The Service addresses many of our Countries contemporary problems such as how to improve our medical, educational, legal, and electoral systems.  The book is written as a compilation of short stories that graphically illustrate ideas and concept that offer solutions to our economic, social, and political difficulties.  Following each short story are Author's notes that further explain the ideas and concepts.     The stories build on one another so that at the conclusion of this book the reader is left with a clear idea of how we can work together to make this Country a better place to live.

In 1931, just three months after his mother's untimely death, 11-year-old Jacob Grunfeld and his father fled Poland on the eve of Hitler's rise to power in Germany. For eight years he lived the American dream in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland where he resided with his German-born father a noted thoracic surgeon. Fearing anti-Semitism, even in America, Jacob's father changed their surname to Meadows and young Jacob became Jack Meadows. During high school Jack learned to fly and discovered a passion that consumed him for the rest of his life. Jack was an extremely exceptional student both in the air and on the ground. Jack graduated college with honors at 18 years of age. In 1939, Jack Meadows, now an American citizen, returned to his native homeland to serve with the Polish Air Force in a futile attempt to halt Nazi aggression and the eventual murder of six million Jews. After Poland was defeated, Jack made his way to England where he joined the RAF. By early 1941, he became the leading fighter pilot among his peers in the Allied Air Forces and was a highly decorated hero of the Battle of Britain. the many foreign units that were an integral part of RAF. In 1939-40, when they were reconstituted in Britain, the Poles distinguished themselves and played a significant role in defeating the Luftwaffe while the Nazis were ravaging their native country. Jack met the love of his life who eventually left him, and met the passion of his life who disappointed him. The women he dearly loved abandoned him. He risked his life for a country that adopted him. He challenged the Luftwaffe whose fiercely skilled pilots had much in common with him. Though Jack was Polish by birth, American by choice and British by fate, he was a German in all other respects thanks to his father.

In this extensive study of ethnic labeling in the United States' popular speech and usage, Irving Lewis Allen explores the major traditional themes behind the making of ethnic slurs. Viewing U.S. slang as a reflection of social diversity, rapid change, and the complexity of U.S. society, Allen puts forth a special insight into the social workings of American culture, both past and present. The book offers an overview of the major traditional themes used in the development of ethnic slurs as well as the most recent fads of covert and devious slurring with codewords and various kinds of sly word games. "Unkind WordS" delivers its message with unusual clarity, that too often shoddy language shapes our thinking about the politics of ethnicity.

Divided into two parts, the book begins with a detailed study of the older and more traditional slurs in American vernacular. These words the author terms fighting words, which, when dropped, often raised fists in schoolyards and barrooms. The book uncovers the origins of these slurs--few are heard in today's public discourse--and places them in a word museum where the reader can view the foolish viciousness of a cultural past. In one chapter, the author singles out the derogatory labels that have been applied specifically to women and reveals slurs that originate in both gender and ethnic conflict. The second part of the book focuses on labels that have appeared in the last few decades, often more genteel and less confrontational. While more subtle than their forerunners, these words often serve the same old psychological and social needs to stereotype and express hostility. Anyone interested in ethnic identity in the United States, in the workings of a plural society, or the origins and uses of American ethnic slurs, will find "Unkind WordS" fascinating reading.

Frederick Lewis Allen was one of the pioneers in social history. Best known as the author of Only Yesterday, Allen originated a model of what is sometimes called instant history, the reconstruction of past eras through vivid commentary on the news, fashions, customs, and artifacts that altered the pace and forms of American life. The Big Change was Allen's last and most ambitious book. In it he attempted to chart and explain the progressive evolution of American life over half a century. Written at a time of unprecedented optimism and prosperity, The Big Change defines a transformative moment in American history and provides an implicit and illuminating perspective on what has taken place in the second half of the twentieth century.Allen's theme is the realization, in large measure, of the promise of democracy. As against the strain of social criticism that saw America as enfeebled by affluence and conformity, Allen wrote in praise of an economic system that had ushered in a new age of well being for the American people. He divides his inquiry into three major sections. The first, 'The Old Order,' portrays the turn-of-the-century plutocracy in which the federal government was largely subservient to business interests and the gap between rich and poor portended a real possibility of bloody rebellion. 'The Momentum of Change' graphically describes the various forces that gradually transformed the country in the new century: mass production, the automobile, the Great Depression and the coming of big government, World War II and America's emergence as a world power. Against this background, Allen shows how the economic system was reformed without being ruined, and how social gaps began to steadily close.The concluding section, 'The New America,' is a hopeful assessment of postwar American culture. Allen's analysis takes critical issue with many common perceptions, both foreign and domestic, of American life and places remaining social problems in careful perspective. As William O'Neill remarks in his introduction to this new edition, The Big Change is both a deep and wonderfully readable work of social commentary, a book that gains rather than loses with the years.

