Barack Obama puzzles observers. Derided by the Right as dangerous and by the Left as spineless, Obama does not fit contemporary partisan categories. Instead, his writings and speeches reflect a principled aversion to absolutes that derives from sustained engagement with American democratic thought. Reading Obama traces the origins of his ideas and establishes him as the most penetrating political thinker elected to the presidency in the past century.
James T. Kloppenberg demonstrates the influences that have shaped Obama's distinctive worldview, including Nietzsche and Niebuhr, Ellison and Rawls, and recent theorists engaged in debates about feminism, critical race theory, and cultural norms. Examining Obama's views on the Constitution, slavery and the Civil War, the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, Kloppenberg shows Obama's sophisticated understanding of American history. Obama's interest in compromise, reasoned public debate, and the patient nurturing of civility is a sign of strength, not weakness, Kloppenberg argues. He locates its roots in Madison, Lincoln, and especially in the philosophical pragmatism of William James and John Dewey, which nourished generations of American progressives, black and white, female and male, through much of the twentieth century, albeit with mixed results.
Reading Obama reveals the sources of Obama's commitment to democratic deliberation: the books he has read, the visionaries who have inspired him, the social movements and personal struggles that have shaped his thinking. Kloppenberg shows that Obama's positions on social justice, religion, race, family, and America's role in the world do not stem from a desire to please everyone but from deeply rooted--although currently unfashionable--convictions about how a democracy must deal with difference and conflict.

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Jeremy Agnew - Medicine in the Old West, A History , 1850-1900 (2010).jpg

The healing arts as practiced in the Old West often meant the difference between life and death for American pioneers. Whether the challenge was sickness, an Indian arrow, a gunshot wound, or a fall from a horse, a pioneer in the western territories required care for medical emergencies, but often had to make do until a doctor could be found. This historical overview addresses the perils to health that were present during the expansion of the American frontier, and the methods used by doctors to treat and overcome them. Numerous black and white photographs are provided, as well as a glossary of medical terms. Appendices list drugs commonly used from 1850-1900 and surgical instruments found in a typical doctor's kit of the era.

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Jeremy Agnew - Medicine in the Old West, A History , 1850-1900 (2010).pdf

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John Steele Gordon - Empire of Wealth, The Epic Hi story of American Economic Power (2005).jpg

Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way -- through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.

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John Steele Gordon - Empire of Wealth, The Epic Hi story of American Economic Power (2005).pdf

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Mary C. Turck - Freedom Song, Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2008).jpg

Music was one of the fuels that fired the civil rights movement. Songs such as “We Shall Overcome” were sung at rallies and protests and became synonymous with the struggle. Turck examines this inextricable relationship in a book with plenty of interesting information; unfortunately, the organization makes it difficult to find these nuggets. The introduction sets the American scene in the 1950s and chronicles the rise of the civil rights movement; this segues into information about the Children’s Choir, founded in Chicago. The narrative moves on to Birmingham and back to Chicago. Then it’s off to Africa for the origins of gospel music.

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26,0 MB
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Mary C. Turck - Freedom Song, Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2008).pdf

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Merle Miller - Plain Speaking, An Oral Biography o f Harry S. Truman (1974).jpg

Merle Miller: This is a book about Harry Truman, and most of it is in his own words and the words of people who knew him before he went to Washington and after and while he was there. It should be said instantly that the words were not spoken with a book in mind. They were spoken in the hope that out of them would come ideas for God-alone-knew how many television programs that would explain to the eager millions what it had been like to be President and what as President Mr. Truman had done. As Mr. Truman used to say, "I'm mostly interested in the children. The old folks, mostly they're too set in their ways and too stubborn to learn anything new, but I want the children to know what we've got here in this country and how we got it, and then if they want to go ahead and change it, why, that's up to them. But I want them to understand what it's all about first. I want to make a historical record that has never been made before in the history of this country, and if it turns out all right, I'll be very happy indeed."

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11,0 MB
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Merle Miller - Plain Speaking, An Oral Biography o f Harry S. Truman (1974).djvu

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Richard W. Pointer - Encounters of the Spirit, Nat ive Americans and European Colonial Religion (2007 ).jpg

Historians have long been aware that the encounter with Europeans affected all aspects of Native American life. But were Indians the only ones changed by these cross-cultural meetings? Might the newcomers' ways, including their religious beliefs and practices, have also been altered amid their myriad contacts with native peoples? In Encounters of the Spirit, Richard W. Pointer takes up these intriguing questions in an innovative study of the religious encounter between Indians and Euro-Americans in early America. Exploring a series of episodes across the three centuries of the colonial era and stretching from New Spain to New France and the English settlements, he finds that the flow of cultural influence was more often reciprocal than unidirectional.

