June 2016 Acquisitions

Books:
Bryce Carlson et al, Hit: 1957, 2016.
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962.
Hillary Clinton. Living History, 2003.
Paul Cornell et al, This Damned Band, 2016.
Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays, 1970.
Shea Fontana and Yancey Labat, DC Super Hero Girls, Vol. 1: Finals Crisis, 2016.
Thomas Frank, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation, 2009.
E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, 1966.
Bruce Jay Friedman, Stern, 1962.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, 2000.
Bryan Hill et al, Postal, Vol. 3, 2016.
Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe, 2000.
Geoff Johns et al, Batman: Earth One, Vol. 2, 2016.
Antony Johnston et al, Codename Baboushka, Vol. 1: The Conclave of Death, 2016.
Eric Kripke et al, Jacked, 2016.
Robert Lefcourt (ed.), Law Against the People, 1971.
William Madsen, The Mexican-Americans of South Texas, 1964.
Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 1979.
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World, 1967.
Scott Snyder et al, Superman Unchained, 2016.
Tim Weiner, One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, 2016.
Henry Winston, Strategy for a Black Agenda, 1973.

DVDs:
Ramona and Beezus, 2010.

That's All Right, O Death, Let Me Ride

The Washington Post runs obituaries for musicians Scotty Moore, Ralph Stanley, and Bernie Worrell.

"Four Centuries of Misrepresentation and Exploitation"

"This perspective, perhaps the most accurate of all, reveals the unspoken obvious: there cannot be a middle or upper class without a lower. There just can't. Somehow, we seem to have spent four centuries going to cruel and absurd lengths to avoid making direct eye contact with this. Racial differences have offered convenient grounds on which to compartmentalize people, but they clearly don't always do the trick. Invariably, class picks up the slack in the act.
"Isenberg puts it this way, 'Moved by the need for control, for an unchallenged top tier, the power elite in American history has thrived by placating the vulnerable and creating for them a false sense of identification—denying real class differences whenever possible.' She calls this deception 'dangerous' partly because 'the relative few who escape poverty are held up as models, as though everybody at the bottom has the same chance of succeeding through cleverness and hard work, through scrimping and saving.' The poor know differently."

John Collins in In These Times reviews Nancy Isenberg's White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.

In The Atlantic, Alec MacGillis reviews Isenberg's book and also J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

And Karin Kamp at Moyers & Company interviews Isenberg.

"Queen Elizabeth Screaming At Stockbroker To Dump Everything"

"'Just get rid of whatever we have—right now, goddammit!' said Her Royal Highness, who reportedly slammed her fist against a 16th-century desk while shouting at her broker over the phone."

From The Onion.

"Halfway Between the Old and New"

"By the time he jumped into the 1968 presidential race, civil rights had become a defining issue for Bobby, along with ending the war. But what was truly remarkable was his gift for connecting to the white working class as well as to blacks. He was building bridges—between blacks, browns, and blue-collar whites, as well as between hippies and hard hats—in stark contrast to the divisions sowed then by Richard Nixon and today by Donald Trump. Just how far Bobby had come was apparent in three magical moments during that short-lived campaign."

Larry Tye in The American Prospect discusses the last months of Robert Kennedy's life.

"Quintessentially American in Its Mash-Up of Identity and Culture"

"The show's curator, Anne Mallek (former curator of the Gamble House), chose from published photos and unpublished prints, prefacing each section with Ishimoto's images of Katusura Imperial Villa in Kyoto taken 20 years before the Greene and Greene commission. Compositions tend to focus on geometry and design details–wooden hinges, fixtures, masonry–but few wide shots incorporating complete structures. Despite the gap in time and place, the resemblance between the 17^th century royal retreat and the Greene and Greene houses of the early 1900s are close enough that one could be mistaken for the other."

In the wake of a new exhibit, Jordan Riefe in The Guardian discusses the architectual photography of Yasuhiro Ishimoto.

"This Is Not the Country It Was Yesterday"

"The risk is that Britain becomes a kind of offshore oddity, quirky but irrelevant–shut out of the action of its neighbouring continent. That shift will be felt first by the City of London: perhaps few will shed any tears for them, even if financial services are–or used to be–one of this country's biggest employers. But eventually that new view of Britain could percolate through, affecting our creative industries, our tourism and eventually our place in the world."

Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian reacts to the Brexit.

As does Owen Jones.

As does David Dayen in The American Prospect.

