Energized and inspired by the 2008 elections, on inauguration day Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a national tour that would take her from a town hall meeting in Newfane, Vermont, to the inner chambers of the Supreme Court.As we follow Kalman's wholly idiosyncratic journey, we fall in love with Lincoln alongside her as she imagines making a home for herself in the center of his magisterial memorial; ponder Alexis de Tocqueville's America; witness the inner workings of a Bronx middle-school student council; take a high-speed lesson in great American women in the National Portrait Gallery; and consider the cost of war to the brave American service families of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The observations she makes as she travels charm and inform, and-as we have come to expect with Kalman-the route is always one of fascinating indirection.Kalman finds evidence of democracy at work all around us. And the cast of characters we meet along the way is rousing good company, featuring visits from Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. And the Pursuit of Happiness is a remarkable tribute to our history and a powerful reminder of the potential our future holds, from a true national treasure. Watch a Video

    It turned out to be a very long speech, lasting over eight & a half hours. It hit a nerve. Millions followed the speech online until the traffic crashed the Senate server. A huge, positive grassroots response tied up the phones in the senator's offices in Vermont & Washington. Pres. Obama reportedly held an impromptu press conference with former Pres. Clinton to deflect media attention away from Sanders' speech. Editorials & news coverage appeared throughout the world. In his speech, Sanders blasted the agreement that President Obama struck with Republicans, which extended the Bush tax cuts for millionaires & billionaires, lowered estate tax rates for the very, very rich, & set a terrible precedent by establishing a "payroll tax holiday" diverting revenue away from the Social Security Trust Fund, threatening the fund's very future. But the speech was more than a critique of a particular piece of legislation. It was a dissection of the collapse of the American middle class & a well-researched attack on corporate greed & on public policy which, over the last several decades, has led to a huge growth in millionaires even as the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. It was a plea for a fundamental change in national priorities, for government policy that reflects the needs of working families, not just the wealthy & their lobbyists. Finally, Sanders' speech--published here in its entirety with a new introduction by the senator--is a call for action. It's a passionate statement informing us that the only people who will save the middle class of this country is the middle class itself, but only if it's informed, organized & prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests dominating Washington. Sen. Sanders is the longest-serving Independent in the history of the US Congress. He's represented Vermont in the Senate for four years & in the House for sixteen years. He served four terms as Mayor of Burlington, VT, during which time the city was recognized as one of the most livable cities in America.

     Packaged in the ultimate wraparound slipcase and weighing in at a hefty 8.8 pounds, Simpsons World The Ultimate Episode Guide (Seasons 1-20) is meant for reading, not throwing!

    These are the pictures of the dead: family portraits, mementos of the treasured, now unrecognizable, and others. The roots of Halloween lie in the ancient pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, a feast to mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It was believed that on this night the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin and ruptured, allowing spirits to pass through and walk unseen but not unheard amongst men. The advent of Christianity saw the pagan festival subsumed in All Souls' Day, when across Europe the dead were mourned and venerated. Children and the poor, often masked or in outlandish costume, wandered the night begging "soul cakes" in exchange for prayers, and fires burned to keep malevolent phantoms at bay. From Europe, the haunted tradition would quickly take root and flourish in the fertile soil of the New World. Feeding hungrily on fresh lore, consuming half-remembered tales of its own shadowy origins and rituals, Halloween was reborn in America. The pumpkin supplanted the carved turnip; costumes grew ever stranger, and celebrants both rural and urban seized gleefully on the festival's intoxicating, lawless spirit. For one wild night, the dead stared into the faces of the living, and the living, ghoulishly masked and clad in tattered backwoods baroque, stared back.

    But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley's been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. Charley's only comforts are his friendship with a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete and a photograph of his only known relative. In an increasingly desperate circumstance, Charley will head east, hoping to find his aunt who had once lived a thousand miles away in Wyoming — but the journey to find her will be a perilous one. In Vlautin's third novel, Lean on Pete, he reveals the lives and choices of American youth like Charley Thompson who were failed by those meant to protect them and who were never allowed the chance to just be a kid.

    But even residents on this idyllic California coast may not realize its full history. Monterey began as a natural paradise, but became the poster child for industrial devastation in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row,and is now one of the most celebrated shorelines in the world.   It is a remarkable story of life, death, and revival—told here for the first time in all its stunning color and bleak grays. The Death and Life of Monterey Bay begins in the eighteenth century when Spanish and French explorers encountered a rocky shoreline brimming with life—raucous sea birds, abundant sea otters, barking sea lions, halibut the size of wagon wheels,waters thick with whales. A century and a half later, many of the sea creatures had disappeared, replaced by sardine canneries that sickened residents with their stench but kept the money flowing. When the fish ran out and the climate turned,the factories emptied and the community crumbled. But today,both Monterey’s economy and wildlife are resplendent. How did it happen?   The answer is deceptively simple: through the extraordinary acts of ordinary people. The Death and Life of Monterey Bay is the biography of a place, but also of the residents who reclaimed it. Monterey is thriving because of an eccentric mayor who wasn’t afraid to use pistols, axes, or the force of law to protect her coasts. It is because of fishermen who love their livelihood, scientists who are fascinated by the sea’s mysteries, and philanthropists and community leaders willing to invest in a world-class aquarium. The shores of Monterey Bay revived because of human passion—passion that enlivens every page of this hopeful book.

