Book picks similar to
Sex, Diet, And Debility In Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham And Health Reform by Stephen Nissenbaum
history
nineteenth-century
usahistory
american-history
Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation
Rusty McClure - 2006
Born in the late 1800s into a humble world of dirt roads and telegraphs, Powel and Lewis Crosley were opposites in many ways but shared drive, talent, and an unerring knack for knowing what Americans wanted. Their pioneering inventions — from the first mass-produced economy car to the push-button radio — and breakthroughs in broadcasting and advertising made them both wealthy and famous, as did their ownership of the Cincinnati Reds. But as their fortunes grew, so did Powel’s massive ego, which demanded he own eight mansions and seven yachts at the height of the Great Depression. Rich with detailed reminiscences from surviving family members, Crosley is both a powerful saga of a heady time in American history and an intimate tale of two brilliant brothers navigating triumph and tragedy.
The Banditti of the Plains: Or The Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892
Asa Shinn Mercer - 1896
It does not mince words … [and] is a timely contribution to the history of the West. That it recites the facts of a deep and damning crime detracts not the least from its value." - Denver Daily News
The Banditti of the Plains, first published in 1894 is an eyewitness exposé of Wyoming's Johnson County range war of the early 1890s. The conflict between cattlemen and small homesteaders, began when cattle companies ruthlessly persecuted supposed cattle-rustlers in Wyoming. As tensions mounted between the large ranchers and the smaller settlers, the cattlemen hired armed gunmen to invade Johnson County and destroy the competition for the limited supply of forage and water. As the fighting spread, the homesteaders and smaller ranchers, as well as the state lawmen, formed a posse of 200 men to oppose them. The fighting ended when the U.S. Cavalry, on the orders of President Benjamin Harrison, relieved the two opposing forces took the cattlemen and hired guns into protective custody. Subsequent legal (and illegal) maneuvering permitted the invaders to go unpunished, but the cattlemen never again resorted to violence in their effort to control Wyoming's rangeland. Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 – August 10, 1917) was the first president of the Territorial University of Washington and a member of the Washington State Senate. He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old American West: the founding of the University of Washington, the Mercer Girls, and the Johnson County War. Mercer became well known throughout the West as a publisher, and eventually found his way to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he published the Northwestern Livestock Journal, a public relations vehicle for the moneyed cattle interests. As Mercer came to see the clearly underhanded treatment of individual ranchers by the cartels, he began to write more scathing accounts of the events that were unfolding on the open range. His account is told in his book The Banditti of the Plains (1894), which was suppressed in its day, and is still difficult to find in public libraries in some parts of the Western U.S. Following the events of the Johnson County War, which included destruction of his newspaper office by arson, Mercer settled into the quiet life of a successful rancher in Hyattville, Wyoming, where he died in 1917.
Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us on the Moon
Ryan S. Walters - 2021
All three astronauts were experienced pilots and had dreams of one day walking on the moon, but little did they know, nor did anyone else, that once they entered the spacecraft that cold winter day they would never leave it alive. The Apollo program would be perilously close to failure before it ever got off the ground. But rather than dooming the space program, this tragedy caused the spacecraft to be completely overhauled, creating a stellar flying machine to achieve the program’s primary goal: putting man on the moon. Apollo 1 is a candid portrayal of the astronauts, the disaster that killed them, and its aftermath. In it, readers will learn: How the Apollo 1 spacecraft was doomed from the start, with miles of uninsulated wiring and tons of flammable materials in a pure oxygen atmosphere, along with a hatch that wouldn’t open How, due to political pressure, the government contract to build the Apollo 1 craft went to a bidder with an inferior plan How public opinion polls were beginning to turn against the space control before the tragedy and got much worse after Apollo 1 is about America fulfilling its destiny of man setting foot on the moon. It’s also about the three American heroes who lost their lives in the tragedy, but whose lives were not lost in vain.
Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret
Jacques F. Vallée - 2021
Italian investigative journalist Paola Leopizzi Harris and French-born information scientist Dr. Jacques F. Vallée have teamed up to uncover the details of a New Mexico crash in 1945, fully two years before the well-known incident at Roswell and the famous sighting by pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947.Over several site investigation surveys Harris and Vallée reconstructed the historic observations by three witnesses, two of whom are still living, who described to them the circumstances of the crash, with details of the recovery of a nearly-intact flying vehicle and its occupants by an Army detachment. Combining their long experience in field research around the world, the authors have documented the step-by-step efforts by the military to remove the object, an avocado-shaped craft weighting several tons, from the property where it crash-landed during a storm.Surprisingly, the literature of the field only includes a few passing mentions about the case, and only one (foreign) TV documentary has mentioned it, but the correlation between the crash of the extraordinary object and the explosion of the first atom bomb at White Sands, less than 20 miles away, has been missed. Harris and Vallée suggest that the correlation is significant for physical, geographic and biological reasons, quite apart from the obvious strategic implications.The witnesses were able to observe not only the actual crash of the object on their property but every step of the military efforts to lift it and take it away. Fearing retaliation, they remained silent for some 60 years about what they had seen and done over those nine days at the site while the recovery was proceeding. When placed in the context of the history of chemical and physical analysis of retrieved UFO debris--an area where Harris and Vallée have long collaborated—the devices observed by the witnesses raise a number of very important scientific questions.The Honorable Paul Hellyer, former Minister of National Defence of Canada, has stated: “Paola Harris and Jacques Vallée have spent much effort doing field research on location (…) It is now time that their discovery be revealed to the world.”Christopher Mellon, former deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the data “fresh reason to believe that our government is concealing physical proof of alien technology. Read the book, and if persuaded, join the millions of other Americans seeking a straight answer.”And Professor Paul Hynek added that the research “reveals a new UFO history.”
Murders of Merseyside
Tom Slemen - 2011
In this compelling study of true crime, Liverpool's most popular author Tom Slemen recounts some of the most intriguing and baffling murders of Merseyside such as:• The baffling case of the Victorian canned corpse• The magistrate's beautiful granddaughter who was killed by a crazed admirer• The condemned man who was hanged twice• Frederick Deeming - the Rainhill psychopath who wiped out his own family and danced on their grave with his next victim• The bizarre link between a South Seas cult and the housewife who was stabbed fourteen times in her Knotty Ash home by a killer who struck under the cover of a fog• The unsolved case of the superintendent and his son who died of gunshot wounds under mysterious circumstances - in a police station• The enigmatic murder of Julia Wallace - and a very credible solution• The only assassination of a British prime minister - by a Liverpool businessman Plus many more fascinating murder cases.This fascinating book is a must for all readers of true crime in general and Liverpudlians and Merseysiders in particular.
One of the Family
John George Pearson - 2003
Moreover, he was as legendary a figure on the streets of New York as on the streets of London.Pearson persuaded the mysterious criminal leader to talk to him - and the result was a story even more extraordinary than that of the Kray twins. Here Pearson reveals the true story of the Englishman who became the adopted son of Joey Pagano, the head of one of the major New York crime families. Here the Englishman tells the story that no-one else dared to tell.
