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By Brent Ruswick. 2012
A history and analysis of scientific charity organizations that arose in late nineteenth century America.In the 1880s, social reform leaders…
warned that the “unworthy” poor were taking charitable relief intended for the truly deserving. Armed with statistics and confused notions of evolution, these “scientific charity” reformers founded organizations intent on limiting access to relief by the most morally, biologically, and economically unfit. Brent Ruswick examines a prominent national organization for scientific social reform and poor relief in Indianapolis in order to understand how these new theories of poverty gave birth to new programs to assist the poor.“Ruswick’s well-researched monograph traces the history of the charity organization society in the US from its origins in the Gilded Age to its merging with social work in the Progressive Era. . . . Recommended.” —Choice“[This] study provides a welcome insight into the inner workings of charity organization societies and their drive to eliminate poverty.” —Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Volume43, Issue 4, 2014“Almost Worthy offers a lot of interesting detail pulled from COS case files, professional conference proceedings, journals of the field, and more; some possibly fruitful hypotheses about what to make of changes in COS approaches over time; thoughtful new propositions about the relationship between scientific charity and eugenics (including some charity reformers’ apparent remorse); and a fresh, new mini-biography of Oscar McCulloch interspersed throughout.” —H-SHGAPE“Brent Ruswick wants to put the science back into scientific charity. He argues that the essence of organized charity was not its class prejudices and censorious attitude toward the poor, but rather its belief that systematic evidence-gathering could serve to improve the quality of charity work and public policy.” —American Historical Review, Volume119, Issue 4, October 2014By Michael Riedel. 2015
&“A vivid page-turner&” (NPR) detailing the rise, fall, and redemption of Broadway—its stars, its biggest shows, its producers, and all…
the drama, intrigue, and power plays that happened behind the scenes.&“A rich, lovely, debut history of New York theater in the 1970s and eighties&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Razzle Dazzle is a narrative account of the people and the money and the power that turned New York&’s gritty back alleys and sex-shops into the glitzy, dazzling Great White Way.In the mid-1970s Times Square was the seedy symbol of New York&’s economic decline. Its once shining star, the renowned Shubert Organization, was losing theaters to make way for parking lots and losing money. Bernard Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld, two ambitious board members, saw the crumbling company was ripe for takeover and staged a coup and staved off corporate intrigue, personal betrayals and criminal investigations. Once Jacobs and Schoenfeld solidified their power, they turned a collapsed theater-owning holding company into one of the most successful entertainment empires in the world, spearheading the revitalization of Broadway and the renewal of Times Square.&“For those interested in the business behind the greasepaint, at a riveting time in Broadway&’s and New York&’s history, this is the ticket&” (USA TODAY). Michael Riedel tells the stories of the Shubert Organization and the shows that re-built a city in grand style—including Cats, A Chorus Line, and Mamma Mia!—revealing the backstage drama that often rivaled what transpired onstage, exposing bitter rivalries, unlikely alliances, and inside gossip. &“The trouble with Razzle Dazzle is…you can&’t put the damn thing down&” (Huffington Post).By James Grant. 2011
James Grant’s enthralling biography of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House during one of the most turbulent times in…
American history—the Gilded Age, the decades before the ascension of reformer President Theodore Roosevelt—brings to life one of the brightest, wittiest, and most consequential political stars in our history. The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time. The Speaker’s beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest. A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject. He is an important and significant figure. He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business. He was funny and irreverent. He is, in short, great company. “What I most admire about you, Theodore,” Reed once remarked to his earnest young protégé, Teddy Roosevelt, “is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.” After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one another’s mordant wit. Grant’s lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous era—the raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—is a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it.In The Jefferson Rule, historian David Sehat describes how everyone from liberals to conservatives, secessionists to unionists have sought out…
