Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945


Emily S. Rosenberg - 1982
    Rosenberg shows how U.S. foreign relations evolved from a largely private system to an increasingly public one and how, soon, the American dream became global.

Dick Bong: Ace of Aces


George C. Kenney - 1960
     Between December 27, 1942, and December 17, 1944, he shot down forty Japanese aircraft. This achievement meant that he was the U.S.A.’s top flying ace through the course of the Second World War. George C. Kenney, commanding officer of the Fourth Air Force, knew Bong well and his biography of the young hero brings Bong’s short career in the air force to life. One of Kenney and Bong’s first encounters had been when Bong had been cited and temporarily grounded for looping the Golden Gate bridge, flying at low level down Market Street in San Francisco, and blowing the clothes off an Oakland woman’s clothesline. Kenney reprimanded him saying ““there is no need for me to tell you again that this is a serious matter. If you didn’t want to loop around that bridge or fly down Market Street I wouldn’t have you in my Air Force, but you are not going to do it any more and I mean what I say.” Yet, Kenney was also aware of Bong’s flying skill and although he might have been a bit of a daredevil he acknowledged that for the U. S. Air Force to pose a serious threat to the Japanese “We needed kids like this lad.” Dick Bong: America's Ace of Aces is a remarkable book that uncovers the short, but fascinating, career of America’s greatest fighter pilot. It is full of brilliant insights provided by Kenney who was able to watch this young man develop before his life was cruelly cut short testing a jet aircraft shortly before the war ended. “Both flight enthusiasts and students of the second world war will read with considerable interest of the events of Dick Bong's life in a book which sticks close to its subject” Kirkus Reviews George C. Kenney was a United States Army Air Forces general during World War II. He is best known as the commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), a position he held from August 1942 until 1945. Kenney wrote three books about the SWPA air campaigns he led during World War II. He also wrote The Saga of Pappy Gunn in 1959 and Dick Bong: Ace of Aces in 1960, which described the careers of Paul Gunn and Richard Bong, two of the most prominent airmen under his command. He passed away in 1977.

Facebook Phantom


Suzanne Sangi - 2013
    Are you happy?'After her board exams are over, Sonali – Li to her friends– meets a mysterious stranger called Omi Daan on Facebook. What begins as an idle chat soon takes over her waking hours and her dreams, as she, and through her, her friends Jo and Neel, get sucked inexorably into a world of darkness, danger and death. Who is Omi Daan?As they try to find out, their lives disintegrate and Li discovers that one cannot deal with darkness and remain untouched ...

Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791: Documents and Essays


Richard D. Brown - 1991
    The volume combines primary sources, analytical essays, chapter introductions, and headnotes to encourage students to think critically about the revolutionary era.

First Girl in the West


Eliza Spalding Warren - 2013
    Her story is unparalleled—and offers fascinating insights into the earliest days of the emigrants. Eliza’s parents launched the Oregon Trail era with the original covered wagon trek in 1836. Settling in the region that is now the junction of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, Eliza grew up among native peoples. She learned their language and understood their culture better than any pioneer girl of the era. Eliza was at the Whitman Mission on the day of the fateful attacks that so profoundly changed the course of western history. Her telling of that story is uniquely valuable—even though she was just 10 years old—because she was the only survivor who spoke the language of the attackers. This first-person account is an eye-opening look at life in the early West.Eliza’s story is as fresh and readable today as the day it was written—a rare example of a historic document that can still engage modern readers, even children. This enhanced edition adds dozens of photos, maps, graphics, and notes to the original manuscript. The bonus material provides a layer of context that gives readers deeper insight into her compelling story.

The Reluctant Sister (Reluctant Series Book 3)


Melanie Brown - 2017
    I enjoyed the attention so much, that I became Ed’s real girlfriend for a few weeks that summer. I put all that foolishness behind me until my senior year in high school, when due to an accident, the school became one cheerleader short. My sister Diane was a star cheerleader at the school back in her day. Since I used to help her practice, the cheerleader coach thought I was the best choice for an emergency one night substitute. My fake boyfriend is starting to feel less fake. Being a girl just seems to come naturally to me. What am I? A boy or a girl? I’m not sure anymore…

The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862


Carol Sheriff - 1996
    Carol Sheriff's extensive, innovative archival research shows the varied responses of ordinary people-farmers, businessmen, government officials, tourists, workers-to this major environmental, social, and cultural transformation in the early life of the Republic.

