Winner of the Bancroft PrizeKing Philip's War; the excruciating racial war—colonists against Indians—that erupted in New England in 1675; was; in proportion to population; the bloodiest in American history. Some even argued that the massacres and outrages on both sides were too horrific to "deserve the name of a war." The war's brutality compelled the colonists to defend themselves against accusations that they had become savages. But Jill Lepore makes clear that it was after the war—and because of it—that the boundaries between cultures; hitherto blurred; turned into rigid ones. King Philip's War became one of the most written-about wars in our history; and Lepore argues that the words strengthened and hardened feelings that; in turn; strengthened and hardened the enmity between Indians and Anglos. Telling the story of what may have been the bitterest of American conflicts; and its reverberations over the centuries; Lepore has enabled us to see how the ways in which we remember past events are as important in their effect on our history as were the events themselves.Winner of the the 1998 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
#46230 in Books Packer George 2014-03-04 2014-03-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 .32 x .5 x 5.52l; 1.00 #File Name: 0374534608448 pagesThe Unwinding An Inner History of the New America
Review
655 of 683 people found the following review helpful. Institutions vs. IndividualsBy LukesterFirst off; this is not a polemical book with Packer trying to thrust his viewpoint down your throat. Packer's own voice is largely absent from this book. Instead; he lets his characters speak for themselves. Regardless of your politics; you have to agree with Packer that since the 1960's; Americans have "watched structures that had been in place before your birth collapse like pillars of salt across the vast visible landscape." Government no longer consists of genuine politicians seeking to help the people; banks are no longer the staid institutions we once knew; and American manufacturing and the stable union jobs that accompanied it are mostly gone. As Packer notes; the loss of these institutions has obviously hurt some and helped others to prosper.Packer tells this story by presenting a series of compelling profiles of several individuals: among them a union worker in Youngstown; Ohio; a entrepreneur/bio-fuels evangelist in North Carolina; a D.C. insider; and a Silicon Valley innovator. These profiles follow the progression of their protagonist from the late 70's to the present day. Each story is independent; but all share a common thread: as the institutions that provided security to Americans following the New Deal and into the 70's started to fall apart; each person is forced to deal with their new found freedom. Some thrive; while others struggle to survive.Interspersed in these longer narratives are shorter profiles of key players in the unwinding; from Newt Gingrich and Andrew Breitbart to Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z. As he skips ahead in years; each new section is foreshadowed by a collage of words - snippets of movie and music quotes and headlines from newspapers - that Packer uses to expertly capture the mood of each year. The genius of this book is that Packer doesn't tell you what to think. Instead; he presents indisputable facts by way of the stories of real people to show both sides of this "unwinding." At the end; you can draw your own conclusions. Packer is simply using his amazing powers of shaping narratives to capture this unique time of upheaval in America. It's easy to lose track of the drastic changes that have taken place over the last few decades unless you read a book like this; which captures the transformation of American institutions to American individualism. If you are liberal and mourn the loss of these institutions; Packer will force you to consider the opening of opportunities that came with these losses. If you're conservative and applaud the rise of the rugged individual; he will also make you recognize the price some people have paid due to the loss of security.I would recommend this book to anyone that sees the change that has happened in the U.S. Although it is never stated; I think Packer is asking his readers a seemingly simple question: what does it mean to be an American; and what do we want this country to be? Is the price of freedom the loss of the common bonds that kept us all together; or is the overriding right to be free paramount to all else? I can guarantee that anyone who finishes this book will have a lot to think about and will have enjoyed reading these profiles.283 of 299 people found the following review helpful. Split PersonalityBy Robert Taylor BrewerGeorge Packer; we learn from the book's jacket blurb; is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine which means he has access to that publication's marvelous fact checking apparatus that is so good; many fact checkers at The New Yorker have gone on to write their own non fiction books. Packer has borrowed liberally from the John Dos Pasos U.S.A. Trilogy; especially its "Camera Eye" sequences to produce a book with an artistic sense of the possible; and the creative interpretations that go along with them.Through a series of glimmering short essays; Packer has put together a story of how wealth has concentrated itself in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century; and the first decade of the 21st. One lesson most of us learned about the Great Depression was that the wealthy; by themselves; could not sustain the U.S. economy in 1932. One commentator wrote that every person making over $100;000 would have had to buy 32 cars in order to stave off the economic consequences of the 1929 stock market crash. On the contrary; the lesson drawn by Packer about the 2008 Great Recession is that today; the wealthy are so wealthy they can indeed sustain the U.S. economy almost by themselves. This staggering conclusion is brought home to readers in Packer's brief but luminous essay on Sam Walton where he writes that six of Walton's descendants had as much money as 30% of the least well off Americans. The story of how America's other top income earners fared until the onset of The Great Recession is told in the essay on Robert Rubin: the top 1% of wage earners saw their incomes triple. People in the middle enjoyed a 20% income increase; people at the bottom had flat income which means on an inflation adjusted basis; they lost money. For his part; Robert Rubin argued against regulation of derivatives. Then; after derivatives killed America in 2008; Robert Rubin argued against any responsibility. When a Congressional investigator told Rubin he couldn't have it both ways; Robert Rubin hurriedly left the room. Stop the cameras; stop the book. The fact that Robert Rubin was allowed to leave the room comes off as a major thesis of this book.The gap between what Americans have and what they cheer for is another layer of Packer's analysis; although the book's commentary is somehow less successful when ordinary Americans like Tammy Thomas and Dean Price are Packer's subjects and I was less willing to follow their stories than I was when household name personalties like Joe Biden and Newt Gingrich were under Packer's microscope and his work on them seemed spellbinding.This is a deeply unsettling book; and in the end; Unwinding seems an inappropriate description for it - The Great Adjustment seems more specifically geared to what actually took place in the country - those with more struggle to adjust to unfathomable wealth; those with less struggling with their new reality.4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A Must Read for All AmericansBy D. E. LawrenceThis book is one of the most instructive; educational and enlightening on what has happened in America the past 30 years. If one wants to know the why behind the factory closings; the effects of racism; the disparity in incomes; the rise and bursting of tech and housing bubbles; the machinations of Wall Street to the detriment of their country; the rise of some celebrities such as Oprah and Jay-Z; politics being money and not people driven and much; much more; read this illuminating book. It is also; as a bonus; written novelistically so to be extremely hard to put down. Bravo! Mr. Packer.
