Modern history

The Americans: The Democratic Experience

The Americans: The Democratic Experience

A study of the last 100 years of American history.

Book One: EVERYWHERE COMMUNITIES

Part I: The Go-Getters

Chapter 1. “Gold from the Grass Roots Up”

Chapter 2. Rituals of the Open Range

Chapter 3. Private Wars for the Public Domain

Chapter 4. Lawless Sheriffs and Honest Desperadoes

Chapter 5. Rounding Up Rock Oil

Chapter 6. Generalized Go-Getters: Lawyers

Chapter 7. Exploiting the Federal Commodity: Divorce and Gambling

Chapter 8. Crime As a Service Institution

Part II: Consumption Communities

Chapter 9. A Democracy of Clothing

Chapter 10. Consumers’ Palaces

Chapter 11. Nationwide Customers

Chapter 12. Goods Sell Themselves

Chapter 13. How Farmers Joined Consumption Communities

Chapter 14. Citifying the Country

Chapter 15. A New Freedom for Advertisers: Breaking the Agate Rule

Chapter 16. Building Loyalty to Consumption Communities

Chapter 17. “The Consumer Is King”

Chapter 18. Christmas and Other Festivals of Consumption

Part III: Statistical Communities

Chapter 19. A Numerical Science of Community: The Rise of the Average Man

Chapter 20. Communities of Risk

Chapter 21. Statistical Expectations: What’s Your Size?

Chapter 22. Making Things No Better Than They Need to Be

Chapter 23. “The Incorruptible Cashier”

Chapter 24. Income Consciousness

Chapter 25. The Rediscovery of Poverty

Chapter 26. Measuring the Mind

Chapter 27. From “Naughtiness” to “Behavior Deviation”

Chapter 28. Statistical Morality

Part IV: The Urban Quest for Place

Chapter 29. An American Diaspora

Chapter 30. Politics for City Immigrants

Chapter 31. Stretching the City: The Decline of Main Street

Chapter 32. Booming the Real Estate Frontier

Chapter 33. Antidotes for the City: Utopia, Renewal, Suburbia

Chapter 34. Cities within Cities: The Urban Blues

Book Two: THE DECLINE OF THE MIRACULOUS

Part V: Leveling Times and Places

Chapter 35. Condense! Making Food Portable through Time

Chapter 36. Meat for the Cities

Chapter 37. Varying the Everyday Menu

Chapter 38. People’s Palaces on Wheels

Chapter 39. Walls Become Windows

Chapter 40. Homogenizing Space

Part VI: Mass-Producing the Moment

Chapter 41. Time Becomes Fungible: Packaging the Unit of Work

Chapter 42. Making Experience Repeatable

Chapter 43. Extending Experience: The New Segregation

Chapter 44. The Decline of the Unique and the Secret

Chapter 45. In Search of the Spontaneous

Book Three: A POPULAR MIRACULOUS

Part VII: The Thinner Life of Things

Chapter 46. Endless Streams of Ownership

Chapter 47. New Penumbras of Property

Chapter 48. The Semi-Independent Businessman

Chapter 49. From Packing to Packaging: The New Strategy of Desire

Part VIII: Language, Knowledge, and the Arts

Chapter 50. The Decline of Grammar: The Colloquial Conquers the Classroom

Chapter 51. From Oratory to Public Speaking: Fireside Politics

Chapter 52. A Higher Learning for All

Chapter 53. Educating “the Great Army of Incapables”

Chapter 54. Art Becomes Enigma

Chapter 55. The Exotic Becomes Commonplace

Book Four: THE FUTURE ON SCHEDULE

Part IX: Search for Novelty

Chapter 56. The Social Inventor: Inventing for the Market

Chapter 57. Communities of Inventors: Solutions in Search of Problems

Chapter 58. Flow Technology: The Road to the Annual Model

Part X: Mission and Momentum

Chapter 59. Prologue to Foreign Aid

Chapter 60. Samaritan Diplomacy

Chapter 61. Not Whether but When: The New Momentum

Epilogue: Unknown Coasts

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