the Founding Fathers to defend their policies.Beginning with the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton over the future of the nation, and continuing throughout our history—the Civil War, the World Wars, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution, and Obama and the Tea Party—many politicos have asked, “What would the Founders do?” instead of “What is the common good today?” Both the Right and the Left have used the Founders to sort through such issues as voting rights, campaign finance, free speech, war and peace, gun control, and taxes, though those Fathers were a querulous and divided group who rarely agreed.In this “sobering, informative study” (Publisher’s Weekly), Sehat shows why coming to terms with the past would be the start of a productive debate. The result is, simply put, “required reading for those desperate for sane, intelligent political arguments” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). The Jefferson Rule “takes the reader through an engaging and insightful survey course in American history” (The Christian Science Monitor).By Jon Kukla. 2017
&“A brilliant orator, a firebrand for freedom and individual rights, Henry stands as an American luminary, and Kukla&’s magisterial biography…
shines the glow of achievement on subject and author alike&” (Richmond Times Dispatch). Patrick Henry restores its subject, long underappreciated in history as a founding father, to his seminal place in the story of American independence.Patrick Henry is best known for his fiery declaration, &“Give me liberty, or give me death!&” Born in 1736, he became an attorney and planter before being elected as the first governor of Virginia after independence, winning reelection several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government. He pushed vigorously for the ten amendments to the new Constitution, and then supported Washington and national unity against the bitter party divisions of the 1790s. Henry denounced slavery as evil, but he accepted its continuation. Henry was enormously influential in his time, but many of his accomplishments were subsequently all but forgotten. Jon Kukla&’s &“detailed, compelling…definitive&” (Kirkus Reviews) biography restores Henry and his Virginia compatriots to the front rank of advocates for American independence. Kukla has thoroughly researched Henry&’s life, even living on one of Henry&’s estates. He brings both newly discovered documents and new insights to Henry, the Revolution, the Constitutional era, and the early Republic. This &“informational and enlightening biography of the great agitator for democracy&” (Library Journal) is a vital contribution to our understanding of the nation&’s founding.By Ann Gerhart. 2004
Laura Bush is arguably the most popular figure in the Bush White House. Even the President's detractors would not hesitate…
to describe the First Lady as utterly sincere and devoted to family and country, whether she is advocating on behalf of education and libraries or comforting the nation in times of crisis. Ann Gerhart of The Washington Post has covered Mrs. Bush since 2001, and no other reporter has interviewed the First Lady more often. Through this unparalleled access Gerhart has been able to uncover the woman behind the carefully maintained image. Far more than an uncomplicated maternal figure and dedicated wife, Laura Bush emerges as a complex and fascinating woman in her own right, who has composed a life of accomplishment for herself alongside her husband's tremendous ambitions. The Perfect Wife tells the complete story from Mrs. Bush's upbringing to her whirlwind three-month courtship by George W. Bush and her role as a mother, wife, and public figure. An only child raised in a segregated and fiercely traditional West Texas town, she is less conservative than her husband and appealingly down-to-earth despite the extraordinary privileges of her position. Two tragedies have defined her: a car accident when she was seventeen and September 11, when she suddenly had to transform her job and take herself far more seriously. Ann Gerhart examines the First Lady's influences and motivations, reveals the depths to which her husband relies upon her, and assesses her achievements. Compelling and insightful, this is the first comprehensive account of a woman who has won the admiration of the nation and of the compromises and challenges that come with taking on the most examined volunteer job in the world.By Paul Hemphill. 2000
Except for a massacre of five hundred settlers by renegade Creek Indians in the early 1800s, not much bad had…
happened during two centuries in Little River, Alabama, an obscure Lost Colony in the swampy woodlands of To Kill a Mockingbird country. "We're stuck down here being poor together" is how one native described the hamlet of about two hundred people, half black and half white. But in 1997, racial violence hit Little River like a thunderclap. A young black man was killed while trying to break into a white family's trailer at night, a beloved white store owner was nearly bludgeoned to death by a black ex-convict, and finally a marauding band of white kids torched a black church and vandalized another during a drunken wilding soon after a Ku Klux Klan rally.The Ballad of Little River is a narrative of that fateful year, an anatomy of one of the many church arsons across the South in the late 1990s. It is also much more -- a biography of a place that seemed, on the cusp of the millennium, stuck in another time. When veteran journalist Paul Hemphill, the son of an Alabama truck driver who has written extensively on the blue-collar South, moved into Little River, he discovered the flip side of what the natives like to call "God's country": a dot on the map far from the mainstream of American life, a forlorn cluster of poverty and ignorance and dead-end jobs in the dark, snake-infested forests, a world that time forgot.Living alongside the citizens of Little River, Hemphill discovered a stew of characters right out of fiction -- "Peanut" Ferguson, "Doll" Boone, "Hoss" Mack, Joe Dees, Murray January, a Klansman named "Brother Phil," and his stripper wife known as "Wild Child" -- swirling into a maelstrom of insufferable heat, malicious gossip, ancient grudges, and unresolved racial animosities. His story of how their lives intertwined serves, as well, as a chilling cautionary tale about the price that must be paid for living in virtual isolation during a time of unprecedented growth in America. God's country is in deep trouble.By Michael Hiltzik. 2011
