Recent Issues and Advances in Astronomy explores the most important developments in astronomy over the last decade, including the results of recent investigations on extrasolar planetary systems, black holes, and the existence of water in space. Besides exploring the societal implications of recent developments, the book also addresses the philosophical questions raised by recent advances, such as whether or not we are alone in the universe. Other chapters offer biographies of prominent astronomers, discussions of important current investigations, summaries of astronomical funding and career statistics, and a glossary of terms. The book also provides an annotated listing of relevant organizations and bibliographies of print and nonprint information resources. The book is illustrated and extensively cross-referenced, and includes a detailed subject index. A special chapter comprises narratives written by four trained astronomers, each of whom describes the particular career path he or she has chosen, both inside and outside the field of astronomy itself.

Ever since the Dominican missionary Bartolom de Las Casas (1476-1566) first raised civil and minority rights issues in an American context, they have figured prominently among some of the most profound and trying moments in American history. Minority Rights in America consists of approximately 600 engagingly written alphabetically arranged entries on civil rights, political rights, and social rights in America since the days of Christopher Columbus. The rights of all Americans are included, with particular attention to African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and other minority groups. Many of the entries include suggested readings to facilitate additional research and understanding. Entries include: Biographical sketches of important historical figures who participated in the struggle to advance minority rights Important topics, organizations, and critical events Supreme Court cases, federal laws, and governmental agencies. Rounding out this comprehensive reference are three useful appendixes and a consolidated bibliography. Appendixes include: Excerpts of more than seventy-five important documents organized logically in six parts: historic documents, historic speeches and writings, historic legislation, Supreme Court decisions, rights activism documents, and documents from U.S. government agencies Contact information for more than sixty associations and civil rights organizations A list, with full citations, of the court cases mentioned in the volume. Sample of encyclopedic entries: Jane Addams, Affirmative action, AIDS and rights, Antisemitism, Ross Barnett, Bonus Army, Chicano studies, Shirley Chisholm, Clayton Act, Congress of Racial, Equality (CORE), Conscientious objectors, Crazy Horse, Defense of Marriage Act, Employment at will, Medgar Evers, Farm labor rights, Orval Faubus , Gerrymandering, Gray Panthers, Angelina Grimke, Haymarket Riot, J. Edgar Hoover, Langston Hughes, Indian Citizenship Act, Japanese internment, Jim Crow laws, Bartolom de Las Casas, Loving v. Virginia, Megan's Law, Million Man March, Ralph Nader, National Immigration, William Penn, Puritan Separatist, Rap music, Right to die, Margaret Sanger, Smokers' rights, Southern Governors, Association Trail of Tears, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Harold Washington, Youth Law Center, John Peter Zenger.

Generals South, Generals North highlights twenty-four commanders-twelve each from the Confederacy and the Union. Best-selling author and military historian Alan Axelrod presents a biography of each, narrates the major engagements in which each fought (emphasizing tactical leadership and outcome produced), and explores each man's ever-controversial reputation. His consequent rankings are based on both historical and modern-day sources.

Political History of America's Wars is the first reference work to explore the legislative, social, and policy aspects of America's major wars, rebellions, and insurrections. This new volume weaves together important primary source documents, informative biographies, and in-depth essays to provide coverage of the political antecedents, events, and consequences of America's wars, from the American Revolution to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Political History of America's Wars features: Chronological chapters on each of America's approximately fifty wars, rebellions, and insurrections In-depth essays discussing America's colonial period and the Indian Wars, the imperialist era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the modern era of America as global policeman, and more Primary source documents and materials on relevant legislation and congressional resolutions, executive orders, proclamations, court cases, and constitutional amendments Vital coverage of war-time events and trends including elections and political parties, public opinion, propaganda, media coverage, foreign relations, diplomacy, and treaties and alliances A helpful glossary, a comprehensive table of laws and treaties, and an index make Political History of America's Wars a valuable research tool that will serve researchers in political science, U.S. history, sociology, journalism, geography, and more.

