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In his compelling reinterpretation of American history, The Public and Its Possibilities, John Fairfieldargues that our unrealized civic aspirations provide the essential counterpoint to an excessive focus on private interests. Inspired by the revolutionary generation, nineteenth-century Americans struggled to build an economy and a culture to complement their republican institutions. But over the course of the twentieth century, a corporate economy and consumer culture undercut civic values, conflating consumer and citizen. Fairfield places the city at the center of American experience, describing how a resilient demand for an urban participatory democracy has bumped up against the fog of war, the allure of the marketplace, and persistent prejudices of race, class, and gender. In chronicling and synthesizing centuries of U.S. history—including the struggles of the antislavery, labor, women’s rights movements—Fairfield explores the ebb and flow of civic participation, activism, and democracy. He revisits what the public has done for civic activism, and the possibility of taking a greater role. In this age where there has been a move towards greater participation in America's public life from its citizens, Fairfield’s book—written in an accessible, jargon-free style and addressed to general readers—is especially topical.
The core argument of Jean Anyon’s classic Radical Possibilities is deceptively simple: if we do not direct our attention to the ways in which federal and metropolitan policies maintain the poverty that plagues communities in American cities, urban school reform as currently conceived is doomed to fail. With every chapter thoroughly revised and updated, this edition picks up where the 2005 publication left off, including a completely new chapter detailing how three decades of political decisions leading up to the “Great Recession” produced an economic crisis of epic proportions. By tracing the root causes of the financial crisis, Anyon effectively demonstrates the concrete effects of economic decision-making on the education sector, revealing in particular the disastrous impacts of these policies on black and Latino communities. Going beyond lament, Radical Possibilities offers those interested in a better future for the millions of America’s poor families a set of practical and theoretical insights. Expanding on her paradigm for combating educational injustice, Anyon discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement as a recent example of popular resistance in this new edition, set against a larger framework of civil rights history. A ringing call to action, Radical Possibilities reminds readers that throughout U.S. history, equitable public policies have typically been created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements. Ultimately, Anyon’s revelations teach us that the current moment contains its own very real radical possibilities.
In this fiercely intelligent yet accessible book, one of the nation's leading sociologists and experts on race calls for "another kind of public education"--one that opens up more possibilities for democracy, and more powerful modes of participation for young people of color.
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.
"An annotated edition of John Dewey's work of democratic theory, first published in 1927. Includes a substantive introduction and bibliographical essay"--Provided by publisher.
This is part of a ten volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. This work explores the business end of politics, where theory meets practice in the pursuit of public good.
In this update to his landmark publication, William J. Reese offers a comprehensive examination of the trends, theories, and practices that have shaped America’s public schools over the last two centuries. Reese approaches this subject along two main lines of inquiry—education as a means for reforming society and ongoing reform within the schools themselves. He explores the roots of contemporary educational policies and places modern battles over curriculum, pedagogy, race relations, and academic standards in historical perspective. A thoroughly revised epilogue outlines the significant challenges to public school education within the last five years. Reese analyzes the shortcomings of “No Child Left Behind” and the continued disjuncture between actual school performance and the expectations of government officials. He discusses the intrusive role of corporations, economic models for enticing better teacher performance, the continued impact of conservatism, and the growth of home schooling and charter schools. Informed by a breadth of historical scholarship and based squarely on primary sources, this volume remains the standard text for future teachers and scholars of education.
Communism and Poetry: Writing Against Capital addresses the relationship between an upsurge in collective political practice around the world since 2000, and the crystallization of newly engaged forms of poetry. Considering an array of perspectives—poets, poet-critics, activists and theorists—these essays shed new light on the active interface between emancipatory political thought and poetic production and explore how poetry and the new communism are creating mutually innovative forms of thought and activity, supercharging the utopian imagination. Drawing inspiration from past connections between communism and poetry, and theorizing new directions over the years ahead, the volume models a much-needed critical solidarity with creative strategies in the present conjuncture to activate movements of resistance, on the streets and in verse.
Throughout American history, cities have been a powerful source of inspiration and energy, nourishing the spirit of invention and the world of intellect, and fueling movements for innovation and reform. In The Unfinished City, nationally renowned urban scholar Thomas Bender examines the source of Manhattan’s influence over American life. The Unfinished City traces the history of New York from its humble regional beginnings to its present global eminence. Bender contends that the city took shape not only according to the grand designs of urban planners and business tycoons, but also in response to a welter of artistic visions, intellectual projects, and everyday demands of the millions of people who made the city home. Bender’s story of urban development ranges from the streets of Times Square to the workshops of Thomas Edison, from the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. In a tour that spans neighborhoods and centuries, The Unfinished City makes a powerful case for the enduring importance of cities in American life. For anyone who loves New York or values the limitless possibilities intrinsic in all cities, this book is an unparalleled guide to Manhattan’s past and present.
Written in 1927, The Public and Its Problems is John Dewey’s defense of the democratic society in the post World War I era. Written largely as a response to Walter Lippmann’s popular Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, Dewey wished to set out his view of the numerous challenges facing the political aspect of democracy, as well as potential remedies. Regarding the problems, Dewey actually agrees with Lippmann. “The Public,” as defined by Dewey, has become confused to its purpose and is easily manipulated by political or corporate maneuvers. This presents a serious problem with respect to majority rule, as the majority opinion is loosely formed and can be molded to suit ends benefiting a small minority. Furthermore, by 1927 the world had become so connected that the actions of one group of people could have completely unforeseen consequences on another remote group of people. This leads both Dewey and Lippmann to conclude that even if the public had perfect access to information, that information would be simply too vast to be properly understood. Where the authors differ, however, is in the remedy. For Lippmann a technocratic elite is best placed to solve problems that are too complex to be understood by the voting public. But Dewey contends that even in an ideal world, where such elites are not motivated purely by personal gain, they would still be inherently conservative and resistant to any large-scale changes. The alternative, according to Dewey, is to simplify the economic system to make it easier for individuals to directly predict and understand the consequences of their own actions. Ensuring absolute economic efficiency need not be a societal priority, and can run counter to the democratic spirit whereby communities can participate in and take charge of their own organization. This points towards the need of a movement away from centralization and back towards some form of localization, whereby smaller, visibly connected, groups organize themselves into participative communities. Expanding on his ideas in Democracy and Education, Dewey stresses that education is the only viable way to make these necessary changes a reality and ensure a truly democratic society. Modern readers will find many of the criticisms of the public very familiar, and may be forgiven for forgetting that the problems Dewey describes are the problems of his own time. Likewise, the debate of centralization versus localization, and even the appropriate form of a democratic state, continue to this day. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.