Showing results for "State of the Union" in History & Theory

This would be the first formal speech to the American people from the mind of the President who is credited with bringing "Camelot" to the nation. In this speech we hear his first presidential endorsement of the Peace Corp., Food For Peace, an international sharing of scientific knowledge, and a cooperative space race. Here he decries the Cold War and Communist encroachment in Cuba. He will tell the American people things will get worse before they get better. A classic speech delivered by a well-loved American President. Narrated by Glenn Hascall.

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself.

In The Browns of California, journalist and scholar Miriam Pawel weaves a narrative history that spans four generations, from August Schuckman, the Prussian immigrant who crossed the Plains in 1852 and settled on a northern California ranch, to his great-grandson Jerry Brown, who reclaimed the family homestead 140 years later. Through the prism of their lives, we gain an essential understanding of California and an appreciation of its importance.