    2013)Open the page of Carolina Rain and step on the streets of an era gone by. Carolina Rain is not just a read, but an experience. You will smell the magnolia trees, feel the sun on your face and taste the bittersweet tears of a beautiful young girl coming of age at the dawning of the Civil War. Theodosia Elizabeth Sanders, "Lizzie" was born October 6, 1842. Her open heart is filled with hope and a desire to love, but her innocence makes her a target for the less than trustworthy. Yet, underneath the layers of lace and petticoats, you will discover Lizzie to be a strong-willed and determined young woman.books in the Carolina Rain Series. Carolina Rain, Beyond Sandy Ridge, Lizzie after the War, Letters from Lizzie.See more books by this author: www.nancybbrewer.com

    Set between 1950 and 1963, Joe Bageant uses Maw, Pap, Ony Mae, and other members of his rambunctious Scots–Irish family to chronicle the often-heartbreaking post-war journey of 22 million rural Americans into the cities, where they became the foundation of a permanent white underclass.Combining recollection, stories, accounts, remembrance, and analysis, the book offers an intimate look at what Americans lost in the massive and orchestrated post-war social and economic shift from an agricultural to an urban consumer society. Along the way, he also provides insights into how ‘the second and third generation of displaced agrarians’, as Gore Vidal described them, now fuel the discontent of America’s politically conservative, God-fearing, Obama-hating ‘red-staters’.These are the gun-owning, uninsured, underemployed white tribes inhabiting America’s urban and suburban heartland: the ones who never got a slice of the pie during the good times, and the ones hit hardest by America’s bad times, and who hit back during election years. Their ‘tough work and tougher luck’ story stretches over generations, and Bageant tells it here with poignancy, indignation, and tinder-dry wit.

    It's a story that maps his heroin addiction, from the promise of a young life to the prison of a mattress, from budding musician to broken down junkie, drowning in syringes and cigarette butts, shooting heroin into wounds the size of softballs, and ultimately, a ride to a hospital for a six-month stay and a painful self-discovery that cuts down to the bone. Through it all he never really loses his step, never lets go of his smarts, and always projects quintessential American reason, humor, and hope to make a story not only about drugs, but a compelling study of vulnerability and toughness.

     Volume two of the Show Me How series contains brand-new instructions that show readers how to amaze, trick, create, style, and love, among other endeavors. Ideas range from the practical (hang a ceiling fixture; hem a pair of pants) to the outrageous (boobytrap a bathroom; forge an antiquity) to the romantic (ace a school crush; send a saucy cell phone pic.) So go ahead and learn some killer pool moves. Or stage your own impromptu gallery show. Style you hair in a fauxhawk. More Show Me How is the indispensable real-life resource that helps readers live life to the fullest and be the star of the party.

    She watched as John Kennedy was murdered in the streets below. Then, with a co-worker in tow, she ran down the back stairs of the building in order to get outside and determine what had happened... [Product description from Amazon.com]

    This book is a must-have for nature lovers of all ages and skill levels.Covers Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, northern California, Idaho, and western MontanaMore than 180 species described in detailMore than 460 color photographs shot in the wildSilhouettes and track keys for quick identificationMore than 200 original scale drawings of tracks and track patterns92 range mapsClear color-coded layout

    You know—one of those old, spiral- or plastic-tooth-bound cookbooks sold to support a high school marching band, a church, or the local chapter of the Junior League. These recipe collections reflect, with unimpeachable authenticity, the dishes that define communities: chicken and dumplings, macaroni and cheese, chess pie. When the Southern Foodways Alliance began curating a cookbook, it was to these spiral-bound, sauce-splattered pages that they turned for their model. Including more than 170 tested recipes, this cookbook is a true reflection of southern foodways and the people, regardless of residence or birthplace, who claim this food as their own. Traditional and adapted, fancy and unapologetically plain, these recipes are powerful expressions of collective identity. There is something from—and something for—everyone. The recipes and the stories that accompany them came from academics, writers, catfish farmers, ham curers, attorneys, toqued chefs, and people who just like to cook—spiritual Southerners of myriad ethnicities, origins, and culinary skill levels. Edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge, written, collaboratively, by Sheri Castle, Timothy C. Davis, April McGreger, Angie Mosier, and Fred Sauceman, the book is divided into chapters that represent the region’s iconic foods: Gravy, Garden Goods, Roots, Greens, Rice, Grist, Yardbird, Pig, The Hook, The Hunt, Put Up, and Cane. Therein you’ll find recipes for pimento cheese, country ham with redeye gravy, tomato pie, oyster stew, gumbo z’herbes, and apple stack cake. You’ll learn traditional ways of preserving green beans, and you’ll come to love refried black-eyed peas. Are you hungry yet?Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

    Johnson's flawed personality and character traits were formed when he was a child, and - through his primary enablers, his mother and his wife - grew unchecked for the rest of his life as he suffered severe bouts of manic-depressive illness. The people-manipulation skills he learned at his father's side and had perfected by the time he graduated from college became the currency he used to barter, steal and finesse his way through the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. These skills, combined with his overpowering manic personality, amoral instincts and thirst for power, allowed him to prosper both financially and politically during his years in Congress. Neither his family nor his employees, aides, associates and cabinet officials would ever confront him on any issue for which he had made up his mind, including the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, his "darker side" included a lifetime struggle with "bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder" which he successfully hid from the public, though not all of his aides. It is the premise of this book that Lyndon Johnson suffered recurrent and progressively stronger bouts of mental collapses during the period of his vice presidency as he planned his ascension to the presidency, purposely undermining Kennedy's domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the purpose of cleverly saving them for his own legacy. His active involvement with JFK's assassination will be conclusively shown, including photographic evidence that he knew in advance when and where it would happen. The stunning conclusion of this book is that Lyndon Johnson began planning his takeover - the fulfillment of his life-time dreams - even before being named as the vice presidential nominee in 1960.

