Other books that might interest you

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  Tales from the Haunted South -...

  Tiya Miles

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  In this book Tiya Miles explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of "ghost tours," frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by routinely relying on stories of enslaved black specters. But who are these ghosts? Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. "Dark tourism" often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. Because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these tours, Miles reveals how they continue to feed problematic "Old South" narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era. In an incisive and engaging work, Miles uses these troubling cases to shine light on how we feel about the Civil War and race, and how the ghosts of the past are still with us.

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  Strength in Numbers - How Polls...

  G. Elliott Morris

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  Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on predicting winners and losers. 
   
   
   
  In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections. Whether used by interest groups, the press, or politicians, polling serves as a pipeline from the governed to the government, giving citizens influence they would otherwise lack. No one who believes in democracy can afford to give up on polls; they should commit, instead, to understanding them better. 
   
   
   
  Morris takes listeners from the first semblance of data-gathering in the ancient world through to the development of modern-day scientific polling. He explains how the internet and "big data" have solved many challenges in polling—and created others. He covers the rise of polling aggregation and methods of election forecasting, reveals how data can be distorted and misrepresented, and demystifies the uncertainty of polling. Acknowledging where polls have gone wrong in the past, Morris charts a path for the industry's future.

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  Love Your Enemies - How Decent...

  Anonymous

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  To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right? 
  Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American. 
  Meanwhile, one in six Americans have stopped talking to close friends and family members over politics. Millions are organizing their social lives and curating their news and information to avoid hearing viewpoints differing from their own. Ideological polarization is at higher levels than at any time since the Civil War. 
  America has developed a “culture of contempt”—a habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect or misguided, but as worthless. Maybe you dislike it—more than nine out of ten Americans say they are tired of how divided we have become as a country. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right? 
  Wrong.  
  In Love Your Enemies, New York Times bestselling author and social scientist Arthur C. Brooks shows that treating others with contempt and out-outraging the other side is not a formula for lasting success. Blending cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks, Love Your Enemies offers a new way to lead based not on attacking others, but on bridging national divides and mending personal relationships. 
  Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, he argues, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act. 
  Love Your Enemies is not just a guide to being a better person. It offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. And most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

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  Utahisms - Unique Expressions...

  David Ellingson Eddington

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  Utahisms: Unique Expressions, Inventions, Place Names and more ranges from the characteristic to the bizarreThe Beehive State's iconic vistas are singular and distinctive. So too are its colloquialisms, peculiar place names and landmark firsts. Confusion from local dialect ultimately thwarted a would be robber in Salt Lake City. The proper pronunciation of Tooele might surprise visitors, while residents still debate its origins. And, phrases once thought to be solely Utahn often prove otherwise. The world's first department store was born out of xenophobia and religious persecution in 1869. Martha Hughes Cannon followed through on Brigham Young's encouraging women to become physicians. She later became the first female state senator in the United States, defeating her own husband.Examining everything from phonetics to history, BYU Linguistics Professor David Eddington reveals the roots of what is truly, uniquely Utah.

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  No Ocean Wide Enough - A...

  Living History

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  “I believe in you,” Amélie says. She peers up at me, her eyes alight with passion and pain. “Even the ocean wasn’t wide enough to keep us apart.” 
  June 6, 1944. Gazing over the ocean, Eddie sits on the edge of a stone wall overlooking the beach. The tide that had swept in now slowly ebbs, leaving behind it a beach full of dead. There is so much work to be done. 
  The thought depresses me, but I know that I can’t dwell on it too much. If I am to survive the war and find my way to Amélie in Paris, I have to stay on my guard and be ready for anything. 
  At the thought of Paris, I lean back. Memories of those moments remain with me even now. After almost five years of separation, the promises we made to each other remain. I need to find Amélie. First, I just have to survive one of the most significant battles we have yet to face, the one they are calling D-Day. Reaching Paris and finding Amélie has never felt so impossible… 
  Amélie, Paris. Mama smiles at me and makes her way into the kitchen. The sweet smell of fresh tea and biscuits baking in the oven fills the air. I pour a cup for each of us and sit down opposite her, cupping my own steaming brew. 
  “If he is the man you describe, I think he will be a man who pursues honor and does his duty for God and his country,” Mama says, stirring the tea ruminatively. “I can only pray that God keeps watch over him, wherever he is.” 
  A gripping story of love against all odds, found in the most hopeless of places. This epic listen reminds us that the pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.Listeners will absolutely love No Ocean Wide Enough.

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  We Crossed a Bridge and It...

  Anonymous

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  Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight. 
  Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.  
  Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

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