Beautiful, profane, complex, and sublime, the show is dreama at its very best. Entertaining and illuminating, Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills offers a mesmerizing portrait of the most dangerous settlement in the West. This unprecedented look at the people, places, and history of Deadwood comes straight from the show’s creator, chief writer, and executive producer, David Milch.Through in-depth discussions of the themes and motivations that course through the lawless camp, Milch sheds some light on the characters and events in Deadwood. Fresh interviews with the Deadwood cast, scores of never-before-seen photographs, and historical images and illustrations bring the show and the place to life.Much more than a companion to the series, Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills is an essential part of the show’s story, and required reading for every fan.

    Happy for the first time since leaving her war-torn home, she is devastated when her foster mother announces that a new family has been found for her and she will be moving on. Feeling rejected and abandoned, Aisha packs her bags and runs away, seeking shelter in the nearby woods.Meanwhile, a few doors down, twelve-year-old Zak is trying to cope with his parents' divorce. Living in a near-building site while the new house is being refurbished, he feels unsettled and alone. Discovering a piece of rubble with the original builder's signature set into it, he starts researching the history behind his home - and in doing so finds a connection with a young soldier from the past, which leads him to an old air-raid shelter in the same woods.Both children, previously unknown to each other, meet in the heart of the ancient city woodland as they come into the orbit of Elder, a strange homeless woman who lives amongst the trees - and, as helicopters hover overhead and newspapers fill with pictures of the two lost children, unexpected bonds are formed and lives changed forever . . .

    Its features include a dramatic narrative packed with eyewitness accounts and hundreds of rare photographs, artifacts, and period illustrations. Evocative sidebars, detailed maps, and timelines add to the reference-ready quality of the text. From John Brown's raid to Reconstruction, Eyewitness to the Civil War presents a clear, comprehensive discussion that addresses every military, political, and social aspect of this crucial period. In-depth descriptions of campaigns and battles in all theaters of war are accompanied by a thorough evaluation of the nonmilitary elements of the struggle between North and South. In their own words, commanders and common soldiers in both armies tell of life on the battlefield and behind the lines, while letters from wives, mothers, and sisters provide a portrait of the home front. More than 375 historical photographs, portraits, and artifacts—many never before published—evoke the era's flavor; and detailed maps of terrain and troop movements make it easy to follow the strategies and tactics of Union and Confederate generals as they fought through four harsh years of war. Photoessays on topics ranging from the everyday lives of soldiers to the dramatic escapades of the cavalry lend a breathtaking you-are-there feeling, and an inclusive appendix adds even more detail to what is already a magnificently meticulous history.

     Perform a flawless Level 10 gymnastics routine? Easy. Jump fourteen feet in the air using a spindly fiberglass pole? Please. Turn two hundred dollars into a six-figure business? Piece of cake. Live in a house with sixteen strangers, surrounded by cameras? Uh . . . With a wry sense of humor and fearless attitude, Angela Rummans takes us on a journey from top-tier athlete to reality TV star and self-made businesswoman in this tell-all memoir. Along the way, she shares powerful lessons of how to get back up when life knocks you down. Throughout the book, Angela rips the band-aid off her most painful moments and tells life where to stick those lemons. From her highest highs—competing in pole vault at the Olympic level, building a business from scratch and finding her soulmate—to the lowest lows, she shows how it is truly possible to reinvent yourself as many times as you want.

    Concise but thorough profiles of the forty-one presidents of the United States furnish a detailed portrait of each man, an assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, personal anecdotes, and important facts about their terms of office.

    The heroics of a small team of Australian Special Forces commandos in Timor who tied down a far superior Japanese force for most of the critical year of 1942.

    In the successful tradition of books such as Salt and Cod, writer and carpenter Spike Carlsen explores the history, versatility, and special appeal of something we use everyday—but take for granted—in this comprehensive and dynamic history of wood’s global impact and its personal significance to people in all walks of life.

    McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have limned the war as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere. As the Second GreatAwakening surged through America, political questions became matters of good and evil to be fought to the death.The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not: It made the United States one nation and eliminated slavery as a divisive force in the Union. The victorious North became synonymous with America as a land of innovation and industrialization, whose teeming cities offered squalor and opportunity in equal measure. Religion was supplanted by science and a gospel of progress, and the South was left behind.Goldfield's panoramic narrative, sweeping from the 1840s to the end of Reconstruction, is studded with memorable details and luminaries such as HarrietBeecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman. There are lesser known yet equally compelling characters, too, including Carl Schurz-a German immigrant, warhero, and postwar reformer-and Alexander Stephens, the urbane and intellectual vice president of the Confederacy. America Aflame is a vivid portrait of the "fiery trial"that transformed the country we live in.David Goldfield is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is the author of many works on Southern history, including Still Fighting the Civil War; Black, White, and Southern; and Promised Land.

