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the pleasures and provocations of our singular nation
America's most widely read and most influential commentator casts his gimlet eye on our singular nation. Moving far beyond the strict confines of politics, George F. Will offers a fascinating look at the people, stories, and events--often unheralded--that make the American drama so endlessly entertaining and instructive. With Will's signature erudition and wry wit always on display, One Man's America chronicles a spectacular, eclectic procession of figures who have shaped our cultural landscape--from Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., from Victorian poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from cotton picker--turned--country singer Buck Owens to actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan. Will crisscrosses the country to illuminate what it is that makes America distinctive. He visits the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor and ponders its enduring links to the present. He travels to Milwaukee to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of an iconic brand, Harley-Davidson. In Los Angeles he finds the inspiring future of education, while in New York he confronts the dispiriting didacticism of the avant-garde. He ventures to the Civil War battlefields of Virginia to explore what we risk when we efface our own history. And on the outskirts of Chicago he investigates one of the darkest chapters in American history, only to discover a shining example of resilience and grace--the best the country has to offer.--From publisher description.
I. PEOPLE. The fun of William F. Buckley -- Buckley: a life athwart history -- David Brinkley: proud anachronism -- Barry Goldwater: "Cheerful Malcontent" -- John F. Kennedy's thoughts on death -- Eugene McCarthy: The tamarack tree of American politics -- What George McGovern made -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan: the senate's sisyphus -- John Kenneth Galbraith's liberalism as condescension -- Milton Friedman: ebullient master of the dismal science -- Alan Greenspan: high-achieving minimalist -- The not-at-all dull George Washington -- George Washington's long journey home -- John Marshall: the most important American never to have been president -- James Madison: well, yes, of course -- Longfellow: a forgotten founder -- Ronald Reagan: the steel behind the smile -- Reagan and the vicissitudes of historical judgments -- John Paul II: "A flame rescued from dry wood" -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali: an enlightenment fundamentalist -- Hugh Hefner: tuning fork of American fantasies -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti: the emeritus beat as tourist attraction -- Buck Owen's Bakersfield Sound -- Andrew Nesbitt: 79-lb. master of Tourette Syndrome -- Simeon Wright's grace --
II. PATHS TO THE PRESENT. The most important American war you know next-to-nothing about -- The amazing banality of flight -- The price of misreading the prairie sky -- A range of mountains on the move -- The emblematic novel of the 1930s (Gone with the Wind) -- All quiet at the overpass -- FDR's transformation of liberalism -- Retailers give thanks for Thanksgiving (and FDR) -- FDR's Christmas guest from hell -- "My place is with my shipmates" -- An anthem of American optimism in 1943 -- When war WAS the answer -- Catching up to Captain Philip -- The most fateful heart attack in American history -- How Ike's highways helped heal Civil War wounds -- The short, unhappy life of the Edsel -- The 50s in our rearview mirror -- 2002: superstitions are bad luck -- 2003: lingerie and duct tape -- 2004: The Passion of the Christ and the passions of the faculty clubs -- 2005: "In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans" -- 2006: "Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats" -- 2007: Ready, fire, aim --
III. GOVERNING. The two Americans: hard and soft -- Angela Job's resilience -- Against "national greatness conservatism" -- Summa contra Reagan nostalgia -- The left's plea for materialistic politics -- Constitutional monomania -- Judicial activism, wise and not -- The hard truth about "soft rights" -- Oologah's, and America's, slide -- A fraudulent "fairness" -- Policing speech in Oakland -- Liberalism's itch in Minneapolis -- Chicago: from the White City to the Green City -- Our moralizing tax code -- "Electronic morphine" on the Ohio River -- Prohibition II: interestingly selective -- Being green at Ben & Jerry's -- The tyranny of the small picture -- Draining the reservoir of reverence -- United 93: "we've go to do it ourselves" -- Nothing changes everything --
IV. SENSIBILITIES AND SENSITIVITIES. Narcissism as news -- The speciesism of featherless bipeds -- What we owe to what we eat -- The Holocaust: handcrafted -- The "daring" of the avant-garde yet again -- Anti-Semitism across the political spectrum -- When Harry remet Hanne -- Cars as mobile sculpture -- Hog heaven: happy one hundredth, Harley -- Restoration at 346 Madison -- Starbucks, Nail salons, and the aesthetic imperative -- Manners vs. social autism -- A punctuation vigilante -- America's literature of regret -- Chief Illiniwek and the indignation industry -- Christmas at our throats -- V. LEARNING. National amnesia and planting cut flowers -- A sensory blitzkrieg of surfaces -- "Philosophy teaching by examples" -- Fascinating contingencies -- Ed Schools vs. Education -- This just in from the professors: conservatism is a mental illness -- The law of group polarization in academia -- Antioch College's epitaph -- A scholar's malfeasance gunned down -- Juggling scarves in the therapeutic nation -- Nature, nurture, and Larry Summer's sin -- AP Harry applies to college -- Teaching minnows the pleasure of precision --
VI. GAMES. Raising Michael Oher -- The man from Moro Bottom -- "Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer!" -- Randy Shannon's realism -- The NFL: an intensification of reality -- Speaking SportsCenterese -- The movie, and the truth, about Texas Western -- VII. THE GAME. "Remember 1908!" -- Jackie Robinson: the possible and the inevitable -- Ted Williams: "I can't stand it, I'm so good" -- Roberto Clemente: "We think he can hit" -- Greg Maddux: "Watch this: the first-base coach may be going to the hospital" -- Take me out to the Metric -- Elias knows EVERYTHING -- The game's gifted eccentrics -- Don't beat a dead horse in the mouth -- The Golden Age -- Pet Rose, always hustling -- The precious, precarious equipoise -- Barry Bonds: enhanced and devalued -- The methodical Mr. Aaron -- Realism among the RiverDogs -- Striving for motel years -- Seeking anonymous perfection -- "Where's baseball?" --
VIII. WONDERING. Incest at "a genetically discreet remove" -- An intellectual hijacking -- From Dayton, TN to Rhode Island's Committee on Fish and Game -- Earth: not altogether intelligently designed -- Intelligent design and unintelligent movies -- The Pope, the neurosurgeon, and the ghost in the machine -- How biology buttresses morality, which conforms to . . . biology -- The Space Program's search for . . . us -- Nuclear waste: that's us -- The loudest sound in human experience -- L = BB + pw + BC/BF -- Wonder what we are for? wondering -- IX. MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH. Golly, what did Jon DO? -- The long dying of Louise Will.