When Jack Pressman went into business as a manufacturer of basic playthings like lead soldiers and toy xylophones in 1922, he could little have imagined that his small venture would become one of the iconic American toy companies. The firm scored its first megahit in the 1920s, when it popularised Chinese checkers, and it went on to introduce enduring favourites like Rummikub and Tri-Ominos. Today the Pressman Toy Corporation remains well known for its line of classic board games in eye-catching red boxes, as well as games based on popular TV shows. This centennial history traces the growth of the company under the leadership of three successive Pressmans: Jack, his wife Lynn (one of the first female CEOs in the industry), and their son Jim. It is a story that reflects the development of the toy industry as a whole - encompassing the rise of plastics, the emergence of character licensing and TV advertising, and the surprising endurance of the physical board game in our digital age. Abundantly illustrated with new colour photography as well as rare archival images, this will be an essential volume for anyone with an interest in the history of play.

Mercenaries: A Guide to Private Armies and Private Military Companies provides a comprehensive survey and guide to the mercenary forces, entrepreneurs, and corporations that are a major component of warfare today. Security, military advice, training, logistics support, policing, technological expertise, intelligence, transportation-all are outsourced to a greater or lesser degree in the U.S. military-while countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Australia rely on privatization in one form or another. This comprehensive one-volume work covers the full range of mercenaries active on the international military scene today, including a concise history of mercenaries and private armies on land, sea, and in the air. Key Features Illuminating sidebars include biographies of major figures, key statistics, historical and current documents, contracts, and legislation on private armies and outsourced military services. Each chapter includes a bibliography of books, journal articles, and web sites. A general bibliography concludes the entire work. Mercenaries is a must-have reference for academic libraries, public libraries, and any social science, governmental, or non-governmental reference collection.

Arnold J. Toynbee, the most famous professional historian of the twentieth century, is widely quoted as having declared that "History is just one damn thing after another." This book argues that history is not about "things" at all but is all about turning points-the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures on which the shape of a nation's life-our lives-depends. It presents the 100 points at which America's path decisively turned on its way to where we find ourselves today. Columbus arrives in the New World The first slaves arrive in America Independence is declared The Indian Removal Act is passed Female suffragists meet in Seneca Falls Harpers Ferry is raided Fort Sumter falls A transcontinental railroad is completed Edison lights his first electric lamp Prohibition makes America a nation of lawbreakers FDR offers a "New Deal" The B-29 Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima The Supreme Court decides Brown v. Board of Education Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon President Nixon creates the EPA 9/11 ... Obama ... Sandy Hook ... Russian election "meddling" ... the Age of Trump ... These and many more are the crucial "plot points" in our grand national story, and best-selling historian Alan Axelrod presents them here.

Arnold J. Toynbee, the most famous professional historian of the twentieth century, is widely quoted as having declared that "History is just one damn thing after another." This book argues that history is not about "things" at all but is all about turning points-the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures on which the shape of a nation's life-our lives-depends. It presents the 100 points at which America's path decisively turned on its way to where we find ourselves today. Columbus arrives in the New World The first slaves arrive in America Independence is declared The Indian Removal Act is passed Female suffragists meet in Seneca Falls Harpers Ferry is raided Fort Sumter falls A transcontinental railroad is completed Edison lights his first electric lamp Prohibition makes America a nation of lawbreakers FDR offers a "New Deal" The B-29 Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima The Supreme Court decides Brown v. Board of Education Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon President Nixon creates the EPA 9/11 ... Obama ... Sandy Hook ... Russian election "meddling" ... the Age of Trump ... These and many more are the crucial "plot points" in our grand national story, and best-selling historian Alan Axelrod presents them here.

