{"title":"Jason Vuic","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"yugo-book-jason-vuic-9780809098958","title":"The Yugo","description":"Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it the worst car of the millennium. And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and it is one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand good communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you've got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia's nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo.at the bottom.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548559515921,"sku":"GOR007669188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49657443778833,"sku":"CIN0809098954G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50935439753489,"sku":"CIN0809098954VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008062193937,"sku":"NIN9780809098958","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52582964363537,"sku":"NLS9780809098958","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0809098954.jpg?v=1751042960"},{"product_id":"yucks-book-jason-vuic-9781476772271","title":"The Yucks","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFriday Night Lights\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eThe Bad News Bears\u003c\/i\u003e in \"a brisk, warmhearted reminder of how professional sports can occasionally reach stunning unprofessional depths\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e): the first two seasons with the worst team in NFL history, the hapless, hilarious, and hopelessly winless 1976­-1977 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Long before their first Super Bowl victory in 2003, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did something no NFL team had ever done before and that none will ever likely do again: They lost twenty-six games in a row.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This was no ordinary streak. Along with their ridiculous mascot and uniforms, which were known as \"the Creamsicles,\" the Yucks were a national punch line and personnel purgatory. Owned by the miserly and bulbous-nosed Hugh Culverhouse, the team was the end of the line for Heisman Trophy winner and University of Florida hero Steve Spurrier, and a banishment for former Cowboy defensive end Pat Toomay after he wrote a tell-all book about his time on \"America's Team.\" Many players on the Bucs had been out of football for years, and it wasn't uncommon for them to have to introduce themselves in the huddle. They were coached by the ever-quotable college great John McKay. \"We can't win at home and we can't win on the road,\" he said. \"What we need is a neutral site.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e But the Bucs were a part of something bigger, too. They were a gambit by promoters, journalists, and civic boosters to create a shared identity for a region that didn't exist--Tampa Bay. Before the Yucks, \"the Bay\" was a body of water, and even the worst team in memory transformed Florida's Gulf communities into a single region with a common cause. \u003ci\u003eThe Yucks\u003c\/i\u003e is \"a funny, endearing look at how the Bucs lost their way to success, cementing a region through creamsicle unis and John McKay one-liners\" (\u003ci\u003eSports Illustrated\u003c\/i\u003e).","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50377368699153,"sku":"CIN1476772274G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51028565623057,"sku":"NIN9781476772271","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51370822435089,"sku":"GOR014243005","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51726512849169,"sku":"GOR010863576","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53342081220881,"sku":"GOR014861855","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53645206585617,"sku":"CIN1476772274VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1476772274.jpg?v=1751053167"},{"product_id":"yugo-book-jason-vuic-9780809098910","title":"The Yugo","description":"Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it the worst car of the millennium. And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and it is one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand good communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you've got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia's nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo.at the bottom.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50492296167697,"sku":"CIN0809098911VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51165171056913,"sku":"CIN0809098911G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52505274056977,"sku":"GOR002814814","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53589892792593,"sku":"GOR006388990","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0809098911.jpg?v=1751042960"},{"product_id":"swamp-peddlers-book-jason-vuic-9781469663333","title":"The Swamp Peddlers","description":"Florida has long beckoned retirees seeking to spend their golden years in the sun, but, for many, the American dream of owning a home there was financially impossible. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called \"installment land sales industry\" appeared out of nowhere to hawk billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded homesite that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result created Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others-sprawling exurban communities with no downtowns and little industry but millions of residential lots.    As Jason C. Vuic recounts in this raucous history, these communities allowed generations of northerners to move to Florida cheaply, but at a price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; developers cleared forests, drained wetlands, and built thousands of miles of roads in grid-like subdivisions, which, fifty years later, played an inordinate role in the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51028201144593,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51028204421393,"sku":"NIN9781469663333","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1469663155.jpg?v=1753005323"},{"product_id":"swamp-peddlers-book-jason-vuic-9781469663159","title":"The Swamp Peddlers","description":"Florida has long beckoned retirees seeking to spend their golden years in the sun, but, for many, the American dream of owning a home there was financially impossible. