Splendid Isolation: The Jekyll Island Millionaires' Club 1888-1942
Pamela Bauer Mueller - 2009
Because so many of the world's greatest minds and bank accounts gathered together in virtual isolation for three months each year, history was made on Jekyll Island. A group of tycoons with surnames such as Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Pulitzer, Baker and others formed their exclusive Millionaires' Club on this island hideaway--the richest and most inaccessible club of that time.Between 1888 and 1942, Jekyll Island was open only to Club members' families and their guests for hunting, relaxing and playing in luxurious ease. In this sweeping historical saga, you will discover the Millionaires' pastimes and deeply guarded secrets--told through the unique voices of four Club employees. In this true story of their island getaway, discover how the decisions of these powerful titans changed the face of world finances, business and politics as they built modern America.-Mueller's love for Georgia's culture, people and history is infectious. Her easy, unrushed tone is soothing as is her description of the stunning scenery and wildlife. Splendid Isolation is an excellent read for anyone interested in the Gilded Age and in Georgia.- -
Angela Tate/Sacramento Book Review
-Pamela Bauer Mueller has really outdone herself this time, memorably linking a sleepy Georgia island to the birth of modern American industry and finance. Pam shares with us the America that once was, and the handful of men who shaped it for the ages. BRAVA!- -
Carey Giudici/Award-winning journalist/marketer/editor
-This non-fictional novel, based on old articles and interviews, reads as memoirs told through the Jekyll Island Club employees' voices, and presents glimpses into the lives of the famous financiers they served. We are treated to their joys and tribulations in a way that humanizes them, and then discover mutual respect, open communication and interest in each others' lives--quite a surprising revelation.- -
Enid Grabiner/RebeccasReads
-The richest people in the world, through the eyes of the people whose paychecks they sign. Splendid Isolation is a fine choice and intriguing reading featuring the characters of the great tycoons of a century ago.- -
Midwest Book Review
Super 30
Anand Kumar - 2016
He dealt with his own disappointment by setting up an innovative school in 2002 to prepare underprivileged students for the IIT JEE examination. Super 30 has an astonishing success rate and on an average twenty-seven to twenty-eight of the thirty students crack the exam every year.Stirring and heart-wrenching this is the extraordinary story of a visionary who has elevated these bright sparks and through education given them hope to rise above crippling poverty. About the AuthorAnand Kumar is an Indian mathematician and founder of Super 30. People Magazine heralded him as People s Hero .
Thank You for Coming to My TED Talk: A Teen Guide to Great Public Speaking
Chris Anderson - 2020
From class presentations to interviews to online videos, an engaging talk can not only inspire and electrify a room, it can change people’s minds, and even change the world. Thank You for Coming to My TED Talk is the definitive guide to public speaking for a teen audience. Drawing from a teen’s day-to-day world—school, extracurriculars, online videos, college admissions procedures, bat and bar mitzvahs, debates, and more—head of TED Chris Anderson shares proven techniques honed through years of watching teen speakers, including Tavi Gevinson and Chelsea Clinton, wow TED audiences. It includes everything teens need to persuade, inspire, and inform others. This comprehensive, accessible guide will help any teen become a confident, capable speaker.
Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists
Ainissa Ramirez - 2013
She describes what habits we need to change to make STEM fun again, as well as a plan for how to increase every child's participation in these disciplines. The 21st century requires a new kind of learner -- not someone who can simply churn out answers by rote, as has been done in the past, but a student who can think expansively and solve problems resourcefully. In order to solve the complex problems of tomorrow, the traditional academic skills of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic must be replaced with creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration skills -- skills inherent in scientific research.
Pills, Powder, and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugs
Antony Loewenstein - 2019
Pills, Powder, and Smoke explains why.The War on Drugs has been official American policy since the 1970s, with the UK, Europe, and much of the world following suit. It is at best a failed policy, according to bestselling author Antony Loewenstein. Its direct results have included mass incarceration in the US, extreme violence in different parts of the world, the backing of dictatorships, and surging drug addiction globally. And now the Trump administration is unleashing diplomatic and military forces against any softening of the conflict..Pills, Powder, and Smoke investigates the individuals, officials, activists, victims, DEA agents, and traffickers caught up in this deadly war. Travelling through the UK, the US, Australia, Honduras, the Philippines, and Guinea-Bissau, Loewenstein uncovers the secrets of the drug war, why it’s so hard to end, and who is really profiting from it.In reporting on the frontlines across the globe — from the streets of London’s King’s Cross to the killing fields of Central America to major cocaine transit routes in West Africa — Loewenstein reveals how the War on Drugs has become the most deadly war in modern times. Designed and inspired by Washington, its agenda has nothing to do with ending drug use or addiction, but is all about controlling markets, territories, and people. Instead, Loewenstein argues, the legalisation and regulation of all drugs would be a much more realistic and humane approach. The evidence presented in this book will persuade many readers that he’s right.
