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books tagged “United States”
books tagged “United States”
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Across Five Aprilsby Irene HuntISBN 0813672023 (0-8136-7202-3)
Softcover, Modern Curriculum Pr
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Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Government Can't Kick Militarismby Joel AndreasISBN 0865712433 (0-86571-243-3)
Softcover, New Society Pub
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The Alienistby Caleb CarrISBN 0812976142 (0-8129-7614-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Alienist'Book summary:The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels.
The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- amassing a psychological profile of the man they're looking for based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who has killed before. and will kill again before the hunt is over.
Fast-paced and gripping, infused with a historian's exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded Age and its untarnished underside: verminous tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. Here is a New York during an age when questioning society's belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and mortal consequences.
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America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975by George C. HerringISBN 0877224196 (0-87722-419-6)
Hardcover, Temple University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975'Book summary:First published in 1979, "America's Longest War" has been highly regarded both by scholars and general readers. Extensive and yet manageable, this assessment of our national tragedy provides an accurate and objective analysis of the hostilities at home and abroad. This second edition provides fuller discussions of domestic opposition to the war and the relationship between the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong. Updated to include information from the Johnson Library and other recently released archives, this comprehensive history extends from the initial U.S. assistance to the French in the Indochina War through the fall of Saigon, the victory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the subsequent legacy of our defeat.The revised bibliography makes current all references to recent scholarship. The new edition of "America's Longest War" becomes more timely as we commemorate a decade since the end of the war and attempt to reflect dispassionately on its effects on our national character and policy. In a review of the first edition, Robert L.Beisner (American University) wrote: "Both scholars and those Americans still trying to come to terms with 'America's Longest War' should read this excellent book. " Author note: George C. Herring is Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. His other books include "Aid to Russia, 1941-1946" (Columbia University Press) and "Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War" (University of Texas Press). [via]
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American Black Chamberby Herbert YardleyISBN 0894121545 (0-89412-154-5)
Softcover, Aegean Park Pr
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American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, And the Making of a Nationby Jon MeachamISBN 0812976665 (0-8129-7666-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, And the Making of a Nation'Book summary:The American Gospelliterally, the good news about Americais that religion shapes our public life without controlling it. In this vivid book, New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham tells the human story of how the Founding Fathers viewed faith, and how they ultimately created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice.
At a time when our country seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws on the past to offer a new perspective. Meacham re-creates the fascinating history of a nation grappling with religion and politicsfrom John Winthrops city on a hill sermon to Thomas Jeffersons Declaration of Independence; from the Revolution to the Civil War; from a proposed nineteenth-century Christian Amendment to the Constitution to Martin Luther King, Jr.s call for civil rights; from George Washington to Ronald Reagan.
Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating. Secularists point to a wall of separation between church and state, while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. As Meacham shows in this brisk narrative, neither extreme has it right. At the heart of the American experiment lies the God of what Benjamin Franklin called public religion, a God who invests all human beings with inalienable rights while protecting private religion from government interference. It is a great American balancing act, and it has served us well.
Meacham has written and spoken extensively about religion and politics, and he brings historical authority and a sense of hope to the issue. American Gospel makes it compellingly clear that the nations best chance of summoning what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature lies in recovering the spirit and sense of the Founding. In looking back, we may find the light to lead us forward.
In his American Gospel, Jon Meacham provides a refreshingly clear, balanced, and wise historical portrait of religion and American politics at exactly the moment when such fairness and understanding are much needed. Anyone who doubts the relevance of history to our own time has only to read this exceptional book. David McCullough, author of 1776
Jon Meacham has given us an insightful and eloquent account of the spiritual foundation of the early days of the American republic. It is especially instructive reading at a time when the nation is at once engaged in and deeply divided on the question of religion and its place in public life. Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation
An absorbing narrative full of vivid characters and fresh thinking, American Gospel tells how the Founding Fathersand their successorsstruggled with their own religious and political convictions to work out the basic structure for freedom of religion. For me this book was nonstop reading. Elaine Pagels, professor of religion, Princeton University, author of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
Jon Meacham is one of our countrys most brilliant thinkers about religions impact on American society. In this scintillating and provocative book, Meacham reveals the often-hidden influence of religious belief on the Founding Fathers and on later generations of American citizens and leaders up to our own. Today, as we argue more strenuously than ever about the proper place of religion in our politics and the rest of American life, Meachams important book should serve as the touchstone of the debate.