    In the Falkland Islands, the albatross--king of migrations--journeys thousands of miles to nest despite the deadly cara cara, a predatory raptor. For countless animals species, migration is a dramatic, dangerous, and crucial undertaking...one that is portrayed in vivid color and unflinching candor in this magnificent book, companion to the 7-hour HD epic television event from National Geographic which airs beginning on Sunday, November 7th, 2010. The book follows the sequence of the film, with each section highlighting a factor that makes these epic journeys essential. "The Need for Speed" documents migration as a race against time, in which freezing temperatures or scorching heat usher in a crisis. Incredible photographs document activity along the Mississippi Flyway, which teems with long-distance travelers: red-winged blackbirds, white pelicans, tundra swans, and the birds of prey that patrol the skies. In "The Need to Feed," the annual search for greener pastures means life must go on the march as hungry predators lie in wait. Dramatic stills show as many as 40,000 walrus trying to evade 200 polar bears...and a jungle terrorized by nature's perfect killer: millions of voracious ants that work as one to overwhelm other species. "The Need to Lead" explains that migrations need generals, admirals and pioneers. How well the leaders keep their charges in line and on track will determine a species' fate. And in "The Need to Breed," the drive to renew the species forces every generation to risk it all. We experience the Falkland Islands, where aggressive, multi-ton elephant seals battle for the right to breed, and the lush rain forest canopy, where primates gather to feed and mate while smaller creatures glide from tree to tree.In every instance, both the migrating herds and the predators they sustain are faced with a new threat: global climate shift. Safe havens are vanishing, and migrating animals must stay one step ahead of a changing planet. Their struggle to survive despite mounting odds, set against the incomparable beauty of the natural world, fills this magnificently photographed book with drama, fascination, and beauty.

    It was the first 500-mile race to be broadcast live on national television and featured the heroes and legends of the sport racing on a hallowed track. With one of the wildest finishes in sports history--a finish that was just the start of the drama--everything changed for what is now America's second most popular sport.""HE CRASHED ME SO I CRASHED HIM BACK is the story of an emerging sport trying to find its feet. It's the story of how Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, A.J. Foyt, and Kyle Petty came together in an unforgettable season that featured the first nationally televised NASCAR races. There were rivalries--even the sibling kind--and plenty of fistfights, feuds, and frenzied finishes. Rollicking and full of larger-than-life characters, HE CRASHED ME SO I CRASHED HIM BACK is the remarkable tale of the birth of modern stock-car racing.

    Finally, when there were no more excuses, he set out on the Appalachian Trail to fulfill that promise. He learned that walking in the wilderness can reconnect one with a Norman Rockwell America that at times seems long lost and forgotten. The difficulties encountered walking over 2,200 miles are easily underestimated and trouble can begin long before setting a first step on the trail. Blanchard's introspective demonstrates that bears, rattlesnakes and challenging terrain may be far less formidable than some of life's more subtle dangers.

    EXCELLENT READING!”—Long and Short ReviewsWhen war widow Sarah Winborne's ranch is at risk, she exchanges her hand in marriage for Benton Wheeler's help—and gets a more intimate arrangement than she bargained for. Alone in the world and struggling to make ends meet, Texas war widow Sarah Winborne will do anything to keep her two small children safe and her hard-won ranch from going under. She hasn’t fought for so long to lose everything… and if that means marrying a stranger to protect her family’s future, then so be it.She never expected anything but a business arrangement, but something about Benton Wheeler’s broad shoulders and kind eyes awakens emotions she’d long since buried. He makes her feel beautiful. He makes her feel desired. He makes her feel like a woman again. And even though their marriage was never intended to be more than a matter of convenience, as Benton stands between her small family and the wild and dangerous West, Sarah may just realize that the cowboy she married is the love she never dreamed she would find…“Readers are guaranteed an emotional, rich, adventurous romance with strong heroes and courageous heroines.”—RT Book Reviews on Forever and Always

    Designed as though Chin Music Press/Broken Levee Books intends to singlehandedly resurrect the art of bookmaking, Where We Know is a book you'll want at your bedside and on your coffee table." —Lucia Silva, NPR"Rutledge (English, Univ. of New Orleans) shows himself, in an introduction both touching and sincere, to understand fully the city and its struggles, to love New Orleans for what it is and what it can be, what it means both to those who decided to stay and those who left." —Library Journal"Where We Know is a must for anyone who wants a more excellent understanding of the tenacity of the people of New Orleans." —The Midwest Book ReviewFive years after Katrina, New Orleans is still limping. This second book of a planned trilogy looks at both those who stayed on and rebuilt their lives in New Orleans and those who had to say goodbye. It also weaves in historical references and quotes from Louis Armstrong, Lafcadio Hearn, and many others. What emerges is a book that shows how lovers of New Orleans have always battled with its darker side, and how the people's knack for celebrating an impromptu second line goes hand in hand with their acknowledgment of the ghosts in their midst.

    ---How could one place have the world's best boysenberry preserves (no, Aunt Susan's isn't better!), world-class roller coasters, and Independence Hall, too? Where does a Ghost Town exist alongside a two-hundred-foot Sky Jump, while people wait three hours for a chicken dinner? KNOTT'S PRESERVED: From Boysenberry to Theme Park, the History of Knott's Berry Farm has all the answers and many, many more.---From the earliest days of the Farm, when Walter Knott, his wife Cordelia, and their kids were serving up baskets of berries "as big as a man's thumb" and berry pies that weighed in at three pounds, to the advent of themed rides, Camp Snoopy replete with the Peanuts gang, and the arrival of the fastest coasters the coast had ever seen it's all in KNOTT'S PRESERVED.

