Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

The unwinding : an inner history of the new America / George Packer.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013Edition: First editionDescription: viii, 434 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0374102414 (hardcover)
  • 9780374102418 (hardcover)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Part I -- 1978 -- Dean Price -- Total War : Newt Gingrich -- Jeff Connaughton -- 1984 -- Tammy Thomas -- Her Own : Oprah Winfrey -- 1987 -- Jeff Connaughton -- Dean Price -- Mr. Sam : Sam Walton -- 1994 -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tammy Thomas -- Just Business : Jay-Z -- Silicon Valley -- 1999 -- Biography : Alice Waters -- Dean Price -- Tammy Thomas -- 2003 -- Institution Man (1) : Colin Powell -- Jeff Connaughton -- Part II -- Dean Price -- Biography : Andrew Breitbart -- Tampa -- 2008 -- Silicon Valley -- Institution Man (2) : Robert Rubin -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tammy Thomas -- Dean Price -- Tampa -- Part III -- Jeff Connaughton -- 2010 -- Biography : Elizabeth Warren -- Tampa -- Dean Price -- Tammy Thomas -- Tampa -- Wall Street -- 2012 -- Silicon Valley -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tampa -- Tammy Thomas -- Dean Price.
Summary: Through an examination of the lives of several Americans and leading public figures over the past three decades, Packer portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Notes Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 973.924 P119 Available water damage top spine 33111007201201
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
A NEW YORK TIMES B ESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
AN NPR BEST BOOK

Selected by New York Times ' critic Dwight Garner as a Favorite Book
A Washington Post Best Political Book
A New Republic Best Book

A riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation

American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding , George Packer, author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq , tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.

The Unwinding journeys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet's significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics that capture the flow of events and their undercurrents.

The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation. Packer's novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America is his most ambitious work to date.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 431-434).

Part I -- 1978 -- Dean Price -- Total War : Newt Gingrich -- Jeff Connaughton -- 1984 -- Tammy Thomas -- Her Own : Oprah Winfrey -- 1987 -- Jeff Connaughton -- Dean Price -- Mr. Sam : Sam Walton -- 1994 -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tammy Thomas -- Just Business : Jay-Z -- Silicon Valley -- 1999 -- Biography : Alice Waters -- Dean Price -- Tammy Thomas -- 2003 -- Institution Man (1) : Colin Powell -- Jeff Connaughton -- Part II -- Dean Price -- Biography : Andrew Breitbart -- Tampa -- 2008 -- Silicon Valley -- Institution Man (2) : Robert Rubin -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tammy Thomas -- Dean Price -- Tampa -- Part III -- Jeff Connaughton -- 2010 -- Biography : Elizabeth Warren -- Tampa -- Dean Price -- Tammy Thomas -- Tampa -- Wall Street -- 2012 -- Silicon Valley -- Jeff Connaughton -- Tampa -- Tammy Thomas -- Dean Price.

Through an examination of the lives of several Americans and leading public figures over the past three decades, Packer portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.

Powered by Koha