Best of
American-History

1984

Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh


James Alexander Thom - 1984
    Rich, colorful and bursting with excitement, this remarkable story turns James Alexander Thom's power and passion for American history to the epic story of Tecumseh's life and give us a heart-thumping novel of one man's magnificent destiny--to unite his people in the struggle to save their land and their way of life from the relentless press of the white settlers.

The Good War: An Oral History of World War II


Studs Terkel - 1984
    No matter how gruesome the memories are, relatively few of the interviewees said they would have been better off without the experience. It was a central and formative experience in their lives. Although 400,000 Americans perished, the United States itself was not attacked again after Pearl Harbor, the economy grew, and there was a new sense of world power that invigorated the country. Some women and African Americans experienced new freedoms in the post war society, but good life after World War II was tarnished by the threat of nuclear war.

From Sea to Shining Sea


James Alexander Thom - 1984
    This powerfully written book recreates the warm life of the family, the dangers of the battlefield, the grueling journeys across an untamed wilderness, and the soul-stirring Lewis and Clark Expedition. This mighty epic is a fitting tribute to the wisdom and courage of Ann Rogers Clark, her husband John, and the ten sons and daughters they nurtured and inspired.

Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters


Thomas Jefferson - 1984
    Thomas Jefferson, a brilliant political thinker, is perhaps best known for the Declaration of Independence, but he was a man of extraordinarily wide interests.He was exceptionally controversial in his own time, and many of his ideas remain the subject of national debate. In his arguments for a system of general education, for local rather than central authority, for caution in international affairs, for religious and intellectual freedom, and for economic and social justice, Jefferson defined the issues that still direct our national political life centuries after the nation's formation. This volume will give readers the opportunity to reassess one of our most influential presidents.Jefferson's First Inaugural Address is a resounding statement of faith in a democracy of enlightened people. His Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) is an invaluable record of the landscape, inhabitants, life, and daily customs of America in the Revolutionary and early national eras. His letters, more than two hundred and fifty of which are gathered here, are brilliant urbane missives to such men as Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Lafayette, John Adams and James Madison. His slim Autobiography (1821), written "for my own more ready reference, and for the information of my family," hardly hints at the influence and impact he had as Secretary of State under George Washington, Minister to France, opposition-party Vice President to John Adams, and, after leaving the presidency, founder of the University of Virginia.His public papers and addresses fully demonstrate both the breadth of his interests and the power of his expressive mind. Extensively read (his personal library of ten thousand volumes became the foundation of the Library of Congress) and widely traveled, Jefferson wrote with ease and spontaneity about science, archaeology, botany and gardening, religion, literature, architecture, education, the habits of his fellow citizens, and, of course, his beloved home, Monticello.Jefferson's prose has an energy, clarity, and charming off-handedness, consistent with his conviction that style in writing should impose no barrier between the most educated and the most common reader. For those who want a renewed sense of the opportunity for human freedom that the United States represented to its founders, this is an indispensable book.

Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans


Wallace Terry - 1984
    An oral history unlike any other, BLOODS features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off in disproportionate numbers and the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, BLOODS is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective.Cited by THE NEW YORK TIMES as One of the Notable Books of the Year"Superb."TIME

A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge


Charles B. MacDonald - 1984
    forces in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, achieveing what had been considered impossible -- total surprise. In the most abysmal failure of battlefield intelligence in the history of the U.S. Army, 600,000 American soldiers found themselves facing Hitler's last desperate effort of the war.The brutal confrontation that ensued became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the greatest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army -- a triumph of American ingenuity and dedication over an egregious failure in strategic intelligence. A Time for Trumpets is the definitive account of this dramatic victory, told by one of America's most respected military historians, who was also an eyewitness: MacDonald commanded a rifle company in the Battle of the Bulge. His account of this unique battle is exhaustively researched, honestly recounted, and movingly authentic in its depiction of hand-to-hand combat.Mingling firsthand experience with the insights of a distinguished historian, MacDonald places this profound human drama unforgettably on the landscape of history.

Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn


Evan S. Connell - 1984
    On the ridge five companies of United States cavalry - 262 soldiers, comprising officers and troopers - fought desperately but hopelessly. When the guns fell silent, no soldier - including their commanding officer, Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer - had survived. Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as 'one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers', wrote what continues to be the most reliable - and compulsively readable - account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his research and novelist's eye for story and detail to re-create the heroism, foolishness and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.

