Trapped in a small, poverty-ridden town in 1933, under pressure from his father to go into the family business, seventeen-year-old Dominic Molise yearns to fulfill his own dreams.

    The themes are familiar: friendship, commitment, responsibility, love, political idealism and activism, children, the nuclear shadow.

    Originally published in 1985 by H. Holt.

    A powerful account of the changing role of American black women in the labor force and in the family.

    Gary Paul Nabhan has combed the desert in search of plants forgotten by all but a handful of American Indians and Mexican Americans. In Gathering the Desert readers will discover that the bounty of the desert is much more than meets the eye—whether found in the luscious fruit of the stately organpipe cactus or in the lowly tepary bean. Nabhan has chosen a dozen of the more than 425 edible wild species found in the Sonoran Desert to demonstrate just how bountiful the land can be. From the red-hot chiltepines of Mexico to the palms of Palm Springs, each plant exemplifies a symbolic or ecological relationship which people of this region have had with plants through history. Each chapter focuses on a particular plant and is accompanied by an original drawing by artist Paul Mirocha. Word and picture together create a total impression of plants and people as the book traces the turn of seasons in the desert.

    Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American suburb from the middle of the 19th century to the present day. He treats communities in every section of the U.S. and compares American residential patterns with those of Japan and Europe. In conclusion, Jackson offers a controversial prediction: that the future of residential deconcentration will be very different from its past in both the U.S. and Europe.

    Central American policies implement broader US economic, military, and social aims even while describing their impact on the lives of people in Central America.

    . . a man who could never lover her, never let her go . . . .

    Army Air Corps had been dispatched against striking miners.The origins of this civil war were in the Draconian rule of the coal companies over the fiercely proud miners of Appalachia.  It began in the small railroad town of Matewan when Mayor C. C. Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield sided with striking miners against agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who attempted to evict the miners from company-owned housing.  During a street battle, Mayor Testerman, seven Baldwin-Felts agents, and two miners were shot to death.Hatfield became a folk hero to Appalachia.  But he, like Testerman, was to be a martyr.  The next summer, Baldwin-Felts agents assassinated him and his best friend, Ed Chambers, as their wives watched, on the steps of the courthouse in Welch, accelerating the miners’ rebellion into open warfare.Much neglected in historical accounts, Thunder in the Mountains is the only available book-length account of the crisis in American industrial relations and governance that occured during the West Virginia mine war of 1920-21.

    Farmer might be called the forgotten man of the movement, overshadowed by Martin Luther King Jr., who was deeply influenced by Farmer’s interpretation of Gandhi’s concept of nonviolent protest. Born in Marshall, Texas, in 1920, the son of a preacher, Farmer grew up with segregated movie theaters and “White Only” drinking fountains. This background impelled him to found the Congress of Racial Equality in 1942. That same year he mobilized the first sit-in in an all-white restaurant near the University of Chicago. Under Farmer’s direction, CORE set the pattern for the civil rights movement by peaceful protests which eventually led to the dramatic “Freedom Rides” of the 1960s. In Lay Bare the Heart Farmer tells the story of the heroic civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. This moving and unsparing personal account captures both the inspiring strengths and human weaknesses of a movement beset by rivalries, conflicts and betrayals. Farmer recalls meetings with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson (for whom he had great respect), and Lyndon Johnson (who, according to Farmer, used Adam Clayton Powell Jr., to thwart a major phase of the movement). James Farmer has courageously worked for dignity for all people in the United States. In this book, he tells his story with forthright honesty. First published in 1985 by Arbor House, this edition contains a new foreword by Don Carleton, director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, and a new preface.

     Frequently the two groups resorted to violence assert their rights to the lands. J. W. Wilbarger’s remarkable book Indian Depredations in Texas contains more than 250 separate narratives of attacks and counterattacks that occurred from the 1820s to the 1870s. Wilbarger, a pioneer who had emigrated to Texas in 1837, was fully aware of the dangers that he faced by living on the frontier of the American West as his own brother had miraculously survived being scalped and left for dead in 1833. Over the course of the next fifty years Wilbarger compiled accounts of Native American attacks that formed the basis of his book. Yet, rather than simply relying on hearsay and rumors of attacks, he sought out the victims and as he states in his Preface, many of the articles had been “written by others, who were either cognizant of the facts themselves or had obtained them from reliable sources." This book is fascinating work that remains an importance source covering the early settlement of the region by Americans, based on stories told by surviving pioneers. "unique among pioneer chronicles." — J. Frank Dobie J. B. Wilbarger was a Methodist minister, author and pioneer. He first moved West to Texas in 1837 at the urging of his brother Josiah Pugh Wilbarger. His book Indian Depredations in Texas was first published in 1889 and he passed away in 1892.

