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By David Friend. 2006
The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the most universally observed news event in human history. That the…
event was so visual is owing to the people who, facing disaster, took photographs of it: imperiled office workers, horrified tourists, professional photographers risking their lives. Conceived by Osama bin Laden as the toppling of an image of America right before the world's eyes, the tragedy swiftly came to be defined by photography, as families posted snapshots of their loved ones, police sought terrorists' faces on security-camera videotapes, and officials recorded the devastation and identified the dead.In Watching the World Change, David Friend tells the stories behind fifty of the images that altered our sense of our world forever—from the happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the first tower was struck to the scene of three firemen raising the Stars and Stripes at the site. He tells unforgettable stories of photographers and rescuers, victims and survivors. He shows how advances in television, digital photography, and the Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion people saw the terrible events as they happened. He explores the controversy about whether images of 9/11 are redemptive or exploitative; and he shows how photographs help us to witness, to grieve, and finally to understand the unimaginable.By James A. Colaiaco. 2006
On July 5th, 1852, Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest orators of all time, delivered what was arguably the century's…
most powerful abolition speech. At a time of year where American freedom is celebrated across the nation, Douglass eloquently summoned the country to resolve the contradiction between slavery and the founding principles of our country. In this book, James A. Colaiaco vividly recreates the turbulent historical context of Douglass' speech and delivers a colorful portrait of the country in the turbulent years leading to the civil war. This book provides a fascinating new perspective on a critical time in American history.By John W. Dean, Barry M. Goldwater Jr.. 2008
Barry Goldwater was a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism.…
In an era in which American conservatism has lost his way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life. Here bestselling author John Dean combines analysis with Goldwater's own words. With unprecedented access to his correspondence, interviews, and behind-the-scenes conversations, Dean sheds new light on this political figure. From the late Senator's honest thoughts on Richard Nixon to his growing discomfort with the rise of the extreme right, Pure Goldwater offers a revelatory look at an American icon--and also reminds us of a more hopeful alternative to the dispiriting political landscape of today.By Jerrold M. Packard. 2002
For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, a quarter of all Americans lived under a system…
of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette," these rules governed nearly every aspect of life--and outlined draconian punishments for infractions.The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being, how it was lived, how it was justified, and how, at long last, it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly, this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery.Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard, Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge--and an understanding of how it happened--remain alive in the nation's collective memory.By Ginger Adams Otis. 2015
In 1919, when Wesley Williams became a New York City firefighter, he stepped into a world that was 100% white…
and predominantly Irish. As far as this city knew, black men in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) tended horses.Nearly a century later, many things in the FDNY had changed—but not the scarcity of blacks. New York had about 300 black firefighters—roughly 3 percent of the 11,000 New York firefighters in a city of two million African Americans. That made the FDNY a true aberration compared to all the other uniformed departments, like the NYPD. Decades earlier, women and blacks had sued over its hiring practices and won. But the FDNY never took permanent steps to eradicate the inequities, which led to a courtroom show-down between New York City's billionaire Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, and a determined group of black activist firefighters. It was not until 2014 that the city settled the $98 million lawsuit.At the center of this book are stories of courage—about firefighters risking their lives in the line of duty but also risking their livelihood by battling an unjust system. Among them: FDNY Captain Paul Washington, a second generation black firefighter, who spent his multi-decade career fighting to get minorities on the job. He faced an insular culture made up of relatives who never saw their own inclusion as favoritism.Based on author Ginger Adams Otis' years of on the ground reporting, Firefight is an exciting blend of the high-octane energy of firefighting and critical Civil Rights history.By Robert A. Gross. 1976
Winner of the Bancroft PrizeThe Minutemen and Their World, first published in 1976, is reissued now in a revised and…