    In prose that reads like the flowing current of a river, scholar and essayist George Handley blends nature writing, local history, theology, environmental history, and personal memoir in his new book Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River. Handley’s meditations on the local Provo River watershed present the argument that a sense of place requires more than a strong sense of history and belonging, it requires awareness and commitment. Handley traces a history of settlement along the Provo that has profoundly transformed the landscape and yet neglected its Native American and environmental legacies. As a descendent of one of the first pioneers to irrigate the area, and as a witness to the loss of orchards, open space, and an eroded environmental ethic, Handley weaves his own personal and family history into the landscape to argue for sustainable belonging. In avoiding the exclusionist and environmentally harmful attitudes that come with the territorial claims to a homeland, the flyfishing term, “home waters,” is offered as an alternative, a kind of belonging that is informed by deference to others, to the mysteries of deep time, and to a fragile dependence on water. While it has sometimes been mistakenly assumed that the Mormon faith is inimical to good environmental stewardship, Handley explores the faith’s openness to science, its recognition of the holiness of the creation, and its call for an ethical engagement with nature. A metaphysical approach to the physical world is offered as an antidote to the suicidal impulses of modern society and our persistent ambivalence about the facts of our biology and earthly condition. Home Waters contributes a perspective from within the Mormon religious experience to the tradition of such Western writers as Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams, Steven Trimble, and Amy Irvine. Winner of the Mormon Letters Award for Memoir.

    In this text, articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, politics, architecture, history, art, religion and science.

    Wallace’s pieces for Harper’s magazine in the ’90s were, according to Lipsky, “like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming.”Then Rolling Stone sent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour for Infinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader’s escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an “orgy of spectation”). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace’s dogs. Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things—everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him—in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him—that grateful, awake feeling—the same way he felt about Infinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.A biography in five days, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace’s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer—of being young generally—trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and—as he tells it—what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.

    Yet his most remarkable literary creation-his journals- remained unpublished. Begun when he was a precocious Harvard junior of 16 and continued without significant lapse for almost 60 years, Emerson's journals were his life's work. They were the starting point for virtually everything in his celebrated essays, lectures, and poems; a "Savings Bank," in which his occasional insights began to cohere and yield interest; a commonplace book, in which he gathered the choicest anecdotes, ideas, and phrases from his voracious and wide-ranging reading; and a fascinating diary in the ordinary sense of the term. It would be a hundred years after his death before these intimate records would appear in print in their entirety, and they are still, at over three million words, among the least known and least available of Emerson's writings. The journals reveal what Emerson called "the infinitude of the private man"-by turns whimsical, incisive, passionate, curious, and candid-in astonishing new ways. With "Selected Journals 1820-1842" and its companion volume "Selected Journals 1841-1877," The Library of America presents the most ample and comprehensive nonspecialist edition of Emerson's great work ever published-one that retains the original order in which he composed his thoughts and preserves the dramatic range of his unique style in long, uninterrupted passages, but without the daunting critical apparatus of the 16-volume scholarly edition. This volume begins with Emerson's first journal entry, on January 25, 1820, in a homemade booklet he titled "The Wide World," and follows him through his early years at Harvard College and the Divinity School, his ordination as a Unitarian minister, his marriage to Ellen Tucker and her untimely death, his fateful decision to leave the ministry, and his travels in England and on the Continent. It offers an irreplaceable perspective on the intellectual currents of the day-the emergence of Transcendentalism; the furor over Emerson's "Divinity School Address"; the founding of "The Dial"; experiments in communal living at Fruitlands and Brook Farm-and intimate sketches of Emerson's friends and contemporaries, including Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Thomas Carlyle, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others. Edited by Lawrence Rosenwald-Anne Pierce Rogers Professor of American Literature at Wellesley College and author of "Emerson and the Art of the Diary"-each volume includes a 16-page portfolio of images of Emerson and his contemporaries, a note on the selections, extensive notes, biographical sketches, a chronology, and an index.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    to China is waste—$7.6 billion of waste paper and scrap metal. Bestselling author Clyde Prestowitz reveals the astonishing extent of the erosion of the fundamental pillars of American economic might—beginning well before the 2008 financial crisis—and the great challenge we face for the future in competing with the economic juggernaut of China and the other fast-rising economies. As the arresting facts he introduces show, the U.S. is rapidly losing the basis of its wealth and power, as well as its freedom of action and independence. If we do not make dramatic changes quickly, we will confront a painful permanent slide in our standard of living; the dollar will no longer be the world’s currency; our military strength will be whittled away; and we will be increasingly subject to the will of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and various malcontents. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As Prestowitz shows in a masterful account of how we’ve come to this fateful juncture, we have inflicted our economic decline on ourselves—we abandoned the extraordinary approach to growth that drove the country’s remarkable rise to superpower status from the early days of the republic up through World War II. For most of our history, we supported our home industries, protected our market against unfair trade, made the world’s finest products—leading the way in technological innovation—and we were strong savers. But in the post-WWII era, we reversed course as our leadership embraced a set of simplistically attractive but disastrously false ideas—that consumption rather than production should drive our economy; that free trade is always a win-win; that all globalization is good; that the market is always right and government regulation or intervention in the economy always causes more harm than good; and that it didn’t matter that our factories were fleeing overseas because we were moving to the "higher ground" of services. In a devastating account, Prestowitz shows just how flawed this orthodoxy is and how it has gutted the American economy. The 2008 financial crisis was only its most blatant and recent consequence. It is time to abandon these false doctrines and to get back to the American way of growth that brought us to world leadership; Prestowitz presents a deeply researched and powerful set of highly practical steps that we can begin implementing immediately to reverse course and restore our economic leadership and excellence. The Betrayal of American Prosperity is vital reading for all Americans concerned about the future of the economy and of our power in the coming era.

