Tony Rugg lives with a man named Rudolph, whom he does not believe is his father. When Rudolph tries to force Tony to rob a farmer, he moves and finds work in the next town as a hotel stable boy. Meanwhile, Rudolph travels to New York City. He meets with a Mrs. Middleton. Tony is really Anthony Middleton, the rightful heir to a large estate in England. Anthony's uncle wanted to claim the estate for himself, so years earlier, he hired Rudolph to kidnap Anthony. After the uncle dies, the assets belong to Mrs. Middleton. After a lengthy discussion with Rudolph, she persuades him to kill Tony. Rudolph locates the boy and throws him down a well. Tony must escape from the well and follow the meddling duo to London to claim his inheritance.

Reproduction of the original: Tony the Tramp by Horatio Alger

Reproduction of the original: Tony the Tramp by Horatio Alger

The crisis~ of the "project of modernity" (Habermas) is, at the same time, a crisis of critical theories of society and culture that have radically questioned bourgeois culture and capitalist society and economy from the perspective of a utopia of enlightened rationality. A number of parallel recent social and political problems, developments, and

A penetrating and entertaining exploration of New York’s music scene from Cubop through folk, punk, and hip-hop. From Tony Fletcher, the acclaimed biographer of Keith Moon, comes an incisive history of New York’s seminal music scenes and their vast contributions to our culture. Fletcher paints a vibrant picture of mid-twentieth-century New York and the ways in which its indigenous art, theater, literature, and political movements converged to create such unique music. With great attention to the colorful characters behind the sounds, from trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie to Tito Puente, Bob Dylan, and the Ramones, he takes us through bebop, the Latin music scene, the folk revival, glitter music, disco, punk, and hip-hop as they emerged from the neighborhood streets of Harlem, the East and West Village, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. All the while, Fletcher goes well beyond the history of the music to explain just what it was about these distinctive New York sounds that took the entire nation by storm.

Investigating the persistence and place of the formulas of Horatio Alger in American politics, The Fictional Republic reassesses the Alger story in its Gilded Age context. Carol Nackenoff argues that Alger was a keen observer of the dislocations and economic pitfalls of the rapidly industrializing nation, and devised a set of symbols that addressed anxieties about power and identity. As classes were increasingly divided by wealth, life chances, residence space, and culture, Alger maintained that Americans could still belong to one estate. The story of the youth who faces threats to his virtue, power, independence, and identity stands as an allegory of the American Republic. Nackenoff examines how the Alger formula continued to shape political discourse in Reagan's America and beyond.