Laurie Collier Hillstrom – författare

The Vietnam War was one of the most painful and divisive events in American history. The conflict, which ultimately took the lives of 58,000 Americans and more than three million Vietnamese, became a subject of bitter and impassioned debate. The most dramatic—and frequently the most enduring—efforts to define and articulate America's ill-fated involvement in Vietnam emerged from popular culture. American journalists, novelists, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and filmmakers—many of them eyewitnesses—have created powerful, heartfelt works documenting their thoughts and beliefs about the war. By examining those works, this book provides readers with a fascinating resource that explores America's ongoing struggle to assess the war and its legacies.This encyclopedia includes 44 essays, each providing detailed information on an important film, song, or literary work about Vietnam. Each essay provides insights into the Vietnam-era experiences and views of the work's primary creative force, historical background on issues or events addressed in the work, discussion of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the work, and sources for further information. This book also includes an appendix listing of more than 275 films, songs, and literary works dealing with the war.

This concise yet comprehensive reference book provides an overview of the Black Lives Matter movement, from its emergence in response to the police-involved deaths of unarmed black people to its development as a force for racial justice in America.This much-needed reference text places the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement within the broader context of the African American struggle for equality in America, from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to the violent protests against white supremacy that took place in Charlottesville in 2017. Specific topics include the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, which gave rise to the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter; the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, which launched the rise of the movement; and the fatal shootings of police officers in Dallas, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016, which sparked bitter backlash. It also covers the virulent alt-right backlash against BLM and the ways in which BLM leaders are responding to the challenge.Features of the book include an introduction; seven topical chapters covering the historical background to, origin and growth of, and backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement; and a conclusion. In addition, ten biographical "snapshots" cover key individuals involved with the movement, and eight primary source documents further illuminate issues discussed in the text. Other features include a timeline, an annotated bibliography, and a subject index.

This volume provides a concise but authoritative overview of the #MeToo Movement and its enormous impact on American society, from the studios of Hollywood to factories, campuses, and offices across the country.The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. The #MeToo Movement is devoted to the issue that brought sexual harassment out of the shadows of American culture and into the spotlight. Sparked by revelations of decades of sexual harassment by powerful Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein, the movement quickly uncovered similar abusive behavior by numerous other famous public figures. It also revealed the extent to which sexual harassment has been a persistent problem in many workplace settings across America and the ways in which girls and women are subjected to degrading and discriminatory treatment because of their gender. The book provides a broad perspective on these issues. It discusses late twentieth-century efforts to identify sexual harassment as a longstanding societal problem; explains how the 2016 presidential election brought new attention to this issue; introduces activists who helped to launch the #MeToo Movement; and surveys the impact of the movement on American politics, business, and entertainment.

This volume provides a concise but authoritative overview of the Never Again Movement, which arose in the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018.This volume in the 21st Century Turning Points series, a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today, analyzes school shootings and examines the broader issue of gun violence in America. It focuses on the history of school shootings in the United States and the debate that has raged for decades between gun control advocates and supporters of gun ownership rights. School Shootings and the Never Again Movement: 21st Century Turning Points provides a broad perspective on these issues. It recounts the evolution of gun politics and policy throughout the twentieth century, explains the positions and activities of organizations and activists on both sides of the gun debate, details notorious school shootings ranging from Columbine to Parkland, and explores the potential impact of the Never Again Movement on American gun policy at the state and federal levels.

This work provides an evenhanded and authoritative overview of vaping and its impact on American culture and public health, especially among younger Americans.The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. This volume is devoted to the rapid rise of vaping across the nation, especially among young people. This trend has prompted fierce debate in communities across the country, with some people heralding "e-cigarettes" and other vaping devices as valuable smoking cessation tools and others condemning them for being unhealthy in their own right—and a gateway to future cigarette consumption. The Vaping Controversy describes the key events and people that provided the foundation for the rise of e-cigarettes and vaping, from governmental and medical efforts to reduce traditional cigarette smoking to the emergence and rapid spread of an entire industry devoted to selling vaping devices and accessories. This volume also explores how vaping has influenced youth culture and high school life, its impact on "old school" tobacco companies, and the increasingly visible partisan divide in attitudes about the public health impact of vaping.

