Four years ago, the GOP dominated politics at every level in Colorado. Republicans held both Senate seats, five of seven congressional seats, the governor’s mansion, the offices of secretary of state and treasurer, and both houses of the state legislature. After the 2008 election, the exact opposite was true: replace the word Republicans with Democrats in the previous sentence, and you have of one the most stunning reversals of political fortune in American history.This is also the story of how it will happen—indeed, is happening—in other states across the country. In Colorado, progressives believe they have found a blueprint for creating permanent Democratic majorities across the nation. With discipline and focus, they have pioneered a legal architecture designed to take advantage of new campaign finance laws and an emerging breed of progressive donors who are willing to commit unprecedented resources to local races. It’s simple, brilliant, and very effective.Rob Witwer is a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives and practices law in Denver.Emmy award–winning journalist Adam Schrager covers politics for KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver. Schrager and his family live in the Denver area. He is the author of The Principled Politician: Governor Ralph Carr and the Fight against Japanese Internment

    He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.An Indiana Jones with a camera, Curtis spent the next three decades traveling from the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Acoma on a high mesa in New Mexico to the Salish in the rugged Northwest rain forest, documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. It took tremendous perseverance - ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Eventually Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs, preserved 10,000 audio recordings, and is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian. His most powerful backer was Theodore Roosevelt, and his patron was J. P. Morgan. Despite the friends in high places, he was always broke and often disparaged as an upstart in pursuit of an impossible dream. He completed his masterwork in 1930, when he published the last of the twenty volumes. A nation in the grips of the Depression ignored it. But today rare Curtis photogravures bring high prices at auction, and he is hailed as a visionary. In the end he fulfilled his promise: He made the Indians live forever.

    Or do we? This uniquely American holiday has a rich and little known history beyond the famous feast of 1621.In Thanksgiving, award-winning author Melanie Kirkpatrick journeys through four centuries of history, giving us a vivid portrait of our nation's best-loved holiday. Drawing on newspaper accounts, private correspondence, historical documents, and cookbooks, Thanksgiving brings to life the full history of the holiday and what it has meant to generations of Americans.Many famous figures walk these pages—Washington, who proclaimed our first Thanksgiving as a nation amid controversy about his Constitutional power to do so; Lincoln, who wanted to heal a divided nation sick of war when he called for all Americans—North and South—to mark a Thanksgiving Day; FDR, who set off a debate on state's rights when he changed the traditional date of Thanksgiving.Ordinary Americans also play key roles in the Thanksgiving story—the New England Indians who boycott Thanksgiving as a Day of Mourning; Sarah Josepha Hale, the nineteenth-century editor and feminist who successfully campaigned for Thanksgiving to be a national holiday; the 92nd Street Y in New York City, which founded Giving Tuesday, an online charity established in the long tradition of Thanksgiving generosity. Kirkpatrick also examines the history of Thanksgiving football and, of course, Thanksgiving dinner.While the rites and rituals of the holiday have evolved over the centuries, its essence remains the same: family and friends feasting together in a spirit of gratitude to God, neighborliness, and hospitality. Thanksgiving is Americans' oldest tradition. Kirkpatrick's enlightening exploration offers a fascinating look at the meaning of the holiday that we gather together to celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November.With Readings for Thanksgiving Day designed to be read aloud around the table.

    This is untrue. In fact, this period helped resuscitate KISS’s career, as they reestablished themselves in arenas, on the charts, and via MTV, and yielded some of their most popular songs – including Lick It Up, Heaven’s On Fire, Tears Are Falling, Crazy Crazy Nights, Hide Your Heart, Forever, Unholy, and more – many of which consistently found their way into the band’s set lists. While the majority of KISS books are focused on the glitz and glamour of the iconic makeup era, the non-makeup years are ripe to be explored in book form, and Take It Off does just that, zeroing in on the eleven albums KISS issued during this period – including such gold- and platinum-certified hits as Lick It Up, Animalize, Revenge, and Alive III – as well the resulting tours, videos, and other escapades.Take It Off draws on all-new interviews with KISS experts and associates, including the band’s lead guitarist throughout most of this period, Bruce Kulick, plus Crazy Nights producer Ron Nevison and video director Paul Rachman (Unholy/I Just Wanna/Domino). Among the other contributors are Charlie Benante (Anthrax), K.K. Downing (ex-Judas Priest), Derek Sherinan (ex-Dream Theater), and rock music experts Eddie Trunk, Katherine Turman, and Lonn Friend. The book also includes a foreword by Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho and an afterword by acclaimed producer Andreas Carlsson, as well as rare photographs and memorabilia from the period. With KISS currently in the midst of their last ever tour, now is the time to get Truly Unmasked.

