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Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates

Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates

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Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy's "Golden Age" - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. "Deftly blending scholarship and drama" (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a "tour de force history" (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.
Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America's Politics Forever

Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America's Politics Forever

$37.00
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A riveting new work and a fresh take on 1960 and the dramatic 11 months leading up to a deeply relevant election for the ages

It's January 2nd, 1960: the day that Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy declared his candidacy, and with this opening scene, Chris Wallace offers readers a front row seat to history. From the challenge of primary battles in a nation that had never elected a Catholic president, to the intense machinations of the national conventions - where JFK chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate over the impassioned objections of his brother Bobby - this is a nonfiction political thriller filled with intrigue, cinematic action, and fresh reporting. Like many popular histories, readers will be familiar with the story, but few will know the behind-the-scenes details, told here with gripping effect.

Featuring some of history's most remarkable characters, page-turning action, and vivid details, Countdown 1960 follows a group of extraordinary politicians, civil rights leaders, Hollywood stars, labor bosses, and mobsters during a pivotal year in American history. The election of 1960 ushered in the modern era of presidential politics, with televised debates, private jets, and slick advertising. In fact, television played a massive role. It allowed voters to see the candidates' appearances. More than 75 million Americans watched one or all four debates. The public turned to television to watch campaign rallies. And on the night of the election, the contest between Kennedy and Nixon was so close that Americans were glued to their televisions long after dawn to see who won.

1960 was a deeply contentious, perilous time for America. It also was a moment our nation survived due to courage, leadership, and patriotism.

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

$28.00
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John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry's story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world--and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction - An NPR Best Book of the Year - A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year - A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Year - A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year - A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist

"With narrative elan, Egan gives us a riveting saga of how a predatory con man became one of the most powerful people in 1920s America, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, with a plan to rule the country--and how a grisly murder of a woman brought him down. Compelling and chillingly resonant with our own time." --Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile

"Riveting...Egan is a brilliant researcher and lucid writer." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them.

The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.

Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he'd become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows - their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman - Madge Oberholtzer - who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.

A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.

Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

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How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.

Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling--mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues--have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.

An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent--and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

Lafayette In America, In 1824 And 1825: Or, Journal Of Travels, In The United States

Lafayette In America, In 1824 And 1825: Or, Journal Of Travels, In The United States

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This book offers an eyewitness account of the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to America in 1824 and 1825. Written by one of his entourage, it provides a unique perspective on the life and times of one of the most famous men of the early nineteenth century.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Life of Charles Dickens

Life of Charles Dickens

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Charles John Huffam Dickens, English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

This is Dickens' authoritative and seminal early biography by his close friend John Forster who knew everything about him and knew him extremely well in person.

Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder

Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder

$30.00
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A GOODREADS READER'S CHOICE AWARD FINALIST

From the #1 bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God, a jaw-dropping discovery of an Egyptian tomb opens up a slew of archaeological mysteries and deadly tales.

What's it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that's been sealed for thousands of years? What horrifying secret was found among the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest? Who really was the infamous the Monster of Florence?

From the jungles of Honduras to macabre archaeological sites in the American Southwest, Douglas Preston's explorations have taken him across the globe. The Lost Tomb brings together a compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present.

Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America's National Capital Region

Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America's National Capital Region

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Walk in the footsteps of the Marquis de Lafayette as he makes a final trip through the young United States.

Against the backdrop of a tumultuous election, a beloved hero of the American Revolution returned to America for the first time in forty years. From August 1824 to September 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette traveled throughout the United States, welcomed by thousands of admirers at each stop along the way. Although the tour brought him to each state in the Union, the majority of his time was spent in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.

Public historian Elizabeth Reese traces Lafayette's route throughout the National Capital Region, highlighting the locations and people the famous General held closest to his heart.

Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

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2024 Winner, Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, The Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute - One of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2023 - Named a Booklist Editors' Choice in History: Adult Books, 2023 - Finalist, Writing Based on Archival Material: National Jewish Book Awards - Finalist, Sophie Brody Medal, American Library Association

"[Kessler] has done an exceptional job and opened new vistas on troubles past and present." --

Wall Street Journal

"Kessler's history is key to understanding the current situation between Israelis and Palestinians." --Booklist, Starred Review

A gripping, profoundly human, yet even-handed narrative of the origins of the Middle East conflict, with enduring resonance and relevance for our time.

In spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives--Jewish, British, and Arab--and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly, no history of this seminal, formative first "Intifada" has ever been published for a general audience.

The 1936-1939 revolt was the crucible in which Palestinian identity coalesced, uniting rival families, city and country, rich and poor in a single struggle for independence. Yet the rebellion would ultimately turn on itself, shredding the social fabric, sidelining pragmatists in favor of extremists, and propelling waves of refugees from their homes. British forces' aggressive counterinsurgency took care of the rest, finally quashing the uprising on the eve of World War II. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the Arabs themselves, leaving them crippled in facing the Jews' own drive for statehood a decade later.

To the Jews, the insurgency would leave a very different legacy. It was then that Zionist leaders began to abandon illusions over Arab acquiescence, to face the unnerving prospect that fulfilling their dream of sovereignty might mean forever clinging to the sword. The revolt saw thousands of Jews trained and armed by Britain--the world's supreme military power--turning their ramshackle guard units into the seed of a formidable Jewish army. And it was then, amid carnage in Palestine and the Hitler menace in Europe, that portentous words like "partition" and "Jewish state" first appeared on the international diplomatic agenda.

This is the story of two national movements and the first sustained confrontation between them. The rebellion was Arab, but the Zionist counter-rebellion--the Jews' military, economic, and psychological transformation--is a vital, overlooked element in the chronicle of how Palestine became Israel.

Today, eight decades on, the revolt's legacy endures. Hamas's armed wing and rockets carry the name of the fighter-preacher whose death sparked the 1936 rebellion. When Israel builds security barriers, sets up checkpoints, or razes homes, it is evoking laws and methods inherited from its British predecessor. And when Washington promotes a "two-state solution," it is invoking a plan with roots in this same pivotal period.

Based on extensive archival research on three continents and in three languages, Palestine 1936 is the origin story of the world's most intractable conflict, but it is also more than that. In Oren Kessler's engaging, journalistic voice, it reveals world-changing events through extraordinary individuals on all sides: their loves and their hatreds, their deepest fears and profoundest hopes.

Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Roots: The Saga of an American Family

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Based off of the bestselling author's family history, this novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, who is sold into slavery in the United States where he and his descendants live through major historic events.

When Roots was first published forty years ago, the book electrified the nation: it received a Pulitzer Prize and was a #1 New York Times bestseller for 22 weeks. The celebrated miniseries that followed a year later was a coast-to-coast event-over 130 million Americans watched some or all of the broadcast. In the four decades since then, the story of the young African slave Kunta Kinte and his descendants has lost none of its power to enthrall and provoke.

Now, Roots once again bursts onto the national scene, and at a time when the race conversation has never been more charged. It is a book for the legions of earlier readers to revisit and for a new generation to discover.

To quote from the introduction by Michael Eric Dyson: "Alex Haley's Roots is unquestionably one of the nation's seminal texts. It affected events far beyond its pages and was a literary North Star.... Each generation must make up its own mind about how it will navigate the treacherous waters of our nation's racial sin. And each generation must overcome our social ills through greater knowledge and decisive action. Roots is a stirring reminder that we can achieve these goals only if we look history squarely in the face."

The star- studded cast in this new event series includes Academy Award-winners Forest Whitaker and Anna Paquin, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Derek Luke, Grammy Award-winner Tip "T.I." Harris, and Mekhi Phifer. Questlove of The Roots is the executive music producer for the miniseries's stirring soundtrack.

These Truths: A History of the United States

These Truths: A History of the United States

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Widely hailed for its "sweeping, sobering account of the American past" (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore's one-volume history of America places truth itself--a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence--at the center of the nation's history. The American experiment rests on three ideas--"these truths," Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation's truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. "A nation born in contradiction... will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.