The Twentieth Century: A People's History


Howard Zinn - 1984
    Containing just the twentieth-century chapters from Howard Zinn's bestselling A People's History of the United States, this revised and updated edition includes two new chapters -- covering Clinton's presidency, the 2000 Election, and the "war on terrorism."Highlighting not just the usual terms of presidential administrations and congressional activities, this book provides you with a "bottom-to-top" perspective, giving voice to our nation's minorities and letting the stories of such groups as African Americans, women, Native Americans, and the laborers of all nationalities be told in their own words.

The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway


John B. Lundstrom - 1984
    From the earliest operations in the Pacific through the decisive Battle of Midway, it offers a narrative account of how ace fighter pilots like Jimmy Thach and Butch O'Hare and their skilled VF squadron mates--called the first team--amassed a remarkable combat record in the face of desperate odds. Tapping both American and Japanese sources, historian John B. Lundstrom reconstructs every significant action and places these extraordinary fighters within the context of overall carrier operations. He writes from the viewpoint of the pilots themselves, after interviewing some fifty airmen from each side, to give readers intimate details of some of the most exciting aerial engagements of the war. At the same time he assesses the role the fighter squadrons played in key actions and shows how innovations in fighter tactics and gunnery techniques were a primary reason for the reversal of American fortunes. After more than twenty years in print, the book remains the definitive account and is being published in paperback for the first time to reach an even larger audience.

My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk about Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in North Carolina


Belinda Hurmence - 1984
    More than 2000 slave narratives are now housed in the Library of Congress. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection. These narratives, though artless in many ways, speak compellingly of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and dreams, of the countless people who endured human bondage in the land of the free.

The Best of Norman Rockwell


Norman Rockwell - 1984
    Rockwell senior, who said he depicted life “as I would like it to be,” chronicled iconic visions of American life: the Thanksgiving turkey, soda fountains, ice skating on the pond, and small-town boys playing baseball-not to mention the beginning of the civil rights movement. Now, the best-selling collection of Rockwell’s most beloved illustrations, organized by decade, is available in a refreshed edition. With more than 150 images-oil paintings, watercolors, and rare black-and-white sketches--this is an uncommonly faithful Rockwell treasury. The original edition has sold nearly 200,000 copies.

Square Meals: America's Favorite Comfort Cookbook


Jane Stern - 1984
    150 photos.

Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990


Manning Marable - 1984
    It reflected two perspectives, the thoughts of the social historian, and the commentary of the political theorist and social activist among African-Americans in the post-1975 period. This book elaborates and expands these theories in light of the developments that have occurred in the 1980s.

"The Rest of Us": The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews


Stephen Birmingham - 1984
    These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the “old country” to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined, and in no time they were moving up from the ghetto tenements of New York’s Lower East Side to make their marks and their fortunes across the country in a variety of fields, from media and popular music to fashion, motion pictures, and even organized crime.   Among the unforgettable personages author Stephen Birmingham profiles are radio pioneer David Sarnoff, makeup mogul Helena Rubinstein, Hollywood tycoons Samuel Goldwyn and Harry Cohn, Broadway composer Irving Berlin, and mobster Meyer Lansky. From the author of “Our Crowd”, comes this treasure trove of fascinating tales and unforgettable “rags-to-riches” success stories that celebrates the indomitable spirit of a unique community.

Lee and Grant


Gene Smith - 1984
    Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Here are the two charismatic figures in their early years, in their roles as adversaries, and in their post-war lives.

Wee Sing America


Pamela Conn Beall - 1984
    The bestselling Wee Sing line is now tailored for the most modern Wee Sing fans These eight classic Wee Sing titles are now in a great new package--a book and CD in a reusable blister

Little Ship, Big War: The Saga of DE343


Edward P. Stafford - 1984
    This stirring tribute to The USS Abercrombie and her sister ships captures the wartime navy from the sailor's view.

Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise: The Story of Caladesi Island


Myrtle Scharrer Betz - 1984
    Her account of growing up on Caladesi Island is one of the richest portraits available of life in Florida when it truly was the natural, tropical paradise that tourists and residents alike can only dream of discovering today.Told with compelling honesty and humanity, this tale by the only child ever born on Caladesi Island captures the natural wonders, discomforts, challenges, and joys of pioneer life on a Florida West Coast barrier island, spanning the time from when her father, Henry Scharrer, first arrived in America from Switzerland in 1883 until his death in 1934.This new and enlarged edition includes more than 130 historic illustrations providing a visual legacy to complement Myrtle s narrative, and granddaughter Terry Fortner has added a timeline to clarify the history, extending to the years before and after the narrative itself.With wisdom, insight, and poetry, Myrtle Sharrer Betz has written a book that is sure to become a Florida treasure. In consideration of the future as well as preservation of the past, sales from the book support the Henry Scharrer Memorial Fund to underwrite projects at Caladesi and Honeymoon Island State Parks.

Long Time Passing, New Edition: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation


Myra MacPherson - 1984
    this stunning depiction of Vietnam's bitter fruit is calculated to agitate even the most complacent American." --Philadelphia Inquirer"There have been many books on the Vietnam War, but few have captured its second life as memory better than Long Time Passing." --Washington Post Book World"A most perceptive and fascinating account of the continuing impact of the Vietnam experience.... As this important book makes clear, we will be paying the costs for Vietnam for long years to come. Myra MacPherson not only lived through the Vietnam years, she writes with the insight of one still deeply caught up in the issues of that tragedy." --George McGovern"Enthralling reading... full of deep and strong emotions." --New York TimesThis new edition of a classic book on the impact of the Vietnam War on Americans reintroduces the haunted voices of the Vietnam era to a new generation of readers. In a new introduction, Myra MacPherson reflects on what has changed, and what hasn't, in the years since these interviews were conducted, explains the key points of reference from the 1980s that feature prominently in them, and brings the stories of her principal characters up-to-date.

World War II Order of Battle: An Encyclopedic Reference to U.S. Army Ground Forces from Battalion through Division, 1939-1946


Shelby L. Stanton - 1984
    Army World War II ground combat force units from battalion through division, 1939-1946 Weapons, equipment, vehicles, and combat photographs Thoroughly updated with newly uncovered unit data collected over the twenty years since publication of the original Order of Battle, U.S. Army, World War II Includes: Units Overseas Service Ports of Embarkation Insignia Combat Narratives Organizational Charts Campaigns Stateside Service Post, Camps, & Stations

Land of Bears and Honey: A Natural History of East Texas


Joe C. Truett - 1984
    Winner, Ottis Lock Endowment Award for the best book on East Texas, East Texas Historical Association, 1985 Texas Literary Festival Award for Nonfiction (Southwestern Booksellers Association & Dallas Times Herald), 1985 Annual Publication Award, Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society, 1984The story of the land, wildlife, and ecology of East Texas.

The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade


Judith Clavir Albert - 1984
    Rap Brown, Abbie Hoffman, and Robin Morgan, this volume brings together a wide range of material on one of the most turbulent decades in American history. The contributions are divided into five sections, covering ideas influential on the early New Left, the anti-war movement, SDS and Weathermen, the counterculture and Yippies and the the women's movement. The book surveys all the major issues that concerned the sixties generation, and offers a unique documentary history of the period.

Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story


Paul G. Zolbrod - 1984
    Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition.Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking at our literary heritage.

Communists in Harlem during the Depression


Mark Naison - 1984
    Mark Naison describes how the party won the early endorsement of such people as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how its support of racial equality and integration impressed black intellectuals, including Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson.   This meticulously researched work, largely based on primary materials and interviews with leading black Communists from the 1930s, is the first to fully explore this provocative encounter between whites and blacks. It provides a detailed look at an exciting period of reform, as well as an intimate portrait of Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, at the high point of its influence and pride.

Art of the Carousel


Charlotte Dinger - 1984
    Accompanied by over 400 color photographs, a guide to the art of the carousel, or merry-go-round, traces its development by describing style variations and identifiable features of carousel animals.

Seattle Now and Then


Paul Dorpat - 1984
    hardcover

The Good War, Part 1 of 2


Studs Terkel - 1984
    Here are stories of one of the Andrews Sisters visiting a military hospital, and a young man recalling the awe General Patton inspired in his troops. Here too, are those who stayed at home: the relief workers, the big shots in Washington, the young men surrounded by a sudden supply of young women. And here are the accounts of the panic that struck the West Coast after Pearl Harbor—and the full story of "the Bomb," told by a scientist who developed it and the pilot who dropped it. Terkel spoke not only with Americans, but also with those who lived through the war in Japan, Russia, Germany, England and France. He shows us both sides of the war, what it was like to shell as well as to be shelled.

