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books tagged “u.s. history” (U.S. HISTORY)
books tagged “u.s. history”
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The American Century, 1929-1945 : The Dream Turns to Dust and the World Goes to Warby Harold Evans, Gail Buckland, Kevin BakerISBN 0679410708 (0-679-41070-8)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The American Century, 1929-1945 : The Dream Turns to Dust and the World Goes to War'Book summary:Although most of this sprawling book is set in the 20th century, it begins on April 29, 1889, when Benjamin Harrison commemorated the first centennial of American government. This 11-year jump-start allows Harold Evans to write about the last major push to settle the Western territories, the gradual dwindling of Native American societies, the rise to prominence of William Jennings Bryan, and other quintessentially American moments of the 19th century.
But make no mistake about it--The American Century is very much rooted in the modern world. Evans's tight, journalistic prose marks the significant events and personages in America's rise to superpower status and offers several educational surprises, such as a two-page spread on too-little-known naval historian Alfred Mahan, whose The Influence of Sea Power upon History shaped foreign policy in America and several European nations. His treatments of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and the Watergate crisis are substantial highlights. Juxtapositions such as Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson or Jimmy Hoffa and Cesar Chavez make for a lively overview. The book essentially ends with the inauguration of George Bush in 1989, although brief mention is made to some of what has happened since then. Filled with photographs and contemporary editorial cartoons, The American Century is an excellent one-volume chronicle of a rather momentous 100 years. [via]
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American Coloniesby Eric Foner, Alan TaylorISBN 0670872822 (0-670-87282-2)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Colonies'Book summary:In American Colonies award-winning historian Alan Taylor challenges the traditional Anglocentric focus of colonial history by exploring the multitude of cultural influences out of which "America" ultimately emerged. From the Siberian migrations across the Bering Strait fifteen thousand years ago and the European expeditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the nineteenth-century exploration and occupation of the Hawaiian Islands, Taylor traces the complex ecological, ethnic, and economic history and colonization of the New World from coast to coast, from the Canadian north to the Pacific rim.
Examining the repeatedly overlooked influence of the continent's natives upon the colonists and the resulting mutual dependence of the two, Taylor presents a unique and revelatory view of colonial North America. European colonists, African slaves, and native peoples met one another and interacted at a pace and intensity unparalleled in global history. The effects of this staggering confluence of cultural, ecological, military, diplomatic, and economic interests are still being felt in America today. This fascinating and involving history of the origins of the United States will provoke and appeal to all readers of American history.
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The American Heritage History of the United Statesby Douglas BrinkleyISBN 067086966X (0-670-86966-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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An American Life: The Autobiographyby Ronald Reagan, Julie RubensteinISBN 0671746685 (0-671-74668-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An American Life: The Autobiography'Book summary:Ronald Reagans autobiography is a work of major historical importance. Here, in his own words, is the story of his lifepublic and privatetold in a book both frank and compellingly readable.
Few presidents have accomplished more, or been so effective in changing the direction of government in ways that are both fundamental and lasting, than Ronald Reagan. Certainly no president has more dramatically raised the American spirit, or done so much to restore national strength and self-confidence.
Here, then, is a truly American success storya great and inspiring one. From modest beginnings as the son of a shoe salesman in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Reagan achieved first a distinguished career in Hollywood and then, as governor of California and as president of the most powerful nation in the world, a career of public service unique in our history.
Ronald Reagans account of that rise is told here with all the uncompromising candor, modesty, and wit that made him perhaps the most able communicator ever to occupy the White House, and also with the sense of drama of a gifted natural storyteller.
He tells us, with warmth and pride, of his early years and of the elements that made him, in later life, a leader of such stubborn integrity, courage, and clear-minded optimism. Reading the account of this childhood, we understand how his parents, struggling to make ends meet despite family problems and the rigors of the Depression, shaped his belief in the virtues of American lifethe need to help others, the desire to get ahead and to get things done, the deep trust in the basic goodness, values, and sense of justice of the American peoplevirtues that few presidents have expressed more eloquently than Ronald Reagan.
With absolute authority and a keen eye for the details and the anecdotes that humanize history, Ronald Reagan takes the reader behind the scenes of his extraordinary career, from his first political experiences as president of the Screen Actors Guild (including his first meeting with a beautiful young actress who was later to become Nancy Reagan) to such high points of his presidency as the November 1985 Geneva meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, during which Reagan invited the Soviet leader outside for a breath of fresh air and then took him off for a walk and a man-to-man chat, without aides, that set the course for arms reduction and charted the end of the Cold War.
Here he reveals what went on behind his decision to enter politics and run for the governorship of California, the speech nominating Barry Goldwater that first made Reagan a national political figure, his race for the presidency, his relations with the members of his own cabinet, and his frustrations with Congress.
He gives us the details of the great themes and dramatic crises of his eight years in office, from Lebanon to Grenada, from the struggle to achieve arms control to tax reform, from Iran-Contra to the visits abroad that did so much to reestablish the United States in the eyes of the world as a friendly and peaceful power. His narrative is full of insights, from the unseen dangers of Gorbachevs first visit to the United States to Reagans own personal correspondence with major foreign leaders, as well as his innermost feelings about life in the White House, the assassination attempt, his familyand the enduring love between himself and Mrs. Reagan.
