Basic: Surviving Boot Camp and Basic Training

Record unemployment and rampant corporate avarice, empty houses but homeless families, dwindling opportunities in an increasingly paralyzed nationthese are the realities of 21st-century America, land of the free and home of the new middle class poor. Award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, one of the nations leading democratic intellectuals, co-hosts of Public Radios Smiley & West, now take on the P wordpoverty.

The Rich and the Rest of Us is the next step in the journey that began with The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience. Smiley and Wests 18-city bus tour gave voice to the plight of impoverished Americans of all races, colors, and creeds. With 150 million Americans persistently poor or near poor, the highest numbers in over five decades, Smiley and West argue that now is the time to confront the underlying conditions of systemic poverty in America before its too late.

By placing the eradication of poverty in the context of the nations greatest moments of social transformation such as the abolition of slavery, womans suffrage, and the labor and civil rights movementsending poverty is sure to emerge as Americas 21st century civil rights struggle.

As the middle class disappears and the safety net is shredded, Smiley and West, building on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., ask us to confront our fear and complacency with 12 poverty changing ideas. They challenge us to re-examine our assumptions about poverty in Americawhat it really is and how to eliminate it now.

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To say that Harry Smith was born under an unlucky star would be an understatement. Born in England in 1923, Smith chronicles the tragic story of his early life in this first volume of his memoirs. He presents his familys early historytheir misfortunes and their experiences of enduring betrayal, inhumane poverty, infidelity, and abandonment.1923: A Memoir presents the story of a life lyrically described, capturing a time both before and during World War II when personal survival was dependent upon luck and guile. During this time, failure insured either a trip to the workhouse or burial in a common grave. Brutally honest, Smiths story plummets to the depths of tragedy and flies up to the summit of mirth and wonder, portraying real people in an uncompromising, unflinching voice.1923: A Memoir tells of a time and place when life, full of raw emotion, was never so real.

Bob Teather entered RCMP Basic Recruit Training in 1967 with no idea of what he was getting into. Along with 31 other confused young men, he found himself in Regina, Saskatchewan, as a lowly member of Troop 18. Bald, intimidated, and soon to be bruised, Bob began a six-month ordeal that he candidly recalls in this engaging book. Corporal Teather's story brings you close to six recruits from across the country—Prairie Dog, André, Lumchuck, Francois, weird Harold Burl and Teather himself, a scrawny kid from Hamilton who often learned the hard way that "if it hurts you just tape an aspirin to it."

Their experiences capture the essence of Canada and provide revealing aspects of the traditional RCMP training process. Near the end of his active career, Bob came to realize that it was Basic Training that put the Canadian in his RCMP and that bonds its members into a force capable of policing this complex country.