Heinlein was sixty-six, at the height of his literary career; J. Neil Schulman was twenty and hadn't yet started his first novel. Because he was looking for a way to meet his idol, Schulman wangled an assignment from the New York Daily News--at the time the largest circulation newspaper in the U.S.--to interview Heinlein for its Sunday Book Supplement. The resulting taped interview lasted three-and-a-half hours. This turned out to be the longest interview Heinlein ever granted, and the only one in which he talked freely and extensively about his personal philosophy and ideology. "The Robert Heinlein Interview" contains Heinlein you won't find anywhere else--even in Heinlein's own "Expanded Universe." If you wnat to know what Heinlein had to say about UFO's, life after death, epistemology, or libertarianism, this interview is the only source available. Also included in this collection are articles, reviews, and letters that J. Neil Schulman wrote about Heinlein, including the original article written for The Daily News, about which the Heinleins wrote Schulman that it was, "The best article--in style, content, and accuracy--of the many, many written about him over the years." This book is must-reading for any serious student of Heinlein, or any reader seeking to know him better.

    Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward—and that a "Voyage of Discovery" would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier—President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, Lewis mapped rivers, traced the principal waterways to the sea, and established the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Together the captains kept this journal: a richly detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the native tribes they encountered, and the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, that has become an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration and the writing of natural history.

    He also dwells at length on the Pakistan movement, where the seeds of many current problems were sown the opportunistic use of religion being the most lethal of these. With data-driven precision, Devasher takes apart the flawed prescriptions and responses of successive governments, especially during military rule, to the many critical challenges the country has encountered over the years. These, as much as the particular trajectory of its creation and growth, he contends, have brought Pakistan to an abyss where it risks multi-organ failure unless things change dramatically in the near future.

     He would go on to travel to some of the most unexplored regions, meeting men and women who had never seen westerners before. Along the journey the crew meet Patagonians, Fijians, Tahitians, Aborigines, and many other peoples. Although the Wilkes expedition was largely scientific mission, the ships were not always peaceful, indeed there were a number of armed conflicts with Pacific Islanders as the United States began to assert its authority across the globe. The ships and their crews had to withstand some of the most appalling conditions as they continued their expedition, from the heat-driven mirages of the South Atlantic to the brutal cold of the Antarctic seas. What makes Erskine’s narrative so remarkable is that he is not writing from the perspective of an admiral or a scientific explorer, but instead from the viewpoint of a common sailor. Interspersed throughout the narrative are short ditties and sailor’s songs that provide a vivid picture of the mentality of nineteenth century seamen. After the Wilkes expedition landed back in the United States Erskine spent only brief moments on dry land as he frequently registered under new ships and continued his journeys. Erskine’s book is a fascinating first-hand account of exploration and maritime life aboard a tall ship. Twenty Years Before the Mast was published in 1896 towards the end of Erskine’s life.

    J. Reynolds tobacco family, one of America's richest and most intensely private clans. R.J. was the original founder of the company that became part of RJR Nabisco, which in 1988 was involved in the largest business takeover in history. Spanning three generations, the Reynolds's story moves from the triumphs of founder and corporate genius R. J. to the dissipation, scandal, and tragedy that plagued his children and grandchildren. There is a redemptive close, with grandson Patrick Reynolds founding Smokefree America and becoming a leading anti-smoking advocate. The Gilded Leaf presents, for the first time, a complete account of the family who captured, spent and redeemed the American dream.

    On board were thirty barely clad black men, armed with cutlasses, and two white men - Spanish slave owners with an incredible story to tell. A month earlier, the Amistad had set sail from Havana with a valuable cargo of slaves and $40,000 worth of gold doubloons. She was headed for the Cuban coastal town of Puerto Principe - but in a matter of days, the captain and the cook were dead, and the ship was in the control of the slaves. Thus began "the Amistad affair," which, writes Mary Cable, "was to bedevil the diplomatic relations of the United States, Spain, and England for a generation; intensify bitterness over the question of slavery; and lead an ex-president (John Quincy Adams) to go before the Supreme Court and castigate the administration in an eloquent plea for the slaves' freedom. In her fascinating and carefully researched account, Cable takes us right to the heart of these complex matters, dramatically replaying an incredible series of events that converged to form a uniquely exciting and challenging chapter in American history.

    The 1960–70s image, bolstered by Tom Wolfe and Big Wednesday, was one of mild outlaws―tanned boys refusing to grow up, spending their days drinking beer and smoking joints on the beach in between mindless hours in the water.But in the 1980s, as surf brands morphed into multibillion-dollar companies, the derelict portrait began to harm business. The external surf image became Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, beacons of health, vitality, bravery, and clean-living.Internally, though, surfing had moved on from booze and weed to its heart’s true home, its soul’s twin flame: cocaine. The rise of cocaine in American popular culture as the choice of rich, white elites was matched, then quadrupled, within surf culture. The parties got wilder, the nights stretched longer, the stories became more ridiculously unbelievable. And there has been no stopping, no dip in passion.It is a forbidden love, and few, if any, outside the surf world know about this particular rhapsody. Drug use is kept very well-hidden, even from insiders, but evidence of its psychosis rears its head from time to time in the form of overdoses, bar fights, surf contests, murders, and cover-ups.Cocaine + Surfing draws back the curtain on a hopped-up, sometimes-sexy, sometimes-deadly relationship and uses cocaine as the vehicle to expose and explain the utterly absurd surf industry to outsiders.

