Book picks similar to
A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933 by Erik Barnouw
history
non-fiction
7actual
nonfiction
On Giants' Shoulders: Great Scientists and Their Discoveries From Archimedes to DNA
Melvyn Bragg - 1998
Exploring their impact and legacy with leading scientists of today including Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Lewis Wolpert, Susan Greenfield, Roger Penrose and Richard Dawkins, Melvyn Bragg illuminates the core issues of science past and present, and conveys the excitement and importance of the scientific quest.
Death's Door: The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder
Steve Lehto - 2006
This haunting story continues to be an unsolved mystery today. Lehto conducts all the research to bring you the most accurate account of what songwriter Woody Guthrie called the "1913 Massacre."
A Treasury of Great American Scandals: Tantalizing True Tales of Historic Misbehavior by the Founding Fathers and Others Who Let Freedom Swing
Michael Farquhar - 2003
From the unhappy family relationships of prominent Americans to the feuds, smear campaigns, duels, and infamous sex scandals that have punctuated our history, we see our founding fathers and other American heroes in the course of their all-too-human events. Ineffectual presidents, lazy generals, traitors; treacherous fathers, nagging mothers, ungrateful children, embarrassing siblings; and stories about insanity, death, and disturbing postmortems are all here, as are disagreeable marriages, vile habits, and, of course, sex: good sex, bad sex, and good-bad sex too. We can take comfort in the fact that we are no worse and no better than our forebears. But we do have better media coverage. Bonus educational material:A brief history of the United States, including scandals!The American Hall of Shame!A complete listing of presidential administrations!
The Franchise: Building a Winner with the World Champion Detroit Pistons, Basketball's Bad Boys
Cameron Stauth - 1990
He watched day by day, crisis by crisis, as McCloskey, coach Chuck Daly, and a handful of immensely talented and ambitious basketball players--the Bad Boys of Detroit--won the NBA championship. Illustrated.
The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism
Cornel West - 1989
Dewey is the central figure in this pantheon of pragmatists, but he treats as well such varied mid-century representatives of the tradition as Sidney Hook, C. Wright Mills, DuBois, Niebuhr & Trilling. West’s genealogy is a personal work, for it's imbued throughout with the author’s conviction that a thoro reexamination of American pragmatism may help inspire & instruct contemporary efforts to remake & reform American society & culture. "West...may well be the pre-eminent African American intellectual of our generation."—The Nation "The American Evasion of Philosophy is a highly intelligent & provocative book. Cornel West gives us illuminating readings of the political thought of Emerson & James; provides a penetrating critical assessment of Dewey, his central figure; & offers a brilliant interpretation—appreciative yet far from uncritical—of the contemporary philosopher & neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty...What shines thru, throughout the work, is West's firm commitment to a radical vision of a philosophic discourse as inextricably linked to cultural criticism & political engagement."—Paul S. Boyer, professor emeritus of history, University of Wisconsin–MadisonAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1 The Emersonian prehistory of American pragmatism. Emerson on power & tradition; Emerson on provocation & the market; Emerson on personality & race; Emerson as organic intellectual2 The historic emergence of American pragmatism. Peirce on scientific method, community & Christian love; James on individuality, reconciliation & heroic energies3 The coming-of-age of American pragmatism: John Dewey. Dewey on historical consciousness, critical intelligence & creative democracy4 The dilemma of the mid-century pragmatic intellectual. Sidney Hook: the Deweyan political intellectual; C. Wright Mills: the neo-Deweyan radical social critic; W.E.B. Du Bois: the Jamesian organic intellectual; Reinhold Niebuhr: the Jamesian cultural critic; Lionel Trilling: the pragmatist as Arnoldian literary critic; The decline & resurgence of American pragmatism: Quine & Richard Rorty5 Prophetic pragmatism: cultural criticism & political engagement. Roberto Unger & 3rd-Wave Left romanticism; The challenge of Michel Foucault; Tragedy, tradition & political praxis; Prophetic pragmatism & postmodernityNotesIndex
5 Days in May: The Coalition and Beyond
Andrew Adonis - 2013
The talks ultimately resulted in failure for Labour amid recriminations on both sides and the accusation that the Lib Dems had conducted a dutch auction, inviting Labour to outbid the Tories on a shopping list of demands. Despite calls for him to give his own account of this historic sequence of events, Adonis has kept his own counsel until now. Published to coincide with the third anniversary of the general election that would eventually produce an historic first coalition government since the Second World War, 5 Days In May is a remarkable and important insider account of the dramatic negotiations that led to its formation. It also offers the author's views on what the future holds as the run-up to the next election begins. 5 Days in May presents a unique eyewitness account of a pivotal moment in political history.
The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA
Evan Thomas - 1995
Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat.Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war—by stealth and “political action” and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naïveté led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.
Strange Crime
Portable Press - 2018
Dumb crooks, celebrities gone bad, unsolved mysteries, odd laws, and more—Strange Crime has plenty of stories that will make you ask yourself, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” This easily portable paperback book is ideal for readers on the go. Take it to school, to work, to jury duty!