    His letters offer an extraordinary window into particular moments in history, from his feelings of loss at JFK’s assassination, to his passionate pleas to Nixon not to make Vietnam a Nixon war, to his frustrations over healthcare and welfare reform during the Clinton era.This book showcases the unbridled range of Moynihan’s intellect and interests, his appreciation for his constituents, his renowned wit, and his warmth even for those with whom he profoundly disagreed. Its publication is a significant literary event.

    Drawing on an array of suspenseful and bizarre firsthand accounts, Sandlin brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves—a world unto itself where, every night, near the levees of the big river towns, hundreds of boats gathered to form dusk-to-dawn cities dedicated to music, drinking, and gambling. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. Here, too, is the Mississippi itself: gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable, lifeblood to the communities that rose and fell along its banks.  An exuberant work of Americana—at once history, culture, and geography—Wicked River is a grand epic that portrays a forgotten society on the edge of revolutionary change.

    He wrote about towns: White Center and La Push in Washington; Wallace and Cataldo in Idaho; Milltown, Philipsburg, and Butte in Montana. Often his visits lasted little more than an afternoon, and his knowledge of the towns was confined to what he heard in bars and diners. From these snippets, he crafted poems. His attention to the actual places could be scant, but Hugo's poems resonate more deeply than travelogues or feature stories; they capture the torque between temperament and terrain that is so vital in any consideration of place. The poems bring alive some hidden aspect to each town and play off the traditional myths that an easterner might have of the West: that it is a place of restoration and healing, a spa where people from the East come to recover from ailments; that it is a place to reinvent oneself, a region of wide open, unpolluted country still to settle. Hugo steers us, as readers, to eye level. How we settle into and take on qualities of the tracts of earth that we occupy -- this is Hugo's inquiry.Part travelogue, part memoir, part literary scholarship, The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs traces the journey of Frances McCue and photographer Mary Randlett to the towns that inspired many of Richard Hugo's poems. Returning forty years after Hugo visited these places, and bringing with her a deep knowledge of Hugo and her own poetic sensibility, McCue maps Hugo's poems back onto the places that triggered them. Together with twenty-three poems by Hugo, McCue's essays and Randlett's photographs offer a fresh view of Hugo's Northwest.Watch the book trailer: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8_W1FZn06w

    But in this pathbreaking work, Eric Nelson argues that this familiar story is wrong. Instead, he contends, political thought in early-modern Europe became less, not more, secular with time, and it was the Christian encounter with Hebrew sources that provoked this radical transformation.During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Christian scholars began to regard the Hebrew Bible as a political constitution designed by God for the children of Israel. Newly available rabbinic materials became authoritative guides to the institutions and practices of the perfect republic. This thinking resulted in a sweeping reorientation of political commitments. In the book s central chapters, Nelson identifies three transformative claims introduced into European political theory by the Hebrew revival: the argument that republics are the only legitimate regimes; the idea that the state should coercively maintain an egalitarian distribution of property; and the belief that a godly republic would tolerate religious diversity. One major consequence of Nelson s work is that the revolutionary politics of John Milton, James Harrington, and Thomas Hobbes appear in a brand-new light.Nelson demonstrates that central features of modern political thought emerged from an attempt to emulate a constitution designed by God. This paradox, a reminder that while we may live in a secular age, we owe our politics to an age of religious fervor, in turn illuminates fault lines in contemporary political discourse."

    Whatever one chooses to call them werewolf, dogman or manwolf an astonishing number of witnesses across the U.S.A. have encountered these creatures on roadsides, in the woods, and near their own homes. They swear the unknown canines are as menacing as they are real. And if these creatures aren't werewolves, what could they be? In her third book about this continuing mystery, author and investigator Linda Godfrey takes readers on a state-by-state creature hunt, exploring many new and shocking reports and leaving no bone unturned in her search for the beast's true nature.

    The companion book, America The Story of Us is a history that is at once penetrating and lively, elegant and authoritative; great for serious reading as it is for casual skimming. America The Story of Us brings to life the vast forces that shaped this remarkable country and the ways in which revolutions in technology and transportation altered the way Americans lived, made money, and fought one another. Explored in these pages is the struggle between settlers and Native Americans; the epic conflict of slavery, from cotton gin to Civil War; the creation of the transcontinental railroad alongside the thundering herds of buffalo across the West; and how American ingenuity and determination both carried us through the Great Depression and won the Second World War. Beginning with Jamestown and Plymouth Bay, the first successful British colonies on the mainland, the book highlights the landmark moments in political, social, economic, and military history, from the prototypical entrepreneur John Rolfe and his tobacco seeds to Barack Obama and the seeds of change, from the Model T to the moon landing. Written by novelist, historian, and journalist Kevin Baker (a key contributor to The American Century, by Harold Evans), the narrative shares the TV series- eye for the dramatic moment in U.S. history-there is danger, action, struggle-while adding new layers of detail and nuance. America The Story of Us is decisive and essential, the story of the country that every family will want to own.Foreword by President ObamaA stunning companion piece for the most anticipated HISTORY broadcast of all time, includes 412 heavily illustrated pages featuring over 300 full color images and layers of information including “charticles,” graphics, photographs, and text.The adventure that became a nation – the complete history of the US has not been told for 40 years.AMERICA the Story of Us is an exuberant, unprecedented look at the invention of America focusing on how events small and large are intrinsically linked to the exploration and innovation, leading us from the frontier to 21st century cities, from the Mississippi to the moon, from Jamestown to 9/11 up to present day. Moving though time and space linking key events, people and locations, capturing the vast sweep of American history— bringing viewers on a journey through the forces that shaped the destiny of America.