Michael Beschloss, author of The Conquerors
At a time when faith and freedom seem increasingly polarized, American Gospel recovers our vital centerthe middle ground where, historically, religion and public life strike a delicate balance. Well researched, well written, inspiring, and persuasive, this is a welcome addition to the literature. Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, author of American Judaism: A History
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American Manners & Morals: A Picture History of How We Behaved and Misbehavedby Mary CableISBN 0828100233 (0-8281-0023-3)
Hardcover, American Heritage Pub Co
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The Bell Jarby Cliffs Notes Staff, Jeanne InnessISBN 0822002264 (0-8220-0226-4)
Softcover, Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bell Jar'Book summary:Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in 1963 and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and perfectly-written book, which remains one of the best-told tales of a woman's descent into insanity. [via]
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Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Storiesby Truman CapoteISBN 0848804465 (0-8488-0446-5)
Hardcover, Amereon Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Stories'Book summary:In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Truman Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape. Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's; her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.
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This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory, which the Saturday Review called one of the most moving stories in our language. It is a tale of two innocentsa small boy and the old woman who is his best friendwhose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.More editions of Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Stories:
The Callender Papersby Cynthia VoigtISBN 0844671924 (0-8446-7192-4)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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A Canticle for Leibowitzby Walter M. MillerISBN 0839823096 (0-8398-2309-6)
Hardcover, Gregg Pr
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Canyonsby Gary PaulsenISBN 0833564676 (0-8335-6467-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roofby Tennessee WilliamsISBN 0822201895 (0-8222-0189-5)
Softcover, Dramatist's Play Service
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'Book summary:In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. Maggie, Big Daddy's daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she's finally become pregnant by Big Daddy's favorite son, Brick, but Brick won't cooperate in Maggie's plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgment that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son. By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie's loving arms. [via]
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Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjectsby John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, Ronald HamowyISBN 0865971293 (0-86597-129-3)
Softcover, Liberty Fund
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- Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects: ISBN 0865971285 (0-86597-128-5)
Hardcover, Liberty Fund - Cato's Letters or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Impor Tant Subjects: Four Volumes in Two: ISBN 0865971293 (0-86597-129-3)
Softcover, Liberty Fund
- Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects: ISBN 0865971285 (0-86597-128-5)
Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjectsby Thomas Gordon, John Trenchard, Ronald HamowyISBN 0865971315 (0-86597-131-5)
Softcover, Liberty Fund
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects'Book summary:Modern Political Philosophy [via]
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Countyby Mark TwainISBN 0894717197 (0-89471-719-7)
Hardcover, Running Pr Book Pub
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City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angelesby Mike DavisISBN 0860913031 (0-86091-303-1)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles'Book summary:Mike Davis peers into a looking glass to divine the future of Los Angeles, and what he sees is not encouraging: a city--or better, a concatenation of competing city states--torn by racial enmity, economic disparity, and social anomie. Looking backward, Davis suggests that Los Angeles has always been contested ground. In the 1840s, he writes, a combination of drought and industrial stock raising led to the destruction of small-scale Spanish farming in the region. In the 1910s, Los Angeles was the scene of a bitter conflict between management and industrial workers, so bitter that the publisher of the Los Angeles Times retreated to a heavily fortified home he called "The Bivouac." And in 1992, much of the city fell before flames and riot in a scenario Davis describes as thus: "Gangs are multiplying at a terrifying rate, cops are becoming more arrogant and trigger-happy, and a whole generation is being shunted toward some impossible Armageddon." Davis's voice-in-a-whirlwind approach to the past, present, and future of Los Angeles is alarming and arresting, and his book is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary affairs. --Gregory MacNamee [via]
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Cold Mountainby Charles FrazierISBN 0871136791 (0-87113-679-1)
Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cold Mountain'Book summary:Cold Mountain is an extraordinary novel about a soldier's perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War. At once a magnificent love story and a harrowing account of one man's long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a stunning new talent in American literature.
Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman's odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they've been delivered.
Charles Frazier reveals marked insight into man's relationship to the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great nineteenth century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain re-creates a world gone by that speaks eloquently to our time. [via]More editions of Cold Mountain:
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The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poeby Edgar Allan PoeISBN 0890099278 (0-89009-927-8)
Hardcover, Book Sales
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe'Book summary:The life of Edgar Allan Poe was characterized by a dramatic series of successes and failures, breakdowns and recoveries, personal gains and dashed hopes, despite which he created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. Poe perfected the psychological thriller, invented the detective story, and rarely missed transporting the reader to his own supernatural realm. Here, fans may indulge in all 73 of Poe's most imaginative short-stories, including:''The Fall of the House of Usher,'' ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue,'' ''The Tell-Tale Heart,'' ''Ligeia'' and ''Ms. In a Bottle.'' All of his 48 poetic masterpieces are also here, including ''The Raven,'' ''Ulalume'' ''Annabel Lee,'' and ''Tamerlane,'' as well as select reviews and narratives. [via]
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The Crucibleby Arthur MillerISBN 0822202557 (0-8222-0255-7)
Softcover, Dramatist's Play Service
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Crucible'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. The play's main narrative line tells the story of the Salem witch hunts which took place in Massachusetts, 1692. At a deeper level, Miller raises several powerful and important questions about human life and morality. [via]
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Death Be Not Proudby John GuntherISBN 0881036013 (0-88103-601-3)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death Be Not Proud'Book summary:Johnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair. This deeply moving book is a father's memoir of a brave, intelligent, and spirited boy.
