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Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
By Nate Blakeslee. 2005
Early one morning in the summer of 1999 authorities in the tiny west Texas town of Tulia began a roundup…
of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over forty people had been arrested and one of every five balck adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman. Coleman, the son of a well-known Texas Ranger, was named Officer of the Year in Texas. Not until after the trials--in which Coleman's uncorroborated testimony secured sentences as long as 361 years--did it become apparent that Tom Coleman was not the man he claimed to be. Tulia is the story of this town, the bust, the trials, and the heroic legal battle to reverse the convictions that caught the attention of the nation in the spring of 2003. With a sure sense of history and of place, a great feel for the characters involved, and showdowns inside the courtroom and out. Blakeslee's Tulia is contemporary journalism at its finest, and a thrilling read. The scandal changed the way narcotics enforcement is done in Texas, and has put the national drug war on trial at a time when incarceration rates in this country have never been higher. But the story is much bigger than the tale of just one bust. As Tulia makes clear, these events are the latest chapter in a story with themes as old as the country itself. It is a marvelously well-told tale about injustice, race, poverty, hysteria, desperation, and doing the right thing in America.If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy--from the Revolution to the War of 1812
By George C. Daughan. 2008
The American Revolution-and thus the history of the United States-began not on land but on the sea. Paul Revere began…
his famous midnight ride not by jumping on a horse, but by scrambling into a skiff with two other brave patriots to cross Boston Harbor to Charlestown. Revere and his companions rowed with muffled oars to avoid capture by the British warships closely guarding the harbor. As they paddled silently, Revere’s neighbor was flashing two lanterns from the belfry of Old North Church, signaling patriots in Charlestown that the redcoats were crossing the Charles River in longboats. In every major Revolutionary battle thereafter the sea would play a vital, if historically neglected, role. When the American colonies took up arms against Great Britain, they were confronting the greatest sea-power of the age. And it was during the War of Independence that the American Navy was born. But following the British naval model proved crushingly expensive, and the Founding Fathers fought viciously for decades over whether or not the fledgling republic truly needed a deep-water fleet. The debate ended only when the Federal Navy proved indispensable during the War of 1812. Drawing on decades of prodigious research, historian George C. Daughan chronicles the embattled origins of the U. S. Navy. From the bloody and gunpowder-drenched battles fought by American sailors on lakes and high seas to the fierce rhetorical combat waged by the Founders in Congress, If By Sea charts the course by which the Navy became a vital and celebrated American institution.Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale, and the Redemption of a Killer
By Douglas W. Rae, Paul Bass. 2006
May 20, 1969: Four members of the revolutionary Black Panther Party trudge through woods along the edges of the Coginchaug…
River outside of New Haven, Connecticut. Gunshots shatter the silence. Three men emerge from the woods. Soon, two are in police custody. One flees across the country. Nine Panthers would be tried for crimes committed that night, including National Chairman Bobby Seale, extradited from California with the aide of Panther nemesis, California Governor Ronald Reagan. Activists of all denominations descended on the New England city--and the campus of Yale. The Nixon administration sent 4,000 National Guardsmen. U. S. military tanks lined the streets outside of New Haven. In this white-knuckle journey through a turbulent America, Doug Rae and Paul Bass let us eavesdrop on late-night meetings between Yale President, Kingman Brewster, and radical activists, including Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, as they try to avert disaster. Meanwhile, most heartrending of all is the never-before-told story of Warren Kimbro--star community worker turned Panther assassin--who faces an uphill battle to turn his life around.The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate
By Lewis Gould. 2005
In this sweeping narrative, acclaimed political historian Lewis L. Gould chronicles over one hundred years of Senate history, from the…
Progressive Era to the war in Iraq. Over the course of the twentieth century, the most powerful legislative body in the world grappled with great questions of empire and democracy, war and peace, capital and labor, fascism and communism, race relations, women's rights, and terrorism. In addition to towering figures such as Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., William E. Borah, and Lyndon Johnson, Gould also highlights the stories of lesser-known Senate leaders who have played vital roles in America's upper house. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, controversy surrounding the Senate is intensifying-as is its political power. Lewis L. Gould's masterful history is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the past, present, and future of American politics.Trail Of Feathers