"Their Path to Success Wasn't in Place"

"For example, somebody who lived in a house with lead paint poisoning, somebody like Freddie Gray, who is a case we're all familiar with, he didn't have the ability to follow multistep instructions.
And so, in school, people thought he had behavior differences, when it was really learning differences. And so he was suspended, and then he didn't complete school, and then he was in and out of the correction system.
"And then when somebody like that goes into incarceration, again, lots of complicated instructions, and before you know it, they're in solitary confinement."

Judy Woodruff on the PBS Newshour interviews Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi about disabled prisoners.

"But Much of What the Second Wave Accomplished or Helped to Accomplish Now Seems as if It Has Always Existed. It Hasn't."

"Most of these things would not exist at all if not for the feminists of the 1970s, and they don't benefit middle-class women alone. Some have offered lifelines to women from many backgrounds when they needed it most. That second-wave feminism accomplished all this, despite its shortcomings and divisions, ought to be seen as an encouraging sign."

Laura Miller in Slate tries to save 1970s feminism from the enormous condescension of posterity.

"Almost Two Decades Later, the California Republican Party Still Has Not Recovered"

"When Wilson announced his presidential campaign, California was a Republican-leaning state. Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it had gone to the Republican presidential candidate nine out of 11 times and elected a Republican governor seven out of 11 times. Republicans controlled the governor's mansion, the state assembly, and a majority of statewide elected offices. And while the state's growing Latino population posed a challenge to GOP dominance, Latinos had shown themselves willing to vote Republican in substantial numbers. According to exit polls, Ronald Reagan won 44 percent of California Latinos in 1984. Republican Governor George Deukmejian won 46 percent in 1986. Pete Wilson himself won 47 percent in 1990. During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush years, according to a study by the political scientists Shaun Bowler, Stephen P. Nicholson, and Gary M. Segura, 'Latinos in California had been drifting toward the GOP.'
"But all of that changed after the GOP began targeting Latino immigrants."

Peter Beinart in The Atlantic compares Donald Trump in the 2010s to Pete Wilson in the 1990s.

"All These Subcultures Have This Love for the Place"

"'The photos reminded me of my childhood growing up in L.A.,' said DeBro. 'It reminded me of black-and-white TV, watching roller derby, wrestling and boxing with my dad. Richmond 9-5171: It seemed like we all knew that phone number. The photos sparked my interest. I was starting to see the scope of this narrative and how it fits into the history of L.A., the violent birth of the city, and how it connected to so many different parts of the city.'"

As a new documentary about the venue approaches, Lorraine Ali in the Los Angeles Times discusses the Olympic Auditorium.

"Nothing Gets Short Shrift"

"The film is also, in a quiet way, an argument for our times—and even, if you can believe it, a tribute to the way we talk to and understand each other now. Marcia Clark and the prosecution didn't just underestimate how much race would be a factor in the trial—top to bottom, from their reliance on Fuhrman to their jury selection to just about everything Christopher Darden went through during the whole trial, they didn't even seem to recognize that race would matter. It was something that white people, well-meaning and otherwise, simply could not understand, because it was something they hadn't been exposed to. I was in college in central Illinois when the verdict came down, and like every white person I knew—and I almost exclusively knew white people—I was appalled that O.J. had been acquitted and baffled that anyone would celebrate it. But I'd understand it today."

Will Leitch in New York reviews O.J.: Made in America.

"A Series of Deep and Growing Fissures"

The New Republic offers a roundtable discussion about the divisions in the Democratic Party.

"Mass Violence and the History of Gay Liberation Go Hand in Hand"

"The UpStairs Lounge was not the only target of mass violence during the height of gay liberation in the 1970s. Arsonists set fire to gay churches in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Nashville and San Francisco in 1973 and 1974. Six months before the fire at the UpStairs Lounge, on Jan. 27, 1973, a fire broke out at the 'Mother Church' of the M.C.C., in Los Angeles, where a gay Jewish group met for services.

"Though no other attack came close to the death toll at the UpStairs Lounge, the attacks collectively set off an undercurrent of fear among the L.G.B.T. community in the 1970s: that our bars, which have been the sites of our political liberation, the focal point of our community, and even our places of worship, have also been the visible targets of violence and hatred committed against us."

Jim Downs in The New York Times recalls anti-gay violence forty years ago.

"Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice"

"One common denominator behind these and other high-casualty mass shootings in recent years is the use of assault style rifles, capable of firing many rounds of ammunition in a relatively short period of time, with high accuracy. And their use in these types of shooting is becoming more common: There have been eight high-profile public mass shootings since July of last year, according to a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine. Assault-style rifles were used in seven of those.
In the past 10 years, assault-style rifles have been used in 14 public mass shootings. Half of those shootings have occurred since last June."

