Heroes: 50 Stories of the American Spirit
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Heroes: 50 Stories Of The American Spirit [Lenore Skomal] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com * FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The world stopped for America on September. Heroes: 50 Stories of the American Spirit [Lenore Skomal] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com * FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The world stopped for America on September.
Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Heroes by Lenore Skomal. The world stopped for America on September 11, , the day of the worst terrorist attack ever on U. It was also the day America showed its true colors. Firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and EMTs sped to the scene.
Concerned more about others' safety than their own, they raced into the very buildings workers were fleeing from. Hundreds gave their lives so The world stopped for America on September 11, , the day of the worst terrorist attack ever on U. Hundreds gave their lives so that others might live. Thousands of others put their lives at risk, day after day, working under dangerous conditions in the round-the-clock search for survivors. But the heroism sparked by the horrific events of that day does not stop there.
It spans the country, indeed the globe, and Heroes tells the stories of the men, women, and children who stepped up to help. Most were ordinary citizens who saw what needed to be done and did it. Selfless concern for others links the fifty uplifting stories in these pages, stories of ordinary Americans who made heroic choices under the most terrifying circumstances and gave inspiration with their generosity and willingness to serve, stories that show definitively that the American spirit cannot be diminished but rather grows stronger and brighter in the face of adversity.
Hardcover , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Heroes , please sign up. Lists with This Book. May 05, Jennifer Wardrip rated it it was amazing Shelves: What a wonderful book! I actually finished this in one sitting, because I didn't want to stop reading once I had started. There are also interviews with those who were at the Pentagon, and with the surviving family members of those who perished on United Flight Overall, the tone of the book is hopeful and uplifting, and proves that anyone can be a hero What a wonderful book!
Overall, the tone of the book is hopeful and uplifting, and proves that anyone can be a hero, anytime. Aug 06, John D'Andre rated it it was amazing. I was riveted by the accounts of that fateful day, September 11, Some make me sad. Some make me laugh. The human spirit comes through, the American spirit comes through in this wonderfully--sensitively written book.
Aug 13, Lauri rated it it was amazing. I think I cried during each chapter. Also, it brings home how decimated the FDNY was after the attack. However, this book makes it clear that many people were heros that day. May 26, Kim Bennett rated it it was amazing.
Neala rated it it was amazing Sep 17, Vivek rated it it was amazing Dec 20, Kzk rated it it was amazing Sep 27, Rick Sayers rated it it was amazing Jan 03, Josiah rated it really liked it Oct 09, Fred Bookhoop rated it it was amazing Jan 27, Julia rated it it was amazing May 29, Giselle Rb rated it it was amazing Nov 05, Actors Kevin Costner , Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne also made their own Westerns, which they acted in, and each has a film they produced or directed high on the Newsmax truest list.
Another interesting observation from the re-ranked Westerns: The American spirit faded, at least on movie screens, as political and social issues invaded even the Western. You did know that 's "Rio Bravo" was made in answer to 's "High Noon," which was targeting Hollywood's blacklisting over hearings on un-American activities, right? And here's something else interesting: Though it's been a quarter century since another Western film has made the all-time bests, 's "The Revenant" with newly-minted Best Actor Leonardo DiCaprio not only has the bona fides to some day make the Newsmax truest list, the film is much truer to the American spirit than movies made decades earlier.
So, what happened out in the West during those years after Independence that was worth creating a separate genre of American film to chronicle? What happened was what should be expected when a God-fearing young nation with boundless personal freedoms is set on the edge of a wild and unbelieving expanse of mountains, plains, and deserts stretching to the Pacific.
It was "manifest destiny," a divine duty, that enlightened people blessed with such fruitful liberties would be inspired, driven even, to share their bounty and salvation while expanding into and remaking the West in their own image. Spencer Tracy in 's "Northwest Passage" is another reminder there really was a Pacific frontier.
The American spirit is not a phenomena of the West, though.