"Biography lovers may find this a great start in understanding the long-term impacts that individuals can have on culture, society, and history and be interested in seeking further information about Axelrod's fascinating subjects. --Booklist Meet 50 women and men who broke the rules . . . and changed the world. What does Charles Darwin have in common with Johannes Gutenberg--or with Jackson Pollock, Martin Luther, Betty Friedan, Steve Jobs, and DJ Kool Herc? They were the disruptors, upending cultural, technical, spiritual, or scientific paradigms and altering the way we live forever. Bestselling author Alan Axelrod presents engaging profiles, accompanied by original line drawings, of 50 visionaries who rewrote the rules. Their innovations range from the printing press (Gutenberg) to the fight for women's equality (Friedan), from the smartphone (Jobs) to the invention of hip-hop (Herc).

The Great War ate men, machines, and money without mercy or remission. At the end of 1915, the German army chief of staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, believed he knew how to finally kill the beast and win the war. On Christmas day, 1915, Falkenhayn sent a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II proposing a campaign to demoralize Britain, whose industrial might and maritime power were the foundation of the alliance against Germany, while also knocking France out of the war. He wrote that the "strain on France has reached breaking point .... If we succeed in opening the eyes of her people to the fact that in a military sense they have nothing more to hope for, that breaking point would be reached and England's best sword knocked out of her hand." His plan was to attack a single point the French perceived as so vital that they would be compelled "to throw in every man they have." Falkenhayn concluded: "If they do so, the forces of France will bleed to death" or, as he put it later, the "French army would be bled white." Falkenhayn's target of choice was Verdun, a place that, throughout virtually all of the history of Europe, had been a fortress. Located within a loop of the Meuse River, it occupied a strategic blocking position in the Meuse River valley. As recently as the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, Verdun had been the last of the French fortified cities to hold out against the German onslaught. After that war, it had been vastly augmented, so that it was now a circle of detached forts surrounding a central citadel. The town of Verdun itself, also fortified, was likewise encircled by forts distributed in a five-mile radius. The combined massive complex guarded not only passage through the river valley region, but also dominated a key railroad junction leading to points south, southwest, west, and north in France. Along with the related, but separate, Battle of the Somme, Verdun was among the most deadly battles in history. To understand this struggle is to understand all of World War I, including the principal stated motive of Woodrow Wilson for bringing the United States into the "European War" in April 1917. For him, Verdun proved both France's determination to win at all costs and the likelihood that, without help, it would be defeated nevertheless. The unparalleled barbarity of Verdun, a product of the Old World, convinced the American president that only the principal nation of the New World could finally alter the grim course of human destiny. While many, both in 1916 and in the decades that followed, saw Verdun as a bloody monument to the inescapable futility of war, Wilson saw in it a hope for fighting what he would call a "war to end all wars."

Now in paperback!Military Book Club (R) Main Selection History Book Club (R) Featured Alternate*The battle that transformed a group of common soldiers into the modern-day Marine CorpsMiracle at Belleau Wood begins in June 1918 at Les Mare Farm in France with just 200 U.S. marines, who spilled their blood to prevail against impossible odds, resisting an overwhelming German force of thousands and turned the battle back against the enemy, saved Paris, saved France, and saved the Allied hope of victory. Called "the Gettysburg of the Great War" by many at the time, it rescued America and its allies from almost certain defeat. This book tells the riveting story of the modern marines as America's fiercest and most effective warriors, the world's preeminent fighting elite. Miracle at Belleau Wood is the story of an epoch-making battle--a battle that elevated the Corps to legendary status and forever burned them into the American imagination. Praise for Miracle at Belleau Wood "Axelrod brings us back vividly to the shocking casualties of 'the war to end all wars.'"-Bing West, author of No True Glory, former Assistant Secretary of Defense "Alan Axelrod has perfectly captured the embodiment of U.S. Marines and their unparalleled Esprit de Corps. . . . A must read!"-Jay Kopelman, author of the best-selling From Baghdad with Love "Axelrod is one of America's great military historians. He's done it this time with riveting non-stop action that reads like the best of Hemingway's frontline reports plus the Marine Corps novels of W.E.B. Griffin. Axelrod pushes you right into the action, onto the battlefield, and never lets up."-Paul B. Farrell, JD, PhD, syndicated columnist for Dow Jones's MarketWatch, former Staff Sergeant in the US Marine Corps Praise for Patton: A Biography"Like Patton at his best: polished, precise, and persuasive."-Kirkus Reviews