    In this book, Glenn Moots explores the political meaning of covenants past and present by focusing on the theory and application of covenantal politics from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Moots demands that we revisit political theology because it served as the most important school of politics in early modern Europe and America. He describes the strengths of the covenant tradition while also presenting its limitations and dangers. Contemporary political scientists such as Eric Voegelin, Daniel Elazar, and David Novak are called on to provide insight into both the covenant’s history and its relevance today.Moots’s work chronicles and critiques the covenant tradition while warning against both political ideology and religious enthusiasm. It provides an inclusive and objective outline of covenantal politics by considering the variations of Reformed theology and their respective consequences for political practice. This includes a careful account of how covenant theology took root on the European continent in the sixteenth century and then inspired ecclesiastical and civil politics in England, Scotland, and America. Moots goes beyond the usual categories of Calvinism or Puritanism to consider the larger movement of which both were a part. By integrating philosophy, theology, and history, Moots also invites investigation of broader political traditions such as natural law and natural right.Politics Reformed demonstrates how the application of political theology over three centuries has important lessons for our own dilemmas about church and state. It makes a provocative contribution to understanding foundational questions in an era of rising fundamentalism and emboldened secularism, inspiring readers to rethink the importance of religion in political theory and practice, and the role of the covenant tradition in particular.

    J. Liebling remain a vibrant role model for writers while the superb, prolific St. Clair McKelway has been sorely forgotten?" James Wolcott asked this question in a recent review of the Complete New Yorker on DVD. Anyone who has read a single paragraph of McKelway's work would struggle to provide an answer.His articles for the New Yorker were defined by their clean language and incomporable wit, by his love of New York's rough edges and his affection for the working man (whether that work was come by honestly or not). Like Joseph Mitchell and A. J. Liebling, McKelway combined the unflagging curiosity of a great reporter with the narrative flair of a master storyteller. William Shawn, the magazine's long-time editor, described him as a writer with the "lightest of light touches." His style is so striking, Shawn went on to say, that "it was too odd to be imitated."The pieces collected here are drawn from two of McKelway's books--True Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality (1951) and The Big Little Man from Brooklyn (1969). His subjects are the small players who in their particulars defined life in New York during the 36 years McKelway wrote: the junkmen, boxing cornermen, counterfeiters, con artists, fire marshals, priests, and beat cops and detectives. The "rascals."An amazing portrait of a long forgotten New York by the reporter who helped establish and utterly defined New Yorker "fact writing," Untitled Collection is long overdue celebration of a truly gifted writer.

    Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward.The book aims to begin a new constitutional debate. Americans should not suppose that Barack Obama s centrism and constitutionalism will typify the presidencies of the twenty-first century. We should seize the present opportunity to confront deeper institutional pathologies before it is too late.

    Woodward examines the transfer of alchemical culture to America by John Winthrop, Jr., one of English colonization's early giants. Winthrop participated in a pan-European network of natural philosophers who believed alchemy could improve the human condition and hasten Christ's Second Coming. Woodward demonstrates the influence of Winthrop and his philosophy on New England's cultural formation: its settlement, economy, religious toleration, Indian relations, medical practice, witchcraft prosecution, and imperial diplomacy. Prospero's America reconceptualizes the significance of early modern science in shaping New England hand in hand with Puritanism and politics.

    Incessant budget crises plus a government paralyzed by partisan gridlock have led to demands for reform, even a constitutional convention. But what, exactly, is wrong and how can we fix it? In California Crackup, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers. Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the constitutional origins of our current political and economic problems and furnishes a uniquely California fix: innovative solutions that allow Californians to debate their choices, settle on the best ones, hold elected officials accountable for results, and choose anew if something doesn’t work.

    During 1973 UFOs began to make widespread appearances in the sky across the Keystone State. It was during the summer of that year however when a mysterious wave of events began to unfold. Alarmed citizens over a widespread area reported close encounters with huge hairy Bigfoot-like creatures. Frightened residents called local authorities and media outlets reporting enormous footprints and terrified animals. As the pace of the abnormal encounters quickened through the following months, more eyewitness reports of other strange creatures, and a variety of other paranormal events came to the attention of Gordon's investigation team. Stan's second book covers many of the mysterious incidents from that period which continued into 1974, including illustrations and photos. For the first time the author reveals many new details about this puzzling period of time. Some of the startling cases discussed suggest that there may be more to the Bigfoot mystery than a flesh and blood explanation. Some of the first hand accounts and details you will read about include: - UFOs And Bigfoot Seen At The Same Time And Place - The Case Of The Vanishing Bigfoot - Bigfoot Shooting Incidents - UFO Landings And Car Pursuits - Mystery Men Interviewing Witnesses And Destroying Evidence - The Government Interest

    439: Burlesque and Side degree Specialties: Paraphernalia and Costumes, in which the manufacturers De Moulin Bros. Co. from Greenville, Ill. feature the finest electro-dropo benches, goat-shaped tricycles, electric branding irons (and much much more)!Not only does this 1930 catalog, reproduced with marvelous 21st century machinery, provide tightly rendered pen-and-ink period illustrations and detailed product descriptions, it also has helpful how-tos and scripts to aid in the pulling of these pranks on initiates!(WARNING: Fantagraphics Books is in no way responsible for any resultant maiming, crippling, immolation, or disfigurement resulting from the construction and/or use of devices pictured in this catalogue. At least, we don’t think so.) Today, DeMoulin Bros. Co. is one of the largest suppliers of costumes for marching bands in the united States. But in 1930 the company produced an amazing array of props and devices created specifically to be used in minor “hazing” of candidates in the side degrees of various fraternal organizations. The great 1930 DeMoulin Bros. Company Fraternal Supply Catalog No. 439 is truly a holy grail for the prankster, arm-chair sadist and those interested in the some of the zanier historic arcana lurking behind that neighborhood odd-fellows lodge.This is the ultimate desert-island book for pranksters looking for something edgy and new to dream about, Rube Goldberg-like devices created to instill terror and bemused respect, before the candidate ascends to receive a more sublime form of illumination. All in good fun, it is—or was—the American way!