expanded edition with a new preface and afterword by the author.On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The “shot heard round the world” catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. The town?future home to Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne?soon came to symbolize devotion to liberty, intellectual freedom, and the stubborn integrity of rural life.In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert A. Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.By James Ciment. 2014
The first popular history of the former American slaves who founded, ruled, and lost Africa's first republicIn 1820, a group…
of about eighty African Americans reversed the course of history and sailed back to Africa, to a place they would name after liberty itself. They went under the banner of the American Colonization Society, a white philanthropic organization with a dual agenda: to rid America of its blacks, and to convert Africans to Christianity. The settlers staked out a beachhead; their numbers grew as more boats arrived; and after breaking free from their white overseers, they founded Liberia—Africa's first black republic—in 1847.James Ciment's Another America is the first full account of this dramatic experiment. With empathy and a sharp eye for human foibles, Ciment reveals that the Americo-Liberians struggled to live up to their high ideals. They wrote a stirring Declaration of Independence but re-created the social order of antebellum Dixie, with themselves as the master caste. Building plantations, holding elegant soirees, and exploiting and even helping enslave the native Liberians, the persecuted became the persecutors—until a lowly native sergeant murdered their president in 1980, ending 133 years of Americo rule.The rich cast of characters in Another America rivals that of any novel. We encounter Marcus Garvey, who coaxed his followers toward Liberia in the 1920s, and the rubber king Harvey Firestone, who built his empire on the backs of native Liberians. Among the Americoes themselves, we meet the brilliant intellectual Edward Blyden, one of the first black nationalists; the Baltimore-born explorer Benjamin Anderson, seeking a legendary city of gold in the Liberian hinterland; and President William Tubman, a descendant of Georgia slaves, whose economic policies brought Cadillacs to the streets of Monrovia, the Liberian capital. And then there are the natives, men like Joseph Samson, who was adopted by a prominent Americo family and later presided over the execution of his foster father during the 1980 coup. In making Liberia, the Americoes transplanted the virtues and vices of their country of birth. The inspiring and troubled history they created is, to a remarkable degree, the mirror image of our own.By Elizabeth A. Fenn. 2014
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryEncounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains…
people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world.By Gina Gallo. 2001
The critically acclaimed memoirs of one female police officer's sixteen-year odyssey, beginning with day one at the Police Academy and…
spanning assignments on Chicago's West Side, one of the most dangerous areas in the city.The notorious cops' code of silence is broken as the author recounts incidents in the West Side projects: shoot-outs, ambushes, and what it feels like to kill a man—just four days out of the Academy.The stories told are sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, often poignant, and always provide the reader with an on the scene feel for life behind the badge. Domestic violence, murdered spouses, abused children, and philandering CPD brass are just some of the topics addressed, topics that officer Gallo dealt with everyday.From her work with gangs, narcotics, the gun task force, and acting as a prostitute, Gina Gallo offers a gritty account of the darker side of the city, giving readers an objective side to the cops, crooks, and victims that comprise a the police cops world.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.By Doug Jones, Greg Truman. 2019
The story of the decades-long fight to bring justice to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, culminating…
in Sen. Doug Jones' prosecution of the last living bombers. On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. The blast killed four young girls and injured twenty-two others. The FBI suspected four particularly radical Ku Klux Klan members. Yet due to reluctant witnesses, a lack of physical evidence, and pervasive racial prejudice the case was closed without any indictments.But as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously expressed it, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Years later, Alabama Attorney General William Baxley reopened the case, ultimately convicting one of the bombers in 1977. Another suspect passed away in 1994, and US Attorney Doug Jones tried and convicted the final two in 2001 and 2002, representing the correction of an outrageous miscarriage of justice nearly forty years in the making. Jones himself went on to win election as Alabama’s first Democratic Senator since 1992 in a dramatic race against Republican challenger Roy Moore.Bending Toward Justice is a dramatic and compulsively readable account of a key moment in our long national struggle for equality, related by an author who played a major role in these events. A distinguished work of legal and personal history, the book is destined to take its place as a canonical civil rights history.By Mike Cox. 2016
