Bøger af Tom McGrath

Some new and dangerous animal has arrived in the Everglades. What is it? How many are out there? Could it roam beyond the Glades? Deep in the national park, a field biologist, a museum re-constructor, a park ranger, an intern, and two journalists - a photographer and a features writer - along with an unexpected silent partner look for answers while politicians and opportunists try to turn the situation into money-making ventures for themselves.

"In Triumph of the Yuppies, Tom McGrath presents the first-ever book-length history of the Yuppie phenomenon, chronicling the roots, rise, triumph and (seeming) fall of the "young urban professionals" who radically altered American life between 1980 and 1987. By the time their obituary was being written in the late 1980s, Yuppies-the elite, uber educated faction of the Baby Boom generation-had become something of a cultural punchline. This was understandable: a species that regularly drank white wine spritzers deserved to be mocked. But amidst the Yuppies's preoccupation with money, work, and career success; their colonization of previously working class neighborhoods in various American cities; their self evident self absorption; and their obsession with having just the right status signifying stuff, from BMWs and VCRs to American Express cards and Cuisinarts, there was something serious happening, too, something that continues to have profound ramifications on American culture four decades later. Based on new interviews with people at the center of the action in the '80s, this book brings to life the ascendance of this Yuppie elite. It chronicles educated Boomers' transformation from idealists in the late 1960s to careerists in the early 1980s, and charts how marketers, the media, and politicians pivoted to appeal to this influential new group. And it shows how Yuppie values impacted the broader culture-from gentrification in cities and an obsession with money and career success to an indulgent materialism. Most significantly, it shows how the me first mindset typical of Yuppieness helped created the largest income inequality in a century. Brimming with lively and nostalgic details (think Jane Fonda, The Sharper Image, and laughable tidbits of Yuppie culture), Triumph of the Yuppies is a portrait of America just as it was beginning to come apart-and the origin story of the America we live in today"--

Beach walking octopuses. Sharks that ask to be petted. Whales that aggressively woo fishing boats. Crab and lobster parades. Something strange is going on in the world's oceans. A band of scientists, volunteers, and eccentrics join forces on an island next to nowhere to find out what is causing it all. What they discover has consequences for the whole world for generations to come.