Aftermath: A Soldier's Return from Vietnam


Frederick Downs - 1984
    Every soldier who fought in Vietnam was changed by the war. Frederick Downs, Jr. served in the infantry, patrolling the jungles until his left arm was blown off & the rest of his body mutilated. He had stepped on the trigger of a land mine on January 11, 1968. That story was told in The Killing Zone, published in 1978. He nearly died, but by sheer will he was able to rekindle a remarkable spirit that carried him forth into a new life. There were daily operations & weeks of wracking pain. This is the story of how one man put his life together again after he left the hospital.

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation


David F. Noble - 1984
    David Noble argues that industrial automation--more than merely a technological advance--is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.

Laurette


Marguerite Courtney - 1984
    With surprising candor and objectivity, it captures the paradoxical nature of a complicated woman and artist. Her two marriages, her love affair with John Gilbert, and her attitudes as a mother are described with compassion, yet unflinchingly honesty.Especially interesting is Mrs. Courtney's ability to convey in print the stage techniques of a professional whose special magic affected all who saw her, from early road-company days through Peg O' My Heart and Outward Bound, to her final exquisite creation Amanda in the Glass Menagerie

Payback: Five Marines After Vietnam


Joe Klein - 1984
    In what has been called “the most eloquent work of nonfiction to emerge from Vietnam since Michael Herr’s Dispatches” (The New York Times), Joe Klein tells Cooper’s story, as well as the stories of four of the other vets in Cooper’s platoon. The story begins with an ambush and a grisly battle in the Que Son Valley in 1967, but Payback is less about remembering the war and more about examining its long-term effects on the grunts who fought it. Klein fills in the next fifteen years of these Marines’ lives after they return home, with “the sort of fine and private detail one ordinarily finds only in fiction” (People). The experiences of these five men capture the struggles of a whole generation of Vietnam veterans and their families. Klein’s “near-hypnotic” account (Daily News, New York) is, to this day, both a remarkable piece of reporting and “some of the most vivid, harrowing, and emotionally honest writing to come out of Vietnam” (The Washington Post Book World).

One Goal: A Chronicle of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team


John Powers - 1984
    The thrilling story of how the US hockey team, against great odds, won the gold in the 1980 Olympics.

Commodores


Leonard F. Guttridge - 1984
    Navy in the age of sail is filled with brilliant insights and daring assessments of famous naval figures.

Cry Once Alone


E.V. Thompson - 1984
    Book is in Very good condition throughout. Set In 1838,Adam Begins His Brave And Secret Mission In Texas

Gone the Dreams and Dancing


Douglas C. Jones - 1984
    From the author of Season of the Yellow Leaf.

The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson


Richard K. Matthews - 1984
    Matthews's Jefferson emerges as America's first and foremost advocate of permanent revolution, a democratic communitarian, and an anti-market theorist. This interpretation has been suggested in the past, but seldom has it been argued so persuasively or so intensely.It is Matthews's intent to extricate Jefferson from the myths that surround, envelop, and ultimately distort him. The interpretation of Jefferson's idea of democracy presented here could spark new thinking about contemporary democracy.

The Spanish War: An American Epic, 1898


G.J.A. O'Toole - 1984
    battleship Maine was ripped in half by an explosion in Havana harbor with the loss of 266 American lives. War with Spain followed nine weeks later. After a three-month fight on two fronts half a world apart, the era of isolation was gone forever, as the United States formed alliances and gained spheres of influence that would shape its desstiny for decades to come.G. J. A. O'Toole colorfully depicts the sweep of events and also presents new findings on the mysterious mission of the Maine and on the part played by Washington in the expansion of the conflict.

We Lived There, Too


Kenneth Libo - 1984
    Constructed out of a rich treasury of many hitherto unpublished dairies, memories and letters, together with contemporary newspaper articles, photographs and drawings, this real life saga is filled with dramatic reminiscences that display the humor and humanity of the Jewish tradition. We Lived There Too offers an extraordinary view of men and women in action and constitutes a new chapter in the story of the American frontier.