An American Life is a warm, richly detailed, and deeply human book, a brilliant self-portrait, a significant work of history. [via]
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American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made Itby Richard HofstadterISBN 0679723153 (0-679-72315-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It'Book summary:A revised edition of the clasic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR. [via]
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American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independenceby Pauline MaierISBN 0679779086 (0-679-77908-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence'Book summary:This is a well-written, well-researched, entertaining account of the creation of the United States' Declaration of Independence as well as an analysis of how the declaration has been enshrined as something of a sacred document (a place it did not always hold). Pauline Maier, a history professor at MIT, will no doubt surprise many readers with detective work demonstrating that Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was actually preceded by many local declarations, which have been generally overlooked by historians but which were published throughout the colonies and were well known in their day. American Scripture holds many surprises as it details Jefferson's drafting of the document, the editing process, and the varying regard with which the Declaration of Independence has been held in the past two centuries. [via]
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Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolutionby Benson BobrickISBN 0684810603 (0-684-81060-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution'Book summary:George Washington at Valley Forge, Benedict Arnold's treason at West Point, Corwallis's defeat at Yorktown--these are the characters and events most Americans remember from their high-school history lessons about the Revolutionary War. Yet the war itself is so removed from us in time, its villains and heroes so remote, that it fails to grasp the place in popular imagination occupied by the Civil War, the two World Wars, or even Vietnam. Benson Bobrick's fresh account of the Revolutionary War, Angel in the Whirlwind, might just change all that. The secret to Bobrick's success lies in his entertaining, lively prose, and--more importantly--in his choice of focus: this account of the American Revolution weaves the fortunes of two of its more fascinating participants, George Washington and Benedict Arnold, into its larger story. Washington's fascination is rooted in his military genius and talent for leadership, Arnold's in his flawed character. At once a fearless soldier and a greedy opportunist, Arnold's perfidy makes an interesting counterpoint to Washington's heroism.
Bobrick does a fine job of covering the ins and outs of this extraordinary war, giving readers enough background to understand the complexities of the issues that led to the Declaration of Independence by taking them through the war years leading to Washington's inauguration. Better yet, he creates a sense of the times in which these stirring events occurred, limning the details of the common people's lives and attitudes to add a sense of immediacy. Angel in the Whirlwind is popular history at its best; George Washington would be proud. [via]
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklinby Benjamin FranklinISBN 0679726136 (0-679-72613-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Autobiography'Book summary:This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. [via]
More editions of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: ISBN 0684841967 (0-684-84196-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: ISBN 0613124731 (0-613-12473-1)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin : And Selections from His Other Writings: ISBN 0679641033 (0-679-64103-3)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Autobiography: ISBN 0679726136 (0-679-72613-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: ISBN 0684841967 (0-684-84196-7)
The Bay of Pigs: The Untold Storyby Peter WydenISBN 0671254138 (0-671-25413-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Benjamin Franklinby Cass SandakISBN 053110107X (0-531-10107-X)
Hardcover, Scholastic Library Pub
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Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Storyby Timothy B. TysonISBN 0609610589 (0-609-61058-9)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story'Book summary:"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."
Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by one of his playmates in the late spring of 1970, heralded a firestorm that would forever transform the small tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.
On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel, a rough man with a criminal record and ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased Marrow, beat him unmercifully, and killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. In the words of a local prosecutor: "They shot him like you or I would kill a snake."
Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets, led by 22-year-old Ben Chavis, a future president of the NAACP. As mass protests crowded the town square, a cluster of returning Vietnam veterans organized what one termed "a military operation." While lawyers battled in the courthouse that summer in a drama that one termed "a Perry Mason kind of thing," the Ku Klux Klan raged in the shadows and black veterans torched the town's tobacco warehouses.
With large sections of the town in flames, Tyson's father, the pastor of Oxford's all-white Methodist church, pressed his congregation to widen their vision of humanity and pushed the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away.
Years later, historian Tim Tyson returned to Oxford to ask Robert Teel why he and his sons had killed Henry Marrow. "That nigger committed suicide, coming in here wanting to four-letter-word my daughter-in-law," Teel explained.
The black radicals who burned much of Oxford also told Tim their stories. "It was like we had a cash register up there at the pool hall, just ringing up how much money we done cost these white people," one of them explained. "We knew if we cost 'em enough goddamn money they was gonna start changing some things."
