Because of his studies of the Eskimos, his discoveries of land, the application of new ideas and new methods of exploration, Stefansson was considered the foremost polar explorer of his day, and one of the few great explorers of all time. During a period of three or four years Mr. Stefansson has produced a creditable list of books about the Arctic. In some respects his service in publishing the results of his Northern studies has differed from that of earlier explorers. He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic. “Hunters of the Great North” gives details of Northern life such as have doubtless come within the experience of all Arctic explorers, but which are new to the average American reader. In short, it is an elementary text-book of the Arctic. Stefansson lived among the Eskimos of the Mackenzie River, studying their language and adopting their mode of life, and spending ten winters and thirteen summers in the polar regions. Among Stefannson's most famous discovery was that of a race of blond Eskimo on Coronation Gulf. Stefansson writes: "In the present book I have tried by means of diaries and memory to go back to the vivid impressions of my first year among the Eskimos for the story of what I saw and heard." In describing his confrontation with a polar bear, Stefansson writes: “I heard behind me a noise like the spitting of a cat or the hiss of a goose. I looked back and saw, about twenty feet away and almost above me, a polar bear. I had overestimated the bear's distance from shore, and had passed the spot where he lay. From his eye and attitude, as well as the story his trail told afterward there was no doubting his intentions: the hiss was merely his way of saying, "Watch me do it!" Or at least that is how I interpreted it; possibly the motive was chivalry, and the hiss was his way of saying Garde!” Contents I. PREPARATIONS FOR A LIFEWORK OF EXPLORATION II. DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER THROUGH 2000 MILES OF INDIAN COUNTRY III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ESKIMOS IV. CAPTAIN KLINKENBERG—SEA WOLF AND DISCOVERER V. THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY VI. LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO—ON A DIET OF FISH WITHOUT SALT VII. HOW AN ESKIMO SAILED THROUGH THE STORM VIII. AN AUTUMN JOURNEY THROUGH ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IX. THE SUN GOES AWAY FOR THE WINTER X. LOST IN THE MACKENZIE DELTA XI. AN ARCTIC CHRISTMAS WITH AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN XII. THE LIFE AT TUKTUYAKTOK XIII. LEARNING TO BUILD A SNOWHOUSE AND TO BE COMFORTABLE IN ONE XIV. TRAVELS AFTER THE SUN CAME BACK XV. WE GO IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION XVI. A SPRING JOURNEY IN AN ESKIMO SKIN BOAT XVII. A RACE OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IN SUMMER XVIII. ON A RAFT DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER SHORT STORIES OF ADVENTURE I. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU II. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT SEALS III. HOW WE HUNT POLAR BEARS

    Harlen Bretz walked the dry scabland channels of eastern Washington in the 1920s, it dawned on him that he was viewing a landscape sculpted by water. Lots of water. A flood of catastrophic proportions. Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods tells the gripping tale of a huge Ice Age lake that drained suddenly--not just once but repeatedly--and reshaped the landscape of the Northwest. The narrative follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington and down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. This is also the story of geologists grappling with scientific controversy--"of how personalities, pride, and prejudice sometimes superseded scientific evidence."

    Ambrose, a dual biography of two great nineteenth century warriors, General Custer and Crazy Horse, culminating in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

    Read a succinct account of the life and reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in just one hour.Elizabeth II is the longest lived and, after Queen Victoria, second longest reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. From her coronation in 1953 to her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II has stood on the world stage as the figurehead for Britain.THE QUEEN: HISTORY IN AN HOUR tells the story of the Queen Elizabeth II’s life and long reign, her royal duties, service during the Second World War, public perception and the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations under her rule. Essential reading for Royalists and Republicans alike.Love your history? Find out about the world with History in an Hour…

