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The rhetoric of the 2012 presidential campaign exposed the deeply rooted sources of political polarization in America at that time. One side celebrated individualism and divided the public into “makers and takers”; the other preached “better together” as the path forward. Both focused their efforts on the “base” not the middle. This book argues that what is really wrong with Congress is the widening, hardening conflict in worldviews that leaves the two parties unable to understand how the other thinks about what people should do on their own and what we should do together. Members of Congress don't just disagree, they think the other side makes no sense. Why are conservatives preoccupied with cutting taxes, uninterested in expanding health care coverage and in denial about climate change? What will it take for Congress to recover a capacity for pragmatic compromise on these issues? The book states that we should treat self-reliance (the quintessential American virtue) and community (our characteristic instinct to cooperate) as essential balancing components of American culture and politics, instead of setting them at war with each other.

Conventional wisdom held that housing prices couldn't fall. But the spectacular boom and bust of the housing market during the first decade of the twenty-first century and millions of foreclosed homeowners have made it clear that housing is no different from any other asset in its ability to climb and crash. Housing and the Financial Crisis looks at what happened to prices and construction both during and after the housing boom in different parts of the American housing market, accounting for why certain areas experienced less volatility than others. It then examines the causes of the boom and bust, including the availability of credit, the perceived risk reduction due to the securitization of mortgages, and the increase in lending from foreign sources. Finally, it examines a range of policies that might address some of the sources of recent instability.

The routine jobs of yesterday are being replaced by technology and/or shipped off-shore. In their place, job categories that require knowledge management, abstract reasoning, and personal services seem to be growing. The modern workplace requires workers to have broad cognitive and affective skills. Often referred to as \"21st century skills,\" these skills include being able to solve complex problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively communicate with people from a variety of different cultures and using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration with others, to adapt to rapidly changing environments and conditions for performing tasks, to effectively manage one's work, and to acquire new skills and information on one's own. The National Research Council (NRC) has convened two prior workshops on the topic of 21st century skills. The first, held in 2007, was designed to examine research on the skills required for the 21st century workplace and the extent to which they are meaningfully different from earlier eras and require corresponding changes in educational experiences. The second workshop, held in 2009, was designed to explore demand for these types of skills, consider intersections between science education reform goals and 21st century skills, examine models of high-quality science instruction that may develop the skills, and consider science teacher readiness for 21st century skills. The third workshop was intended to delve more deeply into the topic of assessment. The goal for this workshop was to capitalize on the prior efforts and explore strategies for assessing the five skills identified earlier. The Committee on the Assessment of 21st Century Skills was asked to organize a workshop that reviewed the assessments and related research for each of the five skills identified at the previous workshops, with special attention to recent developments in technology-enabled assessment of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In designing the workshop, the committee collapsed the five skills into three broad clusters as shown below: (1) Cognitive skills: nonroutine problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking; (2) Interpersonal skills: complex communication, social skills, team-work, cultural sensitivity, dealing with diversity; and (3) Intrapersonal skills: self-management, time management, self-development, self-regulation, adaptability, executive functioning. \"Assessing 21st Century Skills\" provides an integrated summary of the presentations and discussions from both parts of the third workshop. Two appendices include: (1) Agenda and Participants for the January Workshop; and (2) Agenda and Participants for the May Workshop. Following an introduction and overview of plans by Stuart Elliott and Gerhard Salinger, and a brief review of the workshop in January by Joan Herman, the presentations are as follows: (1) Assessments of Cognitive Skills (Nathan Kuncel); (2) Assessments of Interpersonal Skills (Stephen M. Fiore); and (3) Assessments of Intrapersonal Skills (Rick Hoyle). These presentations were followed by a moderated discussion (led by Joan Herman), a response on measurement guidance (Deirdre Knapp and Patrick Kyllonen), a response on policy guidance (Joan Herman and Steven Wise), and a final moderated discussion (led by Joan Herman).

Conventional wisdom held that housing prices couldn't fall. But the spectacular boom and bust of the housing market during the first decade of the twenty-first century and millions of foreclosed homeowners have made it clear that housing is no different from any other asset in its ability to climb and crash. Housing and the Financial Crisis looks at what happened to prices and construction both during and after the housing boom in different parts of the American housing market, accounting for why certain areas experienced less volatility than others. It then examines the causes of the boom and bust, including the availability of credit, the perceived risk reduction due to the securitization of mortgages, and the increase in lending from foreign sources. Finally, it examines a range of policies that might address some of the sources of recent instability.

