American Sociology

In this profoundly important, inspirational book, Dan Quayle, America's 44th Vice President, introduces us to five American families who speak bluntly - and often poignantly - about the values that give them strength. Liberal and conservative; Christian and non-Christian; Black, White, and mixed race - these families till the rich Virginia soil, walk the streets of East L.A., grapple with single motherhood, confront racial hatred, and learn to live with disabilities. They are us.

This succinct overview of Black experiences and realities serve as a guide to take rather complex circumstances and translate them into a series of lessons. Andrew Raybon pulls from his life experiences, ranging and experienced throughout various social classes, to encourage communities of color to reframe our objectives and responsibilities to each other. Heavy emphasis is placed on collectivism in a country that inspires individualism.

This book examines the idea whether the progressive movement in America led by Bernie Sanders will change American society.

Plastic surgery has become the answer for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs.

Award-winning journalist J. Malcolm Garcia's essays highlight the struggle, survival, and endurance of average people affected by the injustices of America's remorseless mammoth institutions and public indifference. They include families and small businesses still recovering from the BP oil spill; the man sentenced to life in prison for transporting drugs to save his son's life; the widows of soldiers who died, not in war, but from toxic fumes at their bases; and the Iraqi interpreter who was promised American asylum, only to arrive and be forced to live in poverty.

For over 60 million people, work in America has been a story of declining wages, insecurity, and unsafe conditions, especially amid the coronavirus epidemic. This new and troubling reality has galvanized media and policymakers, but all the while a different and little-known story of rebirth and struggle has percolated just below the surface. On the Job is the first account of a new kind of labor movement, one that is happening locally, quietly, and among our country's most vulnerable - but essential - workers.

Author Laura Jessy Highbury uses empirical evidence from a range of disciplines - anthropology, economics, epidemiology, medicine, nutrition science, social advertising, psychology, public health, sociology, and urban planning - to examine America's obesity problem.

To think about the possibility of social character, in this manner, is to look at the lines and talks of its development and to perceive the presence inside it of numerous implications. As the presentation recommended, the USA is where various personalities mix and impact, a gathering, an variety, continually delivering and replicating new selves and trans-shaping old ones and, in this manner, can't profess to have a solitary, shut character with a particular arrangement of qualities.

We are a nation founded on the ideals of coming together across differences to forge a common future. Yet over the past 50 years, our economy has been pulling us apart at unprecedented rates. By allowing top income earners and the wealthiest Americans to hoard wealth like almost never before, we belie what makes our country great. This is a threat to our wellbeing, our democracy, and our values.

Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist, John Carlos.

Guns, an American Conversation follows up on a handful of strangers - teachers and gun-rights advocates, hunters and police officers, mothers and fathers across the United States - brought together in a larger group of 150 people, for a monthlong moderated Facebook group chat. The goal of the project - which expanded on earlier efforts - was to foster a civil, yet honest, dialogue between people whose backgrounds and beliefs led them to have opposing views on the issue.

In Tensions in the American Dream, Melanie and Roderick Bush ask how a "nation of immigrants" pledge inclusion, yet marginalize so many citizens based on race, class, and gender. The authors consider the origins and development of the US nation and empire; the founding principles of belonging, nationalism, and exceptionalism and their lived reality.

The hardening of racial lines during the first half of the 20th century eliminated almost all African Americans from white organized sports, forcing black athletes to form their own teams, organizations, and events. This separate sporting culture, explored in the 12 essays included here, comprised much more than athletic competition; these “separate games” provided examples of black enterprise and black self-help and showed the importance of agency and the quest for racial uplift in a country fraught with racialist thinking and discrimination.

Today, chronic conditions are responsible for 90 percent of the country's health-care costs, but the 180 million Americans living with these conditions are overwhelmed by the confusion and complexity embedded throughout the system. In an era when we have been given a wide range of tools, apps, and services that make every aspect of our lives more convenient, consumers are anticipating a similar spirit of innovation to make their health care simpler, easier, and more affordable.

In the long history of warfare and cultural and ethnic violence, the 20th century was exceptional for producing institutions charged with seeking accountability or redress for violent offenses and human rights abuses across the globe, often forcing nations to confront the consequences of past atrocities. The Holocaust ended with trials at Nuremberg, apartheid in South Africa concluded with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Gacaca courts continue to strive for closure in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.

The post-pandemic economy will be different in many ways—remote working, remote delivery of products as well as services like education and health care, and the development of workplace technology replacing people. Families, who in the 21st century are under both financial stress and time pressures, could actually benefit from these changes and see their hopes renewed and the American Dream revived.

In this provocative book, Jonathan Rothwell draws on the latest empirical evidence from across the social sciences to demonstrate how rich democracies have allowed racial politics and the interests of those at the top to subordinate justice. He looks at the rise of nationalism in Europe and the United States, revealing how this trend overlaps with racial prejudice and is related to mounting frustration with a political status quo that thrives on income inequality and inefficient markets. But economic differences are by no means inevitable.

In Body Politic, David Shields looks at contemporary America and its mythology through the lens of professional and college sports. The result is an unusually insightful and provocative book about an empire in denial. Shields relentlessly examines the way we tell our sports stories (both fictional and nonfictional), considers the kinds of athletes we choose as heroes, and delineates the lessons and values we glean from sports.

Michael Patrick Smith grew up in a ramshackle farmhouse where his father beat the walls and threw dinner plates. As a restless young man left unmoored by the crashing economy, Smith cut a path to North Dakota to rent a mattress on a flophouse floor. Sleeping boot to beard with the other rough-edged men looking to earn a cent drilling for oil, Smith wanted the work to burn him clean - of his violent upbringing, his demons, his disjointed, doomed relationships. He did not expect, among these quick-fisted, foul-mouthed hands, to find a community.

A history of the activism and achievement of African American athletes from Jesse Owens to Serena Williams to Colin Kaepernick, who advanced the cause of social justice through their outspokenness, commitment, and integrity. Muhammad Ali refused to fight in a war he believed was immoral. Wilma Rudolph retired from track and field to campaign for civil rights. Taking a Knee, Taking a Stand tells their stories and the stories of other prominent African American male and female athletes who often risked their careers to fight racial discrimination and promote social justice.