Описание: We commonly think of the psychedelic sixties as an explosion of creative energy and freedom that arose in direct revolt against the social restraint and authoritarian hierarchy of the early Cold War years. Yet, as Fred Turner reveals in "The Democratic Surround," the decades that brought us the Korean War and communist witch hunts also witnessed an extraordinary turn toward explicitly democratic, open, and inclusive ideas of communication and with them new, flexible models of social order. Surprisingly, he shows that it was this turn that brought us the revolutionary multimedia and wild-eyed individualism of the 1960s counterculture. In this prequel to his celebrated book "From Counterculture to Cyberculture," Turner rewrites the history of postwar America, showing how in the 1940s and '50s American liberalism offered a far more radical social vision than we now remember. Turner tracks the influential mid-century entwining of Bauhaus aesthetics with American social science and psychology. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Turner shows how some of the most well-known artists and intellectuals of the forties developed new models of media, new theories of interpersonal and international collaboration, and new visions of an open, tolerant, and democratic self in direct contrast to the repression and conformity associated with the fascist and communist movements. He then shows how their work shaped some of the most significant media events of the Cold War, including Edward Steichen's "Family of Man" exhibition, the multimedia performances of John Cage, and, ultimately, the psychedelic Be-Ins of the sixties. Turner demonstrates that by the end of the 1950s this vision of the democratic self and the media built to promote it would actually become part of the mainstream, even shaping American propaganda efforts in Europe. Overturning common misconceptions of these transformational years, "The Democratic Surround" shows just how much the artistic and social radicalism of the sixties owed to the liberal ideals of Cold War America, a democratic vision that still underlies our hopes for digital media today.
Описание: The 2012 presidential elections represented the second consecutive defeat for the Republican Party, and the fourth defeat out of the last six presidential elections. In recent years both Republican and Democratic strategists and pundits have spoken of an emerging Democratic Party "lock" on the Electoral College and speculated that even in the wake of Republican victories in Congress, presidential candidates are still at a major disadvantage due to the party's increasing demographic and geographic isolation. This prediction flies in the face of population shifts of the last several decades from Democratic regions (Upper-Midwest and Northeast) to Republican-leaning regions (South and Southwest); at the same time, it seems to follow from demographic changes favoring an increase in the minority vote. In fact, there is an initiative to convert Texas to a Democratic state by mobilizing Latino and Black voters. In Altered States, Thomas Holbrook looks at electoral change in presidential elections since 1972, documenting the magnitude, direction, and consequences of changes in party support in the states. He finds that the Democrats do not have a "lock" on the Electoral College, but that their position has improved dramatically over the past forty years in a number of formerly competitive or Republican-leaning states in the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. Republican candidates have made many fewer gains, mostly improving their position in "misplaced," formerly Democratic states, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, or in already deeply Republican states in the Plains and Mountain West. Holbrook looks at the ways that changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the state electorates, migratory patterns from large Democratic states to Republican-leaning states, and changes in the public's level of education and occupational status, state party identification, and ideology drive these changes. Additionally, he explores the extent to which the Republican "problem" stems from the geographic concentration of party support. While Democratic concentration in major metropolitan areas tends to put them at a disadvantage in House races, as Republican votes increasingly are concentrated in fewer states where they win by wider margins, they may be "wasting" more Electoral College votes than Democrats, whose supporters are more efficiently distributed.
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