Get ready to be entertained with more than 300 "jam-packed" pages of unusual, bizarre and often humorous political facts in American politics. These are not the facts that you were taught in Politics 101. Sound smart at your next cocktail party or at the local coffee shop when the conversation turns to politics; you will easily be able to weave these fascinating facts into the conversation. Political junkies and casual political observers alike will enjoy this book. It's a fun read. In fact, the book makes the perfect gift. This book is bursting with interesting facts and pictures pertaining to American Presidents, Vice Presidents, Cabinet Members, First Ladies, Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, Governors, and local elected officials. Find out the real story behind the following political peculiarities: *The belief by some that George Washington should not be considered America's First President. *A President's last words as he ate his soup: "The Nourishment is palatable." *A Governor once vetoed a bill for "bad spelling, improper punctuation and erasures." *A political candidate, who after losing an election, complained: "The people have spoken, The Bastards." *Hillary Clinton was the President of the Young Republicans at Wellesley College. *A U.S. President who has been forgotten in the U.S., but who is worshiped in Paraguay and has a national holiday named after him in that country. *After losing re-nomination by his own party, one President deadpanned: "There's nothing left to do but get drunk." *A First Lady who enjoyed conversing on her CB radio from the White House using the handle "First Mamma." *A President gave a Pope a bust of "himself" as a gift. *One state had a 24-year-old Governor. *A President who in his earlier life worked as a custodian and an auto mechanic. *A staph infection that may have altered the course of history. *A losing Presidential candidate who speculated that his unwillingness to appear on the weekly TV comedy show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh In" may have cost him the election. *A President whose birth name was Leslie Lynch King. *A Vice President who regularly presided drunk over the U.S. Senate. *A state where prisoners make license plates that read: "Live free or die." *A Vice President who needed additional income took a leave of absence to open a tavern and spa. *A future President who was the head cheerleader at his High School football games. *A Congressman who called a colleague on the House floor a "Howdy-Doody-looking nimrod." *A President that was so large that he got stuck in a White House bathtub and needed assistance in getting out. *A Congressman who issued a press release deriding the organization known as Americans for Tax Reform as "Lying Sacks of Scum." *A future President who came in second in the Iowa Caucuses to "None of the above" *A U.S. Senate candidate who appeared on the ballot as "God Almighty" *A former 12-year Governor who "subsequently" became a bank teller. *That one Secretary of State had never left the U.S. before taking office. *A Supreme Court Justice who wrote in the Majority Opinion regarding forced sterilization: "Three Generations of Imbeciles is enough." *A President's last words as his wife was reading him the newspaper: "Could you please read that again?" *Two brothers who ran against each other for the Governorship of Tennessee.

The authors explore how Americans' levels of political knowledge have changed over the past 50 years, how such knowledge is distributed among different groups, and how it is used in political decision-making. Drawing on extensive survey data, they present compelling evidence for benefits of a politically informed citizenry--and the cost of one that is poorly and inequitably informed. 62 illustrations.

The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump "A generous but disconcerting look at the Tea Party. . . . This is a smart, respectful and compelling book." —Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks and "masterly" by Atul Gawande, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others. The paperback edition features a new afterword by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and also includes a readers' group guide at the back of the book.

A media expert and network commentator examines the welter of misinformation--generated by politicians and the media alike--that surrounds political campaigns.

“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.

This is the Second Edition of the book, which was first published in 2011. This book includes a new chapter on the 2012 Election. This book contains little known facts in American Politics.

Now in its second edition, here is one of the first and only issue-based nonpartisan guides to contemporary American politics. It’s a very exciting time in American politics. Voter turnout in primaries and caucuses across the nation has shattered old records. More than ever, in this election year people are paying attention to the issues. But in a world of sound bites and deliberate misinformation and a political scene that is literally colored by a partisan divide—blue vs. red—how does the average educated American find a reliable source that’s free of political spin? What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don’t breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why, whether it’s the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, oil and renewable energy sources, or climate change. If you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it’s the perfect book to brush up on a single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics.