Aristocracy, Or Life Among the "Upper Ten."

Aristocracy, Or Life Among the Author: Joseph A. Nunes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philadelphia (Pa.)
Languages : en
Pages : 710

Book Description


Aristocracy

Aristocracy PDF Author: Joseph A. Nunes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philadelphia (Pa.)
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description


Former People

Former People PDF Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466827750
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 763

Book Description
Epic in scope, precise in detail, and heart-breaking in its human drama, Former People is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin's Russia. Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries'-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia. Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class—so-called "former people" and "class enemies"—overcame the psychological wounds inflicted by the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families—the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns—it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on. Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia's most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.

The 9.9 Percent

The 9.9 Percent PDF Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114207
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.

American Aristocracy

American Aristocracy PDF Author: Clemens David Heymann
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582

Book Description


Vivia; Or, The Secret of Power

Vivia; Or, The Secret of Power PDF Author: Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 572

Book Description


The Roman Traitor: A True Tale of the Republic (Complete)

The Roman Traitor: A True Tale of the Republic (Complete) PDF Author: Henry William Herbert
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 146554917X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 871

Book Description
But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs. Marino Faliero. Midnight was over Rome. The skies were dark and lowering, and ominous of tempest; for it was a sirocco, and the welkin was overcast with sheets of vapory cloud, not very dense, indeed, or solid, but still sufficient to intercept the feeble twinkling of the stars, which alone held dominion in the firmament; since the young crescent of the moon had sunk long ago beneath the veiled horizon. The air was thick and sultry, and so unspeakably oppressive, that for above three hours the streets had been entirely deserted. In a few houses of the higher class, lights might be seen dimly shining through the casements of the small chambers, hard beside the doorway, appropriated to the use of the Atriensis, or slave whose charge it was to guard the entrance of the court. But, for the most part, not a single ray cheered the dull murky streets, except that here and there, before the holy shrine, or vaster and more elaborate temple, of some one of Rome's hundred gods, the votive lanthorns, though shorn of half their beams by the dense fog-wreaths, burnt perennial. The period was the latter time of the republic, a few years after the fell democratic persecutions of the plebeian Marius had drowned the mighty city oceans-deep in patrician gore; after the awful retribution of the avenger Sylla had rioted in the destruction of that guilty faction. He who was destined one day to support the laurelled diadem of universal empire on his bald brows, stood even now among the noblest, the most ambitious, and the most famous of the state; though not as yet had he unfurled the eagle wings of conquest over the fierce barbarian hordes of Gaul and Germany, or launched his galleys on the untried waters of the great Western sea. A dissipated, spendthrift, and luxurious youth, devoted solely as it would seem to the pleasures of the table, or to intrigues with the most fair and noble of Rome's ladies, he had yet, amid those unworthy occupations, displayed such gleams of overmastering talent, such wondrous energy, such deep sagacity, and above all such uncurbed though ill-directed ambition, that the perpetual Dictator had already, years before, exclaimed with prescient wisdom,—"In yon unzoned youth I perceive the germ of many a Marius." At the same time, the magnificent and princely leader, who was to be thereafter his great rival, was reaping that rich crop of glory, the seeds of which had been sown already by the wronged Lucullus, in the broad kingdoms of the effeminate East. Meanwhile, as Rome had gradually rendered herself, by the exertion of indomitable valor, the supreme mistress of every foreign power that bordered on the Mediterranean, wealth, avarice, and luxury, like some contagious pestilence, had crept into the inmost vitals of the commonwealth, until the very features, which had once made her famous, no less for her virtues than her valor, were utterly obliterated and for ever. Instead of a paternal, poor, brave, patriotic aristocracy, she had now a nobility, valiant indeed and capable, but dissolute beyond the reach of man's imagination, boundless in their expenditures, reckless as to the mode of gaining wherewithal to support them, oppressive and despotical to their inferiors, smooth-tongued and hypocritical toward each other, destitute equally of justice and compassion toward men, and of respect and piety toward the Gods! Wealth had become the idol, the god of the whole people! Wealth—and no longer service, eloquence, daring, or integrity,—was held the requisite for office. Wealth now conferred upon its owner, all magistracies all guerdons—rank, power, command,—consulships, provinces, and armies.

The Lost Heiress

The Lost Heiress PDF Author: Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fathers and daughters
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Book Description
The story of a heroine rescued by her father from a domineering suitor.

The Upper Ten Thousand

The Upper Ten Thousand PDF Author: Charles Astor Bristed
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : New York (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description


American Fiction, 1774-1850

American Fiction, 1774-1850 PDF Author: Lyle Henry Wright
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description