The death penalty arouses our passions as does few other issues. Some view taking another person's life as just and reasonable punishment while others see it as an inhumane and barbaric act. But the intensity of feeling that capital punishment provokes often obscures its long and varied history in this country.
Now, for the first time, we have a comprehensive history of the death penalty in the United States. Law professor Stuart Banner tells the story of how, over four centuries, dramatic changes have taken place in the ways capital punishment has been administered and experienced. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the penalty was standard for a laundry list of crimes--from adultery to murder, from arson to stealing horses. Hangings were public events, staged before audiences numbering in the thousands, attended by women and men, young and old, black and white alike. Early on, the gruesome spectacle had explicitly religious purposes--an event replete with sermons, confessions, and last minute penitence--to promote the salvation of both the condemned and the crowd. Through the nineteenth century, the execution became desacralized, increasingly secular and private, in response to changing mores. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, ironically, as it has become a quiet, sanitary, technological procedure, the death penalty is as divisive as ever.
By recreating what it was like to be the condemned, the executioner, and the spectator, Banner moves beyond the debates, to give us an unprecedented understanding of capital punishment's many meanings. As nearly four thousand inmates are now on death row, and almost one hundred are currently being executed each year, the furious debate is unlikely to diminish. The Death Penalty is invaluable in understanding the American way of the ultimate punishment.

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Stuart Banner - The Death Penalty, An American His tory (2003).pdf

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Who Wrote That - Amy Sicklers - Walter Dean Myers (2008).jpg

Walter Dean Myers published his first book in 1969, a picture book called "Where Does The Day Go?" Since then, he has published more than 80 books, including novels, biographies, poetry, fables, and adventure stories. One of today's most renowned young adult authors, Myers has won many awards for his work. This insightful, new full-color biography shows how Myers draws on his own experiences to write realistic young adult novels about African-American teenagers living in urban environments, such as "Monster", "Scorpions, and "Autobiography of My Dead Brother".

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1,2 MB
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Who Wrote That - Amy Sicklers - Walter Dean Myers (2008).pdf

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William Pelfrey - Billy, Alfred, and General Motor s, The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Compan y, and a Remarkable Time in American History (2006 ).jpg

USA Books1 - William Pelfrey - Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, ...mpany, and a Remarkable Time in American History 2006.jpg

One industry has had more impact on life in America than any other before or since. Here is the story of two men and one company at the start of it all.

You couldn't find two more different men. Billy Durant was the consummate salesman, a brilliant wheeler-dealer with grand plans, unflappable energy, and a fondness for the high life. Alfred Sloan was the intellectual, an expert in business strategy and management, master of all things organizational. Together, this odd couple built perhaps the most successful enterprise in U.S. history, General Motors, and with it an industry that has come to define modern life throughout the world. Their story is full of timeless lessons, cautionary tales, and inspiration for business leaders and history buffs alike.

Billy, Alfred, and General Motors is the tale not just of the two extraordinary men of its title but also of the formative decades of twentieth-century America, through two world wars and sea changes in business, industry, politics, and culture. The book includes vivid, warts-and-all portraits of the legends of the golden age of the automobile, from "Crazy" Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, and Charles Nash to the brilliant but uncredited David Dunbar Buick and Cadillac founder Henry Leland.

The impact of Durant and Sloan on their contemporaries and their industry is matched only by the powerful legacy of their improbable and incredible partnership. Characters, events, and context--all are brought skillfully and passionately to life in this meticulously researched and supremely readable book.

"This book is particularly timely, with the auto industry in a period of extreme turbulence that features a restructuring of General Motors, as well as other icons of times gone by. In a sense, we may be reliving in the 21st century the auto drama of the 20th century portrayed so well by Bill Pelfrey. The author's outstanding writing and research skills are evident throughout and make this one of the most important and fascinating books I've read in a very long time." -- David E. Cole, Chairman of the Center for Automotive Research

"Every person who is interested in the building of the American automobile industry must read this book. Bill Pelfrey has done a great job researching the early years of Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan and the very different roles they played in the history of General Motors." -- Jack Smith, retired Chairman and CEO, General Motors Corporation

"Anyone interested in the current story of General Motors should read this engrossing description of the beginnings and early growth of this largest of all America's businesses. Billy, Alfred, and the General is an important work on the history of the automobile industry." -- John G. Smale, retired Chairman and CEO, Procter and Gamble Company; former Chairman, General Motors Corporation

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William Pelfrey - Billy, Alfred, and General Motor s, The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Compan y, and a Remarkable Time in American History (2006 ).pdf

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David M. Gradwohl, Nancy M. Osborn - Exploring Bur ied Buxton, Archaeology of an Abandoned Iowa Coal Mining Town with a Large Black Population (1990).jpg