In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic work of conscience, a defining portrait of a time and place that we will never forget. Tim Tyson's riveting narrative of that fiery summer and one family's struggle to build bridges in a time of destruction brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to our complex history, where violence and faith, courage and evil, despair and hope all mingle to illuminate America's enduring chasm of race. [via]More editions of Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story:
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Born for Liberty: A History of Women in Americaby Sara M. EvansISBN 0684834987 (0-684-83498-7)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America'Book summary:9 1/4"L/6"W 386 pages [via]
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Citizen Soldiersby Stephen AmbroseISBN 061350125X (0-613-50125-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Citizen Soldiers'Book summary:Stephen E. Ambrose combines history and journalism to describe how American GIs battled their way to the Rhineland. He focuses on the combat experiences of ordinary soldiers, as opposed to the generals who led them, and offers a series of compelling vignettes that read like an enterprising reporter's dispatches from the front lines. The book presents just enough contextual material to help readers understand the big picture, and includes memorable accounts of the Battle of the Bulge and other events as seen through the weary eyes of the men who fought in the foxholes. Highly recommended for fans of Ambrose, as well as all readers interested in understanding the life of a 1940s army grunt. A sort of sequel to Ambrose's bestselling 1994 book D-Day, Citizen Soldiers is more than capable of standing on its own. [via]
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Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945by Stephen E. AmbroseISBN 0606251375 (0-606-25137-5)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Buldge to the Surrender of Germany Jun 7, 1994-May 7, 1945'Book summary:This sequel to D-DAY opens at 00:01 hours, June 7, 1944 on the Normandy Beaches and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945. In between comes the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy, the breakout of Saint-Lo, the Falaise gap, Patton tearing through France, the liberation of Paris, the attempt to leap the Rhine in operation Market-Garden, the near-miraculous German recovery, the battles around Metz and in the Huertgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, the capture of the bridge at Remagen and, finally, the overunning of Germany. From the enlisted men and junior officers, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from those on both sides of the war. The experience of these citizen soldiers reveals the ordinary sufferings and hardships of war. They overcame their fear and inexperience, the mistakes of their high command and their enemy to win the war. [via]
More editions of Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945:
- Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945: ISBN 0684815257 (0-684-81525-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Buldge to the Surrender of Germany Jun 7, 1994-May 7, 1945: ISBN 0606251375 (0-606-25137-5)
Hardcover, Demco Media
- Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945: ISBN 0684815257 (0-684-81525-7)
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The Complete Book of U.S. Presidentsby William A. Degregorio, Connie Jo DickersonISBN 0517183536 (0-517-18353-6)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents'Book summary:This is the consummate guide to the political and personal lives of every U. S. president through Bill Clinton. Arranged chronologically, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents elaborates not only on the major accomplishments and events of their terms, but also on less well-known details such as personalities, careers before the presidency, Supreme Court appointments, hobbies, ethnic backgrounds, and even extramarital affairs. Well-organized and packed with details, the book also includes a bibliography on each executive, including books written by and about them, along with useful and entertaining appendixes on the political composition of every Congress, presidential curiosities (such as the uncanny similarities between the lives and deaths of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy), and a ranking of presidents. Whether you want to know the opponent of James Monroe in the election of 1816 or read some of Harry S. Truman's more memorable quotes, this is a most complete and thorough reference to each commander in chief. [via]
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Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil Warby Tony HorwitzISBN 067975833X (0-679-75833-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War'Book summary:Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush." Horwitz spent two years reporting on why Americans are still so obsessed with the war, and the ways in which it resonates today. In the course of his work, he made a sobering side trip to cover a murder that was provoked by the display of the Confederate flag, and he spoke to a number of people seeking to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Horwitz has a flair for odd details that spark insights, and Confederates in the Attic is a thoughtful and entertaining book that does much to explain America's continuing obsession with the Civil War. [via]
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D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War IIby Stephen E. AmbroseISBN 068480137X (0-684-80137-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II'Book summary:Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, Stephen E. Ambrose's D-Day: June 6, 1944 relies on over 1,400 interviews with veterans, as well as prodigious research in military archives on both sides of the Atlantic. He provides a comprehensive history of the invasion which also eloquently testifies as to how common soldiers performed extraordinary feats. A major theme of the book, upon which Ambrose would later expand in Citizen Soldiers, is how the soldiers from the democratic Allied nations rose to the occasion and outperformed German troops thought to be invincible. The many small stories that Ambrose collected from paratroopers, sailors, infantrymen, and civilians make the excitement, confusion, and sheer terror of D-day come alive on the page. --Robert McNamara [via]
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D-Day, June Sixth, Nineteen Forty-Fourby Stephen AmbroseISBN 0613501268 (0-613-50126-8)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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The Debt: What America Owes to Blacksby Randall RobinsonISBN 0525945245 (0-525-94524-5)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks'Book summary:Randall Robinson, the founder and president of TransAfrica (a lobbying organization dedicated to influencing U.S. policy toward Africa and the Caribbean), recounted his heroic struggle to fight and overcome racism in the magnificent Defending the Spirit. In his triumphant follow-up, The Debt, he goes further than any previous black public figure in calling for reparations to African-Americans for the present-day racism that stems from 246 years of slavery. Citing compensation that Jews and Japanese Americans have received, he writes, "No race, ethnic or religious group has suffered as much over so long a span as blacks have and do still, at the hands of those who benefited ... from slavery and the century of legalized American racial hostility that followed it." In making his case, Robinson utilizes facts and figures that highlight the disparity between African-Americans and whites. While fully recognizing the monumental odds of this movement's success, Robinson feels that the push for reparations will also greatly benefit African-Americans in nonmaterial ways: "Even the making of a well-reasoned case for restitution will do wonders for the spirit of African-Americans," he argues. "It will cause them to at long last understand the genesis of their history--before, during, and after slavery--into one story of themselves." --Eugene Holley Jr. [via]
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The Declaration of Independence and Other Great Documents of American History, 1775+1864by John GraftonISBN 0486411249 (0-486-41124-9)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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Eleanor Roosevelt: 1884-1933by Blanche Wiesen CookISBN 067080486X (0-670-80486-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eleanor Roosevelt: 1884-1933'Book summary:Interesting read! [via]
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Eleanor Roosevelt Vol. 2 : 1933-1938by Blanche Wiesen CookISBN 0670844985 (0-670-84498-5)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eleanor Roosevelt Vol. 2 : 1933-1938'Book summary:With its gripping tale of a privileged ugly duckling turned socially conscious swan with the help of strong female friends--many of whom were lesbians and one of whom was probably her lover--the first volume of Blanche Wiesen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt won awards and made headlines. That book followed its subject from her birth in 1884 through her husband Franklin's election to the presidency in 1933. Volume 2, which chronicles Roosevelt's first six years as America's most controversial first lady (Hillary Clinton doesn't even come close), maps her contributions to the New Deal, which Cook convincingly argues was primarily the fulfillment of a political agenda promoted by female reformers as early as 1912. Eleanor's turbulent relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok gets more space here than it probably deserves, and the story isn't as inherently exciting as the first volume's drama of a woman's coming of age. Nonetheless, Cook's subtle analyses of everything from Roosevelt's exceedingly complex marriage to her role as warm-up act for the New Deal's most radical programs are bracingly intelligent, her evocation of a remarkable personality rivetingly vivid. Eleanor emerges as neither the liberals' saint nor the conservatives' Satan, but an entirely human bundle of contradictions: warm-hearted, yet ice-cold when hurt; happiest in the public arena, yet needing the comfort of private relationships. --Wendy Smith [via]
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Testby Tom WolfeISBN 0553380648 (0-553-38064-8)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'Book summary:They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking On the Road's hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's Many Years from Now cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy Magical Mystery Tour film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life was his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.
Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in Demon Box are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Eyewitness to America: 500 Years of America in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happenby David ColbertISBN 067976724X (0-679-76724-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eyewitness to America: 500 Years of America in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happen'Book summary:David Colbert has brought together a rich assembly of voices, offering first-hand accounts of American history spanning almost exactly 500 years, from Christopher Columbus' first encounter with Taino tribesmen in 1492 to the final public display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Washington Mall. At that same mall, in 1963, James Reston and Malcolm X came away with two radically different views of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. For Reston, "Dr. King touched all the themes of the day, only better than anybody else," while Malcolm referred to the entire March on Washington as "another form of the weakening, lulling, and deluding effects of so-called 'integration.'" Within these pages, you will read H.L. Mencken on the Scopes trial, Hunter S. Thompson at Super Bowl VIII, Black Elk's perspective of the Massacre of Wounded Knee, and journal entries from a member of the Donner Party, among many other stories. They are by turns heartbreaking, chilling, mirthful, and exhilarating--and all will remind you that the story of the United States is born in the stories of all its people, famous and "ordinary" alike. [via]
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Farewell to Manzanarby Jeanne W. HoustonISBN 0553272586 (0-553-27258-6)
Softcover, Skylark
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Farewell to Manzanar'Book summary:Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In."
Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.
From the Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Farewell to Manzanar:
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Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internmentby James D. Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki HoustonISBN 0618216200 (0-618-21620-0)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment'Book summary:During World War II a community called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life.[via]
At age thirty-seven, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Written with her husband, Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar.
Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the twentieth centurys 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies.More editions of Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment:
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The Fiftiesby David HalberstamISBN 0517156075 (0-517-15607-5)
Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fifties'Book summary:"In retrospect," writes David Halberstam, "the pace of the fifties seemed slower, almost languid. Social ferment, however, was beginning just beneath this placid surface." He shows how the United States began to emerge from the long shadow of FDR's 12-year presidency, with the military-industrial complex and the Beat movement simultaneously growing strong. Television brought not only situation comedies but controversial congressional hearings into millions of living rooms. While Alfred Kinsey was studying people's sex lives, Gregory Pincus and other researchers began work on a pill that would forever alter the course of American reproductive practices. Halberstam takes on these social upheavals and more, charting a course that is as easy to navigate as it is wide-ranging. [via]
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The Final Daysby Carl Bernstein, Bob WoodwardISBN 0671894404 (0-671-89440-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Final Days'Book summary:The Final Days is the classic, behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon's dramatic last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon's fall from office -- one of the gravest crises in presidential history. [via]
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The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys/an American Sagaby Doris Kearns GoodwinISBN 0671231081 (0-671-23108-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Glory and the Dreamby William ManchesterISBN 0553345893 (0-553-34589-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Glory and the Dream'Book summary:William Manchester, author of "The Death of a President" and "The Arms of Krupp," talks with Heywood Hale Broun, Jr. about his book "The Glory and the Dream," a penetrating and dramatic work that spans four decades and virtually every aspect of the American way of life, from 1932 to 1972. Originally broadcast in 1974, re-issued on CD in 2007. 1 audio CD, 52 min. Product No. C40088D. [via]
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Gone with the Windby Margaret MitchellISBN 0684826259 (0-684-82625-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gone with the Wind'Book summary:An anniversary edition of Margaret Mitchell's timeless classic. [via]
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The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in Historyby John M. BarryISBN 0670894737 (0-670-89473-7)
Hardcover, Viking Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History'Book summary:No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War.
In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today.