Texas writer/historian Mike Cox explores the inception and rise of the famed Texas Rangers. Starting in 1821 with just a…
handful of men, the Rangers' first purpose was to keep settlers safe from the feared and gruesome Karankawa Indians, a cannibalistic tribe that wandered the Texas territory. As the influx of settlers grew, the attacks increased and it became clear that a much larger, better trained force was necessary. From their tumultuous beginning to their decades of fighting outlaws, Comanche, Mexican soldados and banditos, as well as Union soldiers, the Texas Rangers became one of the fiercest law enforcement groups in America. In a land as spread-out and sparsely populated as the west itself, the Rangers had unique law-enforcement responsibilities and challenges.The story of the Texas Rangers is as controversial as it is heroic. Often accused of vigilante-style racism and murder, they enforced the law with a heavy hand. But above all they were perhaps the defining force for the stabilization and the creation of Texas. From Stephen Austin in the early days through the Civil War, the first eighty years of the Texas Rangers is nothing less then phenomenal, and the efforts put forth in those days set the foundation for the Texas Rangers that keep Texas safe today.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.America&’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of…
the year of our nation&’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that placed America&’s survival in the hands of George Washington.In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence—when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King&’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough&’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.By George Walsh. 2006
Many accounts of the Civil War battles, armies, and key figures have been written over the years, but none have…
looked at the bloodiest war in our nation's history through the eyes of the cavalry. The horse soldiers in the Civil War are often referred to as the last of the cavaliers, men who valued their honor as much as their cause. In this sweeping saga George Walsh brings to life anew the gallant horse soldiers of the North and South, showing in dramatic detail how their raids and expeditions affected the outcome of the war and how their fortunes waxed and waned. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.By David Martinez. 2024
Bones Worth Breaking is a portrait of the unbreakable bond between brothers and a reckoning with the global forces that…
shaped them.Nobody around David Martinez saw how quickly he was breaking apart except for his younger brother, Mike. They stood out in Idaho: mixed-race in a Mormon community that, in the years before David’s birth, considered Black people ineligible for salvation. The Martinez brothers were raised to be “good boys,” definitely not to get high, skateboard all night, or get arrested, all of which they did with zeal. Then their paths diverged. David went on a two-year mission trip to Brazil like his father before him, and Mike stayed in the States, finding himself in and out of prison. When David returned, in the middle of the still-unnamed opioid epidemic, things had irrevocably changed, and in 2021, Mike unexpectedly died in prison.Martinez writes with a serrated edge, as viscerally felt as an exposed nerve, and transforms from a stoic boy constantly seeking escape to a vulnerable man eager to contextualize the legacies and losses that have shaped his life. With a wild, ragged velocity—flipping and soaring like a pro skater—Martinez defies a linear telling of his life and tackles topics from abuse and racism to writing and capturing the meaning of the specific nostalgia of saudade.Bones Worth Breaking is a portrait of the unbreakable bond between brothers who were robbed of the chance to grow old together, and a reckoning with the brutal global forces that let so many poor young men of color fall perilously through the cracks.By Kate Zernike. 2010
A surprising and revealing look inside the Tea Party movement—where it came from, what it stands for, and what it…
means for the future of American politicsThey burst on the scene at the height of the Great Recession—angry voters gathering by the thousands to rail against bailouts and big government. Evoking the Founding Fathers, they called themselves the Tea Party. Within the year, they had changed the terms of debate in Washington, emboldening Republicans and confounding a new administration's ability to get things done.Boiling Mad is Kate Zernike's eye-opening look inside the Tea Party, introducing us to a cast of unlikely activists and the philosophy that animates them. She shows how the Tea Party movement emerged from an unusual alliance of young Internet-savvy conservatives and older people alarmed at a country they no longer recognize. The movement is the latest manifestation of a long history of conservative discontent in America, breeding on a distrust of government that is older than the nation itself. But the Tea Partiers' grievances are rooted in the present, a response to the election of the nation's first black president and to the far-reaching