Historian Carl Trueman presents a series of classic historical problems as a way to examine what history is, what it means, and how it can be told and understood. Each chapter in Histories and Fallacies gives an account of a particular problem, examines classic examples of that problem, and then suggests a solution or approach that will bear fruit for the writer or reader of history.Readers who follow Trueman's deft writing will not just be learning theory but will already be practicing fruitful approaches to history. Histories and Fallacies guides both readers and writers of history away from dead ends and methodological mistakes, and into a fresh confidence in the productive nature of the historical task.

    But what has been said about our "first families' families" - the colossal collection of animals, exotic and familiar, stubborn and playful, large and tiny, who have been welcome, and often celebrated, residents of the White House and its grounds since the days of George Washington? Over the years, the White House has been home to a unique assortment of pets. As a guest of John Quincy Adams, General Lafayette kept a live alligator in the East Room. Calvin Coolidge's Enoch, a huge white goose, gift from actress Marie Dressler, was said to be worth $100,000. Young Tad Lincoln surveyed his home grounds in a cart drawn by two pet goats. Warren Harding's Laddie Boy, a talented Airedale, was interviewed by reporters on national affairs. There were Franklin Roosevelt's famous Fala, Caroline Kennedy's Macaroni, Lyndon Johnson's beagles Him and Her. And Teddy Roosevelt's whole menagerie, which included a lion, snakes, roosters, a zebra, and five bears. The list of presidential pets is endless, and the stories about them and their owners are bizarre, hilarious, touching, and filled with incidents that point out many a first-family soft spot, peculiarity and, in every case, unabashed love of animals. Margaret Truman, a former White House resident herself, charts this special heritage with warmth and imagination.

    Far from the gray-haired, cookie-baking grandmother he imagined her to be, Gwendolyn was a stranger to Ian, but her family, old boyfriend, and the Palo Alto police seem to think they were a couple. And despite his best efforts to prove otherwise, the evidence against Ian is growing. It looks like someone is framing Ian for murder, but who? An executive at a tech firm, Ian is anxious to prove his innocence to his boss and mentor Paul Berk, a Silicon Valley legend. As the investigation heats up so does Ian's interest in Gwendolyn's sister, but can she be trusted?

    Streisand. Dylan. Pavarotti. McCartney. Sting. Madonna. What do these musicians have in common besides their super-stardom? They have all worked with legendary music producer Phil Ramone. For almost five decades, Phil Ramone has been a force in the music industry. He has produced records and collaborated with almost every major talent in the business. There is a craft to making records, and Phil has spent his life mastering it. For the first time ever, he shares the secrets of his trade.Making Records is a fascinating look "behind the glass" of a recording studio. From Phil's exhilarating early days recording jazz and commercial jingles at A&R, to his first studio, and eventual legendary producer status, Phil allows you to sit in on the sessions that created some of the most memorable music of the 20th century -- including Frank Sinatra's Duets album, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. In addition to being a ringside seat for contemporary popular music history, Making Records is an unprecedented tutorial on the magic behind what music producers and engineers do. In these pages, Phil offers a rare peek inside the way music is made . . . illuminating the creative thought processes behind some of the most influential sessions in music history. This is a book about the art that is making records -- the way it began, the way it is now, and everything in between.

    Narang. Badshah Khan was the leader of the Khudai Khidmatgar (also known as the Red Shirts) in NWFP.

    Book lovers, rejoice! In this love letter to all things bookish, Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. Readers will:• Tour the world's most beautiful bookstores• Test their knowledge of the written word with quizzes• Find their next great read in lovingly curated stacks of books• Sample the most famous fictional meals• Peek inside the workspaces of their favorite authorsA source of endless inspiration, literary facts and recommendations, and pure bookish joy, Bibliophile is sure to enchant book clubbers, English majors, poetry devotees, aspiring writers, and any and all who identify as bookworms.

    While other scandals involve money, Fast and Furious involves lives, including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, gunned down with a weapon that the federal government put in the hands of Mexico’s narco-terrorists. As shocking as Operation Fast and Furious was—and this book explains, in chilling detail, just what this operation conducted by the ATF, under the supervision of the Justice Department, entailed—equally appalling is the blatant cover-up of wrongdoing by the Obama administration. No reporter has been more dogged in tracking down the facts about Fast and Furious than Katie Pavlich. In her stunning new book she reveals:The documents that undermine the White House’s claims of ignorance about Fast and FuriousHow Eric Holder, President Obama’s attorney general, has, under oath, repeatedly changed his testimonyThe still mounting death toll from Fast and FuriousThe retaliation against Fast and Furious whistleblowersWhy Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano might be charged with perjuryThe Obama administration’s continuing assault on Second Amendment rightsWhy Fast and Furious could be a bigger scandal than WatergateUnraveling the mystery of what Fast and Furious was all about, Katie Pavlich delivers a stunning indictment of a radical administration willing to trample the Constitution and risk lives to achieve its ideological goals.