    Analyzing the history of Indian treaty relations with the United States, Vine Deloria presents population and land ownership information to support his argument that many Indian tribes have more impressive landholdings than some small members of the United Nations. Yet American Indians are not even accorded status within the UN's trust territories recognition process. A 2000 study published by the Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law recommends that the United Nations offer membership to the Iroquois, Cherokee, Navajo, and other Indian tribes. Ironically, the study also recommends that smaller tribes band together to form a confederation to seek membershipÑa suggestion nearly identical to the one the United States made to the Delaware Indians in 1778Ñand that a presidential commission explore ways to move beyond the Doctrine of Discovery, under which European nations justified their confiscation of Indian lands. Many of these ideas appear here in this book, which predates the 2000 study by twenty-six years. Thus, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties anticipates recent events as history comes full circle, making the book imperative reading for anyone wishing to understand the background of the movement of American Indians onto the world political stage. In the quarter century since this book was written, Indian nations have taken great strides in demonstrating their claims to recognized nationhood. Together with Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations, by Deloria and David E. Wilkins, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties highlights the historical events that helped bring these changes to fruition. At the conclusion of Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties, Deloria states: "The recommendations made in the Twenty Points and the justification for such a change as articulated in the book may well come to pass in our lifetime." Now we are seeing his statement come true.

    Bob is excited and lonely. He meets and pursues the elusive Jack, a director who is able to transform others without altering himself. Bob goes to the baths, gossips on the phone, goes to a bar, thinks about werewolves, has an orgasm, and discovers a number of truths about Jack. A paean to love and obsession, Glück's novel explores the everyday in a language that is both intimate and lush. "Robert Glück has found a new way of making fiction passionate. This novel is a strange, exhilarating love story rich with invention and observation." -Edmund White

    Army. Down in My Heart is an account of the relationships among the men in the camps and their day-to-day activities - fighting forest fires, building trails and roads, restoring eroded lands - and their earnest pursuit of a social morality rooted in religious and secular pacifist ideals. In his new introduction to the book, Kim Stafford calls them a "generation of seekers" working full time "to envision a way to avoid the next war." First published in 1947, this "peace relic, " as William Stafford later called his first book, offers a rich glimpse into a little-known aspect of the war and a fascinating look at the formative years of a major American poet.

    Marvin Hunter’s The Trail Drivers of Texas is a brilliant collection of first hand accounts of men and women who lived on the trail and range in the Old West. In total there are over two hundred different accounts from Texans in the nineteenth century. From the humorous to the deadly, the thrilling to the everyday, each of these stories are remarkably individual, depicting a Texas before the advent of the railroad. Hunter explained that “These pages sparkle with the lustre of deeds well done by a passing generation, and it is our purpose to keep bright that lustre, that it may not pale with the fleeting years.” Many of the major events and figures of Texan history are covered within this monumental work, from members of the Texas Rangers to old cowboys, from the gun slinging towns to travelling the Chisholm Trail. "For 60 years, The Trail Drivers of Texas has been considered the most monumental single source on the old-time Texas trail drives north to Kansas and beyond ... Because of its vast volume of raw material, expressed in the words of those who lived the life and rode the long miles, students of cattle industry history regard it with high respect, even awe." Elmer Kelton, Dallas Morning News J. Marvin Hunter was an author, historian, journalist, and printer who founded the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera, Texas. His books include Pioneer History of Bandera County: Seventy-five Years of Intrepid History, The Bloody Trail in Texas, Old Camp Verde, the Home of the Camels, a reference to Jefferson Davis's 1850s camel experiment in the Southwest, Cooking Recipes of the Pioneers, and Peregrinations of a Pioneer Printer. He edited and compiled The Trail Drivers of Texas which was published in 1920. He died in 1957.

    This eloquent and provocative autobiography, originally published in 1972, records a day by day, sometimes hour by hour, compassionate account of the events that took place in the streets, meetings, churches, jails, and in people's hearts and minds in the 1960s civil rights movement.

    Straightforward, no-nonsense poetry about being Black, female and gay.

