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Books > History > American history > General
Here is the American adventure. This extraordinary volume captures
a magnificent nation's spirit and the fortitude of those who helped
to make it so. Drawn from remarkable firsthand accounts and
historical writings, "American Courage" gives voice to the
pilgrims, founding fathers, revolutionaries, pioneers, soldiers,
and pilots, among other heroes, in a remarkable collection of
harrowing tales, spanning from the "Mayflower"'s landing
througSeptember 11, 2001. A Plymoutcolonist is held captive during
King Philip's War. George Washington crosses the Delaware. Davy
Crockett reports from inside the Alamo. General Longstreet recounts
Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Sergeant York single-handedly
captures 132 German soldiers. Charles Lindbergflies across the
Atlantic. Nine Little Rock students desegregate Central HigSchool.
Passengers on Flight 93 overpower hijackers on 9/11.
With more than forty thrilling true accounts of bravery,
selflessness, and daring, the stories in "American Courage" reveal
the heart and soul of our country.
Routledge Library Editions: Slavery is a collection of previously
out-of-print titles that examine various aspects of international
slavery. Books analyse the Atlantic slave trade, and its effects on
Africa; modern slavery around the world; slave rebellions and
resistance; the Abolitionist movements; the suppression of the
slave trade; slavery in the ancient world; and more besides. These
writings form part of the vital research into slavery through the
ages, and together form a succinct overview.
Bounded on the north by the Little Satilla River from neighboring
Glynn County and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Camden County's
southern boundary at the St. Marys River separates Georgia from
Florida. Dating from a 1766 land grant, port of St. Marys and
Camden County have faced a challenging past, present, and future.
Camden's growth and development have been driven by businessmen,
adventurers and opportunists, determined "wild swamp Crackers," and
hardy, self-reliant, God-fearing men and women.
Accompanied by Jonathan Bryan, a planter with an insatiable
appetite for virgin tracts of land, Georgia's third and last Royal
Governor James Wright visited Buttermilk Bluff in June 1767 and
envisioned a city. St. Marys was born, and its street names reflect
the surnames of the 20 founding fathers. While the county seat was
removed from a quaint St. Marys on more than one occasion, today,
the garden spot of Woodbine serves as the seat of county
government. Formerly the rice plantation of J.K. Bedell, this small
city shares a symbiotic relationship with port of St. Marys and the
"City of Royal Treatment" at Kingsland. The history of the county,
with its three main towns as well as the outlying, rural areas,
unfolds in striking photographs from days gone by. Preserved within
the pages of this treasured volume, images reveal Camden and its
people in times of tragedy and triumph.
Union Pacific Railroad Heritage covers the history of this amazing
railroad that was founded in 1862 and completed the United States
first transcontinental railroad in 1869. With the need to develop
more powerful steam locomotives to handle the railroad's steep
gradients, the Union Pacific Railroad designed the 4-12-2
locomotive, 4-6-6-4 Challenger which influenced development of the
4-8-8-4 Big Boy, followed by the 6,600-horsepower Centennial diesel
locomotive, and 8,500-horsepower gas turbine electric locomotive.
The Union Pacific Railroad operated well-maintained passenger
trains including City of San Francisco, City of Los Angeles, City
of Portland, and City of Denver until May 1, 1971, when AMTRAK took
over United States intercity passenger service.
The Mormon handcart tragedy of 1856 is the worst disaster in the
history of the Western migrations, and yet it remains virtually
unknown today outside Mormon circles.
Following the death of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon
church, its second Prophet and new leader, Brigham Young,
determined to move the faithful out of the Midwest, where they had
been constantly persecuted by their neighbors, to found a new Zion
in the wilderness. In 1846-47, the Mormons made their way west,
generally following the Oregon Trail, arriving in July 1847 in what
is today Utah, where they established Salt Lake City. Nine years
later, fearing a federal invasion, Young and other Mormon leaders
wrestled with the question of how to bring thousands of
impoverished European converts, mostly British and Scandinavian,
from the Old World to Zion. Young conceived of a plan in which the
European Mormons would travel by ship to New York City and by train
to Iowa City. From there, instead of crossing the plains by covered
wagon, they would push and pull wooden handcarts all the way to
Salt Lake.
But the handcart plan was badly flawed. The carts, made of green
wood, constantly broke down; the baggage allowance of seventeen
pounds per adult was far too small; and the food provisions were
woefully inadequate, especially considering the demanding physical
labor of pushing and pulling the handcarts 1,300 miles across
plains and mountains. Five companies of handcart pioneers left Iowa
for Zion that spring and summer, but the last two of them left
late. As a consequence, some 900 Mormons in these two companies
were caught in early snowstorms in Wyoming. When the church
leadership in Salt Lake became aware of the dire circumstances of
these pioneers, Younglaunched a heroic rescue effort. But for more
than 200 of the immigrants, the rescue came too late.