USA Books1 - David M. Gradwohl, Nancy M. Osborn - Exploring Buried... Coal Mining Town with a Large Black Population 1990.jpg

This is a wonderful exploration of a major facet of African-American history--a look at a place and time where the children of slaves built a prosperous local society. Buxton was a company town in Iowa where African-Americans comprised the middle class, the miners, the teachers, the doctors...and Whites were a minority. Race relations were generally unselfconsciously excellent, aged former residents indicated to interviewers (some of whom just could not believe it!); these people ran into the harsh racism of the outside world when the company town was disbanded and people had to resettle in DesMoines or Chicago or wherever. This book concentrates on the archaeological aspect of the Buxton Project. A must for any library of African-American studies, historical archaeology, and Midwestern history.

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David M. Gradwohl, Nancy M. Osborn - Exploring Bur ied Buxton, Archaeology of an Abandoned Iowa Coal Mining Town with a Large Black Population (1990).pdf

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Quentin R Skrabec - H. J. Heinz, A Biography (2009 ).jpg

Though Heinz Ketchup is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world, few people know anything at all about H. J. Heinz. Industrial giants Rockefeller, Carnegie, Westinghouse, and Mellon became household names, and Heinz slipped into obscurity. Yet during a time of great transfers of wealth brought about in part by these famous robber barons, Heinz was well known for his humane treatment of his employees, customers, and suppliers. At the same time Heinz built a commercial empire by his use of industrialized food processing before Henry Ford. This book includes 45 photographs many of which are being published for the first time.

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Quentin R Skrabec - H. J. Heinz, A Biography (2009 ).pdf

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Brian D. McKnight - Contested Borderland, The Civi l War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia (2006).jpg

Finalist for the 2005 Peter Seaborg Award.
From 1861 to 1865, the border separating eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia was more than just a geographic marker--it represented a major ideological split, serving as an "international" boundary between the United States and the Confederacy. The loyalties of those who lived in this mountainous region could not be so easily divided, and large segments of the population remained neutral or vacillated in their support. Location and a wealth of resources made the region strategically important to both sides in the conflict, and both armies fought for control. In Contested Borderland, Brian D. McKnight shows how military invasion of this region led to increasing guerrilla warfare and how regular armies and state militias ripped communities along partisan lines, leaving wounds long after the official end of the Civil War.

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Brian D. McKnight - Contested Borderland, The Civi l War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia (2006).pdf

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Cora Sol Goldstein - Capturing the German Eye, Ame rican Visual Propaganda in Occupied Germany (2009).jpg

Shedding new light on the American campaign to democratize Western Germany after World War II, Capturing the German Eye uncovers the importance of cultural policy and visual propaganda to the U.S. occupation.
Cora Sol Goldstein skillfully evokes Germany’s political climate between 1945 and 1949, adding an unexpected dimension to the confrontation between the United States and the USSR. During this period, the American occupiers actively vied with their Soviet counterparts for control of Germany’s visual culture, deploying film, photography, and the fine arts while censoring images that contradicted their political messages. Goldstein reveals how this U.S. cultural policy in Germany was shaped by three major factors: competition with the USSR, fear of alienating German citizens, and American domestic politics. Explaining how the Americans used images to discredit the Nazis and, later, the Communists, she illuminates the instrumental role of visual culture in the struggle to capture German hearts and minds at the advent of the cold war.

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Elizabeth R. Varon - Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, Th e True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent i n the Heart of the Confederacy (2003).jpg

USA Books1 - Elizabeth R. Varon - Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, The T...w, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy 2003.jpg

Northern sympathizer in the Confederate capital, daring spymaster, postwar politician: Elizabeth Van Lew was one of the most remarkable figures in American history, a woman who defied the conventions of the nineteenth-century South. In Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, historian Elizabeth Varon pres a gripping, richly researched account of the woman who led what one historian called "the most productive espionage operation of the Civil War." Under the nose of the Confederate government, Van Lew ran a spy ring that gathered intelligence, hampered the Southern war effort, and helped scores of Union soldiers to escape from Richmond prisons. Varon describes a woman who was very much a product of her time and place, yet continually took controversial stands--from her early efforts to free her family's slaves, to her daring wartime activities and beyond. Varon's powerful biography brings Van Lew to life, showing how she used the stereotypes of the day to confound Confederate authorities (who suspected her, but could not believe a proper Southern lady could be a spy), even as she brought together Union sympathizers at all levels of society, from slaves to slaveholders. After the war, a grateful President Ulysses S. Grant named her postmaster of Richmond--a remarkable break with custom for this politically influential post. But her Unionism, Republican politics, and outspoken support of racial justice earned her a lifetime of scorn in the former Confederate capital. Even today, Elizabeth Van Lew remains a controversial figure in her beloved Richmond, remembered as the "Crazy Bet" of Lost Cause propaganda. Elizabeth Varon's account rescues her from both derision and oblivion, depicting an intelligent, resourceful, highly principled woman who remained, as she saw it, true to her country to the end.

