'It's a rollicking tale that brings to life the antic atmosphere of America in the 'Me' Decade' Wall Street Journal 'A madcap chase... this is a well-written chronicle of 28 months when the world went slightly mad' Sunday Times 'A suitably head-spinning account of LSD High Priest Dr Timothy Leary' Mail on Sunday On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius IQ studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies. Antiwar demonstrators are massing by the tens of thousands; homemade bombs are exploding everywhere; Black Panther leaders are threatening to burn down the White House; and all the while Nixon obsesses over tracking down Timothy Leary, whom he has branded "the most dangerous man in America." Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA is an American thriller that takes readers along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning twenty-eight months, President Nixon's careening, global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture.

More than the lifeblood of our natural world, Texas rivers have nourished the human spirit for as long as people have gathered on their banks. A living bond has flowed between Texas writers and rivers ever since the 1960 publication of John Graves's classic journey along the Brazos, Goodbye to a River.Many of Texas' leading writers have had their hearts captured by a river, and they have created sparkling accounts of the waterways they love. Now, editors Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester have assembled the best of those works into a revelatory collection of diverse literary voices. Ranging from the desert canyonlands of the Rio Grande to the swampy Big Thicket, from crystal clear Hill Country streams to the Red River's treacherous quicksand, Viva Texas Rivers! showcases many classic writings along with brand new essays written for this volume. The literary nonfiction is complemented by flashes of poetry that brilliantly reflect these curving ribbons of light. Authoritative and expertly edited, Viva Texas Rivers! offers shimmering accounts of hidden paradises, as well as searing exposEs of abuse and despoliation. Yet even in the bleakest times, as these writers have found, Texas rivers can bestow a sacred grace -and unexpected redemption. Viva Texas Rivers! brings you as close to the living nirvana of a Texas River as you can get without launching yourself into a canoe and following a great blue heron as it glides just above the breaking rapids, leading you around the bend as the river flows onward toward the best places in our hearts.

At the height of the sixties, a group of Texas writers stood apart from Texas's conservative establishment. Calling themselves the Mad Dogs, these six writers-Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, and Peter Gent-closely observed the effects of the Vietnam War; the Kennedy assassination; the rapid population shift from rural to urban environments; Lyndon Johnson's rise to national prominence; the Civil Rights Movement; Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboys; Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and the new Outlaw music scene; the birth of a Texas film industry; Texas Monthly magazine; the flowering of "Texas Chic"; and Ann Richards's election as governor. In Texas Literary Outlaws, Steven L. Davis makes extensive use of untapped literary archives to weave a fascinating portrait of writers who came of age during a period of rapid social change. Despite their popular image, the Mad Dogs were deadly serious as they turned their gaze on their home state, and they chronicled Texas culture with daring, wit, and sophistication.

From Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, authors of the PEN Center USA award-winning DALLAS 1963, comes a madcap narrative about Timothy Leary's daring prison escape and run from the law.

On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius IQ studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes.

The first Texas-based writer to gain national attention, J. Frank Dobie proved that authentic writing springs easily from the native soil of Texas and the Southwest. In best-selling books such as Tales of Old-Time Texas, Coronado's Children, and The Longhorns, Dobie captured the Southwest's folk history, which was quickly disappearing as the United States became ever more urbanized and industrial. Renowned as "Mr. Texas," Dobie paradoxically has almost disappeared from view-a casualty of changing tastes in literature and shifts in social and political attitudes since the 1960s. In this lively biography, Steven L. Davis takes a fresh look at a J. Frank Dobie whose "liberated mind" set him on an intellectual journey that culminated in Dobie becoming a political liberal who fought for labor, free speech, and civil rights well before these causes became acceptable to most Anglo Texans. Tracing the full arc of Dobie's life (1888-1964), Davis shows how Dobie's insistence on "free-range thinking" led him to such radical actions as calling for the complete integration of the University of Texas during the 1940s, as well as taking on governors, senators, and the FBI (which secretly investigated him) as Texas's leading dissenter during the McCarthy era.

In November 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His death remains a defining moment for millions of people but few understand the unstoppable forces that were building in the city long before this dramatic event played out before the world. Dallas 1963 is a riveting account of the convergence of a group of unyielding and highly focused protagonists in a city sometimes seemingly filled with hate for JFK. Wicked stabs of fate and circumstance steered these fascinating characters together: the richest man in the world, a combative military general, a Mafia don, a strident Congressman, thundering preachers and even the elegant owner of one of America's most famous stores. This book expertly narrates how the spiralling events surrounding these characters on the ground in Dallas ultimately brewed a toxic environment before the President's assassination. Using a wealth of new information, as well as the first ever examination of key primary documents, Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, both experts in their field, provide a comprehensive and detailed portrait of the place, the time and the people of these extraordinary events in American history. They also provide cautionary and controversial lessons rendering this time increasingly relevant for the modern age.

This study offers a broad conceptual and operational framework for a prompt global strike capability. It begins by establishing the historical context through the examination of preceding efforts to develop systems and technologies that could have supported prompt global strike operations. Next, it examines the capabilities of current and future systems including Conventional Ballistic Missiles, the Space Operations Vehicle, and hypersonic aircraft to conduct prompt global strike missions in order to develop a useful operational framework. Using this framework, the thesis then focuses on the broader implications of a rapid global strike capability. Specifically, it examines how well prompt global strike systems fit into existing Air Force doctrine and operational concepts. This study then examines some of the larger, strategic benefits of a prompt global strike system to include the potential coercive effects on adversaries. Finally, the thesis concludes with a summary of the major findings and conclusions and a series of recommendations on the next steps to take on the evolutionary path to a space and air force.

Edwin "Bud" Shrake is one of the most intriguing literary talents to emerge from Texas. He has written vividly in fiction and nonfiction about everything from the early days of the Texas Republic to the making of the atomic bomb. His real gift has been to capture the Texas Zeitgeist. Legendary Harper's Magazine editor Willie Morris called Shrake's essay "Land of the Permanent Wave" one of the two best pieces Morris ever published during his tenure at the magazine. High praise, indeed, when one considers that Norman Mailer and Seymour Hersh were just two of the luminaries featured at Harper's during Morris's reign.

This anthology is the first to present and explore Shrake's writing completely, including his journalism, fiction, and film work, both published and previously unpublished. The collection makes innovative use of his personal papers and letters to explore the connections between his journalism and his novels, between his life and his art. An exceptional behind-the-scenes look at his life, Land of the Permanent Wave reveals and reveres the life and calling of a writer whose legacy continues to influence and engage readers and writers nearly fifty years into his career.

Texas has always staked a large claim on the nation's imagination, and its mystery literature is no exception. Hundreds of crime novels are set within the state, most of which have been published in the last twenty years. From the highest point atop the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas to the Piney Woods of East Texas, from the High Plains of the Panhandle to the subtropical climate of the lower Rio Grande Valley, mystery writers have covered every aspect of Texas's extraordinarily diverse geography.

The first book to emphasize the wealth of Texas's mystery writers and the images they convey of the state's wide range of regions and cultures, Lone Star Sleuths is a noteworthy introduction not only to the literary genre but also to a sense of Texas as a place in fiction. Celebrating a genre that has expanded to include women and an increasing diversity of cultures, the book features selections from the works of such luminaries as Kinky Friedman and Mary Willis Walker, lesser-known stars in the making, and even some outsiders like Nevada Barr and Carolyn Hart who have succumbed to the allure of the state's weather, geography, and colorful history.

Lone Star Sleuths captures the sense of place that distinguishes much of the great literature set in Texas, and is a must-read for mystery lovers.