Truman's Spy: A Cold War Spy Thriller


Noel Hynd - 1990
    In Washington, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI is fighting a turf war with the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. Harry Truman is in the White House, trying to keep a lid on domestic and foreign politics, but the crises never stop. It should be a time of peace and prosperity in America, but it is anything but.FBI agent Thomas Buchanan is assigned to investigate the father of a former fiancée, Ann Garrett, who dumped Buchanan while he was away to World War Two. And suddenly Buchanan finds himself on a worldwide search for both an active Soviet spy and the only woman he ever loved. In the process, he crosses paths with Hoover, Truman, Soviet moles and assassins, an opium kingpin from China, and a brigade of lowlife from the American film community. Truman’s Spy is a classic cold war story of espionage and betrayal, love and regret, patriots and traitors. This is the revised and updated 2013 edition of Noel Hynd’s follow-up to Flowers From Berlin. The story is big, a sprawling intricate tale of espionage, from post-war Rome and Moscow to New York, Philadelphia and Hollywood, filled with the characters, mores and attitudes of the day. And at its heart: the most crucial military secret of the decade."Noel Hynd knows the ins and outs of Washington's agencies, public and private." -Publishers Weekly"A notch above the Ludums and Clancys of the world....." - Booklist"The novels of Noel Hynd stand out!" - Martin Levin, NY Times

Triumvirate: The Story of the Unlikely Alliance That Saved the Constitution and United the Nation


Bruce Chadwick - 2009
    Together they wrote the startlingly original Federalist Papers not as an exercise in governmental philosophy, but instead aimed at overcoming the common man's fears. Their relentless efforts laid the groundwork for ratifying the Constitution against rampant opposition.

The Berlin Airlift


Robert Jackson - 1988
     In this vivid and compelling account, Robert Jackson describes how the beleaguered city was supplied from the air in a remarkable operation hardly rivalled in history — a vital lifeline which the people of Berlin have never forgotten. Fly into Berlin’s spartan but modern Tegel airport today and it is difficult to imagine the mud and confusion that attended its opening in 1948 as an addition to Gatow and Tempelhof in the race to provide food and other vital necessities for the city’s starving population. It was nightfall on 2 May 1945 when the Russian occupation of Berlin became complete. Then, after three years of uneasy confrontation, all road and rail links between the city and the West were severed by the Soviets and the Berlin Airlift had begun. For ten months, it was only the efforts of the Royal Air Force, the United States Air Force and a variety of civil airline contractors which enabled the Western-occupied sectors of the city to survive. Enormous tonnages of food, fuel and other supplies were flown into the beleaguered city in an endless stream of aircraft operating around the clock in all weathers. They were constantly harassed by Russian fighters and 54 aircrew gave their lives — something Berliners have never forgotten. The final Dakota touched down in September 1949, its nose bearing the words ‘Positively the last load from Lübeck, 73,705 tons’; the Russian blockade had failed and a political solution was quick to follow. In this graphic account, former RAFVR Squadron Leader Robert Jackson recreates vividly those tense days forty years ago as the ‘Iron Curtain’ came down with a vengeance. Taking the story from the Russian occupation right through to the lifting of the blockade and its aftermath, the book concludes with appendices of aircraft and crew casualties, lists of monthly tonnages and tables of some of the remarkable individual aircraft performances. It is a story of courage and ingenuity in the face of adversity hardly rivalled in history. Robert Jackson (b. 1941) is a prolific author of military and aviation history, having become a full time writer in 1969. As an active serviceman in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve he flew a wide range of aircraft, ranging from jets to gliders.

The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War


Paul Hendrickson - 1996
    This brilliantly insightful, morally devastating book tells us why he believed, how he lost faith, and what his deceptions cost five of the war's witnesses and McNamara himself.In The Living and the Dead, Paul Hendrickson juxtaposes McNamara's story with those of a wounded Marine, an Army nurse, a Vietnamese refugee, a Quaker who burned himself to death to protest the war, and an enraged artist who tried to kill the man he saw as the war's architect. The result is a book whose exhaustive research and imaginative power turn history into an act of reckoning, damning and profoundly sympathetic, impossible to put down and impossible to forget."A masterpiece. . . . [Hendrickson] has a gift with language that most writers can only dream about. " --Philadelphia Inquirer"Approaches Shakespearian tragedy." --The New York Times Book Review

Generals South, Generals North: The Commanders of the Civil War Reconsidered


Alan Axelrod - 2011
    With April 12, 2011, set to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, the time is ripe for a new assessment of the conflict

Constitution of the Confederate States of America


Confederate States of America - 1861
    In its entirety...you have the CSA "Confederate States of America" Constitution.This is a must read.....imagine a young country that just learned all the things wrong with their country and its government....then makes their own.The CSA was ahead of its time in many respects...(never mind the whole slavery thing)....If you are a History buff or just doing research...get this...read it....it is outstanding.