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal began as a program of short-term emergency relief measures and evolved into a truly transformative concept…
of the federal government’s role in Americans’ lives. More than an economic recovery plan, it was a reordering of the political system that continues to define America to this day. With The New Deal: A Modern History, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Michael Hiltzik offers fresh insights into this inflection point in the American experience. Here is an intimate look at the alchemy that allowed FDR to mold his multifaceted and contentious inner circle into a formidable political team. The New Deal: A Modern History shows how Roosevelt, through the force of his personality, commanded the loyalty of the rock-ribbed fiscal conservative Lewis Douglas and the radical agrarian Rexford Tugwell alike; of Harold Ickes and Harry Hopkins, one a curmudgeonly miser, the other a spendthrift idealist; of Henry Morgenthau, gentleman farmer of upstate New York; and of Frances Perkins, a prim social activist with her roots in Brahmin New England. Yet the same character traits that made him so supple and self-confident a leader would sow the seeds of the New Deal’s end, with a shocking surge of Rooseveltian misjudgments. Understanding the New Deal may be more important today than at any time in the last eight decades. Conceived in response to a devastating financial crisis very similar to America’s most recent downturn—born of excessive speculation, indifferent regulation of banks and investment houses, and disproportionate corporate influence over the White House and Congress—the New Deal remade the country’s economic and political environment in six years of intensive experimentation. FDR had no effective model for fighting the worst economic downturn in his generation’s experience; but the New Deal has provided a model for subsequent presidents who faced challenging economic conditions, right up to the present. Hiltzik tells the story of how the New Deal was made, demonstrating that its precepts did not spring fully conceived from the mind of FDR—before or after he took office. From first to last the New Deal was a work in progress, a patchwork of often contradictory ideas. Far from reflecting solely progressive principles, the New Deal also accommodated such conservative goals as a balanced budget and the suspension of antitrust enforcement. Some programs that became part of the New Deal were borrowed from the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover; indeed, some of its most successful elements were enacted over FDR’s opposition. In this bold reevaluation of a decisive moment in American history, Michael Hiltzik dispels decades of accumulated myths and misconceptions about the New Deal to capture with clarity and immediacy its origins, its legacy, and its genius.By Melissa Lukeman Bohrer. 2003
Much has been written of the brave deeds, acts of heroism, and intellectual prowess of the men who drafted the…
Declaration of Independence over two hundred years ago, yet almost no attention has been paid to the extraordinary women of that time -- women who helped found our nation with courage, sacrifice, and intellect equal to any of the famed male politicians of 1776. Glory, Passion, and Principle tells the story of eight incredible women, each deprived of formal education, world travel, or equal status, and yet all managed to flourish against incredible odds. Whether advising such men as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin on political theory; publishing poems and plays that would rouse a nation to independent furor; helping negotiate treaties; acting as spies; or fighting alongside men in the military -- these women broke the limiting definitions imposed upon them, much as America was doing for itself, and helped form and found the country that is America today. Each chapter is dedicated to a different woman, starting with Abigail Adams, political confidante and wife of John Adams. Using her intellect to influence her husband's position in the Continental Congress, she earned the distinction of being the only person to put Thomas Jefferson in his place. Nancy Ward, the brave and diplomatic leader of the Cherokee tribe, matured from a young widow to bold warrior, risking her life and those of her people when she warned the Patriots of imminent attack by Native American tribes. She became a strong voice when the Treaty of Hopewell was signed in 1785.Yet another bright light was Sybil Ludington, a seventeen-year-old who took it upon herself to alert her town's militia that the British were coming, and survived a ride twice as long as Paul Revere's. And where Revere got caught, Ludington did not. Alongside Ludington, Adams, and Ward, the five other chapters chronicle the lives of Deborah Sampson, Lydia Darragh, Mercy Otis Warren, Phillis Wheatley, and Molly Hays. Filled with unimaginable heartbreak, personal sacrifice, and cunning survival skills, Glory, Passion, and Principle is an inspiring testament to the women who undoubtedly made a considerable dent in our great nation's history.By Rod Gragg. 2010