Through the lens of James Billington and the institution he led as Librarian of Congress during a key period of US-Russian relations, The Geopolitics of Culture examines culture as a neglected area of US foreign policy. Billington advised presidents and members of Congress and mobilized the resources of the Library of Congress to promote reform in Russia. He believed that rather than preaching to the Russians, the United States should expose the rising generation of Russian leaders to what was best in America and encourage them to rediscover positive elements in pre-Bolshevik Russian culture. The Geopolitics of Culture is the first book to chronicle Billington's influence on US engagement with Russia as it transitioned from communism to democracy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and back to authoritarianism under Yeltsin and Putin. Drawing on published and archival sources (including recently released papers) and interviews with current and retired Library of Congress staff members, John Van Oudenaren casts new light on this era. Billington's efforts led to a remarkable degree of cooperation between the Library of Congress and Russian cultural and political institutions. Yet these efforts ultimately failed as Putin turned back toward authoritarianism. The experience of the Library of Congress during this period nonetheless holds important lessons for today. Billington believed that a transition to democracy in Russia was essential if the United States was to head off the geopolitical nightmare of a Eurasia dominated by an alliance of hostile authoritarian powers. The \"geopolitics of culture\" thus remains a challenge for US foreign policy.

Despite all that has been written on it, the Iraq war - its causes, agency and execution - has been shrouded in an ideological mist. Now, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad dispels the myths surrounding the war, taking a sociological approach to establish the war's causes, identify its agents and describe how it was sold. Ahmad presents a social history of the war's leading agents - the neoconservatives - and shows how this ideologically coherent group of determined political agents used the contingency of 9/11 to overwhelm a sceptical foreign policy establishment, military brass and intelligence apparatus, propelling the US into a war that a significant portion of the public opposed. The book includes an historical exploration of American militarism and of the increased post-WWII US role in the Middle East, as well as a reconsideration of the debates that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt sparked after the publication of The Israel lobby and US Foreign Policy.

Tom Waldman's lively and sweeping assessment of the state of American liberalism begins with the political turbulence of 1968 and culminates with the 2006 takeover of Congress by the Democratic Party.Not Much Left: The Fate of Liberalism in Americavividly demonstrates how the progressive and liberal wing of the Democratic Party helped end a war, won the civil rights battle, and paved the way for blacks, women, gays, and other minorities to achieve full citizenship. Through reportage, anecdotes, and analysis-particularly of the disastrous defeat of Democrat George McGovern in 1972-Waldman chronicles how the grand coalition that achieved so much in the 1960s began to self-destruct in the early 1970s. Citing the Republican recovery from Barry Goldwater's 1964 defeat, Waldman demonstrates how the two parties' very different reactions to electoral debacle account for recent Republican dominance and Democratic impotence. Assessing liberalism's fate through the Carter and Reagan presidencies, the defeat of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election, and the on-again, off-again liberalism of the Clinton years, Waldman then brings the discussion up to date with analysis of the 2008 presidential campaign.

The 2012 congressional elections played an equally vital role in determining the future course of America as the presidential race that topped the electoral ticket. Readers of this book will gain insights about the formative aspects of the 2012 campaign season as well as in depth coverage of key races for Congress. Exclusive to this volume are three chapters that look at important processes which impacted the campaign cycle: voter suppression laws passed in nearly every state, the role of Super PACs and independent expenditures in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and the results of redistricting and partisan gerrymandering throughout the country. Then the case studies follow the path of seven House and six Senate races from inception to election postmortem. The chapters are both narrative and provide analysis of an array of interesting and diverse contests from throughout the country. Each entry was written by one or more experts living in the state or region of the race. The authors provide succinct and highly readable chapters meant to illustrate the distinctive nature of the campaigns they are examining. Readers will see individual campaigns and elections “up close” and be able to compare and contrast one from another because of the common format employed throughout the book. Taken together, the chapters reveal that the roads to Congress, while similar in so many ways, each follow a unique route to Capitol Hill.

Gender equity is a prominent issue in the medical profession. Representation of female physicians at academic meetings has been identified as an important component of gender equity; however, this topic has not been systematically assessed. To determine the trend during the last decade in the proportion of speakers who were women at major academic medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted examining the gender of speakers listed in meeting programs of medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States in 2007 and from 2013 through 2017. Eligible conferences were identified using a sensitive search strategy, and a previously validated tool was used to analyze each meeting speaker list and to assign a proportion of female speakers. Conferences held in English language, hosted in Canada or the United States, and targeted to a physician audience with 100 or more attendees were included. The comparison group was active physicians in Canada and in the United States. The mean of the proportion of female speakers at each conference per year. In total, 181 conferences with 701 individual meetings were analyzed, including 100 medical and 81 surgical specialty conferences. The proportion of women ranged from 0% to 82.6% of all speakers. The mean (SD) proportion of female conference speakers for all meetings analyzed significantly increased from 24.6% (14.6%) for 40 meetings in 2007 to 34.1% (15.1%) for 181 meetings in 2017 (P < .001). The mean proportion of female speakers at medical specialty conferences was 9.8% higher (SE, 1.9%; P < .001) than the mean proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences for all years analyzed. The mean proportion of female speakers at conferences was similar to the mean proportion of active female physicians across all specialties in the United States and in Canada for all years analyzed. Although our findings indicate that the proportion of female speakers at medical conferences increased during the last decade, women continue to be underrepresented. Speaker invitation and selection at conferences represent important opportunities to influence gender equity within medicine.

This book delivers a nuanced analysis of a momentous cycle of political contests. Whether discussing particular races or taking a broader look at the national trends, the book engages students with political drama, while weaving in scholarship and expert analysis.