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Desert Solitaireby Edward AbbeyISBN 0816510571 (0-8165-1057-1)
Hardcover, Univ of Arizona Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Desert Solitaire'Book summary:With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback. [via]
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Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wildernessby Edward AbbeyISBN 0879050705 (0-87905-070-5)
Hardcover, Peregrine Smith
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness'Book summary:With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback. [via]
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The Devil's Dictionaryby Ambrose BierceISBN 0891901868 (0-89190-186-8)
Hardcover, Amereon Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Devil's Dictionary'Book summary:The Devil's Dictionary_ was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in covers with the title _The Cynic's Word Book..., a name which the author had not the power to reject or happiness to approve. [via]
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Dialectic of Enlightenmentby Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, John CummingISBN 0826400930 (0-8264-0093-0)
Softcover, Continuum Intl Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dialectic of Enlightenment'Book summary:A major study of modern culture, Dialectic of Enlightenment for many years led an underground existence among the homeless Left of the German Federal Republic until its definitive publication in West Germany in 1969. Originally composed by its two distinguished authors during their Californian exile in 1944, the book can stand as a monument of classic German progressive social theory in the twentieth century. [via]
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The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native Americaby James WilsonISBN 0871137305 (0-87113-730-5)
Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America'Book summary:Native Americans continue to hold a special place in the modern imagination. Images of the Native American as "noble savage," as grunting Hollywood brute, or even as nature lover reinforce what author James Wilson describes as "the principal role of Indians in US culture throughout the twentieth century: helping America imagine its own history." Wilson hopes to rescue them from this role and place Native Americans within their own context by attempting to view the Indian-European encounter through their eyes. The result is an engaging history of North America and its peoples--and a welcome addition to the already voluminous literature on the subject.
Wilson weaves Native American oral traditions and archeological, ethnographical, and historical evidence into a compelling narrative. Chapters on regional groups and their histories--from the Algonquians of the Northeast to the Zuñi of the Southwest--emphasize both their differences and their similarities. Wilson also traces the shifting relationships between Indians and non-Indians and investigates the reasons behind their misunderstandings. As Wilson points out, the image of the Native American as spiritual guide and Green Party spokesperson, while more romantic, is no more realistic than the image of the ignorant savage. Frequent excerpts from personal interviews allow Native Americans to speak for themselves and remind us that, far from ending at Wounded Knee, the Native American experience continues to evolve. Wilson's clear prose, command of the subject, and detailed suggestions for further reading make this book valuable to scholars and general readers alike. --C.B. Delaney [via]
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Eleanor and Franklinby Joseph P. LashISBN 083179402X (0-8317-9402-X)
Hardcover, Smithmark Publishers, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eleanor and Franklin'Book summary:In the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Eleanor & Franklin "is a beautiful book - beautiful in its scholarship, insight, objectivity and candor." Joseph Lash was secretary and confidant to Eleanor Roosevelt. His book was made into the PBS special of the same name. [via]
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Glory Roadby Bruce CattonISBN 0844667900 (0-8446-6790-0)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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God's Own Scientists : Creationists in a Secular Worldby Christopher P. ToumeyISBN 0813520444 (0-8135-2044-4)
Hardcover, Rutgers University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'God's Own Scientists : Creationists in a Secular World'Book summary:Toumey focuses the tools of his discipline on a group whose distance from the twentieth-century American mainstream is measured not in decades or miles but rather in existential understandings about reality. Toumey studies both the national scientific creationism movement and the operation of a local creationist study group in his state's Research Triangle in the mid-1980s, seeking to understand the underlying beliefs--about morality, the Bible, science itself--that modern scientific creationism embodies, as well as the reasons this "system of cultural meanings" helps many conservative Christians "make sense of the realities, anxieties, changes, and uncertainties of life in the United States in the late twentieth century." A perceptive and respectful analysis by a nonbeliever[via]More editions of God's Own Scientists : Creationists in a Secular World:
Ham on Ryeby Charles BukowskiISBN 0876855575 (0-87685-557-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ham on Rye'Book summary:Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck with the worst case of acne his doctors have ever seen) through to the first jobs he can't and won't hold down. In this moving story of growing up Bukowski disciplines his muscular, concentrated writing and creates a novel that distils his poetry into the finest full-length piece of prose that he ever wrote. Bukowski is often good but in Ham on Rye he's great.