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called \"installment land sales industry\" appeared out of nowhere to hawk billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded homesite that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result created Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others-sprawling exurban communities with no downtowns and little industry but millions of residential lots.    As Jason C. Vuic recounts in this raucous history, these communities allowed generations of northerners to move to Florida cheaply, but at a price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; developers cleared forests, drained wetlands, and built thousands of miles of roads in grid-like subdivisions, which, fifty years later, played an inordinate role in the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51141287936273,"sku":"CIN1469663155G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1469663155_7934e309-aaa8-4565-9516-45c5eb6e5e84.jpg?v=1763478577"},{"product_id":"yucks-book-jason-vuic-9781476772264","title":"The Yucks","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51322644136209,"sku":"CIN1476772266A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51423633309969,"sku":"CIN1476772266G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53067842421009,"sku":"GOR010044613","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1476772266.jpg?v=1750827613"},{"product_id":"town-without-pity-book-jason-vuic-9780813081175","title":"A Town Without Pity","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTwo heartbreaking tales of small-town injustice revealing America's struggles with AIDS and racial bias in the 1980s\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFlorida Historical Society Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the 1980s, the tiny town of Arcadia, Florida, was \"fifty miles and fifty years from Sarasota.\" With its cowboy roots, low-wage agricultural industries, and violent frontier history, Arcadia was a curious mix of the desolate ranchlands of West Texas and the stately homes and bitter race relations of the South. In \u003ci\u003eA Town without Pity\u003c\/i\u003e, award-winning author Jason Vuic recounts two heartbreaking stories from Arcadia that rose to national prominence at the end of the Reagan era and forced the town to reckon with not only AIDS hysteria but also the legacies of a racist past.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis book delves into the case of James Richardson, a Black migrant worker accused in 1967 of poisoning his seven children. Richardson spent twenty years in prison due to suppressed evidence for a crime he didn't commit. Vuic also tells the story of the public mistreatment of the three Ray brothers, white school-age children with hemophilia who contracted the HIV virus from a tainted medicine called factor VIII. The Rays were barred from attending their local church and school, and when their house burned down in a mysterious arson, reporters dubbed Arcadia the \"town without pity.\"\/p\u0026gt;\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThrough extensive use of newspapers, court records, and interviews, Vuic shows how the actions of authorities and residents left little room for the voices that spoke up against bias, harassment, and coercion. At the same time, this cautionary tale places Arcadia as a microcosm of many small towns in the late twentieth-century United States, reminding readers of the staying power of social divisions and prejudice even after the achievements of the civil rights movement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51699512082705,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51699512574225,"sku":"NGR9780813081175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52653825884433,"sku":"NLS9780813081175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52725036613905,"sku":"NIN9780813081175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52843815469329,"sku":"CIN0813081173VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813081173.jpg?v=1763127542"},{"product_id":"sarajevo-olympics-book-jason-vuic-9781625341655","title":"The Sarajevo Olympics","description":"To most observers, the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, were an unmitigated success. That year, the unlikeliest of candidate cities in the unlikeliest of candidate countries did what many had thought impossible: it hosted an international sports competition at the highest level, housing and feeding hundreds of athletes and thousands of tourists while broadcasting a positive image of socialist Yugoslavia to the world.   The first Winter Games held in a communist country, Sarajevo also marked the first Olympic confrontation of Soviet and American athletes since the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. And the competitions themselves were spectacular and memorable. This was the Olympics of British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, American skiers “Wild Bill” Johnson and Debbie Armstrong, and East German skaters Katarina Witt and Karin Enke, not to mention a Soviet hockey team that rebounded from its stunning loss to the Americans at Lake Placid four years earlier to win all seven of its matches.   Yet The Sarajevo Olympics is more than just a history of sport. Jason Vuic also retraces the history of the Olympic movement, analyzes the inner workings of the International Olympic Committee during the troubled 1970s and 1980s, and places the 1984 Winter Games in the context of Cold War geopolitics. The book begins and ends by reminding readers that less than a decade after it hosted the Olympics, the Bosnian city of Sarajevo found itself at the vortex of a bloody and brutal civil war that would end with the dissolution of the multiethnic Yugoslavian state.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52939769479441,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52939770036497,"sku":"CIN1625341652G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781625341655.jpg?v=1765894729"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-jason-vuic.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}