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6,3 MB
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Richard W. Pointer - Encounters of the Spirit, Nat ive Americans and European Colonial Religion (2007 ).pdf

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Adele Barker - Not Quite Paradise, An American Soj ourn in Sri Lanka (2010).jpg

In 2001, just weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center, Barker packed up herself and her 14-year-old son and traveled to Sri Lanka to teach literature at a university in Kandy. It’s a complete change of pace from her life in Tucson, Arizona, from the omnipresent ants she can’t seem to drive away from her house to the monkeys that sit in on and often disrupt her lectures. As she adjusts to life in Kandy, she learns more about the history of the country, and the civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, triggered in the wake of the British departure from the island. At the time of her arrival, the war had already claimed over forty thousand lives. Barker eventually returns to the U.S. with her son, but when the devastating tsunami hits the day after Christmas in 2004, she is drawn back to Sri Lanka. Rich in the tales of Sri Lanka under colonial British rule as well as coverage of the current civil war, Barker’s memoir is an enlightening and captivating read.

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2,8 MB
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Adele Barker - Not Quite Paradise, An American Soj ourn in Sri Lanka (2010).pdf

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Andrew L. Johns - Vietnam's Second Front, Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War (2010 ).jpg

The Vietnam War has been analyzed, dissected, and debated from multiple perspectives for decades, but domestic considerations -- such as partisan politics and election-year maneuvering -- are often overlooked as determining factors in the evolution and outcome of America's longest war.
In Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Andrew L. Johns assesses the influence of the Republican Party -- its congressional leadership, politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration -- on the escalation, prosecution, and resolution of the Vietnam War. This groundbreaking work also sheds new light on the relationship between Congress and the imperial presidency as they struggled for control over U.S. foreign policy.
Beginning his analysis in 1961 and continuing through the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, Johns argues that the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations failed to achieve victory on both fronts of the Vietnam War -- military and political -- because of their preoccupation with domestic politics. Johns details the machinations and political dexterity required of all three presidents and of members of Congress to maneuver between the countervailing forces of escalation and negotiation, offering a provocative account of the ramifications of their decisions. With clear, incisive prose and extensive archival research, Johns's analysis covers the broad range of the Republican Party's impact on the Vietnam War, offers a compelling reassessment of responsibility for the conflict, and challenges assumptions about the roles of Congress and the president in U.S. foreign relations.

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Andrew L. Johns - Vietnam's Second Front, Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War (2010 ).pdf

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Bernard F. Dick - Forever Mame, The Life of Rosali nd Russell (2006).jpg

When it comes to living life to its fullest, Rosalind Russell’s character Auntie Mame is still the silver screen’s exemplar. And Mame, the role Russell (1907–1976) would always be remembered for, embodies the rich and rewarding life Bernard F. Dick reveals in the first biography of this Golden Age star, Forever Mame: The Life of Rosalind Russell.

Drawing on personal interviews and information from the archives of Russell and her producer-husband Frederick Brisson, Dick begins with Russell’s childhood in Waterbury, Connecticut, and chronicles her early attempts to achieve recognition after graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Frustrated by her inability to land a lead in a Broadway show, she headed for Hollywood in 1934, and two years later, played her first starring role, the title character in Craig’s Wife.

All of her films are discussed along with her triumphal return to Broadway, first in the musical Wonderful Town and later in Auntie Mame. Forever Mame details Russell’s social circle of such stars as Loretta Young, Cary Grant, and Frank Sinatra. It traces the trajectory of an extraordinary career, ending with Russell’s courageous battle against the two diseases that eventually caused her death: rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Realizing she had only a short time to live, Russell devoted her last years to campaigning for arthritis research. So successful was she in her efforts to alert lawmakers to this crippling disease that a leading San Francisco research center is named after her.

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Daniel Farabaugh, Stephanie Muntone - McGraw-Hill' s SAT Subject Test, United States History 2-E (200 9).jpg

Expert guidance on the SAT Subject Test in United States History

Many colleges and universities require you to take one or more SAT II Subject Tests to demonstrate your mastery of specific high school subjects. McGraw-Hill's SAT Subject Test: United States History, Second Edition, is written by experts in the field, and gives you the guidance you need perform at your best. This book includes:
Full-length sample tests
Diagnostic exams to help students pinpoint strengths and weaknesses
Hundreds of questions with complete explanations
Step-by-step reviews of all topics covered in each exam
Strategies to help students get their best score

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Daniel Farabaugh, Stephanie Muntone - McGraw-Hill' s SAT Subject Test, United States History 2-E (200 9).pdf

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Edwin Lefevre - Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1994).jpg

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the thinly disguised biography of Jesse Livermore, a remarkable character who first started speculating in New England bucket shops at the turn of the century. Livermore, who was banned from these shady operations because of his winning ways, soon moved to Wall Street where he made and lost his fortune several times over. What makes this book so valuable are the observations that Lefèvre records about investing, speculating, and the nature of the market itself. For example:

"It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon."

If you've ever spent weekends and nights puzzling over whether to buy, sell, or hold a position in whatever investment--be it stock, bonds, or pork bellies, you'll be glad that you read this book. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is full of lessons that are as relevant today as they were in 1923 when the book was first published.