     “One Hell of a War” is a fascinating blend of first-hand accounts and the strategic decisions that led to them based on the history of the 317th Infantry Regiment from its initial activation in World War II through the end of the war. This book has all the elements everyone loved in “Band of Brothers” with the added integration of the strategic leadership decisions of Patton, Bradley and Eisenhower. Most interestingly, it contains well written and thought-provoking excerpts of the late Colonel James Hayes, who served with the regiment during its entire wartime service. The history books do not say a great deal about the 317th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division in WWII. However, it was a regiment that accomplished rather startling results: first bridgehead across the Moselle, cleared out La Grande Couronne de Nancy, participated in the capture of Metz -- the first time in history that the fort had ever fallen to an assault, and, of course, participated in the Battle of the Bulge as one of the first regiments to arrive in the area after the German assault had broken the line. It suffered extremely severe casualties and contained some of the best men ever known. Praise for One Hell of a War... "One Hell of a War" is one of those books you simply can’t put down. It should come with a carrying handle and a sign warning "Do Not Disturb"…one of the most enjoyable WW2 books to date. -Phil Hodges for War History Online I love to read WWII history, and One Hell of a War takes the reader into the foxhole and onto the battlefield like no other book I have read … this is a must read book. -Jim Ravella, President, Folds of Honor Foundation It would be wonderful if every unit who fought during the war had a book like this portraying what was accomplished and how terrible war is for the men who actually fight it. -Gayalyn Wojtowicz, daughter of S/Sgt. Guyowen H. Howard, Sr. 317/B OUTSTANDING! “One Hell of a War” is a magnificent and masterfully told story that effortlessly weaves together the historical operations of one of Patton’s infantry regiments and first-hand accounts like no other book that I have read. A book this excellent is a rarity and should be on every professional reading list. -Colonel Frank Athanason, USA (Ret), Past National Commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart Dean Dominique's careful research and editing of Colonel James Hayes' combat memoirs rings true in a book that is both a scholarly work and an exciting read. Trust me, when you reach the section about the fighting and cold weather during the Battle of the Bulge, you'll want to put on a coat; it's that good. -Alexander Barnes; Author of "In a Strange land; The American Occupation of Germany 1918-1923." A remarkable story about an infantry regiment during WWII that played a key role in operations in Europe. Dean does a masterful job of weaving the personal accounts into the historical context of the major operations. With so few WWII veterans left, books like these are valuable resources. -Rich Killblane, Author of "The Filthy Thirteen; From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest: The 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers." Dean Dominique's new book, “One Hell of a War," knocks it out of the ballpark and is one of the best books I've read…You won't be able to put it down. -Andrew Z.

    Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington’s small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government’s auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. Unworthy Republic reveals how expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt’s deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation’s values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.In telling this gripping story, Saunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans, how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation, and how the consequences still resonate today.

    He traces the crucial contributions made by the Indians to our federal system of government, our democratic institutions, modern medicine, agriculture, architecture, and ecology, and in this astonishing, ground-breaking book takes a giant step toward recovering a true American history.

    From their origins among the first group of Indians to arrive in North America some 20,000 years ago to their epic struggle to regain traditional lands taken from them in the nineteenth century, the Havasupai have a long and colorful history. The story of this tiny tribe once confined to a toosmall reservation depicts a people with deep cultural ties to the land, both on their former reservation below the rim of the Grand Canyon and on the surrounding plateaus. In the spring of 1971, the federal government proposed incorporating still more Havasupai land into Grand Canyon National Park. At hearings that spring, Havasupai Tribal Chairman Lee Marshall rose to speak. “I heard all you people talking about the Grand Canyon,” he said. “Well, you’re looking at it. I am the Grand Canyon!” Marshall made it clear that Havasu Canyon and the surrounding plateau were critical to the survival of his people; his speech laid the foundation for the return of thousands of acres of Havasupai land in 1975. I Am the Grand Canyon is the story of a heroic people who refused to back down when facing overwhelming odds. They won, and today the Havasupai way of life quietly continues in the Grand Canyon and on the surrounding plateaus.