Sadly, best known as the alcoholic inspiration for the film Barfly (an experience he reflected on in his book Hollywood), it is as a poet, rather than a drunk, that Bukowski should be best remembered. His bitter, caustic, direct, humane, damaged poetry reflects a life dominated by poverty and booze. His poetry stretches over many, many volumes but Bukowski also wrote great novels: all of them have many faults but the first four books he wrote shine for similar reasons. Post Office and Factotum both dissect, quite brilliantly, the life of an angry, poor man forced to do mindless jobs, pushed around and considered mindless by the fools who force him to do them. Women, as Roddy Doyle points out in his short introduction, continues the themes but focuses on the numerous women who share his hero's bed and bottle. --Mark Thwaite [via]
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Having Our Sayby A. Elizabeth Delany, Sarah L. Delany, Amy Hill HearthISBN 0816158312 (0-8161-5831-2)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Having Our Say'Book summary:"I never thought I'd see the day that the world would want to hear what two old Negro women have to say," says Bessie Delany. But Bessie and her sister, Sadie, born in 1893 and 1891, saw plenty, by eating a low-fat, high-vegetable diet and outliving the "old Rebby [rebel] boys" who once almost lynched Sadie. This remarkable memoir was a long-running bestseller, spawning a Broadway play and adding to their list of seasoned acquaintances (Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Cab Calloway) such spring chickens as Hillary Clinton. Born to a former slave whose owners broke the law by teaching him to read, the sisters got a solid education. North Carolina was paradise--despite the Rebbies--until Jim Crow reared its hideous head. The girls had loved to ride in the front of the trolley because the wind in their hair made them feel free, but one day the conductor sadly ordered them to the back. The family moved to New York, where Bessie became the town's second black woman dentist and Sadie the first black woman home-ec teacher. They befriended everyone who was anyone in the Harlem Renaissance (their brother won the 1925 Congressional primary there), pursued careers instead of husbands, and lived peacefully together, despite their differences. Sadie was more peaceable, like Booker T. Washington, while Bessie was a W.E.B. Du Bois-style militant.
They're funny: Bessie notes that blacks must be sharp to get ahead, "But if you're average and white, honey, you can go far. Just look at Dan Quayle. If that boy was colored he'd be washing dishes somewhere." And they are wise: Sadie says, "Life is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet." [via]
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Historical Atlas of the United Statesby National Geographic Society (U.S.)ISBN 0870449710 (0-87044-971-0)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Historical Atlas of the United States'Book summary:Maps, illustrations, and text interact in this multidimensional reference to bring the American past to life. [via]
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How the Other Half Livesby Jacob August RiisISBN 0844628077 (0-8446-2807-7)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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![[???]: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Tanks and Fighting Vehicles: A Technical Directory of Major Combat Vehicles from World War I to the Prese](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0861010035.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "[???]: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Tanks and Fighting Vehicles: A Technical Directory of Major Combat Vehicles from World War I to the Prese")
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Tanks and Fighting Vehicles: A Technical Directory of Major Combat Vehicles from World War I to the PreseISBN 0861010035 (0-86101-003-5)
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In Search of Gay America: Women and Men in a Time of Changeby Neil MillerISBN 0871133040 (0-87113-304-0)
Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr
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Interview With the Vampireby Anne RiceISBN 0833563513 (0-8335-6351-3)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Interview With the Vampire'Book summary:In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.
While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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Jazzby Toni MorrisonISBN 0816156247 (0-8161-5624-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jazz'Book summary:Jazz embraces the vibrant music and lifestyle of 1920s Harlem, an urban renaissance of opportunity and glamour. A novel of murder, hard lives, and broken dreams, Jazz sways with a lyric medley of voices and human consciousness.
Narrated by the author, Toni Morrison, this is an intense but gratifying three hours of tape. Background jazz music enhances the feel of '20s Harlem, a city that attracted thousands of black southerners hoping for better lives. Joe Trace and his wife Violet were part of this migration; madly in love with each other and the idea of this urban mecca, they "traindanced into the city." But like so many of the marriages in Morrison's novels, this union crumbles, and the dreams for a better life fade away. Joe finds another, a love "that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going."