A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy


David M. Oshinsky - 1983
    With a storyteller's eye for the dramatic and presentation of fact, and insightful interpretation of human complexity, Oshinsky uncovers the layers of myth to show the true McCarthy. His book reveals the senator from his humble beginnings as a hardworking Irish farmer's son in Wisconsin to his glory days as the architect of America's Cold War crusade against domestic subversion; a man whose advice if heeded, some believe, might have halted the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia and beyond.A Conspiracy So Immense reveals the internal and external forces that launched McCarthy on this political career, carried him to national prominence, and finally triggered his decline and fall. More than the life of an intensly- even pathologically- ambitious man however, this book is a fascinating portrait of America in the grip of Cold War fear, anger, suspician, and betrayal. Complete with a new Foreword, A Conspiracy So Immense will continue to keep in the spotlight this historical figure-a man who worked so hard to prosecute "criminals" whose ideals work against that of his- for America.

A General's Life: An Autobiography


Omar N. Bradley - 1983
    Draws on Bradley's diaries and papers to recount his experiences as American commander at Normandy, as ground-war strategist in Europe, and as first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life


J. William T. Youngs - 1984
    Youngs (Eastern Washington U.) provides both personal and political details of Eleanor Roosevelt's life, from childhood through and beyond the death of her husband Franklin, exploring her life as First Lady and the following

The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents


Ellen Schrecker - 1994
    The volume’s 95-page essay follows the campaign against domestic subversion from its origins in the 1930s through its escalation in the 1940s to its decline in the 1950s. The second part includes over 47 original documents (including 6 new sources) — congressional transcripts, FBI reports, speeches, and letters — that chronicle the anti-Communist crusade. The essay and documents have been thoroughly updated to reflect new scholarship and recently revealed archival evidence of Soviet spying in the U.S. Also included are headnotes to the documents, 15 black-and-white photographs, a glossary, a chronology of McCarthyism, a revised bibliographical essay, and an index.

Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? the Experts on Both Sides Make Their Best Case


Hugo Bedau - 2004
    Few controversies continue to stir as much emotion as this one, andpublic confusion is often the result. This volume brings together seven experts--judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and philosophers--to debate the death penalty in a spirit of open inquiry and civil discussion. Here, as the contributors present their reasons for or against capital punishment, the multiple facets of the issue arerevealed in clear and thought-provoking detail. Is the death penalty a viable deterrent to future crimes? Does the imposition of lesser penalties, such as life imprisonment, truly serve justice in cases of the worst offences? Does the legal system discriminate against poor or minority defendants? Isthe possibility of executing innocent persons sufficient grounds for abolition? In confronting such questions and making their arguments, the contributors marshal an impressive array of evidence, both statistical and from their own experiences working on death penalty cases. The book also includes the text of Governor George Ryan's March 2002 speech in which he explainedwhy he had commuted the sentences of all prisoners on Illinois's death row. By representing the viewpoints of experts who face the vexing questions about capital punishment on a daily basis, Debating the Death Penalty makes a vital contribution to a more nuanced understanding of the moral and legal problems underlying this controversy.

Verdicts of History (The Thomas Fleming Library)


Thomas Fleming - 2016
    From unexpected verdicts, like the acquittal won by John Adams when he defended British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre in 1770 to stirred passions when abolitionist John Brown was convicted of murder - a precedent to the Civil War - to the breakthrough in racial relations when Clarence Darrow won a stunning "not guilty" verdict for black physician Ossian Sweet - at a time when black Americans could hardly expect a fair trial. Fleming also includes the trials of Aaron Burr for treason and a well-known congressman for murder. In courtrooms throughout the nation's history, vivid emotion and heated rhetoric have established consequential precedents and enlarged average men and women to historical dimensions.

