This is the first book to examine the deadly history and potential apocalyptic future of both natural and man-made lethal gases that threaten our world. Fatal Airs: The Deadly History and Apocalyptic Future of Lethal Gases That Threaten Our World relates the fascinating—and appalling—stories of the discovery, development, applications, and occupational and public health hazards of natural and man-made gases. Some of these gases have figured in mass extinctions. Others have created havoc through their use in chemical warfare or their accidental release. Among the hundreds of man-made lethal gases, several have been singled out for attention, including chlorine, phosgene, mustard gas, lewisite, hydrogen cyanide, and the nerve agents tabun, sarin, soman, VX, and methyl isocyanate. The book also examines some naturally occurring gases, such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, methane, and radon. Colorful accounts capture the characteristics and history of each of these mysterious substances, focusing on key episodes in scientific discovery and exploration since World War I.

In 2003 Governor George Ryan cleared Illinois' death row, pardoning four death penalty inmates who said their confessions had been tortured out of them. He then commuted the death sentences of the remaining 156 death-row inmates to life in prison - a move unprecedented since capital punishment was reinstated in America. But Ryan's move was only the most dramatic at a time when it seems that everyday we read of a new prisoner released because of new evidence, police misconduct, or a host of other miscarriages of justice. While the American legal system is based on the tenet that accused persons are considered innocent until proven guilty, a close look at many cases reveal that this is often far from the truth. story of just such wrongful conviction cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds of internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases and displays them through documents and images of the people and evidence involved. He reveals the mistakes, abuses and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, including the presumption of guilt, mistaken identification, eyewitness perjury, ineffective assistance of counsel, police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, and forensics, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates and journalists struggled against tremendous odds to win their exonerations. their innocence to the courts. Others have had their convictions reversed and the charges against them dismissed, and still others have been awarded civil damages after the state conceded their innocence. The result is a brief and powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and reminds us that wrongful convictions can - and do - happen.

Innocent graphically documents forty-two recent criminal cases to find evidence of shocking miscarriages of justice, especially in murder cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda, and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases, revealing the mistakes, abuses, and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates, and journalists struggle against tremendous odds to try to win their exonerations.

The result is a powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and shows us how wrongful convictions can--and do--happen everywhere.

"Startling."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Unusually intimate and powerful."
--New York Times

"A slim volume of indelible impressions. . . . Highly recommended."
--Library Journal

"Gripping. . . . I could not put this book down."
--Jimmy Breslin

"Masterfully opens pathways for thought."
--The Nation

"If the initial response to Christianson's book and exhibit are any indication, Condemned may further erode support for capital punishment."
--Village Voice

"The important achievement of Condemned is not in theorizing about the death penalty . . . it is in forcing the reader to look at it up close and thus get a firmer sense of what it really, truly is. If you favor the death penalty, you ought to know exactly what it is you favor. Based on the book, I will tell you this: It is a horror."
--Scripps Howard News Service

"This is a rare book-haunting fragments from the lives of men and women on their way to the electric chair. A moving and troubling epitaph for the guilty and perhaps the innocent."
"--William Kennedy, author of Ironweed"

In the annals of American criminal justice, two prisons stand out as icons of institutionalized brutality and deprivation: Alcatraz and Sing Sing. In the 70 odd years before 1963, when the death sentence was declared unconstitutional in New York, Sing Sing was the site of almost one-half of the 1,353 executions carried out in the state. More people were executed at Sing Sing than at any other American prison, yet Sing Sing's death house was, to a remarkable extent, one of the most closed, secret and mythologized places in modern America.

In this remarkable book, based on recently revealed archivalmaterials, Scott Christianson takes us on a disturbing and poignant tour of Sing Sing's legendary death house, and introduces us to those whose lives Sing Sing claimed. Within the dusty files were mug shots of each newly arrived prisoner, most still wearing the out-to-court clothes they had on earlier that day when they learned their verdict and were sentenced to death. It is these sometimes bewildered, sometimes defiant, faces that fill the pages of Condemned, along with the documents of their last months at Sing Sing.