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Jeff Thompson - The Television Horrors of Dan Curt is, Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and Other Prod uctions, 1966-2006 (2009).jpg

USA Books1 - Jeff Thompson - The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis,...e Night Stalker and Other Productions, 1966-2006 2009.jpg

The award-winning and innovative director Dan Curtis was known for helming epic war movies, but before that he darkened the small screen with the horror genre's most famous soap opera. Curtis directed the groundbreaking daytime television serial Dark Shadows from 1966 to 1971 and then turned his lens to numerous made-for-TV horror movies. This book examines 16 horror films that Curtis produced, co-wrote, or directed, as well as the cultural impact of Dark Shadows and its various incarnations. The book features 69 photographs and a foreword by Jim Pierson of Dan Curtis Productions

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Jeff Thompson - The Television Horrors of Dan Curt is, Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and Other Prod uctions, 1966-2006 (2009).pdf

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Jennifer Frick Ruppert - Mountain Nature, A Season al Natural History of the Southern Appalachians (2 010).jpg

The Southern Appalachians are home to a breathtakingly diverse array of living things--from delicate orchids to carnivorous pitcher plants, from migrating butterflies to flying squirrels, and from brawny black bears to more species of salamander than anywhere else in the world. Mountain Nature is a lively and engaging account of the ecology of this remarkable region. It explores the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians and the webs of interdependence that connect them.
Within the region's roughly 35 million acres, extending from north Georgia through the Carolinas to northern Virginia, exists a mosaic of habitats, each fostering its own unique natural community. Stories of the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians are intertwined with descriptions of the seasons, giving readers a glimpse into the interlinked rhythms of nature, from daily and yearly cycles to long-term geological changes. Residents and visitors to Great Smoky Mountains or Shenandoah National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway, or any of the national forests or other natural attractions within the region will welcome this appealing introduction to its ecological wonders.

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Jennifer Frick Ruppert - Mountain Nature, A Season al Natural History of the Southern Appalachians (2 010).pdf

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Nathan W. Monroe, Jason M. Roberts, David W. Rohde - Why Not Parties, Party Effects in the United St ates Senate (2008).jpg

USA Books1 - Nathan W. Monroe, Jason M. Roberts, David W. Rohde - W...rties, Party Effects in the United States Senate 2008.jpg

Recent research on the U.S. House of Representatives largely focuses on the effects of partisanship, but the strikingly less frequent studies of the Senate still tend to treat parties as secondary considerations in a chamber that gives its members far more individual leverage than congressmen have. In response to the recent increase in senatorial partisanship, Why Not Parties? corrects this imbalance with a series of original essays that focus exclusively on the effects of parties in the workings of the upper chamber.
Illuminating the growing significance of these effects, the contributors explore three major areas, including the electoral foundations of parties, partisan procedural advantage, and partisan implications for policy. In the process, they investigate such issues as whether party discipline can overcome Senate mechanisms that invest the most power in individuals and small groups; how parties influence the making of legislation and the distribution of pork; and whether voters punish senators for not toeing party lines. The result is a timely corrective to the notion that parties don’t matter in the Senate—which the contributors reveal is far more similar to the lower chamber than conventional wisdom suggests.

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P. J. Marshall - The Making and Unmaking of Empire s, Britain, India, and America c.1750-1783 (2005).jpg

In The Making and Unmaking of Empires P. J. Marshall deals with a crucial period in the history of the British Empire in trying to explain how the British at the same time lost an empire in North America, while winning one in parts of India. He shows that British objectives were much the same all over the world and examines the conditions in America that frustrated these objectives and those in India that facilitated them.

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P. J. Marshall - The Making and Unmaking of Empire s, Britain, India, and America c.1750-1783 (2005).pdf

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Patricia Beard - After the Ball, Gilded Age Secret s, Boardroom Betrayals, and the Party That Ignited the Great Wall Street Scandal of 1905 (2004).jpg

USA Books1 - Patricia Beard - After the Ball, Gilded Age Secrets, ...at Ignited the Great Wall Street Scandal of 1905 2004.jpg