The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove
William Moran - 2002
The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. In part a microcosm of America's social development during the period, The Belles of New England casts a new and finer light on this rich tapestry of vast wealth, greed, discrimination, and courage.
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman - 1966
After a childhood in Brooklyn, he spent many years in and around Manhattan and Washington, where he witnessed troops returning from the Civil War and tended wounded soldiers in the camp hospitals. Whitman's broad humanity, his love of cities (especially Manhattan), his sympathy with all conditions of people, and his visionary - even prophetic - sense of the reality of the American dream make him as much a poet for our time as he was for the time of the American Civil War and its aftermath. This selection of courageous and consoling poems focuses on Whitman's vision of democracy, his love of Manhattan, his sense of the future - and of the community of peoples of this earth.
Manthropology
Peter Mcallister - 2009
Spanning continents and centuries, it is an in-depth look into the history and science of manliness. From speed and strength, to beauty and sex appeal, to bravado and wit, it examines how man today compares to his masculine ancestors.
Peter McAllister set out to rebut the claim that man today is suffering from feminization and emasculation. He planned to use his skills as a paleoanthropologist and journalist to write a book demonstrating unequivocally that man today is a triumph---the result of a hard-fought evolutionary struggle toward greatness.
As you will see, he failed. In nearly every category of manliness, modern man turned out to be not just matched, but bested, by his ancestors. Stung, McAllister embarked on a new mission. If his book couldn’t be a testament to modern male achievement, he decided, it would be a record of his failures.
Manthropology, then, is a globe-spanning tour of the science of masculinity. It kicks off in Ice Age France, where a biomechanical analysis demonstrates that La Ferrassie 2, a Neanderthal woman discovered in the early 1900s, would cream 2004 World Arm Wrestling Federation champion Alexey Voyevoda in an arm wrestle. Then it moves on to medieval Serbia, showing how Slavic guslar poets (who were famously able to repeat a two thousand-line verse after just one hearing) would have destroyed Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, in a battle rap. Finally, it takes the reader to the steaming jungles of modern equatorial Africa, where Aka Pygmy men are such super-dads, they even grow breasts to suckle their children. Now, that’s commitment.
For modern man, the results of these investigations aren’t always pretty. But in its look at the history of men, Manthropology is unfailingly smart, informative, surprising, and entertaining.
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HOW DOES MODERN MAN STACK UP?
Russian arm wrestling champion Alexey Voyevoda has a twenty-two-inch bicep and has curled more than two hundred and fifty pounds---with just one arm. But could he stand up in an arm wrestling match with an average Neanderthal male? Or, for that matter, a female? (p. 10)
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Today’s Ultimate Fighters compete in a sport where bouts routinely end with an unconscious loser splayed out on a blood-soaked canvas. But what would a match in the Octagon look like next to the Pankration bouts of the Ancient Greeks: a battleground or a playground? (p. 77)
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A modern army goes into battle with state-of-the-art technology and centuries of strategical insight. But for sheer determination, could they have bested Nero’s legions, who marched nearly two marathons a day for six days straight---each legionary carrying hundred-pound packs? (p. 99)
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There’s philological evidence that suggests Homer may not have written the Iliad; he may have rapped it. If 50 Cent had to face Homer in a rap battle, would he come out on top? (p. 160)
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Wilt Chamberlain is known for scoring on more than just the court. He claimed to have had as many as twenty thousand sexual encounters in his lifetime. Such conquest could only be matched by one of the world’s greatest conquerors: There is the evidence that approximately 32 million people are descended from Genghis Khan. (p. 248)
Reading Like A Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies For Reading Law Like An Expert
Ruth Ann McKinney - 2005
Fortunately, the ability to read law well (quickly and accurately) is a skill that can be acquired through knowledge and practice. The sooner the student masters these skills, the greater the rewards. Using seven specific reading strategies, reinforced with hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter, this book shows students how they can read law efficiently, effectively, powerfully, and confidently. Reading Like a Lawyer is divided into 3 parts: * Part I introduces the reader to the fundamentals of legal reasoning upon which law-based reading builds; * Part II introduces the reader to concrete strategies for reading effectively in law school; * and Part III teaches strategies for reading law outside of the law school context.
