David S. Brown - Böcker

Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) was America's most distinguished historian of the twentieth century. The author of several groundbreaking books, including "The American Political Tradition", he was a vigorous champion of the liberal politics that emerged from the New Deal. During his career, Hofstadter fought public campaigns against liberalism's most dynamic opponents, from McCarthy in the 1950s to Barry Goldwater and the Sun Belt conservatives in the 1960s. His opposition to the extreme politics of postwar America marked him as one of the nation's most important and prolific public intellectuals. In this masterly biography, David S. Brown explores Hofstadter's life within the context of the rise and fall of American liberalism. A fierce advocate of academic freedom, racial justice, and political pluralism, Hofstadter charted in his works the changing nature of American society from a provincial Protestant foundation to one based on the values of an urban and multiethnic nation. According to Brown, Hofstadter presciently saw in rural America's hostility to this cosmopolitanism signs of an anti-intellectualism that he believed was dangerously endemic in a mass democracy.By the end of a life cut short by leukemia, Hofstadter had won two Pulitzer Prizes and his books had attracted international attention. Yet the Vietnam years, as Brown shows, culminated in a conservative reaction to his work that is still with us. Whether one agrees with Hofstadter's critics or his fans, the importance of this seminal thinker cannot be denied.

Metal contamination of groundwater results from many human activities, including agriculture, mining, and the disposal of municipal waste and fly ash. Metals in Groundwater describes the transport of metals to groundwater from these and other sources. It also covers risk assessment of metals in groundwater, coupling of chemicals and hydrological models, and sorption of metals onto soils and clays. The speciation of metals is examined in detail. The book will interest researchers in environmental quality, mining, and agriculture; consultants; industry professionals; and personnel within regulatory agencies.

Pigeonholed in popular memory as a Jazz Age epicurean, a playboy, and an emblem of the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald was at heart a moralist struck by the nation’s shifting mood and manners after World War I. In Paradise Lost, David Brown contends that Fitzgerald’s deepest allegiances were to a fading antebellum world he associated with his father’s Chesapeake Bay roots. Yet as a midwesterner, an Irish Catholic, and a perpetually in-debt author, he felt like an outsider in the haute bourgeoisie haunts of Lake Forest, Princeton, and Hollywood—places that left an indelible mark on his worldview.In this comprehensive biography, Brown reexamines Fitzgerald’s childhood, first loves, and difficult marriage to Zelda Sayre. He looks at Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway, the golden years that culminated with Gatsby, and his increasing alcohol abuse and declining fortunes which coincided with Zelda’s institutionalization and the nation’s economic collapse.Placing Fitzgerald in the company of Progressive intellectuals such as Charles Beard, Randolph Bourne, and Thorstein Veblen, Brown reveals Fitzgerald as a writer with an encompassing historical imagination not suggested by his reputation as “the chronicler of the Jazz Age.” His best novels, stories, and essays take the measure of both the immediate moment and the more distant rhythms of capital accumulation, immigration, and sexual politics that were moving America further away from its Protestant agrarian moorings. Fitzgerald wrote powerfully about change in America, Brown shows, because he saw it as the dominant theme in his own family history and life.

The first half of this book is primarily a systematic survey of the snails, beginning with glossaries, keys for identification to genera and a checklist of species. This is followed by a synopsis of species, with brief notes on ecology, distribution and parasites. Relationships are then described between snails and schistosomes and with other parasites. The book goes on to consider the factors affecting snail populations and possible methods for population control.

Metal contamination of groundwater results from many human activities, including agriculture, mining, and the disposal of municipal waste and fly ash. Metals in Groundwater describes the transport of metals to groundwater from these and other sources. It also covers risk assessment of metals in groundwater, coupling of chemicals and hydrological models, and sorption of metals onto soils and clays. The speciation of metals is examined in detail. The book will interest researchers in environmental quality, mining, and agriculture; consultants; industry professionals; and personnel within regulatory agencies.

Thomas Jefferson advocated a society based on talent and virtue. His belief in the inherent goodness of humankind coupled with his faith in science made him the consummate gentleman-statesman. There was also an ethnocentric side to Jefferson. His agrarian bias led him to combat northern interests that encouraged the expansion of industry, and his legacy lends itself to continual reinterpretation. More than 180 entries in this text cover the significant events, people, philosophies, and legislation associated with Jefferson. Each entry describes and defines the topic and places it in historical context.

The fierce polarization of contemporary politics has encouraged Americans to read back into their nation's past a perpetual ideological struggle between liberals and conservatives. However, in this timely book, David S. Brown advances an original interpretation that stresses the critical role of moderate statesmen, ideas, and alliances in making our political system work. Beginning with John Adams and including such key figures as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and Bill Clinton, Brown charts the vital if uneven progress of centrism through the centuries. Moderate opposition to both New England and southern secessionists during the early republic and later resistance to industrial oligarchy and the modern Sunbelt right are part of this persuasion's far-reaching legacy. Time and again moderates, operating under a broad canopy of coalitions, have come together to reshape the nation's electoral landscape.Today's bitter partisanship encourages us to deny that such a moderate tradition is part of our historical development--one dating back to the Constitutional Convention. Brown offers a less polemical and far more compelling assessment of our politics.

Designed to introduce students to quantitative methods in a way that can be applied to all kinds of data in all kinds of situations, Statistics and Data Visualization Using R: The Art and Practice of Data Analysis by David S. Brown teaches students statistics through charts, graphs, and displays of data that help students develop intuition around statistics as well as data visualization skills. By focusing on the visual nature of statistics instead of mathematical proofs and derivations, students can see the relationships between variables that are the foundation of quantitative analysis. Using the latest tools in R and R RStudio® for calculations and data visualization, students learn valuable skills they can take with them into a variety of future careers in the public sector, the private sector, or academia. Starting at the most basic introduction to data and going through most crucial statistical methods, this introductory textbook quickly gets students new to statistics up to speed running analyses and interpreting data from social science research.