The true drama of how faith motivated America&’s Founding Fathers, influenced the Declaration of Independence and inspired the birth of…
the nation.This fascinating history, based on meticulous research into the correspondence and documentation of the founding fathers leading up to and encompassing the crafting of the Declaration of Independence, sheds light on how the Judeo-Christian worldview motivated America&’s founding fathers, influenced national independence, inspired our foundational documents, and established the American nation. Written with the pacing and drama of an enticing drama, Forged in Faith is crafted for popular appeal with a compelling mix of dramatized story and action-driven narrative, yet with the authenticity and academic verity of historian Rod Gragg.By Tal McThenia, Margaret Dunbar Cutright. 2012
The spellbinding story of one of the most celebrated kidnapping cases in American history—the kidnapping of Bobby Dunbar—and a haunting…
family mystery that took almost a century to solve.THE MOST NOTORIOUS KIDNAPPING CASE IN AMERICAN HISTORY In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing in the Louisiana swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recognizable. A wandering piano tuner was arrested and charged with kidnapping— a crime then punishable by death. But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not the lost Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody—and identity—that divided the South. A gripping historical mystery, A Case for Solomon chronicles the epic century-long effort to unravel the startling truth.By Stacy Perman. 2013
Two wealthy and powerful men engage in a decades-long contest to create and possess the most remarkable watch in history.James…
Ward Packard of Warren, Ohio, was an entrepreneur and a talented engineer of infinite curiosity, a self-made man who earned millions from his inventions, including the design and manufacture of America&’s first luxury car—the elegant and storied Packard. Henry Graves, Jr., was the very essence of blue-blooded refinement in the early 1900s: son of a Wall Street financier, a central figure in New York high society, and a connoisseur of beautiful things—especially fine watches. Then, as now, expensive watches were the ultimate sign of luxury and wealth, but in the early twentieth century the limitless ambition, wealth, and creativity of these two men pushed the boundaries of mathematics, astronomy, craftsmanship, technology, and physics to create ever more ingenious timepieces. In any watch, features beyond the display of hours, minutes, and seconds are known as &“complications.&” Packard and Graves spurred acclaimed Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe to create the Mona Lisa of timepieces—a fabled watch that incorporated twenty-four complications and took nearly eight years to design and build. For the period, it was the most complicated watch ever created. For years it disappeared, but then it surfaced at a Sotheby&’s auction in 1999, touching off a heated bidding war, shattering all known records when it fetched $11 million from an anonymous bidder.New York Times bestselling author Stacy Perman takes us from the clubby world of New York high society into the ateliers of the greatest Swiss watchmakers, and into the high-octane, often secretive subculture of modern-day watch collecting. With meticulous research, vivid historical details, and a wealth of dynamic personalities, A Grand Complication is the fascinating story of the thrilling duel between two of the most intriguing men of the early twentieth century. Above all, it is a sweeping chronicle of innovation, the desire for beauty, and the lengths people will go to possess it.By Richard Bradley. 2008
In this spellbinding book, Richard Bradley tells the story of what was surely the greatest major league game of our…
lifetime and perhaps in the history of professional baseball. That game, played at Fenway Park on the afternoon of October 4, 1978, was the culmination of one of the most tense, emotionally wrought seasons ever, between baseball's two most bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Both teams finished this tumultuous season with identical 99-64 records, forcing a one-game playoff. With a one-run lead and two outs, with the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, the entire season came down to one at-bat and to one swing of the bat. It came down, as both men eerily predicted to themselves the night before, to the aging Red Sox legend, Carl Yastrzemski, and the Yankees' free-agent power reliever, Rich "Goose" Gossage. Anyone who calls himself a baseball fan knows the outcome of that confrontation. And yet such are the literary powers of the author that we are pulled back in time to that late-afternoon moment and become filled anew with all the taut sense of drama that sports has to offer, as if we don't know what happened. As if the thoughts