In Jazz, time ebbs and flows like human memory, traversing between recollections of the past and expectations for the future; likewise, jazz music is often wild and chaotic. Here Morrison once again exemplifies herself as both a superb writer and a masterful storyteller. [via]
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Jefferson And His Timeby Dumas MaloneISBN 0813923549 (0-8139-2354-9)
Hardcover, Univ of Virginia Pr
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Jefferson the Virginianby Dumas MaloneISBN 0813923557 (0-8139-2355-7)
Hardcover, University of Virginia Press
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John Brown's Bodyby Stephen Vincent BenetISBN 0822205947 (0-8222-0594-7)
Softcover, Dramatist's Play Service
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Johnny Tremainby Esther ForbesISBN 0881030287 (0-88103-028-7)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Johnny Tremain'Book summary:This story of a tragically injured young silversmith who ends up hip-deep in the American Revolution is inspiring, exciting, and sad. Winner of the prestigious Newbery Award in 1944, Esther Forbes's story has lasted these 50-plus years by including adventure, loss, courage, and history in a wonderfully written, very dramatic package. It's probably not great for little guys but mature 11-year-olds or older will find it a great adventure. [via]
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Johnstown Floodby David Willis McCulloughISBN 0844662925 (0-8446-6292-5)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Johnstown Flood'Book summary:The history of civil engineering may sound boring, but in David McCullough's hands it is, well, riveting. His award-winning histories of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal were preceded by this account of the disastrous dam failure that drowned Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. Written while the last survivors of the flood were still alive, McCullough's narrative weaves the stories of the town, the wealthy men who owned the dam, and the forces of nature into a seamless whole. His account is unforgettable: "The wave kept on coming straight toward him, heading for the very heart of the city. Stores, houses, trees, everything was going down in front of it, and the closer it came, the bigger it seemed to grow.... The height of the wall of water was at least thirty-six feet at the center.... The drowning and devastation of the city took just about ten minutes." A powerful, definitive book, and a tribute to the thousands who died in America's worst inland flood. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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The Jungleby Upton Beall Sinclair, Arthur, Anthony (AFT), Jane JacobsISBN 0812976231 (0-8129-7623-1)
Softcover, Modern Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Jungle'Book summary:Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is a vivid portrait of life and death in a turn-of-the-century American meat-packing factory. A grim indictment that led to government regulations of the food industry, The Jungle is Sinclair's extraordinary contribution to literature and social reform. [via]
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The Jungleby Janice Greene, Upton Beall Sinclair, Shelley MatheisISBN 0835910482 (0-8359-1048-2)
Softcover, Globe Fearon Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Jungle'Book summary:With its high-interest adaptations of classic literature and plays, this series inspires reading success and further exploration for all students. These classics are skillfully adapted into concise, softcover books of 80-136 pages. Each retains the integrity and tone of the original book.
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Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountainsby Isabella BishopISBN 0891740252 (0-89174-025-2)
Softcover, Comstock Book Distributors
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains'Book summary:The American West of the late nineteenth century had seen its share of foreign travelers but none could compare to Isabella Bird, the archetypal Victorian Lady Traveler. The daughter of an English clergyman, Bird was on her way back from Hawaii, which she had spent nearly a year exploring on horseback, when she decided to stop off to investigate the Wild West. Having suffered from ill health as a child, Bird therefore threw herself into a life of open air and exercise as a means of recovery. A Ladys Life in the Rocky Mountains is told through letters the intrepid author wrote to her sister in the winter of 1873 regarding this equestrian sojourn during which she explored the magnificent unspoiled wilderness of Colorado, ascended the highest mountains, observed the abundant wildlife, and observed life on the remote frontier in all its phases. Birds quest for equestrian adventure was to turn her into a compulsive traveler and eventually take her on other equestrian journeys to equally inaccessible places including Persia, Tibet, Japan, Korea and Morocco. Plus she was also the first woman ever to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of England. Yet this remains the most popular book the prolific author, and indefatigable traveler, ever penned. Enormously entertaining and amply illustrated, A Ladys Life in the Rocky Mountains remains a vivid account of an astounding equestrian journey. [via]
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Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountainsby Isabella L. BirdISBN 0860682676 (0-86068-267-6)
Softcover, Virago Pr
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Life on the Mississippiby Mark TwainISBN 0848806514 (0-8488-0651-4)
Hardcover, Amereon Ltd
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Man Without a Countryby Edward HaleISBN 0841448892 (0-8414-4889-2)
Hardcover, Folcroft Library Editions
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Many People, One Nationby Bernard A. WeisbergerISBN 0828112002 (0-8281-1200-2)
Softcover, Allen Publishers, Thomas
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The Marchby E.L. DoctorowISBN 0812976150 (0-8129-7615-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The March'Book summary:As the Civil War was moving toward its inevitable conclusion, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, leaving a 60-mile-wide trail of death, destruction, looting, thievery and chaos. In The March, E.L. Doctorow has put his unique stamp on these events by staying close to historical fact, naming real people and places and then imagining the rest, as he did in Ragtime.
