American Development

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has declined, economic inequality has soared, and, after some progress, the Black-white wage gap is once again as large as it was in the 1950s. How did this happen in the world’s most powerful country? And what happened to the “American dream”—the promise of a happier, healthier, more prosperous future—which was once such an inextricable part of our national identity?

In What It Takes to Be #1, Vince Lombardi, Jr. explores his father's leadership philosophy and extracts powerful lessons about what it takes to be an effective leader. Taking as his jumping-off point his father's legendary 1970 speech on the supreme importance of self-knowledge, character, and integrity, Lombardi, Jr. examines each of those qualities and offers guidelines on cultivating and applying them at work and in your personal life.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, a call to break through our limits and say yes to a life of infinite possibility.

A child's concept of race is quite different from that of an adult. Young children perceive skin color as magical - even changeable - and are incapable of understanding adult prejudices. Just as children learn to walk and talk, they likewise come to understand race in a series of predictable stages. Based on Marguerite A. Wright's research and clinical experience, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla teaches us that the color-blindness of early childhood can, and must, be taken advantage of in order to guide the positive development of a child's self-esteem.

Black men desperately need care and restoration. But what does that restoration look like when you’re a Black man in today’s world? How do you take care of your mental health when men who look like you die at the hands of police? How do you find peace and refuge when you’re not sure how to keep up with your partner? Or navigate a challenging workplace? While scrolling through social media feeds, you may feel like you don’t have access to wellness like women do. But Black men need a space for self-care too. In Self-Care for Black Men, you will find practical answers to your questions.

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.

In Unbreakable, Jay Glazer talks directly to you, his teammates, and shares his truth. All the success from his screeching-and-swerving joy ride through professional football, the media, the MMA fighting world, Hollywood, the military-warrior community, comes with a side of relentless depression and anxiety. Living in the gray, as Jay calls it, is just a constant for him.

In this timely and necessary book, New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose dismantles two hundred years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children, and their communities.

The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life shares Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel's "Big Ten" fundamentals for success: Attitude, Discipline, Faith, Handling Adversity & Success, Excellence, Love, Toughness, Responsibility, Team, and Hope. Peppered with personal stories from Tressel's storied coaching career, the book shares the fundamental lessons that he has been imparting to his players for the past 20 years.

American author, scholar, and satirist H.L. Mencken wrote The American Language in 1919, intending to defend American speech from prescriptivist critics. "America itself is unutterably vulgar. But vulgarity, after all, means no more than a yielding to natural impulses in the face of conventional inhibitions, and that yielding to natural impulses is at the heart of all healthy language-making."

When the men in their lives prove less than reliable, Savannah, Bernadine, Gloria, and Robin find new strength through a rare and enlightening friendship as they struggle to regain stability and an identity they don’t have to share with anyone. Because for the first time in a long time, their dreams are finally OFF hold....

Includes all 100 civics Questions and Answers read by a professional American voice actor with a natural American accent.

In American Literature, all main periods are covered, from colonial times to the present movement toward cultural diversity. Also covered are key themes and personalities, with emphasis on major figures, including Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Alice Walker, and many more.

You can accomplish what you want. You can reach your dreams. Visualize a goal often enough and it will be yours. You have the innate capacity to transform your life. You have the power to achieve amazing results. And this audiobook will help you harness the power that is already within you. This audiobook will help you get what you want in an effortless, pleasant, and relaxing way. All you have to do is to surrender yourself to the potent guided visualization program and enjoy the comforting, soothing music in the background.

Three powerful African-American female executives celebrate their gender and heritage as they share their secrets for success in this effective guide for businesswomen. Ways to communicate thoughtfully, trust yourself, and exude self-esteem are just a few tactics the authors discuss for those who want to enter the workforce as confident leaders.

Hidden far from sight, deep in the thick underbrush of the North Florida woods are the ghostly graves of more than 30 unidentified bodies, some of which are thought to be children who were beaten to death at the old Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna. It is suspected that many more bodies will be found in the fields and swamplands surrounding the institution.

In this best-selling memoir, Marla Frees reveals her extraordinary life journey from a small-town girl in a troubled family to a stage and TV actress and ultimately one of the country’s most respected transformational psychic mediums. Her tales of a harrowing childhood, burgeoning career in Hollywood, and astounding psychic and spiritual adventures along the way reveal the resilience and heights of the human spirit. U.S. military psychic spies, homicide cases, messages from the other side, spiritual healing.

As a black woman, you’re not only subjected to high expectations for your gender but also social and economic pressures brought about by discrimination and racism. That’s hard enough for anyone to deal with. How much more if the odds are constantly stacked against you for simply being YOU? We get it. As black women, you must learn how to break the toxic cycle of shame, guilt, and oppression. And, for this to happen, you need to learn the emotional, mental, and spiritual tools to put yourself first.

Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, writes about losing her father to Alzheimer's disease, saying goodbye in stages, and watching the progression of a disease that steals what is most precious: a person's memory. Past and present come together in this illuminating portrait of grief, of a man, a disease, and a girl and her father.