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Books > Humanities > History > American history > General
Some of the legendary gunmen of the Old West were lawmen, but more, like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, were outlaws. Tom Horn (1860-1903) was both. Lawman, soldier, hired gunman, detective, outlaw, and assassin, this darkly enigmatic figure has fascinated Americans ever since his death by hanging the day before his forty-third birthday. In this masterful historical biography, Larry Ball, a distinguished historian of western lawmen and outlaws, presents the definitive account of Horn's career. Horn became a civilian in the Apache wars when he was still in his early twenties. He fought in the last major battle with the Apaches on U.S. soil and chased the Indians into Mexico with General George Crook. He bragged about murdering renegades, and the brutality of his approach to law and order foreshadows his controversial career as a Pinkerton detective and his trial for murder in Wyoming. Having worked as a hired gun and a range detective in the years after the Johnson County War, he was eventually tried and hanged for killing a fourteen-year-old boy. Horn's guilt is still debated. To an extent no previous scholar has managed to achieve, Ball distinguishes the truth about Horn from the numerous legends. Both the facts and their distortions are revealing, especially since so many of the untruths come from Horn's own autobiography. As a teller of tall tales, Horn burnished his own reputation throughout his life. In spite of his services as a civilian scout and packer, his behavior frightened even his lawless companions. Although some writers have tried to elevate him to the top rung of frontier gun wielders, questions still shadow Horn's reputation. Ball's study concludes with a survey of Horn as described by historians, novelists, and screenwriters since his own time. These portrayals, as mixed as the facts on which they are based, show a continuing fascination with the life and legend of Tom Horn.
Of all the written portraits of the delegates who attended the Federal Convention of 1787, few are as complete and compelling as those penned by William Pierce Jr. (1753-89), one of four delegates from Georgia. While at the convention or shortly thereafter, Pierce produced character sketches of fifty-three of the fifty-five delegates. Although widely quoted and cited, the sketches-until now-have never been analysed or annotated in detail. John R. Vile's study offers new insights into the workings of the convention and the character and roles of its delegates, as well as Pierce's little-known life, which included time as an artist. Vile reveals, for example, that the time prior to the establishment of national parties when the framers could have successfully met together in convention may have been a relatively narrow historical window. Following overviews of events leading to the 1787 convention and of Pierce and his immediate family, several chapters deal specifically with the character sketches. They cover Pierce's arrangement of the sketches and their subjects, his evaluations of the delegates' personal qualities and reputations, his assessments of their rhetorical abilities, and his descriptions of their public services, occupations, and miscellaneous matters. Two concluding chapters add further context. One examines a set of somewhat overlapping sketches that Louis Guillaume Otto, the French minister to the United States, penned about members of Congress in 1788. The other looks at writings by Pierce's son and namesake that also include assessments of various Founding Fathers. Gathering Pierce's sketches in full, with ample annotations and secondary materials, this is a valuable reference on Pierce's life, work, and times.
From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express takes readers on a compelling journey from the California Gold Rush to the present, letting readers witness both the profusion of Chinese restaurants across the United States and the evolution of many distinct American-Chinese iconic dishes from chop suey to General Tso's chicken. Along the way, historian Haiming Liu explains how the immigrants adapted their traditional food to suit local palates, and gives readers a taste of Chinese cuisine embedded in the bittersweet story of Chinese Americans. Treating food as a social history, Liu explores why Chinese food changed and how it has influenced American culinary culture, and how Chinese restaurants have become places where shared ethnic identity is affirmed - not only for Chinese immigrants but also for American Jews. The book also includes a look at national chains like P. F. Chang's and a consideration of how Chinese food culture continues to spread around the globe. Drawing from hundreds of historical and contemporary newspaper reports, journal articles, and writings on food in both English and Chinese, From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express represents a groundbreaking piece of scholarly research. It can be enjoyed equally as a fascinating set of stories about Chinese migration, cultural negotiation, race and ethnicity, diverse flavored Chinese cuisine and its share in American food market today.