Civil War Parks: The Story Behind the Scenery


William C. Davis - 1984
    This beautiful 9" x 12" pictorial book with running text is full of our American history.

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: a classic work in immigration history


William I. Thomas - 1984
    The new introduction and epilogue make the book especially valuable in teaching United States history survey courses as well as immigration history and introductory sociology courses.

NEA: Trojan Horse In American Education


Samuel L. Blumenfeld - 1984
    Book by Blumenfeld, Samuel L.

The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945 - 1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism


William Roger Louis - 1984
    Committed to the liquidation of the old British Empire, the government sought to develop new relationships in the Middle East as a replacement for India, hopingto halt the decline of the Empire by putting it on a new basis. Caught between the forces of anti-British nationalism and American anti-colonialism, the attempt was ultimately destined to fail; but it marks a crucial phase in the story of British imperialism and of Middle Eastern history.

The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster


John H. Davis - 1984
    The author is first cousin to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

Songsters and Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records


Paul Oliver - 1984
    When blues first reached a large audience it was through the 'Race records' issued specifically for black purchasers in the 1920s. Blues South have been extensively discussed by many writers. Paul Oliver shows that this emphasis has drawn attention away from the other important vocal traditions also available on Race records: the songs of Southern rural dances, the comic and social songs and ballads of the medicine shows and travelling entertainments, and, even more neglected, the sacred vocal traditions, from the song-sermons of the Baptist and Sanctified preachers to the gospel songs of the church congregations and of the 'jack-leg' preachers and street evangelists. Over 500 artists and 700 song titles are indexed and there is a guide to reissued recordings.

Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community


Charles Joyner - 1984
    Reconstructs daily life in a Lowcountry slave community.

Goodis - A Life in Black and White


Philippe Garnier - 1984
    

The Province of Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne's Early Tales


Michael J. Colacurcio - 1984
    Colacurcio presents a view of the author as America’s first significant intellectual historian. Colacurcio shows that Hawthorne’s fiction responds to a wide range of sermons, pamphlets, and religious tracts and debates—a variety of moral discourses at large in the world of provincial New England.Informed by comprehensive historical research, the author shows that Hawthorne was steeped in New England historiography, particularly the sermon literature of the seventeenth century. But, as Colacurcio shows, Hawthorne did not merely borrow from the historical texts he deliberately studied; rather, he is best understood as having written history. In The Province of Piety, originally published in 1984 (Harvard University Press), Hawthorne is seen as a moral historian working with fictional narratives—a writer brilliantly involved in examining the moral and political effects of Puritanism in America and recreating the emotional and cultural contexts in which earlier Americans had lived.

Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815


William M. Fowler Jr. - 1984
    

American Conservatism and the American Founding


Harry V. Jaffa - 1984
    

The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889


Stan Hoig - 1984
    

Mr. Lincoln's City: An Illustrated Guide to the Civil War Sites of Washington


Richard M. Lee - 1984
    Readers can foray back in time while enjoying a modern, thriving city at the same time.

We Have Taken a City: The Wilmington Racial Massacre and Coup of 1898


H. Leon Prather Sr. - 1984
    The terror lasted several days, and saw Wilmington blacks gunned down in the streets, forced out of town, and disposessed of their property. In this reprint of a book first released in 1984, H. Leon Prather, Sr. presents the story of what happened in Wilmington. It is generally considered the most balanced account of the 1898 riots, and tells the story of what happened in a thoroughly researched book that has been hailed as a landmark resource on the subject. The State of North Carolina will issue its official report on what happened in Wilmington in 1898 in 2006, and Prather's book is a primary source for the official history that is soon to be released. Prather's book is a must-have for those interested in the history of African-Americans during Reconstruction, the history of the South, North Carolina, and the Lower Cape Fear region.

Colorado: A History


Marshall Sprague - 1984
    Mountains—so beautiful, the land dominated by the Colorado Rockies, that miners who “thought of returning to the comfort and dull security of their homes back east,” in Marshall Sprague’s words, “found themselves held by the appeal of their giddy environment, the spaciousness, the violence and serenity of the climate, the brightness of stars and the gorgeous sunups.” The beauty itself could encourage a miner’s belief that surely his luck would turn.

