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The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate—and lucrative—conservative misrule In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us. Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters—the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff. It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state. Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet—and his most important. .
Price: $13.99
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American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
Selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Sun-TimesWithin days after September 11, 2001, William Langewiesche had secured unique, unrestricted, round-the-clock access to the World Trade Center site. American Ground is a tour of this intense, ephemeral world and those who improvised the recovery effort day by day, and in the process reinvented themselves, discovering unknown strengths and weaknesses. In all of its aspects--emotionalism, impulsiveness, opportunism, territoriality, resourcefulness, and fundamental, cacophonous democracy--Langewiesche reveals the unbuilding to be uniquely American and oddly inspiring, a portrait of resilience and ingenuity in the face of disaster. .
Price: $4.78
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Unbuilding (Sandpiper)
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Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew: The Story of the World's Most Recorded Musician
Ever wonder what it would be like to be the most recorded musician in popular music? This biography spotlights Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and drummer extraordinaire Hal Blaine and his remarkable life experiences. From the Sinatras to the Beach Boys, Blaine drumrolled through the '50s, '60s and '70s, driving over 40 songs to the Number One slot. His works with Phil Spector and the Wrecking Crew sessions, his touring experiences and other hitmaking pressure sessions are amusingly revealed in this rare glimpse into a golden age of music. Exclusive scrapbook photos round out this biography to provide an entertaining and educating book for musicians and fans alike. "Hal Blaine is an original. I'm proud to say that Hal's playing has made the difference on many of my own records." - Neil Diamond "Hal Blaine set the standard for drum sounds in the '60s." - Herb Alpert.
Price: $12.06
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Forgotten Chicago (Images of America)
Chicago has long been regarded as home to some of the worlds most impressive architecture. Responding to the Great Fire of 1871, Chicagoans rebuilt the city, creating a radically new architectural style. Chicago continued to grow and evolve through the 20th century, but many of its architectural masterpieces have been lost, some to modernization, and others simply to the ravages of time. Forgotten Chicago preserves the unique story of many of Chicagos famed architectural wonders. Included are the old Northwestern Train station, the Coliseum, the Chicago Stadium, old Comiskey Park, and Soldier Field. Many of the smaller treasures of the city will also be found here, including some of Chicagos most famous diners..
Price: $11.94
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The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (or, How a Bunch of Good Ol' Boys Built a Billion-Dollar Industry out of Wrecking Cars)
In The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR, Joe Menzer traces the vivid history of stock car racing from when bootleggers drove hopped-up cars to outrun the law for fun and profit to the present racing frenzy that has thrust NASCAR to the front of the pack as one of America's fastest-growing sports industries The result of Menzer's research is not dry prose filled with racing statistics but rather a loose chronology of anecdotes that reads like an oral history. Legendary finishes, rivalries, and rags-to-riches success stories are championed here, including the exploits of Joe Weatherly and Curtis Turner (both on and off the track) and the personalities of David Pearson, Bill Elliott, and the Petty family. Menzer does not back off from the low points either, from Wendell Scott's experience as the first African American driver to the unhealthy mix of stock cars and alcohol (often at the same time). Despite the conversational tone, Menzer never loses sight of the politics, sponsorship, and fan-base issues that have arisen, especially as faster cars and tracks began to be built in the 1950s and '60s. As driver Jimmy Thompson assessed the new Daytona International Speedway in 1959: "There have been other tracks that separated the men from the boys. This is the track that will separate the brave from the weak after the boys are gone." --Michael Ferch.
Price: $3.83
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Salvage Yard Treasures of America
Travel the back roads with Cars and Parts editors and discover old car treasures in Americas salvage yards. This entertaining and informative book features profiles for more than 20 salvage yards from Georgia to California. The book includes hundreds of photos along with the address and phone number of each of the salvage yards profiled. Also included is a state by state salvage yard directory. This is the most complete listing you will find anywhere of salvage yards that cater exclusively to the old car restorer. Who knows, that next hard-to-find part may be found in the pages of this book..
Price: $15.95
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Big Noisy Trucks and Diggers Demolition
With full-color photos and five different sound buttons, this book puts young readers in the operator's seat and brings a demolition site to life..
Price: $5.18
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The Destruction of Lower Manhattan
"I came to see the buildings as fossils of a time past. These buildings were used during the Civil War. The men were all dead, but the buildings were still here, left behind as the city grew around them....The passing of the buildings was for me a great event. It didn't matter so much whether they were of architectural importance. What mattered to me was that they were about to be destroyed. Whole blocks would disappear. An entire neighborhood. Its few last loft-occupying tenants were being evicted, and no place like it would ever be built again. The streets involved were among the oldest in New York and when sections of some were closed by the barriers of the demolition men, it meant they would never be opened again." (Danny Lyon). In 1967, Danny Lyon returned to New York City, having just finished The Bikeriders (Macmillan, 1968). He was twenty-five. Living in a loft on the corner of Beekman and Williams Streets in Downtown Manhattan, Lyon saw that half the buildings on Beekman Street were boarded up, about to be demolished. That year an incredible sixty acres of mostly nineteenth century buildings were slated for demolition, all below Chambers Street. The seven-acre site where the Twin Towers would eventually stand was being cleared, a new ramp added to the Brooklyn Bridge, Pace University expanded, and the Washington Market was being moved to the Bronx. Much of the Lower West Side was being turned into rubble. Lyon thought of the title The Destruction of Lower Manhattan first, and then made a record of each building before it was demolished. The book was released by Macmillan Publishers in 1969, and remaindered a few years later; the copies sold for one dollar each. It has been a collector's item ever since. Thirty-eight years after these photographs were made, many of them are the only record that survives of entire blocks of mainly nineteenth century buildings that once lined Fulton Street, and West Street along the Hudson. Because of the disaster that would strike the city a generation later, New Yorkers have taken on a renewed and fervent interest in the architecture of their city. This work is a major contribution to that new world. For Lyon, these buildings in their last days standing were the embodiment of a beauty and pathos that people walking by in the street seldom noticed at the time. Those feelings were preserved in the photographs that today survive exactly as the young author intended, as a memory and a record of what was..
Price: $14.95
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