Because He Could
Dick Morris - 2004
From the Arkansas governor's races through the planning of the triumphant 1996 reelection, Morris was Clinton's most valued political adviser. Now, in the wake of Clinton's million-selling memoir My Life, Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, set the record straight with Because He Could, a frank and perceptive deconstruction of the story Clinton tells -- and the many more revealing stories he leaves untold.With the same keen insight they brought to Hillary Clinton's life in their recent bestseller Rewriting History, Morris and McGann uncover the hidden sides of the complicated and sometimes dysfunctional former president. Whereas Hillary is anxious to mask who she really is, they show, Bill Clinton inadvertently reveals himself at every turn -- as both brilliant and undisciplined, charming yet often filled with rage, willing to take wild risks in his personal life but deeply reluctant to use the military to protect our national security. The Bill Clinton who emerges is familiar -- reflexively blaming every problem on right-wing persecutors or naïve advisers -- but also surprising: passive, reactive, working desperately to solve a laundry list of social problems yet never truly grasping the real thrust of his own presidency. And while he courted danger in his personal life, the authors argue that Clinton's downfall has far less to do with his private demons than with his fear of the one person who controlled his future: his own first lady.Sharp and stylishly written, full of revealing insider anecdotes, Because He Could is a fresh and probing portrait of one of the most fascinating, and polarizing, figures of our time.
NPR American Chronicles: The Civil War
National Public Radio - 2011
This revealing collection of Civil War stories features gripping history, expert commentary, and unforgettable voices:Shelby Foote reflects on the southern perspectiveE.L. Doctorow discusses Sherman and The MarchSam Waterston performs the Gettysburg AddressHal Holbrook honors Iowa in the Civil WarSusan Stamberg reports from Lincoln’s summer retreatJames McPherson tours Gettysburg’s hallowed groundTony Horwitz explores the world of Civil War reenactorsPlus visits to battlefields at Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, and much more.The NPR American Chronicles series explores the historical events that continue to resonate in our lives. Expert commentary and unforgettable stories create vivid sound portraits of history’s greatest people and events, examined in multi-faceted and moving detail.
Fifty-Five Fathers
Robert Frankenberg - 1970
Retells the story of the Philadelphia convention in 1787 drawing on the original notes of James Madison and on the diary of William Pierce.
Heart of the Trail: The Stories of Eight Wagon Train Women
Mary Barmeyer O'Brien - 1997
First hand accounts from their letters and diaries, most written on the trail.
One Track Mind: What Running 150 Miles in a Day Can Teach You About Life
Michael Stocks - 2021
The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy
Diana West - 2019
officials were turning the surveillance powers of the federal government -- designed to stop terrorist attacks -- against the Republican presidential team. These were the ruthless tactics of a Soviet-style police state, not a democratic republic.The Red Thread asks the simple question: Why? What is it that motivated these anti-Trump conspirators from inside and around the Obama administration and Clinton networks to depart so drastically from "politics as usual" to participate in a seditious effort to overturn an election?Finding clues in an array of sources, Diana West uses her trademark investigative skills, honed in her dazzling work, American Betrayal, to construct a fascinating series of ideological profiles of well-known but little understood anti-Trump actors, from James Comey to Christopher Steele to Nellie Ohr, and the rest of the Fusion GPS team; from John Brennan to the numerous Clintonistas still patrolling the Washington Swamp after all these years, and more.Once, we knew these officials by august titles and reputation; after The Red Thread, readers will recognize their multi-generational and inter-connecting communist and socialist pedigrees, and see them for what they really are: foot-soldiers of the Left, deployed to take down America's first "America First" and most anti-Communist president.If we just give it a pull, the "red thread" is very long and very deep.
Daughter of the White River:: Depression-Era Treachery and Vengeance in the Arkansas Delta
Denise White Parkinson - 2013
In 1931, Spence shocked Arkansas when she avenged her father's murder in a DeWitt courtroom. The state soon discovered that no prison could hold her. For the first time, prison records are unveiled to provide an essential portrait. The legend of Helen Spence refuses to be forgotten--despite her unmarked grave.
America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations
Mark David Ledbetter - 2006
Is it America’s destiny to be both a nanny state and garrison state? America’s Forgotten History questions standard history from a constitutionalist point of view.This, the first of five volumes, covers English roots, the colonial period, the Revolution, the Constitution, and the first four presidential administrations, those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.CONTACT mark.david.ledbetter@gmail.com
First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6
Noah Brooks - 1901