Dueling in the Old South: Vignettes of Social History


Jack K. Williams - 1984
    A crime on the statue books but a matter of honor to Southern gentlemen, dueling reflected the pre–Civil War individualism of this caste and their distaste for legal governance of their personal affairs. An understanding of the gentry’s acceptance of dueling may even throw light on the mentality of those who led the South into a great mass duel, the American Civil War.This highly readable book gives a lively account, replete with colorful examples, of the pistol duel, the rules for its conduct, its causes, and its typical participants. A popular 1838 dueling code by John Lyde Wilson, one-time governor of South Carolina, is also reprinted in this volume. Its “practical” advice on the etiquette of dueling and its justifications for the practice give a fascinating and sometimes amusing look into the mind of a more chivalrous age.For Southern history buffs and social historians, this excursion into a little-known way of life and death will make entertaining and informative fare.

Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought


David N. Livingstone - 1984
    

Treason in America: From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman


Anton Chaitkin - 1984
    

History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Volume 1: The Formative Years, 1947-1950


Steven L. Rearden - 1984
    As the title indicates, these were years of beginnings that ushered in the present-day era of service unification and saw the development of policies and programs that would have lasting impact on national security. A richly documented volume, it draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources to present a commanding account of the evolution of both defense organization and national security policy during the critical post-World War II years.The book opens with the swearing-in of the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, who faced the dual challenge of effecting unification of the armed forces and of reconstituting U.S. defense policy to meet an increasing array of problems and threats abroad, the Cold War with the Soviet Union heading the list. As Forrestal discovered, to make unification work, he needed more authority and assistance than the 1947 National Security Act gave him. His successor, Louis Johnson, had the benefit of amendments in 1949 that enhanced the secretary's power. But like Forrestal, Johnson confronted fierce interservice competition for scarce funds and deeply divisive quarrels, especially between the Air Force and the Navy, over the assignment of roles and missions. A series of chapters on the making of the defense budgets for the period strikingly illuminates the intricate relationships among strategic policies, military programs, roles and missions, and money.Problems abroad threatened to embroil the United States in conflicts for which it was largely unprepared. Students of foreign affairs will be especially interested in the chapters on assistance to Greece and Turkey under the Truman Doctrine, the partitioning of Palestine and the ensuing Arab-Israeli conflict, the civil war in China and its repercussions throughout the Far East, including the early stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and the Berlin crisis of 1948-49, which nearly led to a military showdown with the Soviet Union. Subsequent chapters examine the development of the atomic energy program and growing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the origins of the worldwide Mutual Defense Assistance Program, and the drafting of NSC 68, the landmark policy paper that in 1950, on the eve of the Korean War, proposed an unprecedented program of peacetime rearmament.

Uncle Sam at Home: Civilian Mobilization, Wartime Federalism, and the Council of National Defense, 1917-1919


William J. Breen - 1984
    

Wings of the Dawn


Stanley Vishnewski - 1984
    History of the Catholic Worker movement in the 1930s.

A No-Lathe Saxony-Style Spinning Wheel Construction Manual (Spinster Helper Series)


Richard Schneider - 1984
    

The Insanity Defense and the Trial of John W. Hinckley, JR.


Lincoln Caplan - 1984
    

A Small Upright Spinning Wheel Construction Manual


Richard C. Schneider - 1984
    

Encyclopedia Of Black America


Virgil A. Clift - 1984
    No other work is as comprehensive, as thoroughly researched, as authoritative. More than eighty contributors—all experts in their fields—have cooperated to make this an eminently readable and reliable reference source, representing the totality of the past and present culture of Afro-Americans.The panorama of black life in America is surveyed here. The encyclopedia traces black history from Africa, through the Atlantic slave trade, into the colonial period, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, right up to a detailed analysis of the Civil Rights movement. Specialized discussions include various aspects of slavery: its relationship to the framing of the Constitution, its appearance on the frontier, emancipation, slave narratives, and the legal history of slavery in eight states. Other topics covered in detail are black folklore, poetry, literature, dance, music, sculpture, painting, athletics, education, religion, and the sciences.The easy-access A-to-Z format allows the reader to locate individuals, topics, organizations such as the NAACP, SNCC, Black Panther Party, and numerous social, economic, and educational groups. For years to come, this is certain to remain the source for anyone seeking authoritative information and insightful commentary on the vital culture of black America.