    It reveals an international system in the throes of enduring transformations.

    Other featured stories include Alice Walker’s "Everyday Use" read by Carmen de Lavallade, John Cheever’s "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" performed by Malachy McCourt, Amy Tan’s "Rules of the Game" read by Freda Foh Shen and Jerry Stiller reading John Sayles laugh-out-loud classic "At the Anarchists’ Convention" by John Sayles.

    One of the most famous scientists in the world during the middle of the twentieth century, Brown—who lived fast, dressed to the nines, gambled, drank, smoked, and was known as a ladies’ man—became as legendary as the dinosaurs he uncovered. Barnum Brown brushes off the loose sediment to reveal the man behind the legend. Drawing on Brown’s field correspondence and unpublished notes, and on the writings of his daughter and his two wives, it discloses for the first time details about his life and travels—from his youth on the western frontier to his spying for the U.S. government under cover of his expeditions. This absorbing biography also takes full measure of Brown’s extensive scientific accomplishments, making it the definitive account of the life and times of a singular man and a superlative fossil hunter.

    This book offers a comprehensive introduction to Richard Rorty's life and body of work and brings key essays published across many volumes and journals into one collection, including selections from his final volume of philosophical papers, Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007). Moreover, it contains the previously unpublished essay, "Redemption from Egotism", and includes in-depth interviews and several revealing autobiographical pieces.This collective represents the fullest portrait available today on Rorty's relationship with American pragmatism and the trajectory of his thought.

    Comics legends Will Eisner and Milton Caniff produced comics for the army. Li’l Abner joined the navy. Walt Kelly’s Pogo told parents how much TV their kids should watch, Bert the Turtle showed them how to survive a nuclear attack, and Dennis the Menace took “A Poke at Poison.” Smokey Bear had his own comic, and so did Zippy, the USPS mascot. Dozens of artists and writers, known and unknown, were recruited to create comics about every aspect of American life, from jobs and money to health and safety to sex and drugs. Whether you want the lowdown on psychological warfare or the highlights of working in the sardine industry, the government has a comic for you! Government Issue reproduces an important selection of these official comics in full-reading format, plus a broad range of excerpts and covers, all organized chronologically in thematic chapters. Earnest, informational, and kitschy, this outstanding collection is the ultimate comics vox populi.

    It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The complex elements comprising the electoral college system are responsible for one of the most important processes of the American political and constitutional system: election of the President and Vice President. A failure to elect, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a profound constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress.Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as amended in 1804 by the 12th Amendment, sets forth the requirements for election of the President and Vice President. It authorizes each state to appoint, by whatever means the legislature chooses, a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives delegations, for a contemporary total of 538, including three electors for the District of Columbia. Since the Civil War, the states have universally provided for popular election of the presidential electors. Anyone may serve as an elector, except Members of Congress and persons holding offices of “Trust or Profit” under the Constitution. In each presidential election year, the political parties and other groups that have secured a place on the ballot in each state nominate a “slate” or “ticket” of candidates for elector.When voters cast a single vote for their favored candidates on general election day, Tuesday after the first Monday in November (November 6 in 2012), they are actually voting for the slate of electors pledged to those candidates. The entire slate of electors winning the most popular votes in the state is elected, a practice known as winner-take-all, or the general ticket system. Maine and Nebraska use an alternative method, the district plan, which awards two electors to the popular vote winners statewide, and one to the popular vote winners in each congressional district. Electors assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 17 in 2012). They are expected to vote for the candidates they represent. Separate ballots are cast for President and Vice President, after which the electoral college ceases to exist until the next presidential election. State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and are counted and declared at a joint session of Congress, usually held on January 6 of the year succeeding the election, a date that may be altered by legislation. Since January 6 falls on a Sunday in 2013, Congress will likely set another date for the joint session in 2013, possibly January 8. A majority of electoral votes (currently 270 of 538) is required to win, but the results submitted by any state are open to challenge at the joint session, as provided by law.Past proposals for change by constitutional amendment have included various reform options and direct popular election, which would eliminate the electoral college system, but no substantive action on this issue has been taken in Congress for more than 20 years. At present, however, a non-governmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, proposes to reform the electoral college by action taken at the state level; eight states and the District of Columbia have approved the NPV compact to date.For further information on contemporary proposals to reform or eliminate the electoral college, please consult CRS Report R42139, Contemporary Developments in Presidential Elections, by Kevin J. Coleman, R. Sam Garrett, and Thomas H. Neale.