The Washington Posts Jonathan Yardley said Barrys last book can "change the way we think." The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world. [via]
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A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Womenby CottISBN 0671250698 (0-671-25069-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Womenby Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck, CottISBN 067125068X (0-671-25068-X)
Hardcover, Simon and Schuster
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Hiroshimaby John HerseyISBN 0679721037 (0-679-72103-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hiroshima'Book summary:When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and, in 1946, Hiroshima was published, giving the world first-hand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response. Whether you believe the bomb made the difference in the war or that it should never have been dropped, "Hiroshima" is a must read for all of us who live in the shadow of armed conflict. [via]
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A History Of American Lawby Lawrence Meir FriedmanISBN 0671528076 (0-671-52807-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A History Of American Law'Book summary:"A History of American Law" has become a classic for students of law, American history and sociology across the country. In this brilliant and immensely readable book, Lawrence M. Friedman tells the whole fascinating story of American law from its beginnings in the colonies to the present day. By showing how close the life of the law is to the economic and political life of the country, he makes a complex subject understandable and engrossing. "A History of American Law" presents the achievements and failures of the American legal system in the context of America's commercial and working world, family practices and attitudes toward property, slavery, government, crime and justice.
Now Professor Friedman has completely revised and enlarged his landmark work, incorporating a great deal of new material. The book contains newly expanded notes, a bibliography and a bibliographical essay. [via]
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House of War: the Pentagon, a History of Unbridled Powerby James CarrollISBN 0618187804 (0-618-18780-4)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of War: the Pentagon, a History of Unbridled Power'Book summary:From the National Book Awardwinning author of An American Requiem and Constantine's Sword comes a sweeping yet intimate look at the Pentagon and its vast often hidden impact on America.[via]
This landmark, myth-shattering work chronicles the most powerful institution in America, the people who created it, and the pathologies it has spawned. James Carroll proves a controversial thesis: the Pentagon has, since its founding, operated beyond the control of any force in government or society. It is the biggest, loosest cannon in American history, and no institution has changed this country more. To argue his case, he marshals a trove of often chilling evidence. He recounts how "the Building" and its denizens achieved what Eisenhower called "a disastrous rise of misplaced power" from the unprecedented aerial bombing of Germany and Japan during World War II to the "shock and awe" of Iraq. He charts the colossal U.S. nuclear buildup, which far outpaced that of the USSR, and has outlived it. He reveals how consistently the Building has found new enemies just as old threats and funding evaporate. He demonstrates how Pentagon policy brought about U.S. indifference to an epidemic of genocide during the 1990s. And he shows how the forces that attacked the Pentagon on 9/11 were set in motion exactly sixty years earlier, on September 11, 1941, when ground was broken for the house of war.
Carroll draws on rich personal experience (his father was a top Pentagon official for more than twenty years) as well as exhaustive research and dozens of extensive interviews with Washington insiders. The result is a grand yet intimate work of history, unashamedly polemical and personal but unerringly factual. With a breadth and focus that no other book could muster, it explains what America has become over the past sixty years.More editions of House of War: the Pentagon, a History of Unbridled Power:
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House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Powerby James CarrollISBN 0618872019 (0-618-87201-9)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power'Book summary:In House of War, the best-selling author James Carroll has created a history of the Pentagon that is both epic and personal. Through Carroll we see how the Pentagon, since its founding, has operated beyond the control of any force in government or society, undermining the very national security it is sworn to protect.From its "birth" on September 11, 1941, through the nuclear buildup of the Cold War and the eventual "shock and awe" of Iraq, Carroll recounts how "the Building" and its officials have achieved what President Eisenhower called "a disastrous rise of misplaced power."[via]
This is not faded history. House of War offers a compelling account of the virtues and follies that led America to permanently, and tragically, define itself around war. Carroll shows how the consequences of the American response to September 11, 2001 - including two wars and an ignited Middle East - form one end of an arc that stretches from Donald Rumsfeld back to James Forrestal, the first man to occupy the office of secretary of defense in the Pentagon. House of War confronts this dark past so we may understand the current war and forestall the next.More editions of House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power:
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Lifeby Paul C. NagelISBN 0674479408 (0-674-47940-8)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life'Book summary:Who is the real John Quincy Adams? The brilliant secretary of state, prime mover behind the Monroe Doctrine, and principled opponent of slavery, defender of the Africans shanghaied aboard the Amistad? Or the ineffectual president stymied by a hostile Congress and his own self-righteousness, the vindictive political foe famed for his cold, disagreeable character? Paul C. Nagel, author of two previous books about the Adams family, seeks to give readers a more human Adams (1767-1848) whose complex nature contained many contradictions. John Quincy Adams is a valuable revisionist biography of a misunderstood figure at the crossroads of American history. [via]
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Leadersby Richard M. NixonISBN 0671706187 (0-671-70618-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Leaders: Profiles and Reminscences of Men Who Have Shaped the Worldby Richard NixonISBN 0517429896 (0-517-42989-6)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Familiesby Walker Evans, James AgeeISBN 0618127496 (0-618-12749-6)
Softcover, Mariner Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families'Book summary:Just what kind of book is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men? It contains many things: poems; confessional reveries; disquisitions on the proper way to listen to Beethoven; snippets of dialogue, both real and imagined; a lengthy response to a survey from the Partisan Review; exhaustive catalogs of furniture, clothing, objects, and smells. And then there are Walker Evans's famously stark portraits of depression-era sharecroppers--photographs that both stand apart from and reinforce James Agee's words.
