"All American is riveting and grand-that rare pairing of exquisite writing and unassailable research. Crawford delivers you to an age when iconic titans like Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner marched across the planet, and he is the perfect guide to their enormous triumphs and tragedies. This is epic American history at its page-turning finest."
-Bill Minutaglio, author of City on Fire and First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty

He was the greatest football running back of his era, leading his Carlisle Indian Industrial School team to victory over all the great college powerhouses. King Gustav of Sweden called him "the greatest athlete in the world" after he won gold medals for the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympic Games. Yet Jim Thorpe was also at the center of the greatest sports scandal of the twentieth century-a scandal that took away his Olympic medals and banned him forever from intercollegiate sports.

Now, in this revealing new biography, Bill Crawford captures Jim Thorpe's remarkable rise and fall. From his youth on Oklahoma's Sac and Fox Indian reservation to his astounding feats on the gridiron, from his Olympic triumphs to his complex relationship with coach "Pop" Warner, who mentored, exploited, and ultimately betrayed him, All American brings you up close and personal with the greatest athlete of the twentieth century.

"This book adds immeasurably to our appreciation and understanding of the power the aural medium possesses to mirror and shape culture." -- Communication Booknotes Quarterly

From reviews of the first edition: "The magic of [a] wildly colorful chapter in broadcast history lives on in this entertainingly informative look at the forces and the people who contributed to the rise of the medium." -- Chicago Tribune "Characters like Wolfman Jack, Reverend Ike, Norman Baker, "Dr." J. R. Brinkley, Pappy O'Daniel and others were master showmen and tremendously successful salesmen. Secret-formula medicines, magic prayer cloths, Crazy Water Crystals, and goat-gland rejuvenations are just part of this often hilarious telling of this outrageous period in broadcast history." -- Variety "If you're wondering where Herbalife, Home Shopping Network, No-Money-Down Seminars, and Jim and Tammy Bakker found their inspiration and techniques, look no further than this superb book." -- Dallas Morning News

Before the Internet brought the world together, there was border radio. These mega-watt "border blaster" stations, set up just across the Mexican border to evade U.S. regulations, beamed programming across the United States and as far away as South America, Japan, and Western Europe.

This book traces the eventful history of border radio from its founding in the 1930s by "goat-gland doctor" J. R. Brinkley to the glory days of Wolfman Jack in the 1960s. Along the way, it shows how border broadcasters pioneered direct sales advertising, helped prove the power of electronic media as a political tool, aided in spreading the popularity of country music, rhythm and blues, and rock, and laidthe foundations for today's electronic church. The authors have revised the text to include even more first-hand information and a larger selection of photographs.

The death penalty is one of the most hotly contested and longest-standing issues in American politics, and no place is more symbolic of that debate than Texas. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, Texas has put more than 390 prisoners to death, far more than any other US state. "Texas Death Row" puts faces to those condemned men and women, with stark and strangely engaging details on their crimes, sentencing, last meals and last words. Definitive, objective and compulsively readable, "Texas Death Row" will provide ample fuel for readers on both sides of the death penalty debate.

Johnny Depp. Marilyn Monroe. Marlon Brando. Leonardo DiCaprio. Woody Allen. Shanron Stone. What do all of these actors have in common? They're outrageous, receive huge salaries, have enormous agos, and have way too much spare time. Their out-of-control lifestyles prove that, as one Hollywood observer noted, "Hollywood is a trip through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat."
You'll learn which director was furious when he was misquoted as saying, "Actors are cattle." He clamed he had really said, "Actors should be treated as cattle."
You'll discover that Bruce Wilis ordered the final scenes in Striking Distance to be re-shot at a cost of over $750,000 because the original shots exposed his toupee.
You'll find that Melanie Griffith explained her ignorance of the Nazi holocaust by saying, "I don't know why I didn't know. Maybe I missed school that day...I'm not stupid."
Whether you're a fan of Hugh Grant, Dennis Hopper, or Whoopi Goldberg, you'll learn about all of the embarrassing moments in your favorite star's life. From young actors like Ben Affleck and Cameron Diaz to screen legends like Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, "Movie Stars Do the Dumbest Things" is proof that actors are more childish and impulsive than you've ever imagined.

Aerosmith. Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson. Nine Inch Nails. Ozzy Osbourne. U2. What do all of these artists have in common? They're rich and rowdy rock 'n' roll renegades whose wild stunts, dumb quotes, and out-of-control lifestyles are featured in" Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things."
--Where else will you find an explanation (goodness knows, we need one) of the Spice Girls' fourteen and one-half minutes of fame straight from the mouths of babes--Baby Spice, that is? "We're like a religious cult."
--Or where will you learn Izzy Stradlin's (of Guns N' Roses) deep thoughts on the virtues of vomiting out of a bus going sixty-five miles an hour?
--And how live octopuses end up in a bathtub with Led Zepplin's female playmates?
Whether you're a Metallica or Madonna fan, you'll get plenty of jaw-dropping facts and anecdotes, along with biographical and career highlights of over eighty-eight raunchy rock 'n' rollers.
From current starts like Marilyn Manson and Courtney Love, to classic rockers like the Rolling Stones and the Eagles, " Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things" is proof that rock music is still crazy after all these years.

His blistering guitar playing breathed life back into the blues. Performing night after night - from his early teens to his tragic death at age thirty-five, in tiny pass-the-hat clubs and before thousands in huge arenas - Stevie Ray Vaughan fused blazing technique with deep soul in a manner unrivaled since the days of Jimi Hendrix. The genuineness and passion of his music moved millions. It nearly saved his life. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire is the first biography of this meteoric guitar hero. Emerging from the hotbed of Texas blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan developed his unique style early on, in competition with his older brother, Jimmie Vaughan, founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds - a competition that shaped much of Stevie's life. Fueled by drugs and alcohol through a thousand one-night stands, he lived at a fever pitch that nearly destroyed him. Musically exhausted and close to collapse, in his final years Stevie Ray mustered the courage to overcome his addictions, finding strength and inspiration in a new emotional openness. His death in a freak helicopter crash in 1990 silenced one of the great musical talents of our time. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire reveals Stevie Ray Vaughan's life in all its remarkable, sometimes unsavory detail. It also brings to life the rich world of Texas music out of which he grew, and captures the staggering dimensions of his musical legacy. It will stand as the definitive biographical portrait of Stevie Ray.