The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope
Ronald Florence - 1994
As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars.
Downstairs at the White House: The story of a teenager, an Oval Office, and a ringside seat to Watergate.
Donald M. Stinson - 2017
He was also a kid who did the same kind of harebrained things most teenagers do. Only steps away from the Oval Office, he fought with a foreign head of state for space in a restroom. He devised a shortcut that tripped countless alarms and summoned an agitated band of Secret Service agents. He spilled ice water on Frank Sinatra's sock. And that was just the small stuff. A funny, fast-paced memoir, Downstairs at the White House is richly decorated with presidents, first ladies, celebrities . . . and events that shook America.
Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan
J. Samuel Walker - 1997
Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. Delineating what was known and not known by American leaders at the time, Walker evaluates the roles of U.S.-Soviet relations and of American domestic politics. In this new edition, Walker takes into account recent scholarship on the topic, including new information on the Japanese decision to surrender. He has also revised the book to place more emphasis on the effect of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in convincing the emperor and his advisers to quit the war. Rising above an often polemical debate, Walker presents an accessible synthesis of previous work and an important, original contribution to our understanding of the events that ushered in the atomic age.
The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent
Ben Shapiro - 2021
New York Times #1 bestselling author Ben Shapiro asks how far Americans are actually willing to go in forcing each other to fall in line.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion from Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond
Mark Ames - 2005
By looking at massacres in schools and offices as post-industrial rebellions, Mark Ames is able to juxtapose the historical place of rage in America with the social climate after Reaganomics began to effect worker's paychecks. But why high schools? Why post offices? Mark Ames examines the most fascinating and unexpected cases, crafting a convincing argument for workplace massacres as modern day slave rebellions. Like slave rebellions, rage massacres are doomed, gory, sometimes inadvertently comic, and grossly misunderstood. Going Postal seeks to contextualize this violence in a world where working isn't—and doesn’t pay—what it used to. Part social critique and part true crime page-turner, Going Postal answers the questions asked by commentators on the nightly news and films such as Bowling for Columbine.
15 Documents and Speeches That Built America (Unique Classics) (Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and Amendments, Articles of Confederation, Magna Carta, Gettysburg Address, Four Freedoms)
Patrick Henry - 2011
There is a user-friendly table of contents for easy interaction. The following are included:1. 1215 - The Magna Carta2. 1606 - The First Virginia Charter3. 1620 - The Mayflower Compact4. 1676 - The First Thanksgiving Proclamation5. 1765 - Resolutions of the Stamp Act6. 1775 - Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death7. 1776 - Declaration of Independance8. 1777 - Articles of Confederation9. 1783 - The Paris Peace Treaty of 178310. 1787 - The Constitution of the United States of America and the Amendments11. 1796 - George Washington's Farewell Address12. 1823 - The Monroe Doctrine13. 1862 - The Emancipation Proclamation14. 1863 - The Gettysburg Address15. 1941 - The Four FreedomsThese documents and speeches provided a solid reference foundation for any class in United States history or government.All of Unique Classics ebooks have an improved navigation system which includes a linked table of contents. The works are formatted for easy reading and triple-checked for quality assurance. Our illustrated ebooks contain the best related works of art for the material which make the story reading experience much more pleasant and memorable.
Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty
Jeffrey Tucker - 2017
Most people of the current generation lack a sense of the historical sweep of the intellectual side of the right-wing collectivist position. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that this movement represents the revival of a tradition of interwar collectivist thought that might at first seem like a hybrid but was distinctly mainstream between the two world wars. It is anti-communist but not for the reasons that were conventional during the Cold War, that is, because communism opposed freedom in the liberal tradition.Right-collectivism also opposes traditional liberalism. It opposes free trade, freedom of association, free migration, and capitalism understood as a laissez-faire free market. It rallies around nation and state as the organizing principles of the social order—and trends in the direction of favoring one-man rule—but positions itself as opposed to leftism traditionally understood.We know about certain fascist leaders from the mid-20th century, but not the ideological orientation that led to them or the ideas they left on the table to be picked up generations later. For the most part, and until recently, it seemed to have dropped from history. Meanwhile, the prospects for social democratic ideology are fading, and something else is coming to fill that vacuum. What is it? Where does it come from? Where is it leading?This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap, to explain what this movement is about and why anyone who genuinely loves and longs for liberty classically understood needs to develop a nose and instinct for spotting the opposite when it comes in an unfamiliar form. We need to learn to recognize the language, the thinkers, the themes, the goals of a political ethos that is properly identified as fascist."Jeffrey Tucker in his brilliant book calls right-wing populism what it actually is, namely, fascism, or, in its German form national socialism, nazism. You need Tucker’s book. You need to worry. If you are a real liberal, you need to know where the new national socialism comes from, the better to call it out and shame it back into the shadows. Now."— Deirdre McCloskey