And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank


Steve Oney - 2003
    The girl’s murder would be the catalyst for an epic saga that to this day holds a singular place in America’s collective imagination—a saga that would climax in 1915 with the lynching of Leo Frank, the Cornell-educated Jew who was convicted of the murder. The case has been the subject of novels, plays, movies and even musicals, but only now, with the publication of And the Dead Shall Rise, do we have an account that does full justice to the mesmerizing and previously unknown details of one of the most shameful moments in the nation’s history.In a narrative reminiscent of a nineteenth-century novel, Steve Oney recounts the emerging revelations of the initial criminal investigation, reconstructs from newspaper dispatches (the original trial transcript mysteriously disappeared long ago) the day-to-day intrigue of the courtroom and illuminates how and why an all-white jury convicted Frank largely on the testimony of a black man. Oney chronicles as well the innumerable avenues that the defense pursued in quest of an appeal, the remarkable and heretofore largely ignored campaign conducted by William Randolph Hearst and New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs to exonerate Frank, the last-minute commutation of Frank’s death sentence and, most indelibly, the flawlessly executed abduction and brutal lynching of Frank two months after his death sentence was commuted.And the Dead Shall Rise brings to life a Dickensian cast of characters caught up in the Frank case—zealous police investigators intent on protecting their department’s reputation, even more zealous private detectives, cynical yet impressionable factory girls, intrepid reporters (including a young Harold Ross), lawyers blinded by their own interests and cowed by the populace’s furor. And we meet four astonishing individuals: Jim Conley, who was Frank’s confessed “accomplice” and the state’s star witness; William Smith, a determined and idealistic lawyer who brilliantly prepared Conley for the defense’s fierce cross-examination and then, a year later, underwent an extraordinary change of heart; Lucille Frank, the martyred wife of the convicted man; and the great populist leader Tom Watson, who manipulated the volatile and lethal outrage of Georgians against the forces of Northern privilege and capital that were seeking to free Frank.And the Dead Shall Rise also casts long-awaited fresh light on Frank’s lynching. No participant was ever indicted, and many went on to prominent careers in state and national politics. Here, for the first time, is the full account of the event—including the identities of the influential Georgians who conceived, carried out and covered up the crime. And here as well is the story of the lynching’s aftermath, which saw both the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the evolution of the Anti-Defamation League.At once a work of masterful investigative journalism and insightful social history, And the Dead Shall Rise does complete justice to one of history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.

Fantastic Facts about the Oregon Trail


Michael Trinklein - 2012
    Read all about these fantastic facts--and dozens of others--in this fun-to-read book.Did you know that some pioneers took a "shortcut" to Oregon that took them perilously close to Antarctica? Or that ferryboat operators on the Oregon Trail could earn nearly $2,000 per day? Or that many pioneers found ice in the middle of the blazing hot desert? It's all true! An entertaining read for young people or anyone interested in the great western journey.

The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era


Akhil Reed Amar - 2016
    Maryland, aspires "to endure for ages to come." The daily news has a shorter shelf life, and when the issues of the day involve momentous constitutional questions, present-minded journalists and busy citizens cannot always see the stakes clearly. In The Constitution Today, Akhil Reed Amar, America's preeminent constitutional scholar, considers the biggest and most bitterly contested debates of the last two decades and provides a passionate handbook for thinking constitutionally about today's headlines. Amar shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, providing specific rules and grand themes relevant to every organ of the American body politic. Prioritizing sound constitutional reasoning over partisan preferences, he makes the case for diversity-based affirmative action and a right to have a gun in one's home for self-protection, and against spending caps on independent political advertising and bans on same-sex marriage. He explains what's wrong with presidential dynasties, advocates a "nuclear option" to restore majority rule in the Senate, and suggests ways to reform the Supreme Court. And he revisits three dramatic constitutional conflicts -- the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the contested election of George W. Bush, and the fight over Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act -- to show what politicians, judges, and journalists got right as events unfolded and what they missed. Leading readers through the particular constitutional questions at stake in each episode while outlining his abiding views regarding the Constitution's letter, its spirit, and the direction constitutional law must go, Amar offers an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand America's Constitution and its relevance today.