Two assaults have already failed. After a morning-long battle involving machine guns, explosives, and tear gas, the radicals remain defiant. In a command post across the street from the boarded-up row house that serves as the militants' headquarters, the beleaguered police commissioner weighs his options and decides on a new plan. He will bomb the house.Let It Burn is the true-life story of the confrontation between the Philadelphia Police Department and the MOVE organization—a group that rejected modern technology and fought for what it called "natural law." The police commissioner's decision to drop an "explosive device" onto the house's roof—and then to let the resulting fire burn while adults and children remained in the house—was the final tragic chapter in a decades-long series of clashes that had already left one policeman dead and others injured, dozens of MOVE members behind bars, and their original compound razed to the ground.By the time the fire burned itself out, eleven MOVE members, many of them women and small children, would be dead. Sixty-one houses in the neighborhood would be destroyed.There would be a city inquiry, numerous civil suits, and two grand-jury inquests following the confrontation. Michael Boyette served on one of the grand juries, where he had a front-row seat as the key players and witnesses—including Mayor Wilson Goode and future Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell—recounted their roles in the tragedy. After the grand jury concluded its investigation, he and coauthor Randi Boyette conducted additional independent research—including exclusive interviews with police who had been on the scene and with MOVE members—to create this moment-by-moment account of the confrontation and the events leading up to it.

    

    In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades. In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the xenophobic and suspicious Émile Moreau of the Banque de France, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose façade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear—that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation— and by a common vision that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard. For a brief period in the mid-1920s they appeared to have succeeded. The world’s currencies were stabilized and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boom-town prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression. As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.

    16 pages of photos.

    This is completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ original vision of America; it was designed by them to be a secular democratic republic built on evidence-based Enlightenment values, emphatically not religious faith.Indeed, the Founders purposefully intended that a high, strong “wall of separation” keep church and state apart in the new nation, while allowing individual religious freedom untrammeled by government—and vice versa. But Christians with theocratic dreams keep trying to breach the wall. Through their efforts, God is now in evidence everywhere in the country—on our money, in our schools, even in high-level-government officials’ speeches. Freedom of — and from — religion is the American promise to all its people whatever their belief—or disbelief. This is how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be, not the undemocratic theocracy zealous evangelicals are trying to force on American society.

    But behind it were real men whose hard work and hard play, stoic toughness, and code of honor helped tame the American West. The epic cattle drives that were so much a part of the cowboys' heyday lasted only an astonishingly brief two decades. But the cowboy is still a basic part of the American character. Here, from historian Grayson Wyatt, is their surprising and little-told story.

    Is it America’s destiny to be both a nanny state and garrison state? America’s Forgotten History questions standard history from a constitutionalist point of view.This, the first of five volumes, covers English roots, the colonial period, the Revolution, the Constitution, and the first four presidential administrations, those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.CONTACT mark.david.ledbetter@gmail.com

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Yet the two have never been seriously compared at book length. Acclaimed historian Lewis Lehrman finds that Lincoln and Churchill led their wars in remarkably similar fashion, guided by fixed principles of honor, duty, and freedom. Gifted literary stylists, both also relied on the written and spoken word to steel their nation's hearts and give meaning to war's sacrifice. And though both unexpectedly left office near the end of their wars--Lincoln by the bullet, Churchill by the ballot--they had gained victory.

    They are first- generation Americans, citizens of other nations, and lifelong New Yorkers. But they all share one thing: They honor their loved ones by living their lives with purpose, and a promise to never forget.These courageous family members share their grief and loss-and hope- speaking in their own words, with love, courage, and strength enough to inspire us all.