Yale Needs Women


Anne Gardiner Perkins - 2019
    The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating “one thousand male leaders” each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation’s top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women’s equality in education.Or was it?The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale’s imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer, many of the first female students found themselves immersed in an overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. Yale Needs Women is the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities that would carry them into the future. Anne Gardiner Perkins’s unflinching account of a group of young women striving for change is an inspiring story of strength, resilience, and courage that continues to resonate today.

Palm Beach Babylon: The Sinful History of America's Super-Rich Paradise


Murray Weiss - 1992
    Starting with the island's founder Henry Flagler, and updated for Kindle, "Palm Beach Babylon" chronicles the Kennedys, the Trumps, the Dodges, Helmsleys, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Mizners and Madoffs, and many more "Titans of Industry" and "Royalty." "The history is solid, the writing stylish," wrote renowned author Pete Hamill. "Riveting," exclaimed Nicholas Pileggi, author of "Wiseguy" and "Casino." The New York Times declared "Palm Beach Babylon" the best book ever written on the storied tropical island, where the "Rich and Famous" flock every winter to indulge in a world that only money can pierce. "Murray Weiss and Bill Hoffmann have . . . produced an intriguing account of the wagers of too much wealth and too much leisure time," wrote Dominick Dunne, the best selling novelist and true-crime expert. And as one reader posted along with 5-Stars: A REAL PAGE TURNER: I loved this book because it had all the allure of great fiction, yet it was about real people who, although they live in a real place (Palm Beach, FL), seem more like Great Gatsby characters than anything else! It also provides a fascinating historical perspective of the glamorous Palm Beach, how it was built, the man who built it, and the wealthy who flocked to it.

American Dreams: The United States Since 1945


H.W. Brands - 2009
    W. Brands, an incisive chronicle of the events and trends that guided-and sometimes misguided-our nation from the A-bomb to the iPhone. For a brief, bright moment in 1945, America stood at its apex, looking back on victory not only against the Axis powers but against the Great Depression, and looking ahead to seemingly limitless power and promise. What we've done with that power and promise over the past six decades is a vitally important and fascinating topic that has rarely been tackled in one volume, and never by a historian of H. W. Brands's stature. As "American Dreams" opens, Brands shows us a country dramatically different from our own-more unequal in social terms but more equal economically, more religious and rural but also more liberal and more wholeheartedly engaged with the rest of the world. As he traces the changes we have gone through as a nation, he reveals the great themes and dreams that have driven America-the rising focus on individual rights and pleasures, the growing distance between our global goals and those of the rest of the world, and the inexorable dissolution of a shared sense of what it means to be American. In Brands's adroit hands, these trends unfold through a character-driven narrative that sheds brilliant light on the obvious highs and lows-from Watergate to the Berlin Wall, from Apollo 11 to 9/11, from My Lai to shock and awe. But he also chronicles the surprising impact of less celebrated events and trends. Through his eyes, we realize the sweeping significance of the immigration reforms of the 1960s, which gradually transformed American society. We come to grasp the vast impact of abandoning the gold standard in 1971, which enabled both globalization and the current financial crisis. We ponder the unnerving results of CNN's debut in 1979, which sped up the news cycle and permanently changed our foreign policy by putting its effects live on our TV screens. Blending political and cultural history with his keen sense of the spirit of the times, Brands captures the national experience through the last six decades and reveals the still-unfolding legacy of dreams born out of a global cataclysm.

A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke


James Horn - 2010
    A mere month later, facing quickly diminishing supplies and a fierce native population, White sailed back to England in desperation. He persuaded the wealthy Sir Walter Raleigh, the expedition's sponsor, to rescue the imperiled colonists, but by the time White returned with aid the colonists of Roanoke were nowhere to be found. He never saw his friends or family again.In this gripping account based on new archival material, colonial historian James Horn tells for the first time the complete story of what happened to the Roanoke colonists and their descendants. A compellingly original examination of one of the great unsolved mysteries of American history, A Kingdom Strange will be essential reading for anyone interested in our national origins.