    Joshua Hempstead was a well-respected farmer and tradesman in New London, Connecticut. As his remarkable diary—kept from 1711 until 1758—reveals, he was also a slave owner who owned Adam Jackson for over thirty years. In this engrossing narrative of family life and the slave experience in the colonial North, Allegra di Bonaventura describes the complexity of this master/slave relationship and traces the intertwining stories of two families until the eve of the Revolution. Slavery is often left out of our collective memory of New England’s history, but it was hugely impactful on the central unit of colonial life: the family. In every corner, the lines between slavery and freedom were blurred as families across the social spectrum fought to survive. In this enlightening study, a new portrait of an era emerges.

    With Gimson’s wonderful prose once again complemented by Martin Rowson’s inimitable illustrations, this lively and entertaining aide-memoire and work of satirical genius brings our parliamentary history to life as never before.

    In his insider account, author RVS Mani discloses how the country’s internal security establishment functioned in the period of 2004-2014 when India faced some of the bloodiest terrorist carnages. This former Home Ministry official posted in the Internal Security Division between 2006-2010 also poses several questions that the nation should seek answers to.

    From stark warnings against the threat of totalitarianism to celebrations of independence long fought for, & from rallying calls for political change to passionate defences of moral principles, Hywel Williams' choice of speeches is richly eclectic in scope. This is an anthology with many voices: dictators & democrats, liberals & conservaatives, nationalists & internationalists, soldiers & peace-makers, statesmen & entrepreneurs.

    Author David Helvarg takes the reader on both a geographic and literary journey along the 1,100-mile Pacific coastline, from the Oregon border to the San Diego/Tijuana international border fence and out into its whale-, seal-, and shark-rich offshore seamounts, rock isles, and kelp forests.Part history, part travelogue, part love letter, The Golden Shore tells the story of California’s majestic coastline and ocean. Helvarg captures the spirit of the Californian coast, its mythic place in American culture, and its role in a state whose ongoing natural disasters and unremitting sense of renewal are intimately linked to its deep connection with an ever-changing sea.

    From the division of Jerusalem and Israeli counterterrorism measures to the security fence and the Iranian nuclear threat, his analyses are clear-headed, well-argued, and sure to be controversial. According to Dershowitz, achieving a lasting peace will require more than tough-minded negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. In academia, Europe, the UN, and the Arab world, Israel-bashing and anti-Semitism have reached new heights, despite the recent Israeli-Palestinian movement toward peace. Surveying this outpouring of vilification, Dershowitz deconstructs the smear tactics used by Israel-haters and shows how this kind of anti-Israel McCarthyism is aimed at scuttling any real chance of peace.

    E. Rölvaag lyrically chronicles the experiences of Nils Vaag, a young Norwegian immigrant. Abandoning the life of a fisherman in Nordland, a region poor but full of mystical beauty, Nils emigrates to the New World in 1912. There he sweeps saloons, lives in a boardinghouse called "Babel" for the many languages used by its residents, and begins to find his way among the people of the city.The Boat of Longing was Rölvaag's favorite of all his books and the only one set in urban America. When it was first published in English in 1933, it received wide praise from American critics. This edition includes an introduction by Einar Haugen, professor emeritus of Scandinavian and Linguistics at Harvard University and author of a critical study of Rölvaag.

     Many people remember the beaming face of Christiaan Barnard, the South African surgeon, after he performed the first human heart transplant, and captured the world's imagination. It was a stunning achievement, but he was not alone. In truth it was a four-way race, a fierce struggle fraught with passionate rivalry. The other three surgeons-Adrian Kantrowitz, Norman Shumway, and Richard Lower-were giants in the field, and by early December 1967 they and Barnard were each poised to snatch the victor's laurels. Each had spent years perfecting techniques that would lead to a successful heart transplant; each had monitored his chosen patient's condition, watching the clock, hoping a donor would be found in time. Some of these men were friends; others were enemies. Only one of them would be the first. From a dank, underequipped hospital in Cape Town to a cramped lab in San Francisco, the surgeons worked their own individual miracles to prolong their patients' lives, testing the limits of science, and nature itself. Like the classics of medical adventure-from James Watson's The Double Helix to John Barry's The Great Influenza-Every Second Counts is an unforgettable story of not only competition and fame, but of life and death.