    The chafing restrictions of a typical upbringing in upper-class, small town Alabama simply did not apply to Zelda, who was described as an unusual child and permitted to roam the streets with little supervision. Zelda refused to blossom into a typical 'Southern belle' on anyone's terms but her own and while still in high school enjoyed the status of a local celebrity for her shocking behavior. Everybody in town knew the name Zelda Sayre. Queen of the Montgomery social scene, Zelda had a different beau ready and willing to show her a good time for every day of the week. Before meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda's life was a constant pursuit of pleasure. With little thought for the future and no responsibilities to speak of, Zelda committed herself fully to the mantra that accompanied her photo in her high school graduation book: "Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow. Let's think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow." But for now Zelda was still in rehearsal for her real life to begin, a life she was sure would be absolutely extraordinary. Zelda Sayre married F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 3rd of April 1920 and left sleepy Montgomery behind in order to dive headfirst into the shimmering, glamourous life of a New York socialite. With the publication of Scott's first novel, This Side of Paradise, Zelda found herself thrust into the limelight as the very epitome of the Flapper lifestyle. Concerned chiefly with fashion, wild parties and flouting social expectations, Zelda and Scott became icons of the Jazz Age, the personification of beauty and success. What Zelda and Scott shared was a romantic sense of self-importance that assured them that their life of carefree leisure and excess was the only life really worth living. Deeply in love, the Fitzgeralds were like to sides of the same coin, each reflecting the very best and worst of each other. While the world fell in love with the image of the Fitzgeralds they saw on the cover of magazines, behind the scenes the Fitzgerald's marriage could not withstand the tension of their creative arrangement. Zelda was Scott's muse and he mercilessly mined the events of their life for material for his books. Scott claimed Zelda's memories, things she said, experiences she had and even passages from her diary as his possessions and used them to form the basis of his fictional works. Zelda had a child but the domestic sphere offered no comfort or purpose for her. The Flapper lifestyle was not simply a phase she lived through, it formed the very basis of her character and once the parties grew dull, the Fitzgeralds' drinking became destructive and Zelda's beauty began to fade, the world held little allure for her. Zelda sought reprieve in work and tried to build a career as a ballet dancer. When that didn't work out she turned to writing but was forbidden by Scott from using her own life as material. Convinced that she would never leave her mark on the world as deeply or expressively as Scott had, Zelda retreated into herself and withdrew from the people she knew in happier times. The later years of Zelda's life were marred by her detachment from reality as, diagnosed with schizophrenia, Zelda spent the last eighteen years of her life living in and out of psychiatric hospitals. As Scott's life unraveled due to alcohol abuse, Zelda looked back on the years they had spent together, young and wild and beautiful, as the best of her life. She may have been right but she was wrong about one thing, Zelda did leave her mark on the world and it was a deep and expressive mark that no one could have left but her. Zelda Fitzgerald: The Biography

    Some enlisted. Some were true war heroes, but most were just trying to survive. As everyone "in-country" knew, Vietnam was all about luck, good or bad. If you were there, you understand. If you weren't, grab a copy and start reading, anywhere in the book. The stories are like Doritos. Try a few and you won't be able to stop.The Vietnam War was the seminal event of my generation and affected so many lives. Over 58,200 of us paid the ultimate price, but the war didn't end when the last US helicopter lifted off from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. It continues to take its ugly toll on many who did come home. Instead of bands and parades, we got PTSD and Agent Orange, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, neuropathy, leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease, and prostate cancer, and many more. As they say, "Vietnam is the gift that keeps on giving."Unfortunately, what little our kids and grandkids know of the war comes from books that only focus on one soldier, one unit, and one year, or movies like Oliver Stone's Platoon and Hamburger Hill, leaving people to think that all we did was crawl through the jungle on the Cambodian border smoking dope. But that wasn't how most of us spent our year. In February, I published Volume 1. Due to the amazing response it received from vets and their families, I'm publishing Volume 2, with even more interesting, exciting, and informative stories. Hopefully, they will help correct that narrative.William F Brown is the author of nine action adventure and suspense novels on Kindle, including the highly successful Bob Burke series, and Our Vietnam Wars, Volumes 1 and 2, personal stories of the veterans who served there. His ministry and suspense novels include 'The Undertaker,' 'Amongst My Enemies,' 'Thursday at Noon,' 'Aim True, My Brothers,' 'Winner Lose All,' and 'The Cold War Trilogy,' as well as Burke's War, Burke's Gamble, and Burke's Revenge. You can them out on my web site and Enjoy!

    Born in Virginia in 1826, Nelson ran away from home as a young teenager to escape a domineering father and to seek adventure in the west. He took odd jobs along with way working on farms, serving as a cabin boy on a Mississippi steamer, and becoming an apprentice with a group of traders traveling west from Missouri. After meeting a band of Sioux, he decided that the nomadic life of an Indian was the adventure he was looking for and got himself adopted into the tribe. Here he learned how to live off the land and acquired the skills of a Sioux warrior. His adopted father was the Chief Spotted Tail and his brother-in-law was Red Cloud—Chief of the Sioux Nation. As a young Sioux brave, Nelson participated in Indian raids and skirmishes. Later, he guided Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, worked as a military scout with William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), fought in the Indian Wars, and served as a lawman in North Dakota. In his many escapades he often narrowly escaped death from bullets, arrows, and knives. Nelson’s story is a fascinating view of the early American west in all its glory. This pre-1923 publication has been converted from its original format for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the conversion.