Recently, the Civil War has been the subject of novels by Howard Bahr, Michael Shaara, Charles Frazier, and Robert Hicks, to name a few. Its perennial appeal is due not only to the fact that it was fought on our own soil, but also that it captures perfectly our long-time and ongoing ambivalence about race. Doctorow examines this question extensively, chronicling the dislocation of both southern whites and Negroes as Sherman burned and destroyed all that they had ever known. Sherman is a well-drawn character, pictured as a crazy tactical genius pitted against his West Point counterparts. Doctorow creates a context for the march: "The brutal romance of war was still possible in the taking of spoils. Each town the army overran was a prize... There was something undeniably classical about it, for how else did the armies of Greece and Rome supply themselves?"
The characters depicted on the march are those people high and low, white and black, whose lives are forever changed by war: Pearl, the newly free daughter of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, Colonel Sartorius, a competent, remote, almost robotic surgeon; several officers, both Union and Confederate; two soldiers, Arly and Will, who provide comic relief in the manner of Shakespeare's fools until, suddenly, their roles are not funny anymore.
Doctorow has captured the madness of war in his description of the condition of a dispossessed Southern white woman: "What was clear at this moment was that Mattie Jameson's mental state befitted the situation in which she found herself. The world at war had risen to her affliction and made it indistinguishable." And later, " This was not war as adventure, nor war for a solemn cause, it was war at its purest, a mindless mass rage severed from any cause, ideal, or moral principle."
As we have come to expect, Doctorow puts the reader in the picture; never more so than in recalling "The March" and letting us see it as a cautionary tale for our times. --Valerie Ryan [via]
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The March of Folly from Troy to Vietnamby Barbara TuchmanISBN 0816137617 (0-8161-3761-7)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co
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Marching Toward Freedomby James M. McPhersonISBN 0816030928 (0-8160-3092-8)
Softcover, Facts on File
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The Memoirs of General William T. Sherman by Himselfby William Tecumseh ShermanISBN 083716253X (0-8371-6253-X)
Hardcover, Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated
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Mornings on Horsebackby David G. McCulloughISBN 0816133328 (0-8161-3332-8)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co
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Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the Worldby Tracy KidderISBN 0812973011 (0-8129-7301-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World'Book summary:Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine , House , Among Schoolchildren , and Home Town . He has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the "master of the non-fiction narrative." This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it. At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer-brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti-blasts through convention to get results. Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.'s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too. [via]
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Nam : The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought Thereby Mark BakerISBN 0815411227 (0-8154-1122-7)
Softcover, Cooper Square Publishers, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nam : The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There'Book summary:Numerous people who experienced the Vietnam War firsthand share their stories in this oral history. Men and women, officers and draftees, prowar and antiwar veterans, all give personal accounts of the bloodshed they witnessed, and the horrifying circumstances they survived. Grunts recount losing their friends in combat; doctors remember the patients whose lives they desperately tried to save; soldiers try to understand how they could become willing participants in the slaughter of innocent civilians; and veterans, back in the US, discuss dealing with nightmares and a life far away from the constant presence of war. [via]
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National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Fifty Statesby National Geographic Society (U.S). Book Division, Margaret SedeenISBN 0870448595 (0-87044-859-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Fifty Statesby National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. Book ServiceISBN 0870442163 (0-87044-216-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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National Geographic's Guide to the National Parks of the United Statesby Elizabeth L. NewhouseISBN 0870448854 (0-87044-885-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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North Americaby Anthony TrollopeISBN 0870524364 (0-87052-436-4)
Softcover, Hippocrene Books
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On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam Warby Harry SummersISBN 0891415637 (0-89141-563-7)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War'Book summary:Summer's inspired analysis of America's war in Vietnam answers the most pressing questions remaining from that terrible conflict more than a decade before Robert McNamara's painful admissions. [via]
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On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam Warby Summers, Harry G., Jr., Jack N. MerrittISBN 0891411569 (0-89141-156-9)
Hardcover, Ashgate Publishing, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War'Book summary:Summer's inspired analysis of America's war in Vietnam answers the most pressing questions remaining from that terrible conflict more than a decade before Robert McNamara's painful admissions. [via]
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Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New Yorkby Stephen BirminghamISBN 0815604114 (0-8156-0411-4)
Hardcover, Syracuse University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York'Book summary:Once upon a time, New York City was home to many Jews. They still remain there but not as many as there used to be. Jewish families were very important. Many great people come from them. This book tells all of what life was like to be Jewish and growing up in NYC back in the day. [via]
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Perestroika: Global Challenge Our Common Futureby Mikhail Gorbachev, Ken CoatesISBN 0851245013 (0-85124-501-3)
Hardcover, Dufour Editions
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The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And Americaby KENNETH POLLACKISBN 0812973364 (0-8129-7336-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And America'Book summary:In his highly influential book The Threatening Storm, bestselling author Kenneth Pollack both informed and defined the national debate about Iraq. Now, in The Persian Puzzle, published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, he examines the behind-the-scenes story of the tumultuous relationship between Iran and the United States, and weighs options for the future.