By Robert Rivard. 2005
In December 1998, San Antonio Express-News reporter Philip True vanished during a solo backcountry trek in western Mexico, home of…
the reclusive Huichol Indians and the Chapalagana, the Twisted Serpent Canyon, a 150-mile long gash that twists and plunges through the heart of the Sierra Madre. Five days later his editor, Robert Rivard, was part of a small search party that, nearly miraculously, tracked a trail of feathers that had leaked from True's sleeping bag to find his body. Trail of Feathers is the story of the search for True and of the quest to bring his killers to justice. It is also the story of another perplexing mystery: Why had True taken such a dangerous trip, into such a raw, uncivilized wilderness, alone and without sufficient safety preparations, in the first place? After an unhappy and unsettled youth, True was at the age of fifty finally settling down to a career and a wife he loved. His first child was about to be born. What was he running from, or to? Rivard's search for answers to these questions leads him deep into the Sierra Madre Occidental, one of Mexico's last true wildernesses, and deep into the secrets of Philip True's past. It also leads him into his own past, and an acknowledgment of the ways in which his life and True's mirrored each other. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and moving, Trail of Feathers is more than a true crime tale; it's a classic tragedy about how the past reverberates destructively into the present - for individuals, for cultures, for nations.1920: The Year of the Six Presidents
By David Pietrusza. 2007
The presidential election of 1920 was among history’s most dramatic. Six once-and-future presidents-Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Teddy and Franklin…
Roosevelt-jockeyed for the White House. With voters choosing between Wilson’s League of Nations and Harding’s front-porch isolationism, the 1920 election shaped modern America. Women won the vote. Republicans outspent Democrats by 4 to 1, as voters witnessed the first extensive newsreel coverage, modern campaign advertising, and results broadcast on radio. America had become an urban nation: Automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit transformed the economy. 1920 paints a vivid portrait of America, beset by the Red Scare, jailed dissidents, Prohibition, smoke-filled rooms, bomb-throwing terrorists, and the Klan, gingerly crossing modernity’s threshold.The Best of I.F. STONE
By I. F. Stone. 2006
Izzy Stone was a reporter, a radical, an idealist, a scholar and, it is clear, a writer whose insights have…
more than stood the test of time. More than fifteen years after his death, this collection of his work from I. F. Stone's Weekly and elsewhere is astonishing in its relevance to our age, addressing the clash between national security and individual liberty, the protection of minorities, economic fairness, social justice, and the American military abroad. The core of Stone's genius was his newsletter, I. F. Stone's Weekly, published from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. His meticulous dissection of the news was unsurpassed, a direct descendent of the great pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, and a forerunner to the best of today's political blogs. Stone's brilliant, investigative reporting; his wonderful, impassioned style; and his commitment to his values all make this collection an inspiration, and a revelation.NOW WITH A NEW PREFACE In this riveting account of the explosive relationship between Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar…
Hoover, renowned journalist and author Burton Hersh sets their highly publicized clashes in the context of Joe Kennedy’s ongoing manipulation of Congress and his children’s careers, and his lifelong connections to organized crime. Theirs was a unique triumvirate, marked by conflict and betrayal, and culminating in a near-Shakespearean tragedy. Based on compelling new research, and told in gripping anecdotal style, Hersh chronicles the complex relationship between the two antagonists, from their early brushes during the McCarthy years to their controversial deaths.Of Plymouth Plantation
By William Bradford. 2012
The most important and influential source of information about Plymouth, this landmark account was written by the colony's governor. It…
vividly documents the Pilgrims' first stop in Holland, their harrowing transatlantic crossing, the first harsh winter in the new land, and the help from Native Americans that saved their lives.In one of very few balanced accounts of Texas's epic struggle for independence from Mexico, Albert Nofi provides a splendid…