     Pioneer Days is written by the rank and file who were the true heroes and heroines, who suffered and gave their lives and the lives of those near and dear to them, in order to lay the foundation for future happy homes, peace and prosperity. The writers of this book were the small remnant yet left who were the actual participators in these early struggles, and they give their experiences, unadorned, without any claim to literary merit; for the writers were by then old. When you read their simple statements of facts of Indian conflicts, of terrible suffering and privations, so unassumingly told by them, it is only fitting that those who have had the advantage of schools and Christianity, and refinement, of which they were almost entirely deprived, to cover their rough and often ungrammatical sentences with the cloak of Christian charity, and interline them with garlands of flowers and chivalry which truly belongs to them. With contributions from Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), Emanuel Dubbs (1843–1932), and John A. Hart (1790–1840), the 1909 book "Pioneer Days in the Southwest" gives unadorned truths and conditions that fortunately have passed out forever. A great portion is devoted to the life of Charles Goodnight the first pioneer of the Texas Panhandle. No history of pioneer days would be complete without the name of Charles Goodnight. While Mr. Goodnight has a state and national reputation, the people of the Panhandle of Texas feel that they are especially honored in owning him as a citizen, and he and his estimable wife had, and now hold a place in the hearts of old timers as well as later settlers, that would cause the people to condemn any writer who failed to give to them that mete of praise which they so richly deserve, and place their name at the head of the highly honored galaxy of heroes who contended with and finally overcame every obstacle and danger of a country entirely given over to lawlessness at the time of their advent. These histories generally took place in the present-day states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico.

     When her wagon train was 8 miles from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, a Sioux Oglalas war party, in war-paint, suddenly appeared and began to encircle their wagons, pretending to be most friendly and asking for presents. The Indians urged the emigrants on, and offered to accompany them, so that they pushed on in company for a short time, until it was saw that they were approaching a ravine where his party would be at a disadvantage, and he insisted on camping outside of it. The Indians, after some hesitation, agreed, and the travellers began to make preparations for supper, when suddenly the Indians fired a volley at them. Some of those who escaped the attack succeeded in hiding in the brushwood, but Mrs. Kelly and her adopted daughter, Mary, as well as Mrs. Larimer and her children, became the prisoners of the Indians. After the second night of capture, Larimer and her son Frank managed to escape and were later reunited with her husband at Camp Collins, Colorado Territory. Larimer wrote of her harrowing captivity and escape in her 1871 book "The Capture and Escape: Life Among the Sioux." In describing dangers encountered during their escape from the Indians, Larimer noted: "The horrors of our situation were harassing to contemplate. The wolves seemed congregated upon the highlands, and, awaking from their night’s repose, their wailing cries echoed back from the distant hills with terrific clearness. These prowling creatures abound in that country, where some species attain a great size. Even the buffalo, which does not fear them in the herd, knows his danger when overtaken alone; and the solitary bull, secreted from its hunter, succumbs before the united force of a gang of wolves." Sarah Luse Larimer (1836-1913) was born in Pennsylvania, headed west in 1859 with her husband, living for a while in Allen County, Kansas, where she operated a photographic gallery. In 1864, along with her husband and son the family set out for the mines of Idaho Territory, when their plans were disrupted by Oglalas on the warpath. John Bratt in his 1921 book "Trails of Yesterday" writes of Larimer: "At Sherman Station I became well acquainted with Mrs. Larimer and her son, who kept a general store there, bought and sold ties and cord wood, while her husband had a star route mail contract from Point of Rocks north. There was also a Mrs. Kelly living near the station. These two women and Mrs. Larimer's son had been captured by the Sioux Indians near Fort Laramie. Mrs. Larimer and her son, after two weeks' captivity in the lodge of the chief, stole away one night and though the Indians hunted them day and night, they succeeded in eluding them and got back to the fort, after suffering unmentionable cruelties. Mrs. Kelly, not so fortunate, was taken by the Indians up on the Missouri River and kept with the band over six months." In describing the moment of rescue by a passing wagon train, Larimer writes that "as we sat in this shelter, which proved to be the last, a most joyful and welcome sound greeted our ears —one in which there was no mistake—our own language, spoken by some boys who passed, driving cattle."