Founded in 1769 as a new port town on Jamaica's north coast, Falmouth expanded dramatically in the decades around 1800 as it supported the rapidly expanding sugar production of Trelawney and neighboring parishes. Many of the surviving buildings in Falmouth are the townhouses and shops of the planters and merchants who benefitted from the wealth of sugar. That same community also built a major Anglican church and a courthouse, both of which still survive and remain in use. In those same years, the town hosted a growing free-black population and this community also left its mark on the historic town. In 1894, Falmouth received an extraordinary gift from the British crown in the form of the Albert George Market, at once a symbol of persistent colonialism, a shelter for the ancient Sunday markets, and a symbol of modernism in the form of its vast cast iron design. Monuments in the city from the twentieth century include an extraordinary round Catholic church and an impressively Modernist school wing. With little investment through the twentieth century, the town was entirely re-conceptualized in the opening years of the twenty-first century with the construction of a vast cruise ship terminal. Spanning from the foundation of the town in 1769 to the opening of the cruise ship terminal in 2008, this book explores the wide range of architecture built by Jamaicans and others in the making of this extraordinary town.
"Fascinating and alarmingly true."-Time Magazine. The true story of a plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the nearly forgotten Marine who saved American Democracy. Many simply don't know that in 1933, a group of wealthy industrialists-working closely with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League-planned to overthrow the U.S. government and run F.D.R. out of office in a fascist coup. Americans may be shocked to learn of the plan to turn unhappy war veterans into American "brown shirts," depose F.D.R., and stop the New Deal. They asked Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler to work with them and become the "first American Caesar." Fortunately, Butler was a true patriot. Instead of working for the fascist coup, he revealed the plot to journalists and to Congress. Historian Julies Archer here offers a compelling account of a plot that would have turned FDR into fascist puppet, threatened American democracy and changed the course of history. This book not only reveals the truth behind this shocking episode in history, but also tells the story of the man whose courage and bravery prevented it from happening. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
In the nineteenth century, nearly all Native American men living along the southern New England coast made their living traveling the world's oceans on whaleships. Many were career whalemen, spending twenty years or more at sea. Their labor invigorated economically depressed reservations with vital income and led to complex and surprising connections with other Indigenous peoples, from the islands of the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean. At home, aboard ship, or around the world, Native American seafarers found themselves in a variety of situations, each with distinct racial expectations about who was ""Indian"" and how ""Indians"" behaved. Treated by their white neighbors as degraded dependents incapable of taking care of themselves, Native New Englanders nevertheless rose to positions of command at sea. They thereby complicated myths of exploration and expansion that depicted cultural encounters as the meeting of two peoples, whites and Indians. Highlighting the shifting racial ideologies that shaped the lives of these whalemen, Nancy Shoemaker shows how the category of ""Indian"" was as fluid as the whalemen were mobile.
This is a photographic art book featuring 110 full-color renderings of watermills still standing on the landscape in North America (United States and Canada), with brief captions (location, year built, type of mill,etc.). It will be an oversized coffee-table format with introductory front matter on history of mills and closing back matter on mill interiors and functions.