Assigned to do a story for Fortune magazine about sharecroppers in the Deep South, Agee and Evans spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family, winning the Burroughs's trust and immersing themselves in a sharecropper's daily existence. Given a first draft of the resulting article, the editors at Fortune quite understandably threw up their hands--as did several other editors who subsequently worked with a later book-length manuscript. The writing was contrary. It refused to accommodate itself to the reader, and at times it positively bristled with hostility. (What other book could take Marx as the epigraph and then announce: "These words are quoted here to mislead those who will be misled by them"?) Response to the book was puzzled or unfriendly, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sputtered out of print only a few short years after its publication. It took the 1960s, and a vogue for social justice, to bring Agee's masterwork the audience it deserved.
Yet the book is far more interesting--aesthetically and morally--than the sort of guilty-liberal tract for which it is often mistaken. On an existential level, Agee's text is a deeply felt examination of what it means to suffer, to struggle to live in spite of suffering. On a personal level, it is the painful, beautifully written portrait of one man's obsession. In its collaboration with Evans's photographs, the book is also a groundbreaking experiment in form. In the end, however, it is more than merely the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is, quite simply, a book unlike any other, simmering with anger and beauty and mystery. --Mary Park [via]
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Lincoln at Gettysburgby Garry WillsISBN 0671769561 (0-671-76956-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lincoln at Gettysburg'Book summary:A former professor of Greek at Yale University, Wills painstakingly deconstructs Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and discovers heavy influence from the early Greeks (Pericles) and the 19th century Transcendentalists (Edward Everett). The author also probes Lincoln's decision to rely more on the Declaration of Independence than the U.S. Constitution, a decision Wills says represented a "revolution in thought." He speaks effusively of the 272-word address: "All modern political prose descends from [it]. The Address does what all great art accomplishes. [I]t tease[s] us out of thought." Wills' book won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. [via]
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Lincoln at Gettysburg : The Words That Remade Americaby Garry WillsISBN 0671867423 (0-671-86742-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lincoln at Gettysburg : The Words That Remade America'Book summary:A former professor of Greek at Yale University, Wills painstakingly deconstructs Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and discovers heavy influence from the early Greeks (Pericles) and the 19th century Transcendentalists (Edward Everett). The author also probes Lincoln's decision to rely more on the Declaration of Independence than the U.S. Constitution, a decision Wills says represented a "revolution in thought." He speaks effusively of the 272-word address: "All modern political prose descends from [it]. The Address does what all great art accomplishes. [I]t tease[s] us out of thought." Wills' book won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. [via]
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The Making of the Atomic Bombby Richard RhodesISBN 0684813785 (0-684-81378-5)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb'Book summary:If the first 270 pages of this book had been published separately, they would have made up a lively, insightful, beautifully written history of theoretical physics and the men and women who plumbed the mysteries of the atom. Along with the following 600 pages, they become a sweeping epic, filled with terror and pity, of the ultimate scientific quest: the development of the ultimate weapon. Rhodes is a peerless explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at chronicling the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb. Niels Bohr dominates the first half of the book as J. Robert Oppenheimer does the second; both men were gifted philosophers of science as well as brilliant physicists. The central irony of this book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is that the greatest minds of the century contributed to the greatest destructive force in history. [via]
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Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, And Warby Nathaniel PhilbrickISBN 0670037605 (0-670-03760-5)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, And War'Book summary:[via]From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.
The Mayflower's religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis for Native Americans as disease spread by European fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groupsthe Wampanoags, under the charismatic and calculating chief Massasoit, and the Pilgrims, whose pugnacious military officer Miles Standish was barely five feet tallmaintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades, New England would erupt into King Philip's War, a savagely bloody conflict that nearly wiped out English colonists and natives alike and forever altered the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow from them.
With towering figures like William Bradford and the distinctly American hero Benjamin Church at the center of his narrative, Philbrick has fashioned a fresh and compelling portrait of the dawn of American historya history dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and religion.
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Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West: The Climactic Battle of World War IIby Stephen E. AmbroseISBN 0671884034 (0-671-88403-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Narrative of Sojourner Truthby Margaret WashingtonISBN 067974035X (0-679-74035-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Narrative of Sojourner Truth'Book summary:Narrative of Sojourner Truth is one of the most important documents of slavery ever written, as well as being a partial autobiography of the woman who became a pioneer in the struggles for racial and sexual equality. With an eloquence that resonates more than a century after its original publication in 1850, the narrative bears witness to Sojourner Truth's thirty years of bondage in upstate New York and to the mystical revelations that turned her into a passionate and indefatigable abolitionist.
In this new edition, which has been edited and extensively annotated by the distinguished scholar and biographer of Sojourner Truth, Margaret Washington, Truth's testimony takes on added dimensions: as a lens into the little-known world of northern slavery; as a chronicle of spiritual conversion; and as an inspiring account of a black woman striving for personal and political empowerment. [via]More editions of The Narrative of Sojourner Truth:
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slaveby Frederick DouglassISBN 0534521185 (0-534-52118-5)
Softcover, Wadsworth Pub Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'Book summary:Written more than a century ago by Frederick Douglass, a former slave who went on to become a famous orator, U.S. minister, and a leader of his people, this masterpiece is one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. Douglass [via]
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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girlby Frederick Douglass, Harriet A. JacobsISBN 0679783288 (0-679-78328-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl'Book summary:This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition combines the two most important African American slave narratives into one volume.