    Using diaries, journals, company and expedition reports, and newspaper accounts, David Dary takes us inside the experience of the continuing waves of people who traveled the Oregon Trail or took its cutoffs to Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and California. He introduces us to the fur traders who set up the first “forts” as centers to ply their trade; the missionaries bent on converting the Indians to Christianity; the mountain men and voyageurs who settled down at last in the fertile Willamette Valley; the farmers and their families propelled west by economic bad times in the East; and, of course, the gold-seekers, Pony Express riders, journalists, artists, and entrepreneurs who all added their unique presence to the land they traversed. We meet well-known figures–John Jacob Astor, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, John Frémont, the Donners, and Red Cloud, among others–as well as dozens of little-known men, women, and children who jotted down what they were seeing and feeling in journals, letters, or perhaps even on a rock or a gravestone.Throughout, Dary keeps us informed of developments in the East and their influence on events in the West, among them the building of the transcontinental railroad and the efforts of the far western settlements to become U.S. territories and eventually states. Above all, The Oregon Trail offers a panoramic look at the romance, colorful stories, hardships, and joys of the pioneers who made up this tremendous and historic migration.

    Together they helped bring the Constitution into being, yet soon after the new republic was born they broke over the meaning of its founding document. Hamilton emphasized economic growth, Madison the importance of republican principles. Jay Cost is the first to argue that both men were right -- and that their quarrel reveals a fundamental paradox at the heart of the American experiment. He shows that each man in his own way came to accept corruption as a necessary cost of growth. The Price of Greatness reveals the trade-off that made the United States the richest nation in human history, and that continues to fracture our politics to this day.

    The work is a careful, well-documented study of nationalism and ethnic prejudice, and chronicles the power and violence of these two ideas in American society from 1860 to 1925. He significantly moves beyond previous treatments of nativism, both in chronology and in interpretive sophistication. Higham defines nativism as a defensive type of nationalism or an intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of the group's foreign connections. By defining nativism as a set of attitudes or a state of mind, he sets the course for his book as tracing "trace an emotionally charged impulse" rather than "an actual social process or condition." As he argues that the ideological content of nativism remained consistent, he uses emotional intensity as a measure to trace in detail public opinion from the relative calm following the Civil War to the Johnson-Reed act of 1924 that severely limited European immigration. Strangers in the Land is, then, a history of public opinion, whose purpose is to show how nativism evolved in society and in action. Higham seeks to explain what could inflame xenophobia and who resisted it. He saw his work as part of a renewed interest in the study of nationalism following the national upheavals in the wake of the McCarthy hearings. Surely Higham's mentor at the University of Wisconsin, intellectual historian Merle Curti, influenced Higham's approach in seeking to examine the power of nationalism as an idea. Also influential was the intellectual climate of the 1950s with its of distrust of ideology and distain of prejudice. Higham admits being repelled by the nationalist delusions of the Cold War, again helping to explain why his study concentrates on seeking some explanation for the irrational and violent outbreaks. The book thus focuses on points of conflict, "antagonisms that belong within ideologies of passionate national consciousness." For example, Higham's explains the 100 percent American movement in terms of progressive ideals and the desire of Americans to shape immigrants into a particular ideal of "Americanness" through education and assimilation. This intellectual construct eventually gave way to the racial thinking to which Higham assigns much influence in the efforts to restrict immigration. Ideology is also central to his chapter on the history of the idea of racism in which he argues that Anglo-Saxon nationalism, literary naturalism and a nascent understanding of genetics combined to bring forth arguments for immigration restriction to preserve the racial purity of the American people. Thus, key for Higham's argument is the power of ideas in shaping individual behavior and thereby shaping history. This text is an absolute must-read for anyone seeking to understand American nativism and the darker side of nationalism.

    He was born to race —some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway.  Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari--starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles--immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge, and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.A wizard behind the wheel, he was also a visionary designer of speed machines that ruled the racetrack and the road. While his GT40s racked up victories in the world’s most prestigious professional racing showdowns, his masterpiece, the Ford Cobra, gave Europe’s formidable Ferrari an American--style run for its money. If you’ve got a need for speed, strap in next to the man who put his foot down on the pedal, kept his eyes on the prize, and never looked back.