swirling around in the heads of pitcher and hitter are still fresh, both still hopeful of controlling events. That climactic game occurred thirty seasons ago and yet it still captures our imagination. In this delightful work of sports literature, we watch the game unfold pitch by pitch, inning by inning, but Bradley is up to something more ambitious than just recounting this wonderful game. He also tells us the stories of the participants -- how they got to that moment in their lives and careers, what was at stake for them personally -- including the rivalries within the rivalry, such as catcher Carlton Fisk versus catcher Thurman Munson,and Billy Martin versus everyone. Using a narrative that alternates points of view between the teams, Bradley reacquaints us with a rich roster of characters -- Freddy Lynn, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, Mike Torrez, Jerry Remy, Lou Piniella, George Scott, and Reggie Jackson. And, of course, Bucky Dent, who craved just such a moment in the sun -- a validation he had vainly sought from the father he barely knew. Not a book intended to celebrate a triumph or lament a loss, The Greatest Game will be embraced in both Boston and New York, with fans of both teams recalling again the talented young men they once gave their hearts to. And fans everywhere will be reminded how utterly gripping a single baseball game can be and that the rewards of being a fan lie not in victory but in caring beyond reason, even decades after the fact.By Ira Stoll. 2008
In this stirring biography, Samuel Adams joins the first tier of founding fathers, a rank he has long deserved. With…
eloquence equal to that of Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine, and with a passionate love of God, Adams helped ignite the flame of liberty and made sure it glowed even during the Revolution's darkest hours. He was, as Jefferson later observed, "truly the man of the Revolution." In a role that many Americans have not fully appreciated until now, Adams played a pivotal role in the events leading up to the bloody confrontation with the British. Believing that God had willed a free American nation, he was among the first patriot leaders to call for independence from England. He was ever the man of action: He saw the opportunity to stir things up after the Boston Massacre and helped plan and instigate the Boston Tea Party, though he did not actually participate in it. A fiery newspaper editor, he railed ceaselessly against "taxation without representation." In a relentless blizzard of articles and speeches, Adams, a man of New England, argued the urgency of revolution. When the top British general in America, Thomas Gage, offered a general amnesty in June 1775 to all revolutionaries who would lay down their arms, he excepted only two men, John Hancock and Samuel Adams: These two were destined for the gallows. It was this pair, author Ira Stoll argues, whom the British were pursuing in their fateful march on Lexington and Concord. In the tradition of David McCullough's John Adams, Joseph Ellis's The Founding Brothers, and Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin, Ira Stoll's Samuel Adams vividly re-creates a world of ideas and action, reminding us that none of these men of courage knew what we know today: that they would prevail and make history anew. The idea that especially inspired Adams was religious in nature: He believed that God had intervened on behalf of the United States and would do so as long asits citizens maintained civic virtue. "We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection," Adams insisted. A central thesis of this biography is that religion in large part motivated the founding of America. A gifted young historian and newspaperman, Ira Stoll has written a gripping story about the man who was the revolution's moral conscience. Sure to be discussed widely, this book reminds us who Samuel Adams was, why he has been slighted by history, and why he must be remembered.By Michael Hiltzik. 2010
As breathtaking today as the day it was completed, Hoover Dam not only shaped the American West but helped launch…
the American century. In the depths of the Great Depression it became a symbol of American resilience and ingenuity in the face of crisis, putting thousands of men to work in a remote desert canyon and bringing unruly nature to heel. Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Michael Hiltzik uses the saga of the dam’s conception, design, and construction to tell the broader story of America’s efforts to come to grips with titanic social, economic, and natural forces. For embodied in the dam’s striking machine-age form is the fundamental transformation the Depression wrought in the nation’s very culture—the shift from the concept of rugged individualism rooted in the frontier days of the nineteenth century to the principle of shared enterprise and communal support that would build the America we know today. In the process, the unprecedented effort to corral the raging Colorado River evolved from a regional construction project launched by a Republican president into the New Deal’s outstanding—and enduring—symbol of national pride. Yet the story of Hoover Dam has a darker side. Its construction was a gargantuan engineering feat achieved at great human cost, its progress marred by the abuse of a desperate labor force. The water and power it made available spurred the development of such great