Explore the haunted history of the RMS "Queen Mary."

Explore the haunted history of Helena, Montana.

Discover the remarkable history of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

Discover the stories behind Vermont's most haunted inns, hotels, and B&Bs.

Katja Maria Vogt's Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about the difference between belief and knowledge. Beliefs - doxai - are deficient cognitive attitudes. In believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato's Socrates, "shameful." As Vogt argues, this is a serious philosophical proposal and it speaks to intuitions we are likely to share. But it involves a notion of belief that is rather different from contemporary notions. Today, it is a widespread assumption that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, and that some true beliefs (perhaps those that come with justifications) qualify as knowledge. Socratic epistemology offers a genuinely different picture. In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Knowledge does not entail belief - belief and knowledge differ in such important ways that they cannot both count as kinds of belief. As long as one does not have knowledge, one should reserve judgment and investigate by thinking through possible ways of seeing things. According to Vogt, the ancient skeptics and Stoics draw many of these ideas from Plato's dialogues, revising Socratic-Platonic arguments as they see fit. Belief and Truth retraces their steps through interpretations of the Apology, Ion, Republic, Theaetetus, and Philebus, reconstructs Pyrrhonian investigation and thought, and illuminates the connections between ancient skepticism and relativism, as well as the Stoic view that beliefs do not even merit the evaluations "true" and "false."

An exploration of the murder that occurred at Rocky Point Park in Warwick, Rhode Island in 1893.

Walkers, bikers, paddlers and snowshoers can encounter relics of the past and their incredible tales from Keene to the Seacoast. "Exploring Southern New Hampshire" takes history off the page, out of the car and into the welcoming pine-scented woods and pristine waters of the Granite State. Hike Mount Monadnock, paddle the Nashua River and retrace Lincoln's footsteps down Exeter's streets. Experience the legacy of a women's sawmill at Turkey Pond from the waters that powered it. Visit Cathedral of the Pines, a beautiful outdoor altar built with stones from historic sites around the world. Set sail on the Piscataqua River onboard a gundalow and learn about the region's rich maritime history. Local history explorer and nature lover Lucie Bryar leads readers through the Monadnock, Merrimack Valley and Seacoast regions. Granite State natives and transplants alike will explore trails and waterways to gain a new appreciation for the history hidden in natural New Hampshire.

New England stagemen followed thousands of bedazzled gold rushers out west in 1849, carving out the first public overland transportation routes in California. Daring drivers like Hank Monk navigated treacherous terrain, while entrepreneurs such as James Birch, Jared Crandall and Louis McLane founded stagecoach companies traveling from Stockton to the Oregon border and over the formidable Sierra Nevada. Stagecoaches hauling gold from isolated mines to big-city safes were easy targets for highwaymen like Black Bart. Road accidents could end in disaster--coaches even tumbled down mountainsides. Journey back with author Cheryl Anne Stapp to an era before the railroad and automobile arrived and discover the wild history of stagecoach travel in California.

A thoughtful and informative look at moonshine whiskey and the characters who produced it in the Southern Appalachian region.

Memphis is equal parts music and food--the products of a community marked with grit and resiliency. The city's blues and soul music have lifted spirits, while barbecue has been a serious business ever since pork first entered the culinary landscape of Memphis with Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, who brought the New World its first herd of pigs. Succulent pulled pork and ribs have become part of the fabric of life in the River City, and today they are cooked up in kitchens ranging from the internationally acclaimed, like Corky's, to the humblest of roadside dives. Told through the history of its barbecue is the story of the city of Memphis, from legendary joints like Leonard's Barbecue, where Elvis Presley hosted private parties, to lesser-known places like William's Bar-B-Q in the West Memphis, Arkansas neighborhood where wild, late-night blues juke joints served as a red-light district across the river from Beale Street in the 1950s and '60s. Sink your teeth into this rich history chock-full of interviews and insights from the city's finest pitmasters and 'cue gurus who continue the long tradition of creating art with meat and flame.

Gambling, prostitution and bootlegging have been going on in Steubenville for well over one hundred years. Its Water Street red-light district drew men from hundreds of miles away, as well as underage runaways. The white slave trade was rampant, and along with all the vice crimes, murders became a weekly occurrence. Law enforcement seemed to turn a blind eye, and cries of political corruption were heard in the state capital. This scenario replayed itself over and over again during the past century as mobsters and madams ruled and murders plagued the city and county at an alarming rate. Newspapers nationwide would come to nickname this mecca of murder "Little Chicago."

The Buddhist monk Tanxu surmounted extraordinary obstacles--poverty, wars, famine, and foreign occupation--to become one of the most prominent monks in China, founding numerous temples and schools, and attracting crowds of students and disciples wherever he went. Now, in Heart of Buddha, Heart of China, James Carter draws on untapped archival materials to provide a book that is part travelogue, part history, and part biography of this remarkable man.
This revealing biography shows a Chinese man, neither an intellectual nor a peasant, trying to reconcile his desire for a bold and activist Chinese nationalism with his own belief in China's cultural and social traditions, especially Buddhism. As it follows Tanxu's extraordinary life, the book also illuminates the pivotal events in China's modern history, showing how one individual experienced the fall of China's last empire, its descent into occupation and civil war, and its eventual birth as modern nation. Indeed, Tanxu lived in a time of almost constant warfare--from the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, to the Boxer Uprising, the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese occupation, and World War II. He and his followers were robbed by river pirates, and waylaid by bandits on the road. Caught in the struggle between nationalist and communist forces, Tanxu finally sought refuge in the British colony of Hong Kong. At the time of his death, at the age of 89, he was revered as "Master Tanxu," one of Hong Kong's leading religious figures.
Capturing all this in a magnificent portrait, Carter gives first-person immediacy to one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history.