The Battle of Franklin: When the Devil Had Full Possession of the Earth (Civil War Sesquicentennial Series)


James R. Knight - 2009
    John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee had dreams of capturing Nashville and marching on to the Ohio River, but a small Union force under Hood's old West Point roommate stood between him and the state capital. In a desperate attempt to smash John Schofield's line at Franklin, Hood threw most of his men against the Union works, centered on the house of a family named Carter, and lost 30 percent of his attacking force in one afternoon, crippling his army and setting it up for a knockout blow at Nashville two weeks later. With firsthand accounts, letters and diary entries from the Carter House Archives, local historian James R. Knight paints a vivid picture of this gruesome conflict.

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities


Mary C. Waters - 2000
    Many of these adoptive citizens have prospered, including General Colin Powell. But Mary Waters tells a very different story about immigrants from the West Indies, especially their children.She finds that when the immigrants first arrive, their knowledge of English, their skills and contacts, their self-respect, and their optimistic assessment of American race relations facilitate their integration into the American economic structure. Over time, however, the realities of American race relations begin to swamp their positive cultural values. Persistent, blatant racial discrimination soon undermines the openness to whites the immigrants have when they first arrive. Discrimination in housing channels them into neighborhoods with inadequate city services and high crime rates. Inferior public schools undermine their hopes for their children's future. Low wages and poor working conditions are no longer attractive for their children, who use American and not Caribbean standards to measure success.Ultimately, the values that gained these first-generation immigrants initial success--a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save--are undermined by the realities of life in the United States. In many families, the hard-won relative success of the parents is followed by the downward slide of their children. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

Breakout and Pursuit: The United States Army in World War II, The European Theater of Operations


Martin Blumenson - 2012
     Yet, although D-Day had been a monumental success, their journey was far from over. How did the Allied forces drive back the Nazi’s from their strongly entrenched positions in northern France all the way to the German border? This is the main question that is answered with Martin Blumenson’s brilliant study, Breakout and Pursuit, which covers the period from 1st July to 11th September 1944. The allied forces had to work together to overcome tremendous difficulties as they fought against battle-hardened troops. Virtually every sort of major operation involving co-ordinated action of the combined arms is found: the grueling positional warfare of the battle of the hedgerows, the breakthrough of the main enemy position, exploitation, encirclement, and pursuit, as well as a number of actions falling under the general heading of special operations — an assault river crossing, the siege of a fortress, and night combat, among others. Blumenson states that he wished this book would be of interest to the general reader “who may be motivated by curiosity and the hope of learning in some detail about the conduct of the campaign, the expenditure of men and materiel, and the problems that face military leaders engaged in war.” Martin Blumenson was an American military historian who had been the historical officer of both the Third and Seventh Armies in World War Two. He wrote a number of prominent books on World War Two, including a biography of Patton and a number of campaign histories. He was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement from the Society of Military History in 1995. His book Breakout and Pursuit was first published in 1960 and he passed away in 2005.

Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture


Jack P. Greene - 1988
    Synthesizing literature of the previous two decades on the process of social development and the formation of American culture, he challenges the central assumptions that have traditionally been used to analyze colonial British American history.Greene argues that the New England declension model traditionally employed by historians is inappropriate for describing social change in all the other early modern British colonies. The settler societies established in Ireland, the Atlantic island colonies of Bermuda and the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Middle Colonies, and the Lower South followed instead a pattern first exhibited in America in the Chesapeake. That pattern involved a process in which these new societies slowly developed into more elaborate cultural entities, each of which had its own distinctive features.Greene also stresses the social and cultural convergence between New England and the other regions of colonial British America after 1710 and argues that by the eve of the American Revolution Britain's North American colonies were both more alike and more like the parent society than ever before. He contends as well that the salient features of an emerging American culture during these years are to be found not primarily in New England puritanism but in widely manifest configurations of sociocultural behavior exhibited throughout British North America, including New England, and he emphasized the centrality of slavery to that culture.