western metropolises as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and San Diego, but the vision of unlimited growth held dear by its designers and builders is fast turning into a mirage. In Hiltzik’s hands, the players in this epic historical tale spring vividly to life: President Theodore Roosevelt, who conceived the project; William Mulholland, Southern California’s great builder of water works, who urged the dam upon a reluctant Congress; Herbert Hoover, who gave the dam his name though he initially opposed its construction; Frank Crowe, the dam’s renowned master builder, who pushed his men mercilessly to raise the beautiful concrete rampart in an inhospitable desert gorge. Finally there is Franklin Roosevelt, who presided over the ultimate completion of the project and claimed the credit for it. Hiltzik combines exhaustive research, trenchant observation, and unforgettable storytelling to shed new light on a major turning point of twentieth-century history.By William J. Bennett. 1998
Today we see little public outrage about Bill Clinton's misconduct. With enormous skill, the president and his advisors have constructed…
a defensive wall built of bricks left over from Watergate: diversion, half-truth, equivocation, and sophistry. It is a wall that has remained unbreached. Until now. In The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, former cabinet secretary and bestselling author William J. Bennett dismantles the president's defenses, brick by evasive brick, and analyzes the meaning of the Clinton scandals: why they matter, what the public reaction to them means, and the social and political damage they have already inflicted on America. For, despite Bill Clinton's position in public opinion polls, the most persuasive public arguments made by the president's supporters wither under the clear light of moral reason and common sense. The Death of Outrage exposes the fallacious and demeaning logic that argues our economic well-being is the only important measure of presidential performance; torpedoes the deep but wholly unexamined respect for European sophistication about "private matters"; and explains why the president's troubles are not the result of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy," but are the result of his own doings. The Death of Outrage shows How the president's actions, far from being irrelevant to the conduct of his affairs, have severely restricted his ability to govern. The unprecedented recklessness of the Clinton administration in everything from influence peddling to sexual misconduct to alarming tactics of intimidation. How the president and his defenders have exploited the natural tolerance of the American people -- and made a mockery of the rule of law. Why the Clinton scandals -- from the Travel Office, to Filegate, to the Rose Law Firm billing records, to the Lewinsky Affair -- are neither a creation of the tabloid press, nor independent of one another. Bill Bennett explains why presidential character matters; why allegations of sexual misconduct need to be taken seriously; why reasoned judgment is the mark of a healthy democracy; and why the ends don't justify the means. Explosive and hard-hitting, powerful in its logic, carefully reasoned in its conclusions, The Death of Outrage is directed at a shameful chapter of American history. It is an urgent call for American citizens to repudiate the deep corruption of Bill Clinton, and the corrupting arguments made in his defense.Since the earliest days of the republic, great engineering projects have shaped American landscapes and expressed American dreams. The ambition…
to build lies as close to the nation's heart as the belief in liberty. We live in a built civilization, connected one to another in an enormous web of technology. Yet we have all too often overlooked the role of engineers and builders in American history. With glorious photographs and epic narrative sweep, Great Projects at last gives their story the prominence it deserves.Each of the eight projects featured in this masterful narrative was a milestone in its own right: the flood-control works of the lower Mississippi, Hoover Dam, Edison's lighting system, the spread of electricity across the nation, the great Croton Aqueduct, the bridges of New York City, Boston's revamped street system, known as the Big Dig, and the ever-evolving communica- tions network called the Internet. Each project arose from a heroic vision. Each encountered obstacles. Each reveals a tale of genius and perseverance.James Tobin, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, explains the four essential tasks of the engineer: to protect people from the destructive force of water while harnessing it for the enormous good it can do; to provide people with electricity, the motive force of modern life; to make great cities habitable and vital; and to create the pathways that connect place to place and person to person. Tobin focuses on the indi- viduals behind our greatest structures of earth and concrete and steel: James Buchanan Eads, who walked on the floor of the Mississippi to learn the river's secrets; Arthur Powell Davis and Frank Crowe, who imagined a dam that could transform the West; Thomas Edison, who envisioned a new way to light the world; Samuel Insull, the organizational mastermind of the electrical revolution; the long-forgotten John Bloomfield Jervis, who assured New York's future with the gift of clean water; Othmar Ammann, the modest Swiss-American who fought his mentor to become the first engineer to bridge the lower Hudson River; Fred Salvucci, the antihighway rebel who transformed the face of Boston; and J.C.R. Licklider, the obscure scientist who first imagined the Internet. Here, too, are the workers who scorned hardship to turn the engineers' dreams into reality, deep underground and high in the sky, through cold and heat and danger. In Great Projects -- soon to be a major PBS television series by the Emmy Award-winning Great Projects Film Company -- we share their dreams and witness their struggles; we watch them create the modern world we walk through each day -- the "city upon a hill" that became our America.By Sunbear, Wabun, Barry Weinstock. 1992