Frederick Lewis Allen was one of the pioneers in social history. Best known as the author of Only Yesterday, Allen originated a model of what is sometimes called instant history, the reconstruction of past eras through vivid commentary on the news, fashions, customs, and artifacts that altered the pace and forms of American life. The Big Change was Allen's last and most ambitious book. In it he attempted to chart and explain the progressive evolution of American life over half a century. Written at a time of unprecedented optimism and prosperity, The Big Change defines a transformative moment in American history and provides an implicit and illuminating perspective on what has taken place in the second half of the twentieth century.

Allen's theme is the realization, in large measure, of the promise of democracy. As against the strain of social criticism that saw America as enfeebled by affluence and conformity, Allen wrote in praise of an economic system that had ushered in a new age of well being for the American people. He divides his inquiry into three major sections. The first, "The Old Order," portrays the turn-of-the-century plutocracy in which the federal government was largely subservient to business interests and the gap between rich and poor portended a real possibility of bloody rebellion. "The Momentum of Change" graphically describes the various forces that gradually transformed the country in the new century: mass production, the automobile, the Great Depression and the coming of big government, World War II and America's emergence as a world power. Against this background, Allen shows how the economic system was reformed without being ruined, and how social gaps began to steadily close.

The concluding section, "The New America," is a hopeful assessment of postwar American culture. Allen's analysis takes critical issue with many common perceptions, both foreign and domestic, of American life and places remaining social problems in careful perspective. As William O'Neill remarks in his introduction to this new edition, The Big Change is both a deep and wonderfully readable work of social commentary, a book that gains rather than loses with the years.

Prohibition. Al Capone. The President Harding scandals. The revolution of manners and morals, Black Teusday. These are only an inkling of the events and figures characterizing the wild, tumultuous era that was the Roaring Twentys. Origionaly published in 1931, Only Yesterday traces the rise if post-World War I prospecritly up tothe Wall Street crash of 1929 aganst the colorful backdropof flappers, speakeasies, the first radio, and the scandalous rise of skirt hemlines. Hailed as an instant classic, this is Frederick Lewis Allen's vivid and definitive account of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating decades, chronicling a time of both joy and terror--when dizzing highs were quickly succeeded by heartbreaking lows.

While asthma can't be cured, it can be treated and controlled so that your child can enjoy a healthier, more active life. In this important guide, the experts at the top-ranked children's hospital in the United States clearly explain what asthma is and how parents, caregivers, and young patients can manage it successfully. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Guide to Asthma features the most up-to-date information on the disease and the keys to optimal preventive treatment-controlling environmental conditions that trigger symptoms, making a proactive medical treatment plan, and consistently putting it into action at the first sign of trouble. You'll discover how asthma is diagnosed, what the common triggers are, how to select the best asthma medicines, and how to protect your child in and away from your home to help him or her live a fulfilling childhood that is as symptom-free as possible. This book:
* Reveals how to manage acute and emergency episodes of the disease
* Explains how to asthma-proof your home
* Addresses sports and exercise issues for children with asthma
* Discusses the special needs of toddlers and teens
* Features a series of vignettes about children with asthma
* Includes educational materials and resources, including community support

Irving Lewis Allen provides an insightful history of the rise of New York as a metropolis and the accompanying slang that surrounded it. Anecdotal and at times analytical, this book is both a lexicon of slang and a history of recent casual language.

Allen argues that two major but problematic French medieval literary works (Andreas Capellamus's late 12th-century Latin De Amore and Jean de Meun's encyclopedic continuation of the Romance of the Rose, written in French in the 1720s) are central to the courtly tradition, and follow the disruptive

"Vividly and with great skills he marshals the men, the mountebanks, the measures, and the events of ten years of American life and causes them to march before us in orderly panathenaic procession."--Saturday Review

The New York Times-bestselling history of the first half of the twentieth century-five decades that transformed America-from the author of Only Yesterday. During the first fifty years of the twentieth century, the United States saw two world wars, a devastating economic depression, and more social, political, and economic changes than in any other five-decade period before. Frederick Lewis Allen, former editor of Harper's magazine, recounts these years-spanning World War I, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War-in vivid detail, from the fashions and customs of the times to major events that changed the course of history. Politically, the United States grew into its own as a global superpower during these years, even as domestic developments altered the everyday lives of its citizens. The introduction of the automobile, mass production, and organized labor changed the way Americans lived and worked, while innovations like penicillin and government regulation of food safety contributed to an increase in average life expectancy from forty-nine years in 1900 to sixty-eight years in 1950. With the development of a strong, centralized government, a thriving middle class, and widespread economic prosperity, the nation emerged from the Second World War transformed in virtually every way. Richly informative and delightfully readable, The Big Change is an indispensable volume charting the many changes that ushered in our contemporary age.