In this fascinating exploration of one of the most celebrated and innovative minds, best-selling author Alan Axelrod cuts through the myths and reverence surrounding Edison's "genius" to show how the inventor was, in fact, an ordinary man who created extraordinary work. While many of us believe that creativity, like genius, is something that just happens by chance or destiny, Edison's life demonstrates that creativity of the very highest order can indeed be summoned up at will, and even reduced to a reliable working method and set of principles.

An argument settler--and starter--for Civil War buffs who want to know which side had the better soldiers: Armies South, Armies North definitively compares the military forces of both sides. Civil War buffs are always arguing over which side had the better soldiers. Armies South/Armies North by Alan Axelrod helps readers reconsider their understanding of America's most harrowing war. Axelrod is the author of more than one hundred books with a passion for military history and leadership. Each chapter of his new book compares the military forces with both quantitative and qualitative measures. Axelrod analyzes the equipment, the leadership and strategies, and the men who fought in each army, with additional focus on lesser known flash points during the war.

The American Revolution was a war, but it was also a time, a span of history, in which some people fought, but most just lived. They thought, acted, worked, raised families, worshipped, built, sold, bought, and tried to live as best they could in a time of hope, anxiety, despair, loss, gain, and, above all, disruption. In the Time of the Revolution is a popular, single-volume history of the American Revolution, 1775 to 1783, an intensely active, exciting, and critical span of time in North America. It began with a lopsided skirmish at Lexington, Massachusetts, culminated militarily in a major amphibious campaign mounted by a large Franco-American army against British army and naval forces at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, and then passed through two more years of desultory combat and cruel fights between diehard Loyalists and vengeful Patriots before ending in the Treaty of Paris. During these eight years in an America that was a collection of young towns on the edge of a vast wilderness, the break-up with the mother country was the central fact of life.

"A surprising and sweeping history that reveals the fur trade to be the driving force behind conquest, colonization, and revolution in early America
"Combining the epic saga of Hampton Sides's "Blood and Thunder "with the natural history of Mark Kurlansky's "Cod," popular historian Alan Axelrod reveals the astonishingly vital role a small animal--the beaver--played in the creation of our nation. The author masterfully relays a story often neglected by conventional histories: how lust for fur trade riches moved monarchs and men to launch expeditions of discovery, finance massive corporate enterprises, and wage war. Deftly weaving cultural and military narratives, the author chronicles how Spanish, Dutch, French, English, and Native American tribes created and betrayed alliances based on trapping and trade disputes, producing a surprisingly complex series of loyalties that endured throughout the Revolution and beyond.

General George C. Marshall was a skillful and compassionate leader with a unique legacy. He never fired a shot during WWII and led no troops into battle--his brilliance was purely strategic and diplomatic, and incredibly effective. He was responsible for the building, supplying, and, in part, the deployment of over eight million soldiers. In 1947, as Secretary of State, he created the Marshall Plan, a sweeping economic recovery effort that pulled the war-shattered European nations out of ruin, and gave impetus to NATO and the European Common Market. It was for the Marshall Plan that he won the Nobel Peace Prize--the only time in history a military commander has ever been awarded this honor.

Marshall's skilled combination of military strategy and politics, emphasis on planning as well as execution, and his expertise in nation-building holds lessons for military and civilian leaders today.

Dubbed by the World War II press as "The G.I. General" because of his close identification with his men, Omar Bradley rose to command the largest exclusively American field command in U.S. history during the European Campaign. Alan Axelrod applies his signature insight and compelling prose to the life, strategy and legacy of the general who remains the model for all commanders today as the man who revolutionized the National Guard, shaped the U.S. army's focus on the individual soldier, and emphasized cooperation and coordination among the military services.