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the dehumanizing effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1861 she published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, now recognized as the most comprehensive antebellum slave narrative written by a woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves, and it remains crucial reading. These narratives illuminate and inform each other. This edition includes an incisive Introduction by Kwame Anthony Appiah and extensive annotations. [via]More editions of Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl:
Nixon off the Record : His Candid Commentary on People and Politicsby Monica CrowleyISBN 0679456813 (0-679-45681-3)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990by Stephen AmbroseISBN 0671792083 (0-671-79208-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990'Book summary:Watergate is a story of high drama and low skulduggery, of lies and bribes, of greed and lust for power. With access to the central characters, the public papers, and the trials transcripts, Ambrose explains how Nixon destroyed himself through a combination of arrogance and indecision, allowing a "third-rate burglary" to escalate into a scandal that overwhelmed his presidency. Within a decade and a half however, Nixon had become one of America's elder statesmen, respected internationally and at home even by those who had earlier clamoured loudest for his head. This is the story of Nixon's final fall from grace and astonishing recovery. [via]
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Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962`by Stephen E. AmbroseISBN 0671657224 (0-671-65722-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Official Military Atlas of the Civil Warby George B. DavisISBN 0517415666 (0-517-41566-6)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
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One of Us : Richard Nixon and the American Dreamby Tom WickerISBN 0679758178 (0-679-75817-8)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Trumanby Merle MillerISBN 0517466139 (0-517-46613-9)
Hardcover, Greenwich House
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman'Book summary:Hardcover, 1985 Edition, Greenwitch House, print line is h-a. 448 pages by Merle Miller. 1985 Edition, first printing. [via]
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The Plot Against Americaby Philip RothISBN 0618509283 (0-618-50928-3)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Plot Against America'Book summary:"What if" scenarios are often suspect. They are sometimes thinly veiled tales of the gospel according to the author, taking on the claustrophobic air of a personal fantasia that can't be shared. Such is not the case with Philip Roth's tour de force, The Plot Against America. It is a credible, fully-realized picture of what could happen anywhere, at any time, if the right people and circumstances come together.
The Plot Against America explores a wholly imagined thesis and sees it through to the end: Charles A. Lindbergh defeats FDR for the Presidency in 1940. Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle," captured the country's imagination by his solo Atlantic crossing in 1927 in the monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, then had the country's sympathy upon the kidnapping and murder of his young son. He was a true American hero: brave, modest, handsome, a patriot. According to some reliable sources, he was also a rabid isolationist, Nazi sympathizer, and a crypto-fascist. It is these latter attributes of Lindbergh that inform the novel.
The story is framed in Roth's own family history: the family flat in Weequahic, the neighbors, his parents, Bess and Herman, his brother, Sandy and seven-year-old Philip. Jewishness is always the scrim through which Roth examines American contemporary culture. His detractors say that he sees persecution everywhere, that he is vigilant in "Keeping faith with the certainty of Jewish travail"; his less severe critics might cavil about his portrayal of Jewish mothers and his sexual obsession, but generally give him good marks, and his fans read every word he writes and heap honors upon him. This novel will engage and satisfy every camp.
"Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear. Of course, no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews." This is the opening paragraph of the book, which sets the stage and tone for all that follows. Fear is palpable throughout; fear of things both real and imagined. A central event of the novel is the relocation effort made through the Office of American Absorption, a government program whereby Jews would be placed, family by family, across the nation, thereby breaking up their neighborhoods--ghettos--and removing them from each other and from any kind of ethnic solidarity. The impact this edict has on Philip and all around him is horrific and life-changing. Throughout the novel, Roth interweaves historical names such as Walter Winchell, who tries to run against Lindbergh. The twist at the end is more than surprising--it is positively ingenious.
Roth has written a magnificent novel, arguably his best work in a long time. It is tempting to equate his scenario with current events, but resist, resist. Of course it is a cautionary tale, but, beyond that, it is a contribution to American letters by a man working at the top of his powers. --Valerie Ryan [via]
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President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetimeby Lou CannonISBN 0671755765 (0-671-75576-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime'Book summary:This is possibly the single best book available on the Reagan presidency. Lou Cannon began reporting on Ronald Reagan as a journalist when Reagan first ran for governor of California in 1966, and then covered him again in Washington after his 1980 presidential election. In short, there is probably no man or woman who has spent more years writing about the Gipper than Cannon. The result is a magisterial account of Reagan's two terms in the White House. Cannon is broadly sympathetic to his subject, but also coolly detached. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime pulled off the remarkable feat of winning praise from both Reagan's admirers and detractors when it was first published in 1991. This reissued edition, which includes a new preface describing Reagan's postpresidential descent into the abyss of Alzheimer's disease, must now be considered the standard text on the subject--especially in light of the controversy surrounding the book that aspired to Cannon's mantle, Edmund Morris's quasi biography Dutch.