government intervention that followed the economic crisis of 2008-2009. Though they are better educated and better off than most other Americans, they remain deeply pessimistic about the economy and the direction of the country.Zernike introduces us to the first Tea Partier, a nose-pierced young teacher who lives in Seattle with her fiancé, an Obama supporter. We listen in on what Tea Partiers learn about the Constitution, which they embrace as the backbone of their political philosophy. We see how young conservatives, who model their organization on the Grateful Dead, mobilize a new set of activists several decades their elder. And we watch as suburban mothers, who draw their inspiration from MoveOn and other icons of the Left, plot to upend the Republican Party in a swing district outside Philadelphia.The Tea Party movement has energized a lot of voters, but it has polarized the electorate, too. Agree or disagree, we must understand this movement to understand American politics in 2010 and beyond.By Stephen Puleo. 2024
The groundbreaking biography of a forgotten civil rights hero.In the tempestuous mid-19th century, as slavery consumed Congressional debate and America…
careened toward civil war and split apart–when the very future of the nation hung in the balance–Charles Sumner’s voice rang strongest, bravest, and most unwavering. Where others preached compromise and moderation, he denounced slavery’s evils to all who would listen and demanded that it be wiped out of existence. More than any other person of his era, he blazed the trail on the country’s long, uneven, and ongoing journey toward realizing its full promise to become a more perfect union.Before and during the Civil War, at great personal sacrifice, Sumner was the conscience of the North and the most influential politician fighting for abolition. Throughout Reconstruction, no one championed the rights of emancipated people more than he did. Through the force of his words and his will, he moved America toward the twin goals of abolitionism and equal rights, which he fought for literally until the day he died. He laid the cornerstone arguments that civil rights advocates would build upon over the next century as the country strove to achieve equality among the races.The Great Abolitionist is the first major biography of Charles Sumner to be published in over 50 years. Acclaimed historian Stephen Puleo relates the story of one of the most influential political figures in American history with evocative and accessible prose, transporting readers back to an era when our leaders exhibited true courage and authenticity in the face of unprecedented challenges.By Wolfgang Schivelbusch. 2006
From a world-renowned cultural historian, an original look at the hidden commonalities among Fascism, Nazism, and the New DealToday Franklin…
Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals" to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state's authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt's fireside chats and Mussolini's radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state.Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe's most tyrannical regimes.By John Mosier. 2006
Grant: A Biography tells of the extraordinary life and legacy of one of America's most ingenious military mindsA modest and…
unassuming man, Grant never lost a battle, leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War, ultimately becoming President of the reunited states. Grant revolutionized military warfare by creating new leadership tactics by integrating new technologies in classical military strategy. In this compelling biography, John Mosier reveals the man behind the military legend, showing how Grant's creativity and genius off the battlefield shaped him into one of our nation's greatest military leaders.By Mark Roseman. 2000
A heart-stopping survivor story and brilliant historical investigation that offers unprecedented insight into daily life in the Third Reich and…
the Holocaust and the powers and pitfalls of memory.At the outbreak of World War II, Marianne Strauss, the sheltered daughter of well-to-do German Jews, was an ordinary girl, concerned with studies, friends, and romance. Almost overnight she was transformed into a woman of spirit and defiance, a fighter who, when the Gestapo came for her family, seized the moment and went underground. On the run for two years, Marianne traveled across Nazi Germany without papers, aided by a remarkable resistance organization, previously unknown and unsung. Drawing on an astonishing cache of documents as well as interviews on three continents, historian Mark Roseman reconstructs Marianne's odyssey and reveals aspects of life in the Third Reich long hidden from view. As Roseman excavates the past, he also puts forward a new and sympathetic interpretation of the troubling discrepancies between fact and recollection that so often cloud survivors' accounts.A detective story, a love story, a story of great courage and survival under the harshest conditions, A Past in Hiding is also a poignant investigation into the nature of memory, authenticity, and truth.By Ida Tarbell. 2018
Part of Belt's Revivals Series, a classic of muckraking journalism with a new introduction by Elizabeth Catte, author of What…
You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia and Pure America . Cleveland oil tycoon Jo