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Questioning why Americans remain uneasy at the End of History, contends that we are blighted by the construction of a phony culture dominated by the value of the confidence man, and demonstrates America's transformation into this culture of artifice, where the practices of confidence tend to make everything and everybody into a phony. The author explores the various dimensions of American cultural phoniness, ranging over phony language, phony people, phony places and things, phony events, phony deals, and phony politics. Paper edition (unseen), $18.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A biography for readers ages 9 to 12 that tells the story of a 19th century German-American pioneer industrialist who made his fortune manufacturing hard rubber combs thanks to his friendship with Charles Goodyear and his invention, vulcanized rubber. Poppenhusen founded a town, College Point, New York, and became a much-loved philanthropist funding churches, libraries and an educational institution that is today both a national and a New York City landmark, the Institute that bears his name. He was an innovator in education introducing the first free kindergarten for his workers and for the people of the town. After consolidating what is today's Long Island Railroad, and bringing train service to the village, he suffered the loss of his fortune through mismanagement, but was able to recover in less than a year. Spending almost two years at sea, over a quarter of a century he traveled to and from Germany more than forty times. During one of those crossings he was rescued after a collision with another vessel. He truly was a survivor. Following his death in 1883, the community erected a memorial to his memory in a small triangular parcel of land, one of his many gifts. It is beautifully maintained, and remains a fitting tribute to the founder of College Point.

The notion of society and politics as drama has drawn much attention in recent years. Yet despite the heritage begun by Aristophanes, few students of politics and the social order have taken comedy and comic inquiry seriously. This book revives the Aristophanic notion of democracy as comedy. Herein the reader will find why and how different aspects of American democracy—public opinion, interest groups, the presidency, and so on—are comic. It is the author's contention that the comic perspective offers insight and understanding on the actual operation of democracy. And they invite all those who wish to understand why American democracy is so comic to join them in their inquiry.

This argues that most people learn about politics from information imparted by mass media and that our opinions are shaped by the sources of that information. The authors also contend that political reality is transformed, or mediated, into fantasy, and reality disappears.

Judge Not: How Invisible Situations Shape Our Lives by David, J. Y. Combs, PhD explores the vast, and often invisible, power that situations have in shaping our lives. Human beings tend to assume that the behavior we observe in other people is a window into who they are. So, when we see a person engage in a good behavior, we tend to think that they are a good person. If we see a bad behavior... we assume the person is bad, flawed, or defective. But what if we're wrong? What if the behaviors we observe are often driven not by some core element of a person but, rather, by the invisible situations and context a person exists within? Research tells us that human behavior is shaped by context and situation far more than we assume. As a result, our judgments are commonly misguided and incomplete (at best) and catastrophically wrong (at worst). In many cases, we try to engage a person to fix their behavior based on our flawed or incomplete understanding of what's actually causing their actions... with a potential for devastating results. Judge Not explores these fundamental human challenges-and offers a path to a better way.

The Wider World & Scrimshaw explores carving traditions that emerged alongside subsistence and commercial whaling routes around the Pacific, from New Bedford, MA to Oceania and the Arctic. The New Bedford Whaling Museum (NBWM) holds the largest collection of "scrimshaw" in the world, defined as a decorative, folk, or vernacular art made by whalers from the byproducts of whales. General audiences frequently misconstrue maritime history and scrimshaw specifically as linked only to white, male, New England makers. Wider World overturns these assumptions by placing our incredible scrimshaw collection into conversation with Indigenous material culture from across the Pacific world.

Nimmo and Combs discuss the key role political analysts play, their methods and strategies, and the potential danger they pose to American democracy--by transforming it into a "punditocracy" which replaces serious citizen debate with discussion guided by show business values. Punditry, Nimmo and Combs argue, produces symbolic rather than effective healing of political ills, political paternalism rather than political reflection, and, in the end, public disenchantment with politics.