Known as "The Mayor of Castro Street" even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
Harvey Milk has been the subject of numerous books and movies, including the Academy Award-winning 1984 documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk. " His life is also the basis of a 2008 major motion picture, "Milk, "starring Sean Penn. " " Randy Shilts was born in 1951, in Davenport, Iowa. One of the first openly gay journalists hired at a major newspaper, he worked for the "San Francisco Chronicle" for thirteen years. He died of AIDS in 1994 at his home in the Sonoma County redwoods in California. He was the author of "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk "(1982), "And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic "(1987), and "Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the U.S. Military "(1993). He also wrote extensively for many major newspapers and magazines, including "The New York Times, Newsweek, Esquire, The Los Angeles Times, "and "The Advocate."
"The Mayor of Castro Street "is Shilts's acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s. His is a story of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassination in City Hall and massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

In New York's Burned-over District, Spencer W. McBride and Jennifer Hull Dorsey invite readers to experience the early American revivals and reform movements through the eyes of the revivalists and the reformers themselves.   Between 1790 and 1860, the mass migration of white settlers into New York State contributed to a historic Christian revival. This renewed spiritual interest and fervor occurred in particularly high concentration in central and western New York where men and women actively sought spiritual awakening and new religious affiliation. Contemporary observers referred to the region as "burnt" or "infected" with religious enthusiasm; historians now refer to as the Burned-over District.   New York's Burned-over District highlights how Christian revivalism transformed the region into a critical hub of social reform in nineteenth-century America. An invaluable compendium of primary sources, this anthology revises standard interpretations of the Burned-over District and shows how the putative grassroots movements of the era were often coordinated and regulated by established religious leaders.

This long-overdue popular history explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire. Paul Salveson traces to the thirteenth century the origins of a distinct county stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District--'Lancashire North of the Sands'. From a relatively backward place in terms of industry and learning, Lancashire would become the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution: the creation of a self- confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth, and industrialists had a strong commitment to the arts, endowing galleries and museums and producing a diverse culture encompassing science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, its shrine being the Manchester Cotton Exchange, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of campaigns for democracy including Chartism and women's suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive identity: fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, New Lancastrians from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The book explores what has become of Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire's fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What is the future for the 6 million people of this rich historic region?

by local artist John Clark Mayden. Bronze Winner of the Foreword INDIES Award for Photography by FOREWORD Reviews Baltimore native John Clark Mayden's photographs are distinctive to the city and specific to black life there, lingering on the front stoops and in the postage-stamp backyards of Charm City row houses. But these pictures are far from nostalgic. Informed by the photographer's deep commitment to both social justice and storytelling, they strip Baltimore of pretense and illusion and show the city's veins. Baltimore Lives gathers 101 of Mayden's best photographs in print for the first time. Taken between 1970 and 2012, these photos illuminate the experiences of life throughout the predominantly African American city, capturing the relaxed intimacy of community, family, and the comfort of home in contrast to the harsh sting of social injustice, poverty, and crime. In Mayden's work, we meet people who are not expecting us. We bear witness to their lives-their emotions, gestures, and faces that often reveal more than they conceal. But regardless of the camera's presence, people go on waiting for the bus, catching a breeze on their front steps, slogging through the snow to work and school, and, every so often, returning the photographer's gaze with a sly grin, a backward glance, a curious frown. Including a brief biography of John Clark Mayden written by his sister, Ruth W. Mayden, and an essay by art historian Michael Harris on how Mayden's work fits into larger trends of black photography, Baltimore Lives is a stunning visual history of the spatial and human elements that together make Baltimore's inner city.

Take a tour of the Berkshire Hills and travel along the nation's first scenic route, the Mohawk Trail; delight in the sounds of the Tanglewood Music Center and the Shelbourne and Bish-Bash Falls; visit landmarks including Hancock Shaker Village, the town of Lenox, and Jacob's Ladder. More than 350 color images take you back in time to show how the Berkshires came to be the recreational and cultural mecca that it is today. See why this was the summer getaway place for the elite from the North for many years. This is a keepsake that residents and tourists alike will treasure, and with 250 vintage postcards, collectors worldwide will also find this a valuabe resource.

