When America Stopped Being Great

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472985494
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
'Nick Bryant is brilliant. He has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story whilst never leaving you feeling stupid.' – Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity, a Brit who understands America' – Washington Post In When America Stopped Being Great, veteran reporter and BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant reveals how America's decline paved the way for Donald Trump's rise, sowing division and leaving the country vulnerable to its greatest challenge of the modern era. Deftly sifting through almost four decades of American history, from post-Cold War optimism, through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant unpacks the mistakes of past administrations, from Ronald Reagan's 'celebrity presidency' to Barack Obama's failure to adequately address income and racial inequality. He explains how the historical clues, unseen by many (including the media) paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. As Bryant writes, 'rather than being an aberration, Trump's presidency marked the culmination of so much of what had been going wrong in the United States for decades – economically, racially, politically, culturally, technologically and constitutionally.' A personal elegy for an America lost, unafraid to criticise actors on both sides of the political divide, When America Stopped Being Great takes the long view, combining engaging storytelling with recent history to show how the country moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. It concludes with some of the most dramatic events in recent memory, in an America torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, the national catastrophe of the coronavirus and the threat to US democracy evidenced by the storming of Capitol Hill.

When America Stopped Being Great

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472985494
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Rise and Fall of Australia, The

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0857989022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside. Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. It's the planet's great lifestyle superpower. Its artistic exports win unprecedented acclaim. But never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as being such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story. The country should be enjoying The Australian Moment, so vividly described by the best-selling author George Megalogenis. But that description may turn out to be inadvertently precise. It could end up being just that: a fleeting moment. At present the country seems to be in speedy regression, with the nation's leaders, on both sides, mired in relatively small problems, such as the arrival of boat people, rather than mapping out a larger and more inspiring national future. In The Rise and Fall of Australia, BBC correspondent and author Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished. In this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking book, dealing with politics, racism, sexism, the country's place in the region and the world, culture and sport, the author argues that Australia needs to discard the out-dated language used to describe itself, to push back against Lucky Country thinking, to celebrate how the cultural creep has replaced the cultural cringe and to stop negatively typecasting itself. Rejecting most of the national stereotypes, Nick Bryant sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but Australians themselves.

Forgotten Americans

Author: Isabel Sawhill
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

When America Stopped Being Great

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780369347619
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 600

Book Description
A comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, cultural and technological factors that contributed to America's decline and inadvertently paved the way for Trump's presidency. The presidency of Donald Trump is commonly seen as an historical accident. In When America Stopped Being Great, Nick Bryant argues that by 2016 it had become almost historically inescapable. In this highly personal account, drawing on decades of covering Washington for the BBC, Bryant shows how the billionaire capitalised on the mistakes of his five predecessors - Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama - and how also he became a beneficiary of a broken politics, an iniquitous economy, an ailing media, a facile culture, disruptive new technology and the creation of a modern-day presidency that elevated showmanship over statesmanship. Not only are we starting to see the emergence of a post-American world, Bryant fears we are seeing the emergence of a post-American America. The history of Trump's rise is also a history of America's fall. 'An elegant and insightful dissection of how a great nation lost its footing and the world's respect. The tragedy is made all the more stark by the genuine love of America in Nick Bryant's writing' - Leigh Sales 'Nick Bryant writes like a dream, and is one of those very rare things on TV - a man who makes you want to turn up the sound. His eye for description is sublime, and he has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story, whilst never leaving you feeling stupid' - Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity - a Brit who understands America' - The Washington Post.

Tears We Cannot Stop

Author: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250136008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, INDIEBOUND, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, CHRONICLE HERALD, SALISBURY POST, GUELPH MERCURY TRIBUNE, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY: The Washington Post • Bustle • Men's Journal • The Chicago Reader • StarTribune • Blavity• The Guardian • NBC New York's Bill's Books • Kirkus • Essence “One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and King's Why We Can't Wait." —The New York Times Book Review Toni Morrison hails Tears We Cannot Stop as "Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish." Stephen King says: "Here’s a sermon that’s as fierce as it is lucid...If you’re black, you’ll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you’re white, Dyson tells you what you need to know—what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen." Short, emotional, literary, powerful—Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read. As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop—a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. "The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future."

Confessions from Correspondentland

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781851689767
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Since making his journalistic debut breaking into Piers Morgan’s office, BBC foreign correspondent Nick Bryant has rattled Donald Rumsfeld, had tea with President Karzai, and lunched with the Tamil Tigers. Now casting a sideways glance at his own profession, Bryant divulges the day-to-day realities of life in ‘Correspondentland’ – its glamour, its quirks, and its sometimes unsavoury practices. Whether in Washington DC, offering a window onto American politics as no insider can, reporting from a slum in India, or revealing why the BBC delayed the news of Princess Diana’s death, Bryant’s perspective is inimitable and always insightful. Part memoir, part travelogue, part exposé, this is an unmissable and unique view into the world of modern reporting, and an intimate portrait of the countries Bryant has come to know.

When the Machine Stopped

Author: Max Holland
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description

The Bystander

Author: Nick Bryant
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9780465008278
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In this, the first comprehensive history of Kennedy's civil rights record over the course of his entire political career, Nick Bryant shows that Kennedy's shrewd handling of the race issue in his early congressional campaigns blinded him as President to the intractability of the simmering racial crisis in America. By focusing on mainly symbolic gestures, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform, his inertia emboldening white supremacists and forced black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics.

How Civil Wars Start

Author: Barbara F. Walter
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593137795
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States “Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD • THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK) Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country. Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it’s the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today. Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs—where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them—and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind. In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face—and the knowledge to stop it before it’s too late.