Bøger af Darrel A Nash

How the Arrogance and Stupidity of US Presidents Created the World We Have Today, The American Empire, and Related Topics. In my studies and conversations with other students of US history, I have noticed that often, the most informed and usually qualified persons--our presidents--make stupid mistakes that have changed our society and the world for the worse. It has happened by both Democratic and Republican presidents. They go ahead with policies and actions that they should have known was harmful to the welfare of the United States. I therefore find them arrogant and stupid.Presidential decisions starting in the early twentieth century have a long-living effect on our politics and welfare today. America came out of World War I as an emerging world power. We reluctantly entered the war, but then made a decisive difference in its outcome.

The meanness and squalor of country life around 1600 can hardly be conceived by persons of the twentieth century. A cluster of hovels housed the tenants and their helpers, and nearby were whatever sheds and outhouses might have been built. A home was likely to be little more than a shanty, constructed of stones, banked with turf, without mortar, and with straw, heather, or moss stuffed in the holes to keep out the winter blasts. The roof was of thatch or turf. There were no chimneys, but only holes in the roof for the smoke to escape.The fire, usually in the middle of the house floor, often filled the whole hut with malodorous clouds, since the smoke-clotted roof gradually stopped the venthole. Cattle were tethered at night at one end of the room while the family lay at the other on heather piled upon the floor. Light came from an opening at either gable; when the wind blew and winter came, these holes were stuffed with brackens of old rags to keep out the sleet and blast.