Glasgow: The Autobiography tells the story of the fabled, former Second City of the British Empire from its origins as a bucolic village on the rivers Kelvin and Clyde, through the Industrial Revolution to the dawning of the second millennium. Arranged chronologically and introduced by journalist and Glasgowphile Alan Taylor, the book includes extracts from an astonishing array of writers. Some, such as William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Dirk Bogarde and Evelyn Waugh, were visitors and left their vivid impressions as they passed through on. Many others were born and bred Glaswegians who knew the city and its inhabitants - and its secrets - intimately. They come from every walk of life and, in addition to professional writers, include anthropologists and scientists, artists and murderers, housewives and hacks, footballers and comedians, politicians and entrepreneurs, immigrants and locals. Together they present a varied and vivid portrait of one of the world's great cities in all its grime and glory - a place which is at once infuriating, frustrating, inspiring, beguiling, sensational and never, ever dull.

Ian R Mitchell recognises his hometown is an often underloved place, but in Aberdeen: Beyond the Granite he sets out an overwhelming case as to why this sentiment is thoroughly undeserved. An Aberdonian born and bred, Mitchell has lived in Glasgow for almost four decades. Returning to his roots, he delves into Aberdeen's rich and often unseen history and culture from an exile's perspective, revealing a proudly unique city, home to the world's oldest surviving company, the UK's oldest newspaper, and perhaps Britain's oldest Italian restaurant

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit" and "Unbroken," the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics
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"Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together--a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.
Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, "The Boys in the Boat "is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's "The Amateurs."

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the civil rights era's climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation.

"The Year of Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America's long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary narrative of the personalities and events that brought about America's second emancipation.
In a new afterword--reporting last encounters with hero Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and describing the current drastic anti-immigration laws in Alabama--the author demonstrates that Alabama remains a civil rights crucible.

Observations on the new American republic by an early president of Georgetown University Father Giovanni Antonio Grassi was the ninth president of Georgetown University and pioneered its transition into a modern institution, earning him the moniker Georgetown's Second Founder. Originally published in Italian in 1818 and translated here into English for the first time, his News on the Present Condition of the Republic of the United States of North America records his rich observations of life in the young republic and the Catholic experience within it. When Grassi assumed his post as president in 1812, he found the university, known then as Georgetown College, to be in a "miserable state." He immediately set out to enlarge and improve the institution, increasing the number of non-Catholics in the school, adding to the library's holdings, and winning authority from Congress to confer degrees. Upon his return to Italy, Grassi published his News, which introduced Italians to the promise and contradictions of the American experiment in self-governance and offered perspectives on the social reality for Catholics in America. This book is a fascinating work for historians of Catholicism and of the Jesuits in particular.

St. Johns River begins in the swamps in southeast Florida, then passes 310 miles through many lakes, communities, forests, and swamps north towards the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville. As a resource, it has been enjoyed by millions, but few know its full and fascinating story. It was explored by both the Spanish and French, and hosted a thriving Steamboat trade. Today it has become a popular recreation and tourist site. Illustrated by 300 vintage postcards, this book takes a virtual tour from St. Johns River's source to its basin, with stories of its history, tributaries, cities, and attractions along the way.

Enjoy a nostalgic tour around the Chesapeake Bay's charming Talbot County, Maryland, via more than 255 vintage postcards and 25 contemporary photographs. Your tour begins in Oxford, where you can sail on the beautiful Tred Avon River, stroll along tree-lined Morris Street, and see Broad Creek as it once was. Ride the ferry across the river to St. Michaels and visit the downtown and harbor areas as they looked in the early 1900s. Your tour continues on to Claiborne to relive the drama of steamboats arriving from Baltimore, and to Tilghman Island for an intriguing look at charter fishing and oyster work boats of days past. There is more than enough to see, so choose a comfortable seat, let this book be your guide, and enjoy a delightful ride back in time to the Talbot County bayside of long ago.

"More than 40 photographs and illustrations capture the feel of the Sound and render a visual history of its transformation; ultimately, the book shows that despite the over-development of much of the Sound, there are still places that remain pristine and untouched."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"For anyone who cares about where we live, this profusely illustrated book would make a swell gift."
--"Greenwich Time"

"This popular presentation will make interesting reading for those who treasure the endangered Long Island Sound."
--"Choice"

Spanning the shores of Connecticut and Long Island, New York, the Long Island Sound is one of the most picturesque places in North America. From the discovery of the Sound in 1614, to the adventures of Captain Kidd, to the sinking of the "Lexington" in the sound in 1840, the Long Island Sound also holds a unique place in American history.

The Long Island Sound traces the growth of fishing and shipbuilding villages along the sound to the development of major industrial ports, resort towns, and suburban communities along the sound. Marilyn Weigold discusses the subsequent overcrowding and pollution that resulted from this prosperity and expansion.

