Now in a completely updated and expanded edition, What's Up, America? A Foreigner's Guide to Understanding Americans takes international newcomers on a tour of the real U.S. by answering some of their most common questions in the author's fearless and frank way. If this is the land of the free, why are there so many rules? What is American food besides hamburgers and hot dogs? How does the health care system work? How do we judge if an American is just being friend or truly being a friend? Readers also get a visual picture of the American people in illustrations, pie charts, and informational graphics and the travel guide's twenty-two chapters is packed with examples, statistics and historical background. Diane Asitimbay is the award-winning author whose insights have been featured on FOX & Friends, KPBS Public Radio and in various magazines and newspapers. As a speaker, teacher and intercultural trainer, she has helped countless international newcomers feel at home in the United States.

With What's So Great About America, Dinesh D'Souza is not asking a question, but making a statement. The former White House policy analyst and bestselling author argues that in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, American ideals and patriotism should not be things we shy away from. Instead he offers the grounds for a solid, well-considered pride in the Western pillars of "science, democracy and capitalism," while deconstructing arguments from both the political Left and political Right. As an "outsider" from India who has had amazing success in the United States, D'Souza defends not an idealized America, but America as it really is, and measures America not against an utopian ideal, but against the rest of the world in a provocative, challenging, and personal book.

What's Right About America provides a fresh, lively take on the evolution of American values, and why they matter today more than ever. Rep. Granger is ideally suited to write a book that speaks to American ideals, and how this country strives -- sometimes in fits and starts -- to meet the high standards set by the Founding Fathers. A former teacher, Rep. Granger sits on both the House Defense Appropriations and Education Subcommittees. She's keenly aware that the threats and challenges we face abroad and at home make it imperative that young people in particular understand what makes the United States unique -- and why that uniqueness is worth preserving. Each chapter of What's Right About America brings to life American values -- compassion, responsibility, justice, and the belief in progress -- as embodied in the stories of great Americans such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Neil Armstrong and Rosa Parks. Rep. Granger shows how their momentous actions brought out not just the best in themselves, but in others -- though sometimes at a high cost.

One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times

From Native American traditions to immigrant inventions, from diversity to democracy, from ice cream cones to apple pie, this picture book is filled with fun facts and historical trivia, celebrating the melting pot and mosaic that is America. Did you know that the inventor of American cheese actually came from Canada? Or that founding father Benjamin Franklin was inspired to create a democratic society by a confederacy of Native American tribes who came together to stop their constant warring? How about that both "God Bless America" and "White Christmas" were written by Irving Berlin, a Russian Jew who fled to the U.S. because of persecution back home? People have come to America from many different countries, in many different ways, for many different reasons. Americans have many different beliefs, different languages, and different traditions. But even with all of these differences, America comes together with the understanding that our country and government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." And there's nothing more American than that.

A CLEAR-EYED, COGENT CLARION CALL FOR ENDING THE DIVISIVE CLASS WARS THAT THREATEN THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS DREAM In What’s the Matter with White People? Walsh argues that the biggest divide in America today is based not on party or ideology but on two competing explanations for why middle-class stability has been shaken since the 1970s. One side sees an America that has spent the last forty years bankrupting the country by providing benefits for the underachieving, the immoral, and the undeserving—no matter the cost to the majority of Americans. The other side sees an America that has spent the last forty years catering to the wealthy while allowing only a nominal measure of progress for the downtrodden. Using her extended Irish-Catholic working-class family as a case in point and explaining her own political coming-of-age, Walsh shows how liberals unwittingly collaborated in the “us versus them” narrative and how the GOP’s renewed culture war now scapegoats segments of its own white demographic. Part memoir, part political history, What’s the Matter with White People? is essential reading to combat political and cultural polarization and to build a more just and prosperous multiracial America in the years to come. WITH A NEW AFTERWORD