    Examines twelve of the greatest enigmas of the American West, from the unexplained death of explorer Meriwether Lewis to a fabled treasure in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.

    Using letters and other family documents, he reconstructs two hundred years of middle class life, visiting small towns his ancestors lived in, reading books they read, and discovering the larger forces of history that affected them.

    Army was created to fight a crucial Indian warIn 1783, with the signing of the Peace of Paris, the American Revolution was complete. And yet even as the newly independent United States secured peace with Great Britain, it found itself losing an escalating military conflict on its borderlands. The enemy was the indigenous people of the Ohio Valley, who rightly saw the new nation as a threat to their existence. In 1791, years of skirmishes, raids, and quagmires climaxed in the grisly defeat of a motley collection of irregular American militiamen by a brilliantly organized confederation of Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware Indians—with nearly one thousand U.S. casualties, the worst defeat the nation would ever suffer at native hands. Americans were shocked, perhaps none more so than their commander in chief, George Washington, who came to a fateful conclusion: the United States needed an army.Autumn of the Black Snake tells how the early republic battled the coalition of Indians that came closer than any adversary, before or since, to halting the nation’s expansion. In evocative and absorbing prose, William Hogeland conjures up the woodland battles and the hardball politics that formed the Legion of the United States, the country’s first true standing army. His memorable portraits of soldiers and leaders on both sides—from the daring war chiefs Blue Jacket and Little Turtle to the doomed Richard Butler and a steely, even ruthless Washington—drive a tale of horrific violence, brilliant strategizing, stupendous blunders, and valorous deeds. This sweeping account, at once exciting and dark, builds to a crescendo as Washington and Alexander Hamilton, at enormous risk, outmaneuver Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other skeptics of standing armies—and Washington appoints General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to lead the Legion. Wayne marches into the forests of the Old Northwest, where the very Indians he is charged with defeating will bestow on him, with grudging admiration, a new name: Black Snake.Autumn of the Black Snake is a dramatic work of military and political history, told in a colorful, sometimes startling blow-by-blow narrative. It is also an original interpretation of how greed, honor, political beliefs, and vivid personalities converged on the killing fields of the Ohio Valley, where the U.S. Army’s first victory opened the way to western settlement and established the precedent that the new nation would possess a military to reckon with.

    We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem.” In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form. The account begins in the late 1880s, when Native Americans were forced to tour in wild west shows as an alternative to prison. (One modern comedian said it was as “if a Guantanamo detainee suddenly had to appear on X-Factor.”) This is followed by a detailed look at the life and work of seminal figures such as Cherokee humorist Will Rogers and Hill, who in the 1970s was the first Native American comedian to appear The Tonight Show. Also profiled are several contemporary comedians, including Jonny Roberts, a social worker from the Red Lake Nation who drives five hours to the closest comedy club to pursue his stand-up dreams; Kiowa-Apache comic Adrianne Chalepah, who formed the touring group the Native Ladies of Comedy; and the 1491s, a sketch troupe whose satire is smashing stereotypes to critical acclaim. As Ryan Red Corn, the Osage member of the 1491s, says: “The American narrative dictates that Indians are supposed to be sad. It’s not really true and it’s not indicative of the community experience itself…Laughter and joy is very much a part of Native culture.” Featuring dozens of original interviews and the exhaustive research that is Nesteroff’s trademark, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem is a powerful tribute to a neglected legacy.

    These wealthy men had founded the first banks in the United States and built its first railroads, factories, and steamships. Now, they were to cap their achievements by making their young country equally superior in size, and in the process, producing the greatest, swiftest, and most beautiful craft the world had ever seen - the clipper ship. This book not only traces the origins and achievements of the clipper but enlivens the dry bones of historic fact with the flesh and blood of clipper captains and crews. A great era comes to life with their courageous, tenacious stories.

     Piece by piece, like a giant Victorian jigsaw, the evidence forms a fascinating picture, but one with a hole at its heart – a hole that will not be filled until the baffling mystery is solved.. Do they ever solve it and complete the picture? After ten years research in North Wales, a new piece of evidence and a distant memory cause a sudden change in venue which reveals the reason for the conspiracy of silence and the staggering truth about his mother.

    Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the “First Thanksgiving.” The treaty remained operative until King Philip's War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end.400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance. Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags' ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day.This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States. This Land is Their Land shows that it is time to rethink how we, as a pluralistic nation, tell the history of Thanksgiving.