Since mid-2018, when she registered one of the biggest primary election upsets in the nation, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as one of the most influential voices of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.Few politicians have experienced a rise as meteoric as the one that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC, as she is commonly known) has experienced since her June 2018 Democratic primary upset victory over a powerful, longtime incumbent and her subsequent triumph in the November 2018 midterms. This book examines how the telegenic lawmaker—a life-long New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent—engineered that startling victory, why her life story and ideas made her such a focus of national attention, how she has used Twitter and other social media to amplify her calls for economic justice and civil rights equality, and why, since she took office in January 2019, she has come to be regarded as one of the most consequential and influential lawmakers in Congress. It will also help readers understand AOC's most deeply held political convictions, policymaking priorities, and personal principles.

This volume provides an authoritative, evenhanded overview of the Trump administration's family separation and child detention policies at the U.S.-Mexico border—and the impact of those policies and actions on children, their parents, border security, and U.S. politics.The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our nation's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities.This particular volume is devoted to the issue of child migrant detention on the U.S.-Mexico border. It provides background information on the political, social, and economic forces driving undocumented immigration into America; explains the policies and records of both the Obama and Trump administrations on immigration, deportation, and border security; summarizes current laws and regulations governing U.S. border and immigration policies; recounts President Trump's rhetoric and record on both legal and "illegal" immigration, including his promise to build a "Border Wall" with funds from Mexico; surveys living conditions in the border detention centers operated by U.S. authorities; and discusses the impact of detention and family separation on children taken into custody.

This volume provides a comprehensive and evenhanded overview of the escalating college affordability crisis in the United States. It explains how higher education became so expensive and explores the implications of high college loan debt for students and American society.The 21st Century Turning Point series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our country's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities.This particular volume is devoted to the issue of the rising cost of higher education in the United States. The expense of pursuing a college degree has become so high for so many students, in fact, that the country is experiencing what many educators, economists, parents, and students describe as a college affordability crisis. This work provides an accessible, accurate account of the factors driving this trend, including dramatic reductions in higher education spending by states; for-profit colleges; predatory, unscrupulous, and lightly regulated student loan service companies; and spiraling spending by colleges and universities competing to attract students.

This authoritative work provides a thorough overview of the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the globe in 2020, devoting particular attention to its impact on all aspects of American society.The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our nation's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities.This particular volume is devoted to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted social, economic, and political institutions across the globe in 2020. It documents the spread of the virus around the world and the mounting toll it took on the health and lives of people in the United States and elsewhere; surveys the response to the pandemic (both in statements and policies) by the Trump administration, state governments, and various scientific and public health organizations; explains the impact of the pandemic on U.S. schools, businesses, industries, and workers; shows why communities of color and poor Americans were disproportionately impacted; and studies the ways in which COVID-19 has changed the U.S. forever.

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing the vast and diverse continent that is North America.North America, tells the story of this environmental awakening and the continuing problems that the continent faces. It tackles the tough issues, the complex problems, and the political controversies of the North American environment.According to some estimates, one out of every nine barrels of oil used in the world every day is consumed by a North American motorist. In 1996, World Wildlife Fund Canada estimated that the country was losing wilderness to development at a rate of more than one acre every 15 seconds. Today, this pace of destruction has been faulted for eroding much of the continent's fabulous natural wealth, and new emphasis is being placed on finding a more appropriate balance between development and conservation.Interesting sidebar articles, tables and figures, and photographsOverview maps of the continent and a listing of environment-related organizations on the Internet

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing the world's most densely populated continent—Europe.Europe, one of six titles in The World's Environments series, tackles the tough issues, the complex problems, and the political controversies surrounding the continent's environmental past, its complicated present, and its uncertain future. Europe looks at the catastrophes—in January 2000, a massive spill of cyanide and heavy metals from a gold mining operation in Romania destroyed all biological life in the Tisza, Hungary's second biggest river. The poisons traveled 1,000 kilometers through Hungary and Yugoslavia, where they wreaked havoc on the Danube. It also examines the progress—European society has shown a greater interest in renewable energy technologies than most other industrialized regions in the last 30 years. Serving as both a blueprint for the future, as well as a roadmap of the past, this book offers a gripping look at Europe's ecological history.Interesting sidebar articles, tables and figures, and photographsOverview maps of the continent and a listing of environment-related organizations on the Internet