Here Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official, brings his keen analysis and insider perspective to the long and ongoing clash between the United States and Iran, beginning with the fall of the shah and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Pollack examines all the major events in U.S.-Iran relationsincluding the hostage crisis, the U.S. tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iran-Contra scandal, American-Iranian military tensions in 1987 and 1988, the covert Iranian war against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, and recent U.S.-Iran skirmishes over Afghanistan and Iraq.
He explains the strategies and motives from American and Iranian perspectives and tells how each crisis colored the thinking of both countries leadership as they shaped and reshaped their policies over time. Pollack also describes efforts by moderates of various stripes to try to find some way past animosities to create a new dynamic in Iranian-American relations, only to find that when one side was ready for such a step, the other side fell short.
With balanced tone and insight, Pollack explains how the United States and Iran reached this impasse; why this relationship is critical to regional, global, and U.S. interests; and what basic political choices are available as we deal with this important but deeply troubled country.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]More editions of The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And America:
See, I Told You So!by Rush LimbaughISBN 081617427X (0-8161-7427-X)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Separate Peaceby John KnowlesISBN 0816158959 (0-8161-5895-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Slaughter House Fiveby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0844663662 (0-8446-6366-2)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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Son of the Morning Starby Evan ConnellISBN 0865475105 (0-86547-510-5)
Softcover, North Point Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Son of the Morning Star'Book summary:On June 25, 1876, Gen. George Armstrong Custer and some 200 cavalrymen under his command blundered into a coulee along the banks of Montana's Little Bighorn River. They never came out; several thousand Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors saw to that. The name and the event of the Little Bighorn have subsequently entered into American mythology, reverberating throughout the nation's history. Custer's famous demise has yielded thousands of books, and Son of the Morning Star is exceptional among them: part anthropological study of Plains Indian life, part military history, and part character study of the principal actors in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Evan Connell's work presents the first truly balanced account of Custer's career. [via]
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Still Waters, White Waters: Exploring America's Rivers and Lakesby Ron Fisher, National Geographic Society (U.S.)ISBN 0870442317 (0-87044-231-7)
Hardcover, The Society
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Their Eyes Were Watching Godby Zora Neale HurstonISBN 0821927361 (0-8219-2736-1)
Hardcover, Emc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'Book summary:At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.
Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:
It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.
One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Tintin in Americaby HergeISBN 0867199040 (0-86719-904-0)
Hardcover, Last Gasp of San Francisco
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tintin in America'Book summary:Written in 1931, Tintin in America was chronologically the third Tintin adventure but is generally considered the first in the "official" canon. The stereotypes probably fit how a European would have looked at the New World, from Al Capone's gangsters in Chicago to a Native American tribe in the unfortunately named Redskin City, as Tintin and Snowy escape one peril after another in pursuit of villain Bobby Smiles. It's one of Herge's least complex--and least entertaining--tales, still worth a read but not a good introduction to the series as a whole. --David Horiuchi [via]
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The Toughest Indian in the Worldby Sherman AlexieISBN 0871138018 (0-87113-801-8)
Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Toughest Indian in the World'Book summary:Call Sherman Alexie any number of things--novelist, poet, filmmaker, thorn in the side of white liberalism--just don't call him "universal." Aside from his well-documented distaste for the word, its fuzziness misses the point. The Toughest Indian in the World, Alexie's second collection, succeeds as brilliantly as it does because of its particularity. These aren't stories about the Indian Condition; they're stories about Indians--urban and reservation, street fighters and yuppies, husbands and wives. "She understood that white people were eccentric and complicated and she only wanted to be understood as eccentric and complicated as well," thinks the Coeur d'Alene narrator of "Assimilation," who's married (unhappily) to a white man. And yet the issue of race has taken up permanent residence inside her house: the marriage survives, but it's love that's the most thorough assimilation of all.