    On a menu suited to satisfy every craving, Herb Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Sage, a favorite with neighborhood regulars, shares equal billing with Beef Marrow Bones with Oxtail Marmalade, the late-night dish most often requested by the celebrity-chef crowd. After seventeen successful years, Bruce and Eric Bromberg, the brothers behind the now nine-restaurant Blue Ribbon phenomenon, share their secrets for exceptional American fare.Bruce and Eric draw heavily on their childhood in suburban New Jersey as well as time spent cooking in France after college, translating these culinary influences into incredibly satisfying American home cooking that's a cut above in every way: Braised Beef Short Ribs with Succotash; a Blue Reuben sandwich made with chorizo, cheddar, and coleslaw; collard greens cooked quickly in browned butter; addictively crispy Northern Fried Chicken that gets its crunch from an ingenious yet simple matzoh-meal coating.The brothers share insightful cooking tips in "Blue Ribbon Wisdom" boxes throughout the book. Learn when to use kosher salt versus regular table salt; how to make perfectly golden, crisp French fries at home; the secret behind truly creamy crème brûlée; even the neatest way possible to slice fresh corn kernels off the cob. From simple tricks of the trade to notes on improving cooking techniques, these invaluable insider hints can help home cooks elevate their everyday dishes.Just as at their restaurants, Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook covers all meals: snacks, appetizers, main courses, sides, desserts, breakfast, and sandwiches. This is the book to dip into no matter what time of day, no matter what you're in the mood for—whenever you want the very best home cooking possible.

    His thinking had a profound influence on political philosophy; in fact, the founding fathers who drafted the Constitution of the United States based a portion of its content upon Locke's tenets. However, it can be argued that these Lockean concepts are ill-adapted to realities of the modern world, and as such are the root cause of dysfunction in our body politic today--and are hampering the Obama administration's attempts to effect change.This book traces the evolution of liberalism as a political philosophy in England and the United States from the 18th century to today. The author presents a series of historical and contemporary studies that illustrate how John Locke's political philosophy of antisocial individualism continues to affect modern American culture. Additionally, this book attempts to address why American conservatives are actually liberal, how American liberals can also be deemed liberal, to provide direction in getting American politics moving again, and restore the American dream for ourselves and our children.

    Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs: The Life of Velma Johnston

    Erasing Iraq shows in unparalleled detail the devastating human cost.Western governments and the mainstream media continue to ignore or play down the human costs of the war on Iraqi citizens This has allowed them to present their role as the benign guardians of Iraqi interests. The authors deconstruct this narrative by presenting a portrait of the total carnage in Iraq today as told by Iraqis and other witnesses who experienced it firsthand.Featuring in-depth interviews with Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and Western countries, Erasing Iraq is a comprehensive and moving account of the Iraqi people's tragedy.

    The zombie metaphor may seem extreme, but it is particularly apt for drawing attention to the ways in which political culture and power in American society now operate on a level of mere survival. This book uses the metaphor not only to suggest the symbolic face of power: beginning and ending with an analysis of authoritarianism, it attempts to mark and chart the visible registers of a kind of zombie politics, including the emergence of right-wing teaching machines, a growing politics of disposability, the emergence of a culture of cruelty, and the ongoing war being waged on young people, especially on youth of color. By drawing attention to zombie politics and authoritarianism, this book aims to break through the poisonous common sense that often masks zombie politicians, anti-public intellectuals, politics, institutions, and social relations, and bring into focus a new language, pedagogy, and politics in which the living dead will be moved decisively to the margins rather than occupying the very center of politics and everyday life.

    Author Michael DeAloia recounts the histories of seven culturally significant and iconic architectural gems that defined Cleveland's position of wealth and importance during the industrial age. Inspired by noble visions of Cleveland's most elite residents, these structures reflect the vigor and imagination that suffused city leaders. From Severance Hall, still home to the Cleveland Orchestra and the only structure in this collection that remains standing, to "Andrew's Folly," the grandest house built on legendary Millionaire's Row, Lost Cleveland provides a revealing historical retrospective on the growth, development and ultimate decline of the North Coast's greatest city.

    

    The Deep South during the heart of Jim Crow-era segregation. A Japanese-American person boards a bus, and immediately is faced with a dilemma. Not white. Not black. Where to sit?By elucidating the experience of interstitial ethnic groups such as Mexican, Asian, and Native Americans--groups that are held to be neither black nor white--Leslie Bow explores how the color line accommodated--or refused to accommodate--"other" ethnicities within a binary racial system. Analyzing pre- and post-1954 American literature, film, autobiography, government documents, ethnography, photographs, and popular culture, Bow investigates the ways in which racially "in-between" people and communities were brought to heel within the South's prevailing cultural logic, while locating the interstitial as a site of cultural anxiety and negotiation.Spanning the pre- to the post- segregation eras, Partly Colored traces the compelling history of "third race" individuals in the U.S. South, and in the process forces us to contend with the multiracial panorama that constitutes American culture and history.

    foreign policy. Prominent political analyst Peter Dale Scott marshals compelling evidence to expose the extensive growth of sanctioned but illicit violence in politics and state affairs, especially when related to America's long-standing involvement with the global drug traffic. Beginning with Thailand in the 1950s, Americans have become inured to the CIA's alliances with drug traffickers (and their bankers) to install and sustain right-wing governments. The pattern has repeated itself in Laos, Vietnam, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Turkey, Pakistan, and now Afghanistan--to name only those countries dealt with in this book. Scott shows that the relationship of U.S. intelligence operators and agencies to the global drug traffic, and to other international criminal networks, deserves greater attention in the debate over the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. To date, America's government and policies have done more to foster than to curtail the drug trade. The so-called war on terror, and in particular the war in Afghanistan, constitutes only the latest chapter in this disturbing story.

    Poet Cynthia Hogue and photographer Rebecca Ross convey the experience of a cross section of evacuees, their journeys from the Gulf Coast to the Arizona desert, and their efforts to make new lives.