    

    Exploiting Germany's own economic burdens, Hitler reached out to the disaffected, turning their aimless discontent into loyal support for his Nazi Party. In Asia, Japan harbored imperial ambitions of itsown. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked worldwide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world.The American People in World War II--the second installment of Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear--explains how the nation agonized over its role in the conflict, how it fought the war, why the United States emerged victorious, and why the consequences of victory were sometimessweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best theycould. The American People in World War II is a gripping narrative and an invaluable analysis of the trials and victories through which modern America was formed.

    With economy and style, Dr. Robert Allison brings Boston history alive, from the Puritan theocracy of the seventeenth century to the Big Dig of the twenty-first. His book includes a wealth of illustrations, a lengthy chronology of the key events in four centuries of Boston history, and twenty short profiles of exceptional Bostonians, from founder John Winthrop to heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan, from heretic Anne Hutchinson to Russian-American author Mary Antin. Says the Provincetown Arts, A first-rate short history of the city, lavishly illustrated, lovingly written, and instantly the best book of its kind.

    They were American colonists who had volunteered for a secret mission to paddle and march nearly two hundred miles through some of the wildest country in the colonies and seize the fortress city of Quebec, the last British stronghold in Canada. The march, under the command of Colonel Benedict Arnold, proved to be a tragic journey. Before they reached the outskirts of Quebec, hundreds died from hypothermia, drowning, small pox, lightning strikes, exposure, and starvation. The survivors ate dogs, shoes, clothing, leather, cartridge boxes, shaving soap, and lip salve. Their trek toward Quebec was nearly twice the length shown on their maps. In the midst of the journey, the most unlikely of events befell them: a hurricane. The rains fell in such torrents that their boats floated off or sunk, taking their meager provisions along, and then it began to snow. The men woke up frozen in their tattered clothing. One third of the force deserted, returning to Massachusetts. Of those remaining, more than four hundred were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Finally, in the midst of a raging blizzard, those remaining attacked Quebec. In the assault, their wet muskets failed to fire. Undaunted, they overtook the first of two barricades and pressed on toward the other, nearly taking Canada from the British. Demonstrating Benedict Arnold's prowess as a military strategist, the attack on Quebec accomplished another goal for the colonial army: It forced the British to commit thousands of troops to Canada, subsequently weakening the British hand against George Washington. A great military history about the early days of the American Revolution, Through a Howling Wilderness is also a timeless adventure narrative that tells of heroic acts, men pitted against nature's fury, and a fledgling nation's fight against a tyrannical oppressor.

    Remembered primarily as America's leading, most influential physician, Rush led the Founding Fathers in calling for abolition of slavery, equal rights for women, improved medical care for injured troops, free health care for the poor, slum clearance, citywide sanitation, an end to child labor, free universal public education, humane treatment and therapy for the mentally ill, prison reform, and an end to capital punishment. Using archival material from Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Philadelphia, as well as significant new materials from Rush's descendants and historical societies, Harlow Giles Unger's new biography restores Benjamin Rush to his rightful place in American history as the Founding Father of modern American medical care and psychiatry.

    Like NORTH AND SOUTH and LOVE AND WAR, this novel blends historical detail and fiction."A superb storyteller and compelling writer. Not necessary to have read the first two books, for events and people are clearly defined, thus HEAVEN AND HELL stands on its own considerable merit." (Chattanooga News-Free Press)

     What was Paris to Hemingway, and he to Paris? And how much of his city survives for us to visit and explore? In Hemingway's Paris: A User's Guide, prize-winning author John Baxter (The Most Beautiful Walk in the World) evokes the French capital as it was between 1921 and 1926, when Hemingway lived there, and provides a unique insider's guide to the city he knew and loved. John Baxter was born in Australia, but has lived in Paris for 25 years, most of that time in the building which Sylvia Beach made her home while running the famous Shakespeare and Company bookshop. As well as writing extensively about the city and its history, he leads literary walks around sites associated with James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. More details on www.johnbaxterparis.com.