Manchester, England
Dave Haslam - 1999
Manchester, a predominantly working-class city, away from the nation’s capital, has been at the margins of English culture for centuries. The explosion of music and creativity in Manchester can be traced back from Victorian music hall and the jazz age, to Northern Soul and rock and roll, through to acid house and Oasis. But its roots are in Manchester’s history as a melting pot of popular idealism and dissent, from the industrial revolution on, via film, theatre, comedy and TV. And for Manchester, read England and the world.Dave Haslam is uniquely placed to tell this story – Manchester, England is as witty, erudite and passionate as you would expect from a man who can say, again and again, "I was there". Like Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming, this is the last word on the abiding centre of 40 years of UK pop culture.
A House Through Time
David Olusoga - 2020
People, many of whom have already embarked upon that great adventure of genealogical research, and who have encountered their ancestors in the archives and uncovered family secrets, are now turning to the secrets contained within the four walls of their homes and in doing so finding a direct link to earlier generations. And it is ordinary homes, not grand public buildings or the mansions of the rich that have all the best stories.As with the television series, A House Through Time offers readers not only the tools to explore the histories of their own homes, but also a vividly readable history of the British city, the forces of industry, disease, mass transportation, crime and class. The rises and falls, the shifts in the fortunes of neighbourhoods and whole cities are here, tracing the often surprising journey one single house can take from elegant dwelling in a fashionable district to a tenement for society’s rejects.Packed with remarkable human stories, it is a phenomenal insight into living history, a history we can see every day on the streets where we live. And it reminds us that it is at home that we are truly ourselves. It is there that the honest face of life can be seen. At home, behind closed doors and drawn curtains, we live out our inner lives and family lives.
The Making of the October Crisis: Canada's Long Nightmare of Terrorism at the Hands of the Flq
D'Arcy Jenish - 2018
The perpetrators were members of the Front de lib�ration du Qu�bec, dedicated to establishing a sovereign and socialist Quebec. Half a century on, we should have reached some clear understanding of what led to the October Crisis. Instead, too much attention has been paid to the Crisis and not enough to the years preceding it.Most of those who have written about the FLQ have been ardent nationalists, committed sovereigntists or former terrorists. They tell us that the authorities should have negotiated with the kidnappers and contend that Jean Drapeau's administration and the governments of Robert Bourassa and Pierre Trudeau created the October Crisis by invoking the War Measures Act. Using new research and interviews, D'Arcy Jenish tells for the first time the complete story--starting from the spring of 1963. This gripping narrative by a veteran journalist and master storyteller will change forever the way we view this dark chapter in Canadian history.
Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture
Deena Weinstein - 1991
Embraced by millions of fans, it has also attracted a chorus of critics, who have denounced it as a corrupter of youth—even blamed it for tragedies like the murders at Columbine. Deena Weinstein argues that these fears stem from a deep misunderstanding of the energetic, rebellious culture of metal, which she analyzes, explains, and defends. She interprets all aspects of the metal world—the music and its makers, its fans, its dress code, its lyrics—and in the process unravels the myths, misconceptions, and truths about an irreverent subculture that has endured and evolved for twenty years.
Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas
Paul Watson - 1994
He has stood in the path of oncoming icebreakers to protect seal nurseries, and overturned the law that shielded hunters of baby seals from protest and active intervention to stop slaughter. He is the environmentalist who scathingly referred to Greenpeace, an organization he helped found, as "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement." Now he owns a submarine.Why? Paul Watson's unswerving mission is to publicize -- and stop -- the atrocities committed against the creatures who inhabit the world's oceans.His life story is one of a man with more than the courage of his convictions -- time and time again he has risked his life for his beliefs. He rammed the Sierra, a whaling vessel whose masters illegally slaughtered 25,000 whales; he sailed up to a whale processing plant in the former Soviet Union and calmly snapped photographs when confronted with armed guards; he drove a Cuban fishing boat off the Grand Banks to protect the depleted cod population and he founded the radical and confrontationalist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, after he became disillusioned with Greenpeace tactics.Ocean Warrior is the story of Paul Watson's conservation career -- an amazing chronicle of bravery, horrifying slaughter and international intrigue. A story of passion and principles, it will not easily be forgotten by anyone who cares about the fate of our oceans -- or our planet.