The American Revolution was a war, but it was also a time, a span of history, in which some people fought, but most just lived. They thought, acted, worked, raised families, worshipped, built, sold, bought, and tried to live as best they could in a time of hope, anxiety, despair, loss, gain, and, above all, disruption. In the Time of the Revolution is a popular, single-volume history of the American Revolution, 1775 to 1783, an intensely active, exciting, and critical span of time in North America. It began with a lopsided skirmish at Lexington, Massachusetts, culminated militarily in a major amphibious campaign mounted by a large Franco-American army against British army and naval forces at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, and then passed through two more years of desultory combat and cruel fights between diehard Loyalists and vengeful Patriots before ending in the Treaty of Paris. During these eight years in an America that was a collection of young towns on the edge of a vast wilderness, the break-up with the mother country was the central fact of life.

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Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale is the first comprehensive literary, biographical, and cultural study of the novelist whom critic Leslie Fiedler has dubbed "the inventor of the American writer."

The author of Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, Ormond, and Edgar Huntly, Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) is considered the first American professional author. He introduced Indian characters into American fiction. His keen interest in character delineation and abnormal psychology anticipates the stories of Poe, Hawthorne, and later masters of the psychological novel.

Brown was eager to establish for himself an American identity as a writer, to become what Crevecoeur called "the new man in the New World." It is especially this intimate identification of writer with country that makes Brown a telling precursor of our most characteristic authors from Poe, Hawthorne, and Cooper to Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner.

To understand its significance, Brown's work must be examined as both art and artifact. Accordingly, Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale is literary history as well as criticism, embued with insights into a writer's sources and influences and the psychology of literary composition. It is also a fascinating examination of a nation's emotional and intellectual impact on a young man in search of his identity as creative artist.

What is the national debt? Who loses from it? Who profits from it? Why is it a greater threat to America than international terrorism? In direct, non-partisan language, this book follows the money and finds the answers. Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist ...Each has a laundry list for America on which the slow-motion cataclysm of unsustainable national debt is but a lonely bullet point among dozens of others. Full Faith and Credit zooms in on that point, liberates it from partisan programs and political orientations, expands it, explores it, and explains it. The book examines key dimensions of our national life--from a military-industrial complex more menacing than even Eisenhower could have imagined to a Tower of Babel tax code that covertly translates taxes into secret subsidies. With the aim of converting bystanders into informed advocates of change, Full Faith and Credit is rich with eye-opening data, surprising case studies, and you-can't-make-this-stuff-up examples: * For every official the United States public has elected, its government supports 5000 unelected employees. * $1 billion is the cost to destroy $16 billion in ammunition unneeded by the U.S. military. * $20,973,890,000 is the total taxpayer cost to the Treasury of gambling losses deducted by millionaires. With easy-to-follow graphs and charts, as well as 20 uproarious full-color editorial cartoons drawn from the prior work of Pulitzer Prize--winning artist Michael Ramirez, Full Faith and Credit locates the tipping point of the $19.4 trillion (and counting) national debt crisis and offers ideas on how to fix it.

Few leadership titles have been written on the lives of women. Alan Axelrod, noted historian and business management expert, reveals how Elizabeth I overcame daunting obstacles to win intense loyalty and lead England to greatness. The queen's long reign offers lessons on: developing a leadership attitude and image enhanced by personal dynamism; becoming an effective coach and mentor skilled at nurturing creativity; manipulating others -- subtly and ethically and knowing and anticipating the "enemy."

How did Elizabeth meet the challenges that faced her, managing not only to stay alive and keep her imperiled nation afloat, but also to win the intense loyalty of her people and lead England to greatness? Historians and biographers have offered many explanations. Elizabeth I, CEO takes a fresh view, exploring issues that are relevant to leaders -- especially business leaders -- of today.