A new history of Rotary International shows how the organization reinforced capitalist values and cultural practices at home and tried to remake the world in the idealized image of Main Street America. Rotary International was born in Chicago in 1905. By the time World War II was over, the organization had made good on its promise to Ògirdle the globe.Ó Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism explores the meteoric rise of a local service club that brought missionary zeal to the spread of American-style economics and civic ideals. Brendan Goff traces RotaryÕs ideological roots to the business progressivism and cultural internationalism of the United States in the early twentieth century. The key idea was that community service was intrinsic to a capitalist way of life. The tone of Òservice above selfÓ was often religious, but, as Rotary looked abroad, it embraced Woodrow WilsonÕs secular message of collective security and international cooperation: civic internationalism was the businessmanÕs version of the Christian imperial civilizing mission, performed outside the state apparatus. The target of this mission was both domestic and global. The Rotarian, the organizationÕs publication, encouraged Americans to see the world as friendly to Main Street values, and Rotary worked with US corporations to export those values. Case studies of Rotary activities in Tokyo and Havana show the group paving the way for encroachments of US powerÑeconomic, political, and culturalÑduring the interwar years. RotaryÕs evangelism on behalf of market-friendly philanthropy and volunteerism reflected a genuine belief in peacemaking through the worldÕs Òparliament of businessmen.Ó But, as Goff makes clear, Rotary also reinforced American power and interests, demonstrating the tension at the core of US-led internationalism.

A new history of Rotary International shows how the organization reinforced capitalist values and cultural practices at home and tried to remake the world in the idealized image of Main Street America. Rotary International was born in Chicago in 1905. By the time World War II was over, the organization had made good on its promise to “girdle the globe.” Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism explores the meteoric rise of a local service club that brought missionary zeal to the spread of American-style economics and civic ideals. Brendan Goff traces Rotary’s ideological roots to the business progressivism and cultural internationalism of the United States in the early twentieth century. The key idea was that community service was intrinsic to a capitalist way of life. The tone of “service above self” was often religious, but, as Rotary looked abroad, it embraced Woodrow Wilson’s secular message of collective security and international cooperation: civic internationalism was the businessman’s version of the Christian imperial civilizing mission, performed outside the state apparatus. The target of this mission was both domestic and global. The Rotarian, the organization’s publication, encouraged Americans to see the world as friendly to Main Street values, and Rotary worked with US corporations to export those values. Case studies of Rotary activities in Tokyo and Havana show the group paving the way for encroachments of US power—economic, political, and cultural—during the interwar years. Rotary’s evangelism on behalf of market-friendly philanthropy and volunteerism reflected a genuine belief in peacemaking through the world’s “parliament of businessmen.” But, as Goff makes clear, Rotary also reinforced American power and interests, demonstrating the tension at the core of US-led internationalism.

Placing the clubs in the context of twentieth-century middle-class culture, Charles maintains that they represented the response of locally oriented, traditional middle-class men to societal changes. The groups emerged at a time when service was becoming both a middle-class and a business ideal. As voluntary associations, they represented a shift in organizing rationale, from fraternalism to service. The clubs and their ideology of service were welcome as a unifying force at a time when small cities and towns were beset by economic and population pressures.

The Democracy Manifesto is about how to recreate democracy by replacing elections with government that is truly of, by and for the people. Written in engaging and accessible dialogue form, the book argues that the only truly democratic system of government is one in which decision-makers are selected randomly (by sortition) from the population at large, operating much the way trial juries do today, but 100% online, enabling people to govern together even across great distances. Sortition has a storied history but what sets The Democracy Manifesto apart is its comprehensive account of how it can be implemented not only across all sectors and levels of government, but throughout society as well, including the democratization of mass media, corporations, banks, and other large institutions. The resulting Sortitive Representative Democracy (SRD) is the true heir to ancient Greek democracy, and the only means of ensuring ‘we the people’ are represented by our fellow citizens rather than by the revolving groups of elites that dominate electoral systems. In the process, the book grapples with myriad hot topics including economic issues, international relations, indigenous rights, environmentalism and more.

Toward Soviet America is a book written by Communist Party, USA Chairman William Z. Foster, in 1932. The book documented the rise of socialism in the Soviet Union, the crisis facing capitalism, the need for revolution, and a vision of what a socialist society would be like. The book also attacks social-democrats and liberals calling them "Social Fascists" because they seek to give the masses concessions in order to calm them and prevent communist revolution.

In the vein of his bestseller, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, nationally recognized social critic Jerry Mander researches, discusses, and exposes the momentous and unsolvable environmental and social problem of capitalism. Mander argues that capitalism is no longer a viable system: "What may have worked in 1900 is calamitous in 2010." Capitalism, utterly dependent on never–ending economic growth, is an impossible absurdity on a finite planet with limited resources. Climate change, together with global food, water, and resource shortages, are only the start. Mander draws attention to capitalism's obsessive need to dominate and undermine democracy, as well as to diminish social and economic equity. Designed to operate free of "morality," the system promotes "permanent war" as a key economic strategy. Worst of all, the problems of capitalism are intrinsic to the form. Many organizations are already anticipating the breakdown of the system and are working to define new hierarchies of democratic values that respect the carrying capacities of the planet.

The most significant conquest of the twentieth century may well have been the triumph of American consumer society over Europe's bourgeois civilization. It is this little-understood but world-shaking campaign that unfolds in de Grazia's account of how the American standard of living defeated the European way of life and achieved the global cultural hegemony that is both its great strength and its key weakness today. Tracing the peculiar alliance that arrayed New World salesmanship, statecraft, and standardized goods against the Old World's values of status, craft, and good taste, de Grazia describes how all alternative strategies fell before America's consumer-oriented capitalism--first the bourgeois lifestyle, then the Third Reich's command consumption, and finally the grand experiment of Soviet-style socialist planning.--From publisher description.