Cannon's book is full of wise analysis and sound observation. He explains Reagan's success convincingly: "Optimism was not a trivial or peripheral quality. It was the essential ingredient of an approach to life.... [Reagan] had a knack of converting others to his optimism, almost as if he drew upon some private reservoir of self-esteem. People who listened to Reagan tended to feel good about him and better about themselves." Though the book bursts with detail, it's never so cumbersome that it bogs down Cannon's narrative. And these pages give only cursory attention to Reagan's life before the White House; this is more a biography of President Reagan than of Ronald Reagan. Conservatives who are defensive about Reagan's legacy may bristle at certain points; Cannon's portrait is not always a flattering one. Yet it's a compelling biography of a compelling man's most important years. It's possible to imagine that a fuller biography of Reagan will be written some day. Right now, however, this is the best there is--and it's very, very good. --John J. Miller [via]
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Profiles in Courageby John F. KennedyISBN 0606302409 (0-606-30240-9)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Profiles in Courage'Book summary:The Illustrated Edition: The Pulitzer-Prize winning account of men of principle, integrity and bravery in American politics is now available in a handsome, illustrated format . Eight men who served in the United States Senate were selected by John F. Kennedy as models of virtue and courage under pressure. [via]
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The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed Americaby Nicholas LemannISBN 0679733477 (0-679-73347-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed Americaby John M. BarryISBN 0684840022 (0-684-84002-2)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America'Book summary:When Mother Nature rages, the physical results are never subtle. Because we cannot contain the weather, we can only react by tabulating the damage in dollar amounts, estimating the number of people left homeless, and laying the plans for rebuilding. But as John M. Barry expertly details in Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, some calamities transform much more than the landscape.
While tracing the history of the nation's most destructive natural disaster, Barry explains how ineptitude and greed helped cause the flood, and how the policies created to deal with the disaster changed the culture of the Mississippi Delta. Existing racial rifts expanded, helping to launch Herbert Hoover into the White House and shifting the political alliances of many blacks in the process. An absorbing account of a little-known, yet monumental event in American history, Rising Tide reveals how human behavior proved more destructive than the swollen river itself. [via]
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Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religionby Edward J. LarsonISBN 0674854292 (0-674-85429-2)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion'Book summary:If you haven't seen the film version of Inherit the Wind, you might have read it in high school. And even people who have never heard of either the movie or the play probably know something about the events that inspired them: The 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," during which Darwin's theory of evolution was essentially put on trial before the nation. Inherit the Wind paints a romantic picture of John Scopes as a principled biology teacher driven to present scientific theory to his students, even in the teeth of a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of anything other than creationism. The truth, it turns out, was something quite different. In his fascinating history of the Scopes trial, Summer for the Gods, Edward J. Larson makes it abundantly clear that Truth and the Purity of Science had very little to do with the Scopes case. Tennessee had passed a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union responded by advertising statewide for a high-school teacher willing to defy the law. Communities all across Tennessee saw an opportunity to put themselves on the map by hosting such a controversial trial, but it was the town of Dayton that came up with a sacrificial victim: John Scopes, a man who knew little about evolution and wasn't even the class's regular teacher. Chosen by the city fathers, Scopes obligingly broke the law and was carted off to jail to await trial.
What happened next was a bizarre mix of theatrics and law, enacted by William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Though Darrow lost the trial, he made his point--and his career--by calling Bryan, a noted Bible expert, as a witness for the defense. Summer for the Gods is a remarkable retelling of the trial and the events leading up to it, proof positive that truth is stranger than science. [via]
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Thinking Through The Pastby HollitzISBN 061841679X (0-618-41679-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div
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Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. Historyby HollitzISBN 0618416781 (0-618-41678-1)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div
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Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History Since 1865by John HollitzISBN 0618046690 (0-618-04669-0)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div
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Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrativeby Richard Henry DanaISBN 0486458024 (0-486-45802-4)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative'Book summary:In 1834, a Harvard student enlisted as a common seaman--the result was this adventure classic. Crackling with realism, it offers memorable views of a dangerous voyage, vividly describing storms, whales, an insane captain, excruciating hardships, and magical beauty, as well as fascinating historical detail, including a portrait of California before the gold rush.[via]More editions of Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative:
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War and Remembranceby Herman WoukISBN 0671672886 (0-671-67288-6)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republicby Alan Taylor, Peter DimockISBN 0679773002 (0-679-77300-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic'Book summary:In 1786 William Cooper, determined to become a self-made gentleman of substance in post-revolutionary America, founded Cooperstown, N.Y., through a dodgy land deal. His town rose to become county seat, and Cooper became a judge and then a congressman. He lost most of the prestige he earned later, when he overstretched himself, and his local patronage weakened when he backed the Federalists against the victorious Republicans. Nonetheless, his son, James Fenimore Cooper, the early 19th century's best-selling novelist, wrote essentially a justification of his father in his third novel, The Pioneers (1823). Taylor's book--a combination of biography, personal history, social history, literary exegesis and analysis of father-son dynamics--charts the interplay between the fact and the fiction of the days when upstate New York was the frontier. William Cooper's Town won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for history. [via]
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World of Our Fathersby Irving Howe, Kenneth LiboISBN 0671227556 (0-671-22755-6)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'World of Our Fathers'Book summary:It was a great adventure--the emigration in the 1880s of two million Jews from East Europe to the United States. Many settled in New York, where they attempted to maintain their own Yiddish culture even while making their way into American society. Howe tells the story of these people--from sweatshop to Hollywood studio, from yeshiva to university, every aspect of Jewish life is vividly depicted. [via]
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