    Army Air Forces Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. A month shy of his twentieth birthday, Tony Marchione died like so many before him in World War II—quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy who was powerless to prevent his death. Though heartbreaking for his family, Marchione’s death would have been no more notable than any other had he not had the dubious distinction of being the last American killed in World War II combat.An aerial gunner who had already survived several combat missions, Marchione's death was the tragic culmination of an intertwined series of events. The plane that carried him that day was a trouble-plagued American heavy bomber known as the B-32 Dominator, which would prove a failed competitor to the famed B-29 Superfortress. And on the ground below, a palace revolt was brewing and a small number of die-hard Japanese fighter pilots decided to fight on, refusing to accept defeat.Based on official American and Japanese histories, personal memoirs, and the author’s exclusive interviews with many of the story’s key participants, Last to Die is a rousing tale of air combat, bravery, cowardice, hubris, and determination, all set during the turbulent and confusing final days of World War II.

    Hutchinson tells his story with infectious relish and vividly evokes the politics and personalities of this extraordinary decade.' (Anne Somerset LITERARY REVIEW)'Hutchinson tells the horrible story admirably and compellingly, acknowledging Cromwell's rare abilities, while making no excuses for his character... ' (Allan Massie THE OBSERVER)'a rollicking good read' (Harry Reid THE HERALD)'vigorous, pacey and focused... an effective portrait of "Henry VIII's most notorious minister"' (BBC HISTORY)

    The conspirators were summarily shot or condemned in show trials and sadistically hanged. One of the few survivors of the conspiracy was Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had used his positions in the Gestapo and the Abwehr (military intelligence) to further the anti-Nazi plot. Valkyrie, an abridgment of Gisevius's classic insider's account To the Bitter End, is an intimate memoir as riveting as it is exceptional.

    His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories, yet he has been largely overlooked by history. In Tesla, Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind.When his first breakthrough—alternating current, the basis of the electric grid—pitted him against Thomas Edison’s direct-current empire, Tesla’s superior technology prevailed. Unfortunately, he had little business sense and could not capitalize on this success. His most advanced ideas went unrecognized for decades: forty years in the case of the radio patent, longer still for his ideas on laser beam technology. Although penniless during his later years, he never stopped imagining. In the early 1900s, he designed plans for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar communications. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern economy.Who was this genius? Drawing on letters, technical notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor. Born during a lightning storm at midnight, Tesla died alone in a New York City hotel. He was an acute germaphobe who never shook hands and required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he spoke eight languages and could recite entire books from memory. Yet Tesla’s most famous inventions were not the product of fastidiousness or linear thought but of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences: he conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust.Tesla worked tirelessly to offer electric power to the world, to introduce automatons that would reduce life’s drudgery, and to develop machines that might one day abolish war. His story is a reminder that technology can transcend the marketplace and that profit is not the only motivation for invention. This clear, authoritative, and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of Tesla’s remarkable life.

    Miller accompanies his narrative with essays and excerpts from contemporary and historical writings, and the text is illustrated with photos and line drawings.Neil Miller is the author of Sex-Crime Panic and winner of the 2003 Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. He is also the author of In Search of Gay America, winner of the 1990 American Library Association prize for gay and lesbian literature. He teaches journalism and nonfiction writing at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

    Written with the full cooperation of each of the group’s members and their intimates, this book tells the inside story of the music and the madness, the feuds and the drugs, the marriages and the affairs—from the greatest heights to the self-destructive depths of the Fab Four. In-depth and definitive, The Love You Make is an astonishing account of four men who transformed the way a whole generation of young people thought and lived. It reigns as the most comprehensive, revealing biography available of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Includes 32 pages of rare and revealing photosA Literary Guild® Alternate Selection

    Despite tremendous increase in national income, the wealth gap in Malaysia is alarmingly high and extremely skewed. For instance, the top 0.2 per cent of depositors in Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) has about 1,133 times more than the bottom 80 per cent of depositors combined. This gap echoed by the fact that approximately two-thirds of Malaysian workers earn less than RM3,000 per month, and about 90 per cent of Malaysians have nearly zero savings. The current policies are not facilitating improvements in this wealth gap, which could lead to aristocracy where birth, not hard work or talent and effort, matter the most in wealth accumulation. This book explores possible policy interventions that can be undertaken to ensure that economic growth is equitably shared, which is vital for a stable and prosperous society.