Whether acting as a military officer or civilian officeholder, George Washington did not possess a reputation for glad handing, easy confidences, or even much warmth. His greatest attributes as a commander might well have been his firm command over his own emotions and the way in which he held himself above if not apart from the men he led. Understanding the full range of Washington's leadership, which embraced all shades of persuasion and coercion as well as multiple modes of command and solicitude, requires the examination of his influence on the lives, careers, and characters of the members of a diverse fraternity of younger men. In Sons of the Father, leading scholars analyze Washington's relationships with men such as Daniel Morgan, Anthony Wayne, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette. The men on whom this volume focuses were not all his closest associates. Yet all are important figures in that their interactions with Washington provide glimpses into various aspects of his capacities for management, motivation, control, and the cultivation of talent. The essays in this volume demonstrate Washington's consistency in treating all these men differently, for different reasons, at different times. It was perhaps part of his genius to recognize the individuality of the men with whom he interacted as well as the shifting requirements of changing circumstances. Contributors: Fred Anderson (University of Colorado, Boulder USA), Theodore J. Crackel (University of Virginia, USA), William M. Ferraro (University of Virginia, USA), Jack P. Greene (Johns Hopkins University, USA), John W. Hall (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Peter R. Henriques (George Mason University, USA), Mary-Jo Kline (University of Virginia, USA), Stuart Leibiger (La Salle University, USA), L. Scott Philyaw (Western Carolina University, USA), Thomas Rider (United States Military Academy), Brian Steele (University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA), Mary Stockwell (Louisiana State University Shreveport, USA), Mark Thompson (University of North Carolina at Pembroke, USA)
Attracted to the rich ceremonial life and unique architecture of the New Mexico pueblos, many early-twentieth-century artists depicted Pueblo peoples, places, and culture in paintings. These artists' encounters with Pueblo Indians fostered their awareness of Native political struggles and led them to join with Pueblo communities to champion Indian rights. In this book, art historian Sascha T. Scott examines the ways in which non-Pueblo and Pueblo artists advocated for American Indian cultures by confronting some of the cultural, legal, and political issues of the day. Scott closely examines the work of five diverse artists, exploring how their art was shaped by and helped to shape Indian politics. She places the art within the context of the interwar period, 1915-30, a time when federal Indian policy shifted away from forced assimilation and toward preservation of Native cultures. Through careful analysis of paintings by Ernest L. Blumenschein, John Sloan, Marsden Hartley, and Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal), Scott shows how their depictions of thriving Pueblo life and rituals promoted cultural preservation and challenged the pervasive romanticizing theme of the ""vanishing Indian."" Georgia O'Keeffe's images of Pueblo dances, which connect abstraction with lived experience, testify to the legacy of these political and aesthetic transformations. Scott makes use of anthropology, history, and indigenous studies in her art historical narrative. She is one of the first scholars to address varied responses to issues of cultural preservation by aesthetically and culturally diverse artists, including Pueblo painters. Beautifully designed, this book features nearly sixty artworks reproduced in full color.
In the Caribbean colony of Grenada in 1797, Dorothy Thomas signed
the manumission documents for her elderly slave Betty. Thomas owned
dozens of slaves and was well on her way to amassing the fortune
that would make her the richest black resident in the nearby colony
of Demerara. What made the transaction notable was that Betty was
Dorothy Thomas's mother and that fifteen years earlier Dorothy had
purchased her own freedom and that of her children. Although she
was just one remove from bondage, Dorothy Thomas managed to become
so rich and powerful that she was known as the Queen of Demerara.
Perhaps no conflict in American history is more important yet more overlooked and misunderstood than the War of 1812. Begun by President James Madison after decades of humiliating British trade interference and impressment of American sailors, the war in many ways was the second battle for United States independence. At the climax of the war -- inspired by the defeat of Napoleon in early 1814 and the perceived illegality of the Louisiana Purchase -- the British devised a plan to launch a three-pronged attack against the northern, eastern, and southern U.S. borders. Concealing preparations for this strike by engaging in negotiations in Ghent, Britain meanwhile secretly issued orders to seize New Orleans and wrest control of the Mississippi and the lands west of the river. They further instructed British commander General Edward Pakenham not to cease his attack if he heard rumors of a peace treaty. Great Britain even covertly installed government officials within military units with the intention of immediately taking over administrative control once the territory was conquered. According to author Ronald J. Drez, the British strategy and the successful defense of New Orleans through the leadership of General Andrew Jackson affirm the serious implications of this climatic -battle. Far from being simply an unnecessary epilogue to the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans firmly secured for the United States the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. Through the use of primary sources, Drez provides a deeper understanding of Britain's objectives, and The War of 1812, Conflict and Deception offers a compelling account of this pivotal moment in American history.