chronicle of the events and personalities of the war. He includes readable and accessible maps of military movements and a strategic and tactical analysis of each battle, addressing the extraordinary number of myths that the Alamo has engendered and exposing the truth about a conflict that has taken on legendary proportions.Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War
By Drew Gilpin Faust. 2004
Exploring privileged Confederate women's wartime experiences, this book chronicles the clash of the old and the new within a group…
that was at once the beneficiary and the victim of the social order of the Old South.Burr Ridge (Images of America)
By Sharon L. Comstock. 2015
The Village of Burr Ridge is aptly named--and not merely for the bur oaks, nor the limestone ridges as the…
land nears Flagg Creek. Before there was Burr Ridge, frontier German, English, French, Scottish, and Native Americans came to these forests. The Plainfield and Joliet trails were early Native American and frontier routes to and from trading posts, and oral histories recount the Potawatomi stopping near what would become County Line Road. The angled routes of Plainfield Road and Historic Route 66 are silent reminders of these past trails and travelers. In 1917, International Harvester Company opened a research facility along County Line and Plainfield Roads to perfect agricultural equipment, namely the iconic Farmall tractor. This inspired the namesake village, Harvester, in 1956, which was renamed Burr Ridge in 1962. The modern Illinois Interstates 55 and 294 intersect near Burr Ridge, spurring growth. Today, the village has the distinction of being one of the wealthiest communities in the United States.A First Book of American History
By Edward Eggleston. 2012
Continuing the biographical approach to teaching history found in his Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, Eggleston draws a…
more in-depth picture of the development of the United States using the stories of the living and breathing Americans who made it all happen.The Mirrors of Washington
By Clinton W. Gilbert, John Kirby. 1921
Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention
By Frank Kusch. 2008
Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
By Jon Meacham. 2003
Native American History For Dummies
By Stephen J. Spignesi, Dorothy Lippert. 2008
Call them Native Americans, American Indians, indigenous peoples, or first nations -- a vast and diverse array of nations, tribes,…
and cultures populated every corner of North America long before Columbus arrived. Native American History For Dummies reveals what is known about their pre-Columbian history and shows how their presence, customs, and beliefs influenced everything that was to follow.This straightforward guide breaks down their ten-thousand-plus year history and explores their influence on European settlement of the continent. You'll gain fresh insight into the major tribal nations, their cultures and traditions, warfare and famous battles; and the lives of such icons as Pocahontas, Sitting Bull and Sacagawea. You'll discover:How and when the Native American's ancestors reached the continentHow tribes formed and where they migratedWhat North America was like before 1492How Native peoples maximized their environmentPre-Columbian farmers, fishermen, hunters, and tradersThe impact of Spain and France on the New WorldGreat Warriors from Tecumseh to GeronimoHow Native American cultures differed across the continentNative American religions and religious practicesThe stunning impact of disease on American Indian populationsModern movements to reclaim Native identityGreat museums, books, and films about Native AmericansPacked with fascinating facts about functional and ceremonial clothing, homes and shelters, boatbuilding, hunting, agriculture, mythology, intertribal relations, and more, Native American History For Dummies provides a dazzling and informative introduction to North America's first inhabitants.The Story of the Mayflower Compact
By Norman Richards. 1967
Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History
By Nick Bunker. 2010
The Mayflower was the famousship that transported the English Separatists, better known as thePilgrims, fromSouthampton,England, toPlymouth,Massachusetts in 1620. For centuries…
its story has been told as though it was a simple story of simple people, pursuing religious freedom, yet has been distorted by the myth that it was an entirely American event, a myth that detaches it from the global conflicts in which its passengers were caught up. Before it became part of the prehistory of the American Republic, the Mayflower was in reality an episode - and a crucial one - in the creation of the British Empire, and of the new world order that was coming into being in the seventeenth century. Providence Their Guide shows how 'America' was invented by an unexpected alliance of unusual men and women. They were privateering English aristocrats, xenophobic politicians at Westminster and sectarian religious radicals. The Pilgrims believed that God's ProvidencEver since Nelson Mandela walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing…
a radical transformation. In one of the miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. What has happened since then?