In The Path of Power, Sun Bear's life and lessons are told subtly through stories of his experiences—through his teachings,…
readers can discover how to accomplish their goals, survive this time of earth cleansing, and follow their own path of power in life. From a childhood spent in the forest of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, Sun Bear went on to become one of the most groundbreaking and inspiring spiritual teachers of the late twentieth century. Far ahead of his time, he founded an interracial medicine society of teachers dedicated to sharing with others those lessons of earth harmony which they had learned through their own experience. His vision of the medicine wheel became a worldwide phenomenon that inspired many people to learn more about the earth and all their relations upon her. Almost two decades after his death, Sun Bear's lessons are even more necessary today than ever.By Warren Getler, Bob Brewer. 2005
As a boy growing up in rural Arkansas, Bob Brewer often heard from his uncle and his great-uncle about a…
particular tree in the woods, the "Bible Tree," filled with strange carvings. Years later he would learn that this tree was carved with symbols associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Civil Warera secret society that had buried gold coins and other treasure in various remote locations across the South and Southwest in hopes of someday funding a second War Between the States. These secret caches were guarded by sentinels, men whose responsibility it was to watch and protect these sites. To his astonishment, Bob discovered that both his uncle and his great-uncle had been twentieth-century sentinels, and that he had grown up near an important KGC treasure site.In Shadow of the Sentinel, Bob Brewer and investigative journalist Warren Getler tell the fascinating story of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the hidden caches the KGC established across the country. Brewer reveals how, with agonizing effort, he eventually deciphered the fiendishly complicated KGC codes and ciphers, which drew heavily on images associated with Freemasonry. (Many of the key KGC postCivil War leaders were Scottish Rite Masons, who used the cover of that secret fraternity to conduct their activities.) Using his knowledge of KGC symbolism to crack coded maps, Brewer has located several KGC caches and has recovered gold coins, guns, and other treasure from some of them.Shadow of the Sentinel is the most comprehensive account yet of the activities of the KGC after the Civil War and, indeed, into the 1900s. Getler and Brewer suggest that the clandestine network of KGC operatives was far wider than previously thought, and that it included Jesse James, the former Confederate guerrilla whose stage and bank robberies helped to fill KGC treasure chests.This is a rousing and provocative adventure that weaves together one man's personal quest with an intriguing, little-known chapter in America's hidden history.By John McCain, Mark Salter. 2014
A personal history of war from bestselling authors John McCain and Mark Salter, told through the stories of thirteen remarkable…
American soldiers who fought in the nation’s major military conflicts, from the Revolution of 1776 through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.As a veteran himself, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a long-time student of history, John McCain brings a distinctive perspective to the experience of war. With Mark Salter, Thirteen Soldiers tells the stories of real soldiers who personify valor, obedience, enterprise, and love. You’ll meet Joseph Plumb Martin, who at the tender age of fifteen fought in the Revolutionary War; Charles Black, a freeborn African American sailor in the War of 1812; and Sam Chamberlain, of the Mexican American War, whose life inspired novelist Cormac McCarthy. Then there’s Oliver Wendell Holmes, an aristocratic idealist disillusioned by the Civil War, and Littleton “Tony” Waller, court-martialed for refusing to massacre Filipino civilians.Each story illustrates a particular aspect of war, such as Mary Rhoads, an Army reservist forever changed by an Iraqi scud missile attack during the Persian Gulf War; Monica Lin Brown, a frontline medic in rural Afghanistan who saved several lives in a convoy ambush; and Michael Monsoor, a Navy SEAL, who smothered a grenade before it could detonate on his men in Iraq. From their acts of self-sacrifice to their astonishing valor in the face of unimaginable danger, these “inspirational accounts of thirteen Americans who fought in various wars…aptly reveal humanizing moments in such theaters of cruelty” (Publishers Weekly).