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post discusses the growing popularity of rifles like the AR-15.

"The Trump Nobody Knows"

"The Man Nobody Knows became an instant bestseller, moving a quarter-million copies by 1926. It was, like The Art of the Deal, an inspirational success manual. And it’s hard to miss the echoes in the language the two authors employed, or in the ideals they chose to exalt."

Yoni Appelbaum at The Atlantic compares Donald Trump to Bruce Barton.

"All I See Is Rubble and Inter-Party Rage"

"My wild guess is the old fault lines return: religious conservatives versus reform, non-grievance conservatives. Both sides, at least the smarter elements, will understand that a middle-class-friendly, upward-mobility empowering agenda is needed to ever win again. That vision, framed in reform and multi-cultural terms, is the right thing to fight over. Problem is, the Cruz squad will be back, arguing that Trump wasn't a 'real conservative' so we lost because he was too moderate, etc. Just a replay of their usual hokum.
"I was hoping for Cruz over Trump, so when he lost it would be something that helped the party grow beyond his specious argument. Now it just looks like a long civil war."

Francis Wilkinson at the Chicago Tribune envisions the post-Trump Republican Party.

The Legend of Newton Knight

"'When you grow up in the South, you hear all the time about your "heritage," like it's the greatest thing there is,' he says. 'When I hear that word, I think of grits and sweet tea, but mostly I think about slavery and racism, and it pains me. Newt Knight gives me something in my heritage, as a white Southerner, that I can feel proud about. We didn't all go along with it.'"

In anticipation of the new movie Free State of Jones, Richard Grant in Smithsonian visits Jones County, Mississippi.

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

"But Reagan's and Trump's opposing styles belie their similarities of substance. Both have marketed the same brand of outrage to the same angry segments of the electorate, faced the same jeering press, attracted some of the same battlefront allies (Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Phyllis Schlafly), offended the same elites (including two generations of Bushes), outmaneuvered similar political adversaries, and espoused the same conservative populism built broadly on the pillars of jingoistic nationalism, nostalgia, contempt for Washington, and racial resentment. They've even endured the same wisecracks about their unnatural coiffures. 'Governor Reagan does not dye his hair,' said Gerald Ford at a Gridiron Dinner in 1974. 'He is just turning prematurely orange.' Though Reagan's 1980 campaign slogan ('Let's Make America Great Again') is one word longer than Trump’s, that word reflects a contrast in their personalities—the avuncular versus the autocratic—but not in message. Reagan's apocalyptic theme, 'The Empire is in decline,' is interchangeable with Trump's, even if the Gipper delivered it with a smile."

Frank Rich in New York compares Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.

"To Attack Someone Because of Their Political Beliefs Is to Embrace the Logic of Authoritarianism"

"The simple truth is that reaction feeds on disorder. And when there are legitimate means to stop Trump, you're just as likely to cause a backlash in favor of his effort by forsaking them to attack his supporters. (At the risk of tripping Godwin's law, German Communist violence against ultra-right targets in the 1932 elections didn't stop Hitler and his enablers as much as it emboldened and enabled them.) If anything, Trump wants violent attacks on his supporters. Don't give them to him."

Jamelle Bouie in Slate criticizes anti-Trump violence.

"We Engaged Him for Our Ends"

"Ullrich has strong feelings about the way Hitler came to power in January 1933, enthroned by a 'sinister plot' of stupid elite politicians just at the moment when the Nazis were at last losing strength. It didn't have to happen. He constantly reminds his readers that Hitler didn't reach the chancellorship by his own efforts, but was put there by supercilious idiots who assumed they could manage this vulgarian.

Neal Ascherson in the London Review of Books reviews Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.

The Greatest

"Ali's influence out of the ring was no less marked. Having appalled white America by converting to the Nation of Islam and changing his name from Cassius Clay to Cassius X and then to Muhammad Ali, he later refused to be drafted into the army, telling reporters: 'Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong.'
"In 1967, still unbeaten and with no obvious challenger in sight, Ali was stripped of his titles and for three-and-a-half years had to scrape a living making campus speeches and appearing on Broadway. He lost his best years as a fighter yet as the opposition to Vietnam war grew, so did Ali's popularity. By the mid 1970s he was the biggest sports star on the planet."

Sean Ingle in The Guardian reports the death of Muhammad Ali.