Almost as soon as the last shot was fired in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the battlefield became an archaeological site. For many years afterward, as fascination with the famed 1876 fight intensified, visitors to the area scavenged the many relics left behind. It took decades, however, before researchers began to tease information from the battle's debris--and the new field of battlefield archaeology began to emerge. In "Uncovering History," renowned archaeologist Douglas D. Scott offers a comprehensive account of investigations at the Little Bighorn, from the earliest collecting efforts to early-twentieth-century findings. Artifacts found on a field of battle and removed without context or care are just relics, curiosities that arouse romantic imagination. When investigators recover these artifacts in a systematic manner, though, these items become a valuable source of clues for reconstructing battle events. Here Scott describes how detailed analysis of specific detritus at the Little Bighorn--such as cartridge cases, fragments of camping equipment and clothing, and skeletal remains--have allowed researchers to reconstruct and reinterpret the history of the conflict. In the process, he demonstrates how major advances in technology, such as metal detection and GPS, have expanded the capabilities of battlefield archaeologists to uncover new evidence and analyze it with greater accuracy. Through his broad survey of Little Bighorn archaeology across a span of 130 years, Scott expands our understanding of the battle, its protagonists, and the enduring legacy of the battlefield as a national memorial.
At the turn of the 20th century, the California dream was a suburban ideal where life on the farm was exceptional. Agrarian virtue existed alongside good roads, social clubs, cultural institutions, and business commerce. The California suburban dream was the ultimate symbol of progress and modernity. California Dreaming: Boosterism, Memory, and Rural Suburbs in the Golden State analyzes the growth, promotion, and agricultural colonization that fed this dream during the early 1900s. Through this analysis, Paul J. P. Sandul introduces a newly identified rural-suburban type: the agriburb, a rural suburb deliberately planned, developed, and promoted for profit. Sandul reconceptualizes California's growth during this time period, establishing the agriburb as a suburban phenomenon that occurred long before the booms of the 1920s and 1950s. Sandul's analysis contributes to a new suburban history that includes diverse constituencies and geographies and focuses on the production and construction of place and memory. Boosters purposefully ""harvested"" suburbs with an eye toward direct profit and metropolitan growth. State boosters boasted of unsurpassable idyllic communities while local boosters bragged of communities that represented the best of the best, both using narratives of place, class, race, lifestyle, and profit to avow images of the rural and suburban ideal. This suburban dream attracted people who desired a family home, nature, health, culture, refinement, and rural virtue. In the agriburb, a family could live on a small home grove while enjoying the perks of a progressive city. A home located within the landscape of natural California with access to urban amenities provided a good place to live and a way to gain revenue through farming. To uncover and dissect the agriburb, Sandul focuses on local histories from California's Central Valley and the Inland Empire of Southern California, including Ontario near Los Angeles and Orangevale and Fair Oaks outside Sacramento. His analysis closely operates between the intersections of history, anthropology, geography, sociology, and the rural and urban, while examining a metanarrative that exposes much about the nature and lasting influence of cultural memory and public history upon agriburban communities.
This special issue of Southern Cultures, guest edited by Tom Rankin, features contributions by Natasha Trethewey, Tamika Galanis, Kate Medley, T. DeWayne Moore, Phyllis B. Dooney, Lynn Marshall Linnemeier, Pableaux Johnson, Joanna Welborn, Jeremy M. Lange, Rachel Jessen, Kimber Thomas, Eliot Dudik, Rox Campbell, Holly Lynton , Jon-Sesrie Goff, Elaine Sheldon, Aaron Canipe, Jared Ragland, and Alan Shapiro.
This special issue of Southern Cultures, guest edited by Teka Selman includes contributions by Michelle Lanier, Jessica Ingram, Diego Camposeco, Jeff Whetstone, Tommy Kha, Courtney Yoshimura, Susan Harbage Page, Deborah Willis, Monique Michelle Verdin, Christina Snyder, Mel Chin, Amy Sherald & Deborah Roberts, Jessica Lynne, and Jaki Shelton Green. |
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