Like The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, much of The Toughest Indian in the World combines deft psychological realism with the kind of narrative logic more commonly found in dreams. In "South by Southwest," a white drifter finds love on a "nonviolent killing spree" with an overweight Indian he calls Salmon Boy; in "Dear John Wayne," the cowboy actor falls in love with a young Spokane woman and proves himself a charmingly feminist hero. ("Oh, sons, you're just engaging in some harmless gender play," he tells his boys when he finds them trying on lipstick.) But for every bear hibernating on top of the Catholic church, there's also a GAP-wearing, Toyota-driving urban Indian on a quest for his roots. In both realist and surrealist modes, Alexie writes incantatory prose--as well as the kind of dialogue that makes even secondary characters leap into sudden focus: "'What?' asked Wonder Horse, as simple a question as could possibly be tendered, though he made it sound as if he'd asked Where's the tumor?"
Alexie is sometimes guilty of painting his white characters with too broad a brush. (Is any anthropologist truly as obtuse as the one in "Dear John Wayne"? Could any reader really want Mary Lynn, the narrator of "Assimilation," to stay with her boorish white husband?) Yet his kind of firebrand politics still has the power to shock. A harrowing fable about whites kidnapping Indians for the medical properties of their blood, "The Sin Eaters" could be dismissed as paranoid if it weren't so hauntingly written:
On that morning, the sun rose and bloomed like blood in a glass syringe. The entire Spokane Indian Reservation and all of its people and places were clean and scrubbed. The Spokane River rose up from its bed like a man who had been healed and joyously wept all the way down to its confluence with the Columbia River. There was water everywhere: a thousand streams interrupted by makeshift waterfalls; small ponds hidden beneath a mask of thick fronds and anonymous blossoms; blankets of dew draped over the shoulders of isolated knolls. An entire civilization of insects lived in the mud puddle formed by one truck tire and a recent rain storm. The blades of grass, the narrow pine needles, and the stalks of roadside wheat were as sharp and bright as surgical tools.
It's a hard story to read, and that's only right. The Toughest Indian in the World offers so many pleasures, who could deny it the power to disturb us as well? Funny, dreamlike, heartbreaking, angry--these are stories that could have been written by no one but Sherman Alexie. --Mary Park [via]More editions of The Toughest Indian in the World:
The Tunnels of Cu Chi: A Harrowing Account of America's "Tunnel Rats" in the Underground Battlefields of Vietnamby John Penycate, Willian JannenISBN 0891418695 (0-89141-869-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Two Years Before the Mastby Richard Henry DanaISBN 0831788895 (0-8317-8889-5)
Hardcover, Mayflower Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two Years Before the Mast'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]
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The Unabridged Devil's Dictionaryby Ambrose Bierce, S. T. Joshi, David E. SchultzISBN 0820324019 (0-8203-2401-9)
Softcover, Univ of Georgia Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary'Book summary:If we could only put aside our civil pose and say what we really thought, the world would be a lot like the one alluded to in The Unabridged Devils Dictionary. There, a bore is a person who talks when you wish him to listen, and happiness is an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierces satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the books ninety-year history.[via]A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devils Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.
This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshis exhaustive investigation into the books writing and publishing history. All of Bierces known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.
Ambrose Bierces Devils Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.
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Vibrant With Words: The Letters of Ursula Bethellby Peter Whiteford, Ursula BethellISBN 0864735049 (0-86473-504-9)
Softcover, Victoria Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vibrant With Words: The Letters of Ursula Bethell'Book summary:Ursula Bethell was a modernist poet who helped shape New Zealand's literary scene between the two world wars. This collection of letters tells the story of her early life of travel and social work in Europe and opens a window on her subsequent writerly life as she describes the origins of many of her poems.[via]More editions of Vibrant With Words: The Letters of Ursula Bethell:
While the Messiah Tarriesby Melvin Jules BukietISBN 0815604971 (0-8156-0497-1)
Softcover, Syracuse Univ Pr
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Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Herman Hattaway, Richard E. Beringer, Archer JonesISBN 0820308153 (0-8203-0815-3)
Hardcover, Univ of Georgia Pr
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Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. BeringerISBN 0820313963 (0-8203-1396-3)
Softcover, Univ of Georgia Pr
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Wiseguyby Nicholas PileggiISBN 0816142068 (0-8161-4206-8)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Young Men & Fire/a True Story of the Mann Gulch Fireby Norman MacLeanISBN 0816157340 (0-8161-5734-0)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co
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