The story of the Mormon handcart tragedy has never before been
told in full despite its stunning human drama: At least five times
as many people died in the Mormon tragedy as died in the more
famous Donner Party disaster.
David Roberts has researched this story in Mormon archives and
elsewhere, and has traveled along the route where the handcart
pioneers came to grief. Based on his research, he concludes that
the tragedy was entirely preventable. Brigham Young and others in
the Mormon leadership failed to heed the abundant signs of
impending catastrophe, including warnings from other Mormon elders
in the East and Midwest, where the journey began. Devil's Gate is a
powerful indictment of the Mormon leadership and a gripping story
of survival and suffering that is superbly told by one of our
finest writers of Western history.
First published in 1853, 12 Years a Slave is the riveting true
story of a free black American who was sold into slavery, remaining
there for a dozen years until he finally escaped. This powerfully
written memoir details the horrors of slave markets, the inhumanity
practiced on southern plantations, and the nobility of a man who
persevered in some of the worst of conditions, a man who never
ceased to hope that he would find freedom and see his beloved
family again. This edition has been slightly edited--for spelling
and punctuation only--for easier reading by a modern audience. It
also includes two helpful appendixes not found in the original
book. Now a major motion picture
"Compact and insightful. "--New York Times Book Review "Jack Larkin has retrieved the irretrievable; the intimate facts of everyday life that defined what people were really like."--American Heritage
Again available in paperback is Eric Sevareid's widely
acclaimed Not So Wild a Dream. In this brilliant first-person
account of a young journalist's experience during World War II,
Sevareid records both the events of the war and the development of
journalistic strategies for covering international affairs. He also
recalls vividly his own youth in North Dakota, his decision to
study journalism, and his early involvement in radio reporting
during the beginnings of World War II.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and
Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years in the Secret
Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and
Ford. The assassination of one president, the resignation of
another, and the swearing-in of the two who followed those
traumatic events. Clint Hill was there, on duty, through Five
Presidents. After an extraordinary career as a Special Agent on the
White House Detail, Clint Hill retired in 1975. His career spanned
the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford. A witness
to some of the most pivotal moments in the twentieth century, Hill
lets you walk in his shoes alongside the most powerful men in the
world during tumultuous times in America's history, the Cold War;
the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of President John F.
Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the
Vietnam War; Watergate; and the resignations of Vice President
Spiro Agnew and President Nixon. It was indeed a turbulent time and
through it all, Clint Hill had a unique insider perspective. His
fascinating stories will shed new light on the character and
personality of each of these five presidents, as Hill witnesses
their human sides in the face of grave decisions.
Danger Sound Klaxon! reveals the untold story of the Klaxon
automobile horn, one of the first great electrical consumer
technologies of the twentieth century. Although its metallic shriek
at first shocked pedestrians, savvy advertising strategies
convinced consumers across the United States and western Europe to
adopt the shrill Klaxon horn as the safest signaling technology
available in the 1910s. The widespread use of Klaxons in the
trenches of World War I, however, transformed how veterans heard
this car horn, and its traumatic association with gas attacks
ultimately doomed this once ubiquitous consumer technology. By
charting the meteoric rise and eventual fall of the Klaxon, Matthew
Jordan highlights how perceptions of sound-producing technologies
are guided by, manipulated, and transformed through advertising
strategies, public debate, consumer reactions, and governmental
regulations. Jordan demonstrates in this fascinating history how
consumers are led toward technological solutions for problems
themselves created by technology.
"A rich study of the role of personal psychology in the shaping of
the new global order after World War I. So long as so much
political power is concentrated in one human mind, we are all at
the mercy of the next madman in the White House." -Gary J. Bass,
author of The Blood Telegram The notorious psychobiography of
Woodrow Wilson, rediscovered nearly a century after it was written
by Sigmund Freud and US diplomat William C. Bullitt, sheds new
light on how the mental health of a controversial American
president shaped world events. When the fate of millions rests on
the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person
do? Disillusioned by President Woodrow Wilson's destructive and
irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat
named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of
his friend Sigmund Freud, Bullitt set out to write a psychological
analysis of the president. He gathered material from personal
archives and interviewed members of Wilson's inner circle. In The
Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten
portrait of a troubled president. After two years of collaboration,
Bullitt and Freud signed off on a manuscript in April 1932. But the
book was not published until 1966, nearly thirty years after
Freud's death and only months before Bullitt's. The published
edition was heavily redacted, and by the time it was released, the
mystique of psychoanalysis had waned in popular culture and
Wilson's legacy was unassailable. The psychological study was
panned by critics, and Freud's descendants denied his involvement
in the project. For nearly a century, the mysterious, original
Bullitt and Freud manuscript remained hidden from the public. Then
in 2014, while browsing the archives of Yale University, Weil
happened upon the text. Based on his reading of the 1932
manuscript, Weil examines the significance of Bullitt and Freud's
findings and offers a major reassessment of the notorious
psychobiography. The result is a powerful warning about the
influence a single unbalanced personality can have on the course of
history.
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