All in the Family creator Norman Lear takes fans behind the scenes of the groundbreaking sitcom on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. The face of television was changed forever in 1971 with the premiere of All in the Family. The working-class Bunker family of Queens, New York—lovable bigot Archie (Carroll O'Connor), his long-suffering “dingbat” wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), their liberal daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers), and son-in-law Mike "Meathead" Stivic (Rob Reiner)—instantly became, and half a century later still are, four of the most iconic characters in television. In All in the Family: The Show that Changed Television, Norman Lear shares his take on fifty essential episodes that exemplify why the show remains as funny and relevant as ever. Its boundary-pushing approach to hot-button topics is examined with commentary from co-stars O’ Connor, Stapleton, Reiner, and Struthers, as well as writers, directors, and guest stars from the show. With previously unseen notes from Lear, script pages, production designs, and a foreword by super-fan Jimmy Kimmel, this book is the ultimate companion to the seminal series and a must for fans of Lear’s shows and television comedy. “Norman Lear,” said New Yorker critic Michael Arlen, “has a feel for what people want to see before they know they want to see it.” All in the Family, like all of the Lear shows that followed, was a turning point in television’s handling of taboo subjects such as race relations, feminism, homosexuality, war, religion, gun control, social inequity, and other controversial subjects, all of which remain in the news today.

Michael Herb proposes a new paradigm for understanding politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. He critiques the theory of the rentier state and argues that we must put political institutions—and specifically monarchism—at the center of any explanation of Gulf politics. All in the Family provides a compelling and fresh analysis of the importance of monarchism in the region, and points out the crucial role of the ruling families in creating monarchal regimes. It addresses the issue of democratization in the Middle Eastern monarchies, arguing that the prospects for the gradual emergence of constitutional monarchy are better than is often thought.

Ferguson starts with the commonplace assumption within political philosophy that the family provides the ideal model for political association. Yet families are not necessarily harmonious units. Ferguson takes up several situations to think about how familial attachments can offer insight into the creation of a pluralistic and democratic society.

As the nation reels from the impact of the Great Recession, many families are finding new ways to live together, including creating multigenerational households to save money and consolidate resources. Indeed, as the authors point out, the concept of nuclear family living is an aberration in our history that stemmed from post–World War II prosperity, mobility, and the associated baby boom. However, the threatened failure of American social security and healthcare systems is forcing us all to rethink how we live and care for one another. This book covers the financial and emotional benefits of living together, proximity and privacy, designing and remodeling your home to accommodate adult children or elderly parents, overcoming cultural stigmas about interdependent living, financial and legal planning, and making cohabitation agreements.

In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty promised an array of federal programs to assist working-class families. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan declared the GOP the party of "family values" and promised to keep government out of Americans' lives. Again and again, historians have sought to explain the nation's profound political realignment from the 1960s to the 2000s, five decades that witnessed the fracturing of liberalism and the rise of the conservative right. The award-winning historian Robert O. Self is the first to argue that the separate threads of that realignment—from civil rights to women's rights, from the antiwar movement to Nixon's "silent majority," from the abortion wars to gay marriage, from the welfare state to neoliberal economic policies—all ran through the politicized American family. Based on an astonishing range of sources, All in the Family rethinks an entire era. Self opens his narrative with the Great Society and its assumption of a white, patriotic, heterosexual man at the head of each family. Soon enough, civil rights activists, feminists, and gay rights activists, animated by broader visions of citizenship, began to fight for equal rights, protections, and opportunities. Led by Pauli Murray, Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, and Shirley Chisholm, among many others, they achieved lasting successes, including Roe v. Wade, antidiscrimination protections in the workplace, and a more inclusive idea of the American family. Yet the establishment of new rights and the visibility of alternative families provoked, beginning in the 1970s, a furious conservative backlash. Politicians and activists on the right, most notably George Wallace, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, and Jerry Falwell, built a political movement based on the perceived moral threat to the traditional family. Self writes that "family values" conservatives in fact "paved the way" for fiscal conservatives, who shared a belief in liberalism's invasiveness but lacked a populist message. Reagan's presidency united the two constituencies, which remain, even in these tumultuous times, the base of the Republican Party. All in the Family, an erudite, passionate, and persuasive explanation of our current political situation and how we arrived in it, will allow us to think anew about the last fifty years of American politics.

Have you ever noticed that children look like their parents? This is because they have shared traits. With easy-to-read text and detailed images, this science reader introduces students to the concept of inherited traits. Aligned to state and national standards, the book contains nonfiction text features like an index, a glossary, captions, bold font, and detailed images to keep students connected to the text. A hands-on science experiment helps students apply what they have learned and develops critical thinking skills.

'All in the Family' quickly did more than become a top-rated, Emmy Award&–winning series that promoted a positive, progressive agenda. This revolutionary show about a reactionary man helped foster an openness in culture. It transformed the very nature of what could be broadcast into our homes, and paved the way for other shows with working-class as well as racially diverse protagonists. During 'All in the Family's nine seasons on CBS, creators Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin used their series as a televised soapbox to masterfully portray the upheavals and concerns racking the United States. Half a century later, its humor and message remain prescient, as it plumbs problems that still vex our families and society, and seeks to understand and explain the very soul of America.