Originally published in 1974 as "The American Mediterranean" and long out of print, The Long Island Sound has been updated by the author with a new preface and final chapter describing the Sound in the twenty-first century. In this new edition, Weigold particularly focuses on environmental concerns, and describes more current milestones, like the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, who fought and won in 1995 to set aside 100,000 acres as NY State's first forest preserve; the continuousconstruction of the Long Island Expressway, with its forty-one miles of HOV lanes; the attempt made by several of Connecticut's coastal cities to reinvigorate urban redevelopment; and the Long Island Sound Study's investigation of toxic substances--both natural and man-made--which continue to contaminate the waterway.

Through over 40 stunning photographs and many fascinating stories, The Long Island Sound tells the history of a vastly populated, but underdiscussed, part of America.

Once an essential part of nautical navigation and commerce, the world's lighthouses have become historical relics of days past, their primary function now replaced by modern technology. Yet these magnificent structures continue to fascinate us, not only for their intrinsic beauty, but also as monuments to our shared history, and as symbols of hope and salvation to those cast adrift on the stormy seas of life. From the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, the waterways of coastal Georgia from the St. Marys River in the south to the Savannah River in the north were an integral part of the state's economy, vital to the trade in cotton, rice, timber, naval stores, and other products shipped to ports in America and around the world. Georgia's barrier islands are today the site of five existing lighthouses, each with its own unique style, history, and role in events over the past decades and centuries. In addition, focusing on these beacons, Lighthouses of the Georgia Coast reviews the basics of lighthouse design and construction, the role, lore and legacy of lighthouse keepers, the significance of lighthouses as strategic structures during the turbulent days of the Civil War, and more. Richly illustrated with both contemporary and historical photos, the reader or visitor will gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Georgia's lighthouses and of similar structures on coasts and waterways around the world.

Take a nostalgic, scenic journey through the San Diego of days gone by. 226 vintage postcards show the city as it appeared decades, and even a century, ago. From crisp Marine formations at Fort Rosecrans to casual strolls through Balboa Park, you'll see San Diego's history unfold. Dozens of images celebrate San Diego's red-carpet welcome for the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition. Romantic views portray Casa de Estudillo, where novelist Helen Hunt Jackson's heroine Ramona captured the nation's heart. Dodge trolleys and horses on D Street, ogle the glorious U.S. Grant Hotel, explore famous beaches and resort areas, and take in the panorama from Mission Cliff when it was an idyllic garden. These wonderful images illustrate sites that lured so many people to San Diego in the early to mid twentieth century.

Original tales by remarkable writers Hometown Tales is a series of books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction and some are narrative non-fiction - they are all powerful, fascinating and moving, and aim to celebrate regional diversity and explore the meaning of home. In these pages on the Midlands, you'll find two unique works of fiction. A richly-imagined tale about a young girl adopted by a couple living in the village of Fleckney - 'Home Is Where the Heart Is' - by author of Costa-shortlisted Pao, Kerry Young. And 'Time and Seasons', a heartfelt, powerful story of young love across the ages in Milton Keynes by Carolyn Sanderson.

Before the Bay Bridge made access to the Atlantic easier, the Chesapeake Bay was dotted with beach-type resorts. Located in Calvert County, Maryland, Chesapeake Beach and neighboring North Beach were two of the most popular. Chesapeake Beach, the resort, officially opened on June 9, 1900 when visitors from Washington, D.C., stepped from the coaches of a brand new railroad specifically built to transport them there. Likewise, steamboat service from Baltimore to the resort was inaugurated the same day. The resort's success fueled the rise of North Beach, and the two destinations were popular with Washington and Baltimore residents for many years to come. Here is the story of their halcyon days as summertime resorts of the bay. More than 230 vintage postcards and other memorabilia recall early, happy times there.

Kent has a long and illustrious military history dating back to the Roman occupation but the first great conflict of the twentieth century brought the horrors of war to a new generation. Thousands of the county's finest young men were sent off to fight in battlefields around the world including Europe's Western Front, which was less than a day's travel from Kent. Because of its proximity to this major war zone, Kent came to play a pivotal role in the conflict. The ports of Dover and Folkestone were the main staging posts for the British Expeditionary Force and the primary points of arrival for the thousands of wounded servicemen being repatriated from the Front. Its hospitals cared for the wounded and its munitions factories produced the armaments needed to fight the war. The county's geographical position also made it a prime target for German air raids and naval bombardments, which brought the terrors of modern war to the civilian population for the first time. Kent at War tells the remarkable story of the First World War as it unfolded and affected the county and its people.