After the Ball is that rare true story that reads like an epic novel, a sweeping chronicle of an era, and an intimate account of the hope and betrayal of a son whose father gave him everything -- except the training to find his way in territory ruled by the rapacious.
James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three in 1899 when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society. Only five years later, he fell from grace in a Wall Street scandal that obsessed the nation and commanded 115 front-page articles in the New York Times.
Hyde was intelligent, cultured, and ambitious, but he was no match for an older generation that had mapped the backstreets of high finance. Vying to control the Equitable's vast investment pool, the most famous financiers and industrialists of the era -- among them E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, and J. P. Morgan -- put Hyde on forty-eight boards and included him in deals that shook Wall Street. And then, at the pinnacle of social success, he made a fatal miscalculation.
On the last night of January 1905, James Hyde held a fabulously flamboyant, eighteenth-century, Versailles-themed costume ball. His enemies used the party as the hook to hang him on, claiming that he was too frivolous to run a company dedicated to protecting widows and orphans; and spread the rumor that he had spent two hundred thousand dollars of Equitable money on a night's entertainment. By the time a government investigation established that Hyde had paid the bills himself, his reputation was ruined.
The bitter campaign to wrest control of the Equitable and its vast investment capacity from Hyde followed on the heels of the ball. As the fight escalated, clandestine alliances between insurers and Wall Street burst to the surface, exposing techniques that are the stuff of twenty-first-century scandals: self-dealing, insider trading, accounting malpractice, and corporate funding of private pleasures.
After the Ball tells a tale that riveted millions of Americans a century ago. Its themes are as fresh today as they were in 1905: greed and chicanery, the flawed love between fathers and sons, and contradictory American attitudes about wealth -- all unfolding against a setting of magnificence, excess, and corrupting glamour.

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Patricia Beard - After the Ball, Gilded Age Secret s, Boardroom Betrayals, and the Party That Ignited the Great Wall Street Scandal of 1905 (2004).pdf

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Robert L. McLaughlin, Sally E. Parry - We'll Alway s Have the Movies, American Cinema during World Wa r II (2005).jpg

USA Books1 - Robert L. McLaughlin, Sally E. Parry - Well Always Hav... the Movies, American Cinema during World War II 2005.jpg

During the highly charged years of World War II, movies perhaps best communicated to Americans who they were and why they were fighting. These films were more than just an explanation of historical events: they asked audiences to consider the Nazi threat, they put a face on both our enemies and allies, and they explored changing wartime gender roles. We’ll Always Have the Movies shows how film after film repeated the narratives, character types, and rhetoric that made the war and each American’s role in it comprehensible.
Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry have watched more than six-hundred films made between 1937 and 1946—including many never before discussed in this context—and have analyzed the cultural and historical importance of these films in explaining the war to moviegoers. This extensive study shows how filmmakers made the chaotic elements of wartime familiar, while actual events became film history, and film history became myth.

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Robert L. McLaughlin, Sally E. Parry - We'll Alway s Have the Movies, American Cinema during World Wa r II (2005).pdf

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Robert Rodgers Korstad - Civil Rights Unionism, To bacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in th e Mid-Twentieth-Century South (2003).jpg

USA Books1 - Robert Rodgers Korstad - Civil Rights Unionism, Tobacc...for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South 2003.jpg

Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These workers confronted a system of racial capitalism that consigned African Americans to the basest jobs in the industry, perpetuated low wages for all southerners, and shored up white supremacy.
Galvanized by the emergence of the CIO, African Americans took the lead in a campaign that saw a strong labor movement and the reenfranchisement of the southern poor as keys to reforming the South--and a reformed South as central to the survival and expansion of the New Deal. In the window of opportunity opened by World War II, they blurred the boundaries between home and work as they linked civil rights and labor rights in a bid for justice at work and in the public sphere.
But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. Its defeat undermined later efforts by civil rights activists to raise issues of economic equality to the moral high ground occupied by the fight against legalized segregation and, Korstad contends, constrains the prospects for justice and democracy today.

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Robert Rodgers Korstad - Civil Rights Unionism, To bacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in th e Mid-Twentieth-Century South (2003).pdf

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Stuart Price - Brute Reality, Structures of Repres entation in ''The War on Terror'' (2010).jpg

This book is an analysis of those formal attempts, made by prominent social actors, to present a rationale for the existence and exercise of coercive power. The author shows that the 'war on terror' and its associated campaigns are an aggressive attempt to assert the contradictory interests of a trans-national elite. The period chosen to illustrate the key characteristics of this enterprise extends from the state of 'war' created after the September 11th attacks to the strategic adjustments begun during the nadir of the Iraq adventure. The shift in policy of the Obama administration is also analyzed. The book contains a wealth of transcripts and media sources, from Business Week's coverage of the Afghanistan campaign to the rhetorical pronouncements of leading politicians. Brute Reality provides students of media studies with a critical insight into a number of influential structures that have helped to shape contemporary attitudes to warfare.

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