English Working Class

A century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. This book traces how generations of women have responded to the problem of balancing career and family as the twentieth century experienced a sea change in gender equality, revealing why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of reach.

Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City kindergarten class mom - or mom in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different (probably) musicians, and it's her second time around the class mom block with five-year-old Max - this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA president sees her as the "wisest" candidate for the job (or oldest), not all of the other parents agree.

There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story.

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

In Labor's Love Lost, noted sociologist Andrew Cherlin offers a new historical assessment of the rise and fall of working-class families in America, demonstrating how momentous social and economic transformations have contributed to the collapse of this once-stable social class and what this seismic cultural shift means for the nation's future.

Rarely does a work of history contain startling implications for the present, but in The People, No, Thomas Frank pulls off that explosive effect by showing us that everything we think we know about populism is wrong. Today "populism" is seen as a frightening thing, a term pundits use to describe the racist philosophy of Donald Trump and European extremists. But this is a mistake. The real story of populism is an account of enlightenment and liberation; it is the story of American democracy itself, of its ever-widening promise of a decent life for all.

Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast. Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.

Army vet Dwayne Sullivan has escaped from prison in order to keep an other-dimensional artifact out of the wrong hands. To do this, he needs the help of superheroes, powerful meta-human do-gooders who are the heart and soul of Hammer City. But those heroes are being recruited by General Gordon, the very same military general who imprisoned Dwayne in the first place.

Fifteen years have passed since the death of Magma Man. The world has turned its back on the group of government-sanctioned superheroes who twice saved Earth from destruction. General Gordon and Speed Chicken have gone into exile. Others have traded superheroics for more normal lives. Wombat is now a house husband who bakes muffins and drives his adopted son to school every morning, supporting his wife Towanda's career.

Love and the Working Class is a unique look at the emotions of hard-living, nineteenth-century Americans who were often on the cusp of literacy. These laboring folk highly valued letters and, however difficult it was, wrote to stay connected to those they loved. This book displays the personal expression of factory hands, manual laborers, peddlers, coopers, carpenters, lumbermen, miners, tanners, haulers, tailors, seamstresses, laundresses, domestics, sharecroppers, independent farmers, and common soldiers and their wives.

Growing up poor, Deborah Dundas knew what it meant to want, to be hungry, and to long for social and economic dignity; she understood the crushing weight of having nothing much expected of you. But even after overcoming many of the usual barriers faced by lower- and working-class people, she still felt anxious about her place, and even in relatively safe spaces reluctant to broach the subject of class. While new social movements have generated open conversation about gender and racism, discussions of class rarely include the voices of those most deeply affected: the working class and poor.

The general population refers to them as "Odds", people who suffer from AOHD (Adult Onset Hyper-Development Disorder). Such people wake up one day to find that they're suddenly super-human. They can do things like leap tall buildings. Lift bulldozers over their heads. Read minds. Throw fireballs. Melt steel with a thought. Fly at supersonic speeds, and so on. And what happens? Uncle Sam makes them sign up with the Feds and punch a clock. Or else.

Conventional political wisdom views the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century - FDR and Ronald Reagan - as ideological opposites. FDR is hailed as the champion of big-government progressivism manifested in the New Deal. Reagan is seen as the crusader for conservatism dedicated to small government and free markets. But Henry Olsen argues that this assumption is wrong.

Thirteen months after Trump allegedly captured the allegiance of "the white working class", a strike wave - the first in over four decades - rocked the United States. Inspired by the wildcat victory in West Virginia, teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and across the country walked off their jobs and shut down their schools to demand better pay for educators, more funding for students, and an end to years of austerity.

Many black strategies of daily resistance have been obscured—until now. Race rebels, argues Kelley, have created strategies of resistance, movements, and entire subcultures. Here, for the first time, everyday race rebels are given the historiographical attention they deserve, from the Jim Crow era to the present.

Over the past two generations, U.S. leaders deregulated big business on the faith that it would yield a better economy and a freer society. But the opposite happened. Americans lost stable, well-paying jobs, Wall Street dominated industry to the detriment of the middle class and local communities, and corporations began to subject us to total surveillance, even dictating what we are, and aren’t, allowed to think. The corporate titans and mega-donors who aligned themselves with this vision knew exactly what they were getting: perfect conditions for what Sohrab Ahmari calls “private tyranny”.

Two superheroes become suspicious of their city's most powerful hero, the seemingly-invulnerable Magma Man, when something he says during a poker game doesn't add up. Why would he lie? Was he trying to protect someone? Was he drunk? Okay, he was probably drunk. But, is he in league with the villain? Is he the villain? And if he is, how can he be stopped? Follow Speed Chicken and Cambio as they pursue the answers to these questions, putting them in cahoots with a powerless wannabe superhero named Wombat, and realize that the fate of an entire planet weighs in the balance.

It’s a life too big and a story too extraordinary for just one book. Jimmy Barnes has lived many lives - from Glaswegian migrant kid to iconic front man, from solo superstar to proud father of his own musical clan. In this hugely anticipated sequel to his critically acclaimed best seller, Working Class Boy, Jimmy picks up the story of his life as he leaves Adelaide in the back of an old truck with a then unknown band called Cold Chisel. A spellbinding and searingly honest reflection on success, fame and addiction, this self-penned memoir reveals how Jimmy Barnes used the fuel of childhood trauma to ignite and propel Australia’s greatest rock ’n’ roll story.

In Wall Street’s War on Workers, Les Leopold, co-founder of the Labor Institute, provides a clear lens with which we can see how healthy corporations in the United States have used mass layoffs and stock buybacks to enrich shareholders at the expense of employees. With detailed research and concise language, Leopold explains why mass layoffs occur and how our current laws and regulations allow companies to turn these layoffs into short-term financial gains.

Don’t be thrown off by the title. This audiobook isn’t about your occupation or the class you fall into per society’s standard. The main focus of this audiobook is to provide you with a method and lifestyle to become a better father who achieves the standard for fatherhood you long for in your heart. Working Class Dad is an audiobook I wish I had when I first became a father 20 years ago. A real communication and relationship-building manual for fatherhood.