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

    Out West is an account of three separate journeys: Lewis and Clark's epic adventure through uncharted wilderness; Duncan's retracing of the historic trail, now in various ways tamed, paved, and settled; and the journey of the American West in the years in between. Readers traveling with Duncan will encounter the people who inhabit today's West: farmers and ranchers, cowboys and mountain men, Native Americans, residents of dying small towns, city dwellers who have survived cycles of boom and bust. From the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Oregon coast, readers will be treated to a landscape as variously impressive as its people.

    In Joseph Smith, he employs his keen insight and rich storytelling gift to explore one of the period's major figures. The most important reformer and innovator in American religious history, Joseph Smith has remained a fascinating enigma to many both inside and outside the Mormon Church he founded. Born in 1805, Smith grew up during the "Second Great Awakening," when secular tumult had spawned radical religious fervor and countless new sects. His contemplative nature and soaring imagination the first of his many visions occurred at the age of fourteen were nurtured in the close, loving family created by his deeply devout parents. His need to lead and be recognized was met by his mission as God's vehicle for a new faith and by the hundreds who, magnetized by his charm and charismatic preaching, gave rise to the Mormon Church. Remini brings Smith into unprecedented focus and contextualizes his enduring contribution to American life and culture within the distinctive characteristics of an extraordinary age."

    Lee and Jefferson Davis, and much more.

    THE PAINT FAMILY built an American empire on the legendary strength of their character, their wit, and their resolve, but the foreclosures, bank failures, and joblessness of the Great Depression may bring their world down around them. The family’s foundation is further weakened by a rift running through two generations, scarred over by stubbornness and pain. Come Again No More is a uniquely American story about a family navigating a changing world and the tough choices it presents. The indomitable family patriarch, Eli, owns everything as far as the eye can see, but there is an emptiness in his heart. After a dramatic accident leaves him struggling for life, he must reckon with the decisions he made that separated him from the daughter he loved most. A chance for redemption presents itself in his granddaughter Emaline. Eli has faced his own mortality many times, but his pride seems to have a death grip on him. Emaline marries Jake, a womanizing prizefighter who promises to help her realize her dream of making a life on a farm. But Jake’s inner demons and nature itself conspire against Emaline’s fierce determination to make their marriage work. Life sends Emaline many joys when she least expects them, but ultimately, she must make tough decisions about holding on and letting go. Based on the author’s family letters and diaries, Come Again No More is a bittersweet novel, a moving and vivid portrayal of a family’s triumphs and tragedies paralleling the glories and shameful underbelly of a nation struggling through the Great Depression.

    At the head of this effort was Junípero Serra, an ambitious Franciscan who hoped to convert California Indians to Catholicism and turn them into European-style farmers. For his efforts, he has been beatified by the Catholic Church and widely celebrated as the man who laid the foundation for modern California. But his legacy is divisive. The missions Serra founded would devastate California's Native American population, and much more than his counterparts in colonial America, he remains a contentious and contested figure to this day.Steven W. Hackel's groundbreaking biography, Junípero Serra: California's Founding Father, is the first to remove Serra from the realm of polemic and place him within the currents of history. Born into a poor family on the Spanish island of Mallorca, Serra joined the Franciscan order and rose to prominence as a priest and professor through his feats of devotion and powers of intellect. But he could imagine no greater service to God than converting Indians, and in 1749 he set off for the new world. In Mexico, Serra first worked as a missionary to Indians and as an uncompromising agent of the Inquisition. He then became an itinerant preacher, gaining a reputation as a mesmerizing orator who could inspire, enthrall, and terrify his audiences at will. With a potent blend of Franciscan piety and worldly cunning, he outmaneuvered Spanish royal officials, rival religious orders, and avaricious settlers to establish himself as a peerless frontier administrator. In the culminating years of his life, he extended Spanish dominion north, founding and promoting missions in present-day San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterey, and San Francisco. But even Serra could not overcome the forces massing against him. California's military leaders rarely shared his zeal, Indians often opposed his efforts, and ultimately the missions proved to be cauldrons of disease and discontent. Serra, in his hope to save souls, unwittingly helped bring about the massive decline of California's indigenous population.On the three-hundredth anniversary of Junípero Serra's birth, Hackel's complex, authoritative biography tells the full story of a man whose life and legacies continue to be both celebrated and denounced. Based on exhaustive research and a vivid narrative, this is an essential portrait of America's least understood founder.