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J. Schorsch - Swimming the Christian Atlantic, Jud eoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the S eventeenth Century (2009).jpg

USA Books1 - J. Schorsch - Swimming the Christian Atlantic, Judeoc...rians and Amerindians in the Seventeenth Century 2009.jpg

Scholarship on the formation of the Atlantic world through contributions from Europe, Africa and the Americas has grown in recent decades. The results offer new understandings of the transformations in ethnic and religious identity faced by peoples from all the surrounding continents. Long used by scholars of Jewish studies, records from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions have become an important source for historians of Africans and Amerindians in the Iberian colonial orbit. Using these and other materials, this book explores the nexus of politics, race and religion among three newly and incompletely Christianized groups in the seventeenth century: Judeoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians. This fresh cross-cultural analysis brings these differing trajectories into dialogue.

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J. Schorsch - Swimming the Christian Atlantic, Jud eoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the S eventeenth Century (2009).pdf

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James A. Pegolotti - Deems Taylor, Selected Writin gs (2007).jpg

Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was a composer, music critic, author, commentator, translator, and artist. He was the first American composer commissioned to write an opera by New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and composed orchestral and solo works that remain part of the repertoire. He gained fame initially introducing the regular radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic in the mid-‘30s; his fame was so great, that animator Walt Disney invited him to be the on-screen host of Fantasia. Taylor wrote for many popular journals, including Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, as well as the daily press, and his work was collecting in many best-selling books.

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James A. Pegolotti - Deems Taylor, Selected Writin gs (2007).pdf

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Jean C. McCrosky, Compiler - Fort Devens World War II Memories and Stories (2001).jpg

Fort Devens is an active United States military installation in the towns of Ayer and Shirley, in Middlesex County and Harvard in Worcester County in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It was named after jurist and Civil War general Charles Devens. The nearby Devens Reserve Forces Training Area is located in Lancaster.

The fort has a population of 306 enlisted personnel, 2,151 reservists, 348 civilians, and 1,399 family members. It also maintains 25 ranges, 21 training areas, and 15 maneuver areas on nearly 5,000 acres (20 km2) of land.

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Jean C. McCrosky, Compiler - Fort Devens World War II Memories and Stories (2001).pdf

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Kelly Fisher Lowe - The Words and Music of Frank Z appa (2006).jpg

This is the first book to move beyond the details of Zappa's biography toward a focused treatment of his songs. Zappa worked in a musical realm unfamiliar to many radio listeners. Today, his music can be appreciated as a whole, emerging as a coherent, thoughtful, innovative—if somewhat daunting—body of work. Lowe has left no aspect of that work unexamined, from Zappa's role as a satirist of the highest order, to his place in the genre of progressive rock, and his importance as one of the foremost critics of American culture and society. Zappa's messages—musical and lyrical—may not always be clear, but they are well worth considering.

The volume begins with a discussion of Zappa's role as a satirist and a discussion of his musical style, and then proceeds to a prolonged examination of his albums. Through this extended engagement with Zappa's music, a surprisingly clear perspective on his personal views is also provided, shedding light on his treatment of such topics as the falsified notion of love in popular culture, the compromising influence of money on popular music, and the concept of freedom in a systematized society, among other things. The book also features an official discography and a bibliographic essay that discusses the current state of Zappa scholarship.

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Kelly Fisher Lowe - The Words and Music of Frank Z appa (2006).pdf

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Michael O'Brien - Intellectual Life and the Americ an South, 1810-1860, An Abridged Edition of Conjec tures of Order (2010).jpeg

USA Books1 - Michael OBrien - Intellectual Life and the American S...60, An Abridged Edition of Conjectures of Order 2010.jpeg

Michael O’Brien has masterfully abridged his award-winning two-volume intellectual history of the Old South, Conjectures of Order, depicting a culture that was simultaneously national, postcolonial, and imperial, influenced by European intellectual traditions, yet also deeply implicated in the making of the American mind.
Here O’Brien succinctly and fluidly surveys the lives and works of many significant Southern intellectuals, including John C. Calhoun, Louisa McCord, James Henley Thornwell, and George Fitzhugh. Looking over the period, O'Brien identifies a movement from Enlightenment ideas of order to a Romanticism concerned with the ambivalences of personal and social identity, and finally, by the 1850s, to an early realist sensibility. He offers a new understanding of the South by describing a place neither monolithic nor out of touch, but conflicted, mobile, and ambitious to integrate modern intellectual developments into its tense and idiosyncratic social experience.
Michael O’Brien has masterfully abridged his award-winning two-volume intellectual history of the Old South, Conjectures of Order, depicting a culture that was simultaneously national, postcolonial, and imperial, influenced by European intellectual traditions, yet also deeply implicated in the making of the American mind.
Here O’Brien succinctly and fluidly surveys the lives and works of many significant Southern intellectuals, including John C. Calhoun, Louisa McCord, James Henley Thornwell, and George Fitzhugh. Looking over the period, O'Brien identifies a movement from Enlightenment ideas of order to a Romanticism concerned with the ambivalences of personal and social identity, and finally, by the 1850s, to an early realist sensibility. He offers a new understanding of the South by describing a place neither monolithic nor out of touch, but conflicted, mobile, and ambitious to integrate modern intellectual developments into its tense and idiosyncratic social experience.

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