Newsmax's Top 50 Westerns True to the American Spirit
It developed long before Americans pushed westward, while the new nation was declaring freedom and winning a revolution. It was rooted, again, in exceptionalism. Two centuries before Ronald Reagan nailed it, America already was a "shining city on a hill," an ideal example of democratic freedom for the rest of the world, preferably, to follow. The American spirit was re-distilled out West, where self-determination often boiled down just to self-survival for generations of Americans who sought stakes there.
Their eastern-bred virtues helped, but they had to learn to be self-dependent, resilient, and resourceful — like the Ingalls family in "Little House on the Prairie," judged by Newsmax to be the all-time best TV Western truest to the American spirit. The award-winning TV series starring Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon, based on a series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, gives a realistic account of the hard-scrabble life awaiting settlers. It was recognized in for fictional television drama by the Western Heritage Awards , which sparingly honor works in literature, music, film, and television that reflect significant stories of the American West "Little House" also topped Newsmax's 50 Best TV Shows That Reflect American Values.
The new breed of Americans were virtuous, rugged individualists who were extremely hardworking, strongly believed in God, idealized family, loved the land they lived from, and were intensely loyal to the young nation where their freedoms allowed their pursuit of happiness.
Stories of life on the frontier captivated folks back East, and were just in time for a new invention: The film and TV heroes who best fit the West's new spirit were strong, silent enforcers of good vs. They were the pure Western hero personality. Probably the reason famous quotes from Western movies resonate is a subconscious expectation that anything said by these men-of-few-words beyond "yep," "nope," and "draw!
Being an all-time best Western means being around long enough to be recognized as better than most others, as measured sooner by critical acclaim, ratings, box office success, Oscars and Golden Globes and, later, by maintaining a lasting cultural impression and influencing what follows Westerns on the Newsmax truest list are favorites for complimentary remakes. All-time bests also often get folded into the mythos of a legendary character or event, like Rooster Cogburn and Davy Crockett, or the gunfight at O. Corral and Custer's last stand.
Which Westerns make the cut for all-time best is determined by consensus, and it's simple.
Books by Lenore Skomal. So, what happened out in the West during those years after Independence that was worth creating a separate genre of American film to chronicle? Alison Langteau marked it as to-read May 25, Margaret Datko marked it as to-read Apr 22, She is an award-winning author.
Dozens of credible all-time best lists create a preponderance of consensus that narrows the top movies and TV shows down to several dozen of each. It's important, though, to keep what's favored today from cheating on the best-picks of more-focused audiences 30 or 40 years ago. Except for "Dances With Wolves" and "Unforgiven," the film landscape has been bare since. Only two television mini-series, 's "Lonesome Dove" and 's "Return to Lonesome Dove," broke through on the small screen while dozens of made-for-TV feature films were trying to substitute for television series and big screen projects.
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Which Westerns are truest to the American spirit is subjective. It can be seen clearest in the early all-time bests and in later movies and television hewing to realism in a simpler frontier and sticking with the pure Western hero personality. The American spirit can always be found in the work of visionaries, producers, and directors who ascribe to it, and it can usually be found somewhere in Westerns with stars who, as "Great Western Performers," perpetuate the West's legacy and enduring mythology, and project the traditional Western ideals of honesty, integrity, and self-sufficiency over a lifetime in film and television.
Clint Eastwood, paradoxically, typifies the more-nuanced heroes needed as the West begins to fall apart, at least so filmmakers can fixate on deterioration and revision. Many of those Westerns are all-time bests, too, but it's hard to glimpse the American spirit in them as you get further down the list. Some all-time best Westerns just lose touch with the American spirit because of too much foreign influence, whether from director, film location, or plot. With mostly only visuals to work with, the extended silent era imprinted an exaggerated vision of a West filled with simpler personalities struggling with natural forces and human impulses in a beautiful but stark and unforgiving landscape.
Endless props and settings, from white hats to barrooms, were stereotypes worth a thousand words in subtitles. The image stuck and persisted for 50 years, and it only began to evolve as the Western gained voice to express its complexities. By then the American spirit was embedded in the Western and the question became how long would it take Hollywood to "unbed" it and sully the pure Western hero. The all-time best Western film truest to the American spirit has to be 's "The Alamo," produced by and starring John Wayne.