The reader follows prisoners from their introduction to the rules of Sing Sing, through their contact with guards and psychiatrists, their pleas for clemency, escape attempts, resistance, and their final letters and messages before being put to death. We meet the mother of five accused of killing her husband, the two young Chinese men accused of a murder during a robbery and the drifter who doesn't remember killing at all. While the majority of inmates are everyday people, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were also executed here, as were the major figures in the infamous Murder Inc., forerunner of the American mafia. Page upon page, Condemned leaves an indelible impression of humanity and suffering.

"Freeing Charles" recounts the life and epic rescue of captured fugitive slave Charles Nalle of Culpeper, Virginia, who was forcibly liberated by Harriet Tubman and others in Troy, New York, on April 27, 1860. Scott Christianson follows Nalle from his enslavement by the Hansborough family in Virginia through his escape by the Underground Railroad and his experiences in the North on the eve of the Civil War. This engaging narrative represents the first in-depth historical study of this crucial incident, one of the fiercest anti-slavery riots after Harpers Ferry. Christianson also presents a richly detailed look at slavery culture in antebellum Virginia and probes the deepest political and psychological aspects of this epic tale. His account underscores fundamental questions about racial inequality, the rule of law, civil disobedience, and violent resistance to slavery in the antebellum North and South. As seen in New York Times and on C-Span's Book TV.

The Knight must restore his honor; a Princess must save her Kingdom. A powerful weapon called the Scepter has been broken and the pieces scattered across the lands. The Evil Dark Sorcerer wants it for himself and will stop at nothing to get it. The Knight must protect the Princess while she searches for the Scepter. Then she must unite the pieces together to form the mighty weapon to save her Kingdom. Will the Evil Dark Sorcerer and his Black Knight, who commands the armies of Orcs, Goblins, and Dragons prevail and conquer all that is good. Or with the help of a Dwarf, a Thief a Wizard and the Armies of Pathano's can the Princess and the White Knight restore the Scepter and save the Kingdoms of Kantara? Maybe...Just Maybe read on and found out if you dare.

"The Last Gasp "takes us to the dark side of human history in the first full chronicle of the gas chamber in the United States. In page-turning detail, award-winning writer Scott Christianson tells a dreadful story that is full of surprising and provocative new findings. First constructed in Nevada in 1924, the gas chamber, a method of killing sealed off and removed from the sight and hearing of witnesses, was originally touted as a "humane" method of execution. Delving into science, war, industry, medicine, law, and politics, Christianson overturns this mythology for good. He exposes the sinister links between corporations looking for profit, the military, and the first uses of the gas chamber after World War I. He explores little-known connections between the gas chamber and the eugenics movement. Perhaps most controversially, he has unearthed new evidence about American and German collaboration in the production and lethal use of hydrogen cyanide and about Hitler's adoption of gas chamber technology developed in the United States. More than a book about the death penalty, this compelling history ultimately reveals much about America's values and power structures in the twentieth century.

"The Last Gasp "takes us to the dark side of human history in the first full chronicle of the gas chamber in the United States. In page-turning detail, award-winning writer Scott Christianson tells a dreadful story that is full of surprising and provocative new findings. First constructed in Nevada in 1924, the gas chamber, a method of killing sealed off and removed from the sight and hearing of witnesses, was originally touted as a "humane" method of execution. Delving into science, war, industry, medicine, law, and politics, Christianson overturns this mythology for good. He exposes the sinister links between corporations looking for profit, the military, and the first uses of the gas chamber after World War I. He explores little-known connections between the gas chamber and the eugenics movement. Perhaps most controversially, he has unearthed new evidence about American and German collaboration in the production and lethal use of hydrogen cyanide and about Hitler's adoption of gas chamber technology developed in the United States. More than a book about the death penalty, this compelling history ultimately reveals much about America's values and power structures in the twentieth century.