The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland
Author: Glenn Beck
There are some things people think but don't say....
"Political correctness is the classic Great Idea Gone Wrong. All it's done is shut us up. It hasn't changed anybody's mind. It hasn't changed our hearts. It's changed our faces. It's taken every opinion we have, it's taken every joke we have, and it's forced us to conceal it and hide it and bury it. It's made us superficial."
"Terrorism isn't caused by poverty, poverty is caused by terrorism. Terror is a tool used by those seeking power to keep the masses in need of an answer."
"Too many people blame everything on everybody else, and because they do, they will expect too little from themselves and too little from their children."
Glenn Beck says all that, and more.
As one of the most listened to nationally syndicated radio talk-show hosts and the driving force behind the Rallies for America, Glenn Beck entertains, inspires, and informs millions of listeners. In The Real America, Beck continues to tell it like it really is, cutting through the fog of modern-day pundits and pontificators who have made it their mission to undermine and underestimate the greatness of America, our strength as Americans, and the power of the American spirit.
With his inimitable combination of self-effacing humor and heartfelt conviction, Glenn rails against many of the forces that keep us from our potential as a nation and as individuals -- and tells how to overcome them. His topics include:
- Family and community
- Politics
- Personal responsibility
- Race relations
- Religion
- Political correctness, the media, Hollywood, and celebrities
- Abortion and the deat
- penalty
- Alcoholand drugs
- Why I wave the flag
Glenn Beck's compelling message in The Real America echoes the ideas he has delivered to thousands of people with his groundbreaking Rallies for America: Once we connect with our power individually, we can empower others -- and then we can be as great and as grand as we have always wanted to be as a person, as a people, and as a nation.
Book review: Neiman Marcus Cookbook or The French Dont Diet Plan
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Author: Jon Meacham
Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.
One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Rooseveltto FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.
Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.
Jon Meacham in American Lion has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency–and America itself.
The Washington Post - Douglas Brinkley
…the most readable single-volume biography ever written of our seventh president, drawing on a trove of previously unpublished correspondence to vividly illuminate the self-made warrior who "embodied the nation's birth and youth." Such new documents, many unearthed from the archives of the Hermitage, Jackson's Nashville estate, allow Meacham to offer fresh analysis on the central issues of his presidency: the so-called Bank War (in which Jackson abolished the government-controlled national bank) and the federal tariff on imports (which South Carolina tried to nullify, even threatening to secede). While in the hands of a lesser writer this economics-laden history might glaze a reader's eyes, Meacham skillfully brings to life such long-forgotten characters as Nicholas Biddle (president of the Second Bank of the United States) and William B. Lewis (second auditor of the Treasury).
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
American Lion, Jon Meacham's carefully analytical biography, looks past the theatrics and posturing to the essential elements of Jackson's many showdowns. Mr. Meacham…dispenses with the usual view of Jackson as a Tennessee hothead and instead sees a cannily ambitious figure determined to reshape the power of the presidency during his time in office (1829 to 1837). Case by case, Mr. Meacham dissects Jackson's battles and reinterprets them in a revealing new light.
Publishers Weekly
Newsweek editor and bestselling author Meacham (Franklin and Winston) offers a lively take on the seventh president's White House years. We get the Indian fighter and hero of New Orleans facing down South Carolina radicals' efforts to nullify federal laws they found unacceptable, speaking the words of democracy even if his banking and other policies strengthened local oligarchies, and doing nothing to protect southern Indians from their land-hungry white neighbors. For the first time, with Jackson, demagoguery became presidential, and his Democratic Party deepened its identification with Southern slavery. Relying on the huge mound of previous Jackson studies, Meacham can add little to this well-known story, save for the few tidbits he's unearthed in private collections rarely consulted before. What he does bring is a writer's flair and the ability to relate his story without the incrustations of ideology and position taking that often disfigure more scholarly studies of Jackson. Nevertheless, a gifted writer like Meacham might better turn his attention to tales less often told and subjects a bit tougher to enliven. 32 pages of b&w photos. (Nov. 11)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.What People Are Saying
"What passes for political drama today pales in the reading of Jon Meacham's vividly-told story of our seventh president. The rip-roaring two-fisted man of the people, duelist, passionate lover, gambler and war hero, was also a prime creator of the presidency as the fulcrum of executive power to defend democracy…Meacham argues that Jackson should be in the pantheon with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln for this and for his role in preserving the Union and rescuing democracy from elitism. He makes the historian's case with wit and scholarship but Meacham also has the novelist's art of enthralling the general reader much as Donald McCullough did for the lesser figure of John Adams. Reading "American Lion" one is no longer able to look on the gaunt, craggy face on the $20 bill without hearing the tumult of America in the making."
-Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles
"Every so often a terrific biography comes along that shines a new light on a familiar figure in American history. So it was with David McCullough's John Adams, so it was with Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin, so it is with Jon Meacham's Andrew Jackson. A master storyteller, Meacham interweaves the lives of Jackson and the members of his inner circle to create a highly original book that makes a critical contribution to our understanding of a fascinating presidency and a crucial period in our American life. And it is a beautifully written, absolutely riveting story from start to finish."
-Doris Kearns Goodwin
"In magnificent prose, enriched by the author's discovery of new research materials, Jon Meacham has written an engrossing and original study of the life of Andrew Jackson. He provides new insights into Jackson's emotional and intellectual character and personality, and describes life in the White House in a unique and compelling way. Scrupulously researched and vividly written, this book is certain to attract a large and diverse reading public."
-Robert V. Remini, National Book Award-winning historian and biographer of Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster
"Finally, a book that explains our nation's most enigmatic hero, a man who was revered and reviled and little understood. Jon Meacham brilliantly takes us inside the family circle that sustained Andrew Jackson's presidency and provided his steadiness of faith. It's a vivid, fascinating human drama, and Meacham shows how the personal was interwoven with the political. Jackson presided over the birth of modern politics, and this book's brew of patriotism and religion and populism tastes very familiar. In helping us understand Jackson, Meacham helps us understand America."
-Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
"American Lion is a spellbinding, brilliant and irresistible journey into the heart of Andrew Jackson and his unforgettable circle of friends and enemies. With narrative energy, flash and devotion to larger issues that are truly Jacksonian, Jon Meacham reveals Old Hickory's complicated inner life and recreates the excitement of living in Jackson's Washington. Most of all, Meacham's important book shows us how the old hero transformed both the American Presidency and the nation he led."
—Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989
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