    During the Depression, a 10-year-old boy befriends a carnival stuntman and his lion cub and learns about the meaning of family, loyalty, love, and survival.

    In Tato Laviera's third collection, poems build on themes of ethnic exchange and the place of the borinqueno in that greater scheme. "This performance poet's voice resonates loud and clear through forceful rhythmic variations and a complete command of both Spanish and English"--Hispania. "AMERICAN is branching out, the striking of sympathetic chords with other cultural groups on the basis of expansive Puerto Rican sounds and rhythms...He seeks to stake a claim for Puerto Rican recognition before the whole US society"--Journal of Ethnic Studies.

    Just when things are looking up for thirteen-year-old Ronnie, her father dies, creating a void she and her mother have trouble filling.

    The cry of “Gold!” or “Silver!” or a few flecks of color in a tin cup sent them to remote, often inhospitable locations to search for the precious metals.Close on the heels of the miners were the merchant, the gamblers, the prostitutes, the washerwomen, the capitalists, and the con men. Together they turned the mining camps into bustling towns where saloons never closed and the safest place for a man to walk after dark was down the middle of the street with a gun in each hand.Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps is the first new book in more than twenty-five years to document these mountain communities. Most of the early settlers are gone, leaving few persons with any oral tradition to pass on to future generations. For many of the 147 towns and camps listed in this book, not much remains to be preserved beyond what Dallas and photographer Kendal Atchison have recorded.The book is lavishly illustrated with 290 photographs. In addition to those by Atchison and early historical photographs, rare photographs from the 1920s and 1930s are included, many never published before. Some of Atchison’s superb photographs evoke nostalgia with views of abandoned buildings deteriorating amid meadow wildflowers. Soon nothing will remain but the Colorado landscape, with the eternal mountains towering close by.The town histories are traced from their beginning in strike-it-rich excitement and glittering boom years, through the declines, to the present day. Some of these hopeful towns, such as Lulu, were deserted as quickly as they were settled, lasting barely more than a season, while a few, including Aspen and Breckenridge, are as lively today as they were a century ago. But most of them, like Animas Forks, flourished until the gold or silver played out and were abandoned, leaving a few lonely cabins or picturesque ruins. Towns such as Aspen, Crested Butte, Cripple Creek, and Breckenridge have lived on to become popular ski resorts, and these places warrant additional vignettes that add color and to the text.Written to inform and entertain the general reader, this book will be a delight for armchair adventurers as well as invaluable for vacationers interested in visiting the sites of these Colorado boomtowns. Most of the places are no longer shown on modern road maps, and special maps of the region have been prepared for this book.

    It was revised and reprinted in 1987 and 1988, but is currently out of print. The Soap Opera Encyclopedia features commentary, analysis and criticism of "every daytime and prime-time television soap opera broadcast on the three major networks, as well as a selection of syndicated, cable, and foreign efforts." It also discusses background, significant storylines and impact of each program, and lists performers and characters. Schemering also includes a "Short History of Television Soap Opera," as well as profiles of major performers, writers and producers in the genre in a section entitled "Who's Who in Soap Opera." Finally, the book contains 30 pages of photos from various programs. Published in a time before the internet, the Encyclopedia was a primary source of background information and commentary on soap opera; it and Schemering have been quoted in various articles, books and web pages. It was revised and reprinted in 1987 (ISBN 0-345-35344-7) and 1988. According to the Encyclopedia, Schemering "spent fifteen years collecting memorabilia and information about the soap opera phenomenon" and wrote a syndicated column on the genre. He was also a regular contributor to The Washington Post Book World and had published film and television articles in The New Republic, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Daily News and other publications. Schemering is also the author of Guiding Light: A 50th Anniversary Celebration (1986).

    The texts the author examines are viewed not as works of art embodying enduring themes, but as attempts to redefine the social order.

    

    In the three-sided struggle for empire, the English and French colonists were locked in heated competition for native allies and religious converts. Axtell sharply contrasts the English efforts to civilize the Indians with the French willingness to accept native lifestyles, and reveals why the struggle for control over the continent became a fascinating contest of cultures between shrewd opponents lasting nearly 150 years.

    "-Washington Post Book WorldIn 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert.  But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.     In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. "Exceptional. . . .  A beautifully told historical meditation. "--Time"Championship prose. . . .  In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."--Los Angeles Times

    A study of the historical genesis and present-day persistence of antisexualism in American healthcare and social/legal policy.