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing the world's largest and most populous continent—Asia.Asia tackles the tough issues, the complex problems, and the political controversies surrounding the environment of this vast landmass. This volume encompasses everything from economics, land use, energy and transportation, to air pollution, rivers and lakes, oceans, and species and habitat protection.In Malaysia, unchecked discharges of industrial waste and human sewage led the government to label 42 of its rivers officially "dead." According to some estimates, Southeast Asia alone accounts for more than half of the world's total transport of sediment to the oceans. In the Philippines, the Chico River dam project, which would have subjected 100,000 tribespeople to relocation, was canceled when the World Bank withdrew funding after fierce resistance from the indigenous people. This fascinating book offers a comprehensive look at how the most populated continent on earth contends with its complicated environment.Interesting sidebar articles, tables and figures, and photographsOverview maps of the continent and a listing of environment-related organizations on the Internet

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing Latin America and the Caribbean—from the tip of South America to the Windward Islands.Home to Earth's longest mountain range, largest river, and greatest rainforest, no region boasts greater geographic extremes, faces greater environmental dangers, and enjoys more economic potential from its biodiversity than Latin America and the Caribbean.What are the political and economic factors affecting the Amazon's rapidly disappearing rainforest? What is being done to harvest life-saving drugs from the plants of the Orinoco? And what lies behind the mysterious disappearance of Central America's frogs? The work includes essays, tables and figures, and an appendix titled International Environmental and Developmental Agencies, Organizations, and Programs on the World Wide Web. Latin America & the Caribbean examines a region waking up to its environmental problems and possibilities.Interesting sidebar articles, tables, and figuresPhotos illustrating environmental resources and threats

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing the continent of Africa and the Middle East.Examining both the rich biological heritage of the world's second largest continent and the very serious human threats to it, Africa and the Middle East explores the impact global pollution and a burgeoning population are having on landscape and wildlife alike. How is global warming responsible for the rapidly expanding Sahara Desert? Can local populations be recruited to preserve threatened species?Over 80 percent of Madagascar's species are endemic, the highest percentage of any major ecological region in the world, such as the highly endangered aye-aye which resembles a cross between a monkey, a bat, and a woodpecker, and the giraffe-necked weevil, a red rainforest insect with a neck like a fire truck rescue ladder. Readers will learn all about these fascinating species and much more.

A concise yet thorough overview of environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica.They are vast, distant, and scarcely populated. Yet the environments of Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica are facing the same threats confronting the rest of the planet, as well as some unique ones of their own. How have human-introduced species impacted Australia's natural order? What new global conventions are helping close Antarctica's ozone hole? And how is global climate change threatening the South Pacific's species-rich coral reefs?The region's governments are grappling with the spectre of global warming, which, if not meaningfullly addressed by industrialized nations half a world away, could produce rising sea levels capable of engulfing several states of Oceania and partially submerging portions of many other inhabited islands. Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica tackles the difficult issues, tough problems, and political controversies surrounding these lands of extremes.Interesting sidebar articles, tables and figures, and photographsOverview maps of the area and a listing of environment-related organizations on the Internet

This volume provides an authoritative, evenhanded overview of the Trump administration's family separation and child detention policies at the U.S.-Mexico border—and the impact of those policies and actions on children, their parents, border security, and U.S. politics.The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our nation's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities.This particular volume is devoted to the issue of child migrant detention on the U.S.-Mexico border. It provides background information on the political, social, and economic forces driving undocumented immigration into America; explains the policies and records of both the Obama and Trump administrations on immigration, deportation, and border security; summarizes current laws and regulations governing U.S. border and immigration policies; recounts President Trump's rhetoric and record on both legal and "illegal" immigration, including his promise to build a "Border Wall" with funds from Mexico; surveys living conditions in the border detention centers operated by U.S. authorities; and discusses the impact of detention and family separation on children taken into custody.