risk. The Founding Fathers understood injustices that existed in the world and strove to design a government that would level the playing field. However, Americans appear to have lost the ability to endure hardship and to sacrifice for future generations. America’s current state, its growing debt, excessive spending, and elected leaders who ignore the will of the people, closely resembles the circumstances preceding the American Revolution. During that time, colonists were forced to rebel against extreme taxation and threats to the freedoms they enjoyed in the New World. However, modern Americans seem to have forgotten what their Founding Fathers sacrificed for the privileges they continue to enjoy...

A comprehensive resource, this book reviews current and historical examples of violence in film, television, radio, music, music videos, video games, and novels. Despite decades of attention and various attempts to enact legislation that limits violence in American popular culture, it remains ubiquitous across films, television, radio, music, music videos, video games, and popular fiction. Studies have shown that programs marketed to children are often remarkably violent and that viewing or otherwise consuming such violence has numerous negative effects on children's psychological health. This book sheds light on the scholarship related to violence in popular culture and compares historical and current examples, analyzing popular shows such as Game of Thrones, video games such as Mortal Kombat, young adult fiction including the trilogy The Hunger Games, and more. Not only does Violence in American Popular Culture provide a comprehensive review of the research about the effects of violence in media, but it also offers detailed assessments of violent content in various expressions of popular culture. In addition, it invites readers to compare violence in American popular culture with that globally via entries on violence in popular culture outside the United States. An appendix of additional resources and primary sources gives readers further tools for deepening their understanding of this complex and controversial issue.