Liberia has a strong connection to the United States in that it was founded by former slaves in 1822. Although Liberia had existed as an independent African nation and a symbol of hope to the African peoples under the rule of various colonial powers, its recent history has been bedeviled by a prolonged upheaval following a military coup d'etat in 1980. In this context, the narrative highlights the distinctiveness of Liberians in their negotiation of traditional indigenous and modern practices, and the changes wrought by Christianity and Western influences.

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Ayodeji Olukoju - Culture and Customs of Liberia ( 2006).pdf

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Nigel West - Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (2007).jpg

In the years immediately following World War II, information was disclosed about what has been termed the shadow war of the existence of hitherto secret agencies. In Germany it was the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst; in Britain it was MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Special Operations Executive (SOE); in the United States it was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Special Intelligence Service (SIS) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); in Japan it was the Kempet'ai; and in Italy the Servicio di Informazione Militare (SIM). Sixty years after World War II secrets are still being revealed about the covert activities that took place. Many countries had secret agencies maintaining covert operations, but even ostensibly neutral countries also conducted secret operations. Changes in American, British, and even Soviet official attitudes to declassification in the 1980s allowed thousands of secret documents to be made available for public examination, and the result was extensive revisionism of the conventional histories of the conflict, which previously had excluded references to secret intelligence sources.
The Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence tells the emerging history of the intelligence world during World War II. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the secret agencies, operations, and events. The world of double agents, spies, and moles during WWII is explained in the most comprehensive reference currently available.

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Nigel West - Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (2007).pdf

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Harry Elmer Barnes - Perpetual War for Perpetual P eace (1982).jpg

The revisionist search for truth relative to the causes of the second World War is "serious, unfortunate, deplorable."
—SAMUEL FLAGG BEMIS, Journal of Modern History, March, 1947

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Harry Elmer Barnes - Perpetual War for Perpetual P eace (1982).pdf

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James W. Hurst - Pancho Villa and Black Jack Persh ing, The Punitive Expedition in Mexico (2007).jpg

The focus of this book is the Expedition, the Villistas, and their leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa. Villa's early life witnessed the advent of the typewriter, the telephone, linotype, the automobile, the Kodak camera, the first motion pictures, wireless telegraphy, the airplane, and the radio. In the days before his defeat at Columbus and the subsequent routing of his bands by the Punitive Expedition, Villa had a coterie of journalists wherever he traveled, and he went to great lengths to secure their comfort. In return they provided him with what today would be called "good press", and American public opinion was shaped in a generally favorable direction. Villa instinctively realized that image was everything: it was not what you were that mattered but rather what you seemed to be that really counted. In addition to the American newspaper press, both Mexican and American photographers contributed to Villa's role as a legendary hero. A photographic record unprecedented in the annals of bandit-heroes spread the legend, and motion pictures gave an extraordinary boost to his notoriety. He is arguably the most widely recognized Mexican in America, and his picture is often found on the walls of Mexican-American restaurants. Catching Villa would prove to be difficult, and to do it, "Black Jack" Pershing and his force needed to rely on local intelligence. Pershing referred to his intelligence-gathering organization as the Intelligence Section, whose officers interrogated prisoners, recruited guides, interpreters, and informers, and organized a secret service of Mexican expatriates who were more than willing to provide their services against Villa. There were a number of Japanese who were employed with mixed results, and a few reliable local Mexicans were employed in the Secret Service with fairly good results. The narrative is itself a reflection of the success of the Intelligence Section in gathering information in the field and preserving what was gathered in detailed, written reports. The reports would not have been possible without the cooperation of the local population, particularly in the Guerrero district and specifically in the pueblo of Namiquipa. Both were hotbeds of Villista sentiment, and early Expedition reports stressed the hostility of the locals. Within a matter of weeks of its arrival, however, the local situation had changed radically. Local farmers were collaborating with the Americans, selling their labor and supplies to the troops and, more importantly, furnishing the invaders with military intelligence.

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James W. Hurst - Pancho Villa and Black Jack Persh ing, The Punitive Expedition in Mexico (2007).pdf

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John W. Blassingame - Black New Orleans, 1860-1880 (1976).jpg

Reissued for the first time in over thirty years, Black New Orleans explores the twenty-year period in which the city’s black population more than doubled. Meticulously researched and replete with archival illustrations from newspapers and rare periodicals, John W. Blassingame’s groundbreaking history offers a unique look at the economic and social life of black people in New Orleans during Reconstruction. Not a conventional political treatment, Blassingame’s history instead emphasizes the educational, religious, cultural, and economic activities of African Americans during the late nineteenth century.

“Blending historical and sociological perspectives, and drawing with skill and imagination upon a variety of sources, [Blassingame] offers fresh insights into an oft-studied period of Southern history. . . . In both time and place the author has chosen an extraordinarily revealing vantage point from which to view his subject. ”—Neil R. McMillen, American Historical Review

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John W. Blassingame - Black New Orleans, 1860-1880 (1976).pdf

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Stephen B. Oates - The Fires of Jubilee, Nat Turne r's Fierce Rebellion (1990).jpg

The bloody slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831, and the savage reprisals that followed, shattered beyond repair the myth of the contented slave and the benign master and intensified the forces of change that would plunge America into the bloodbath of the Civil War.

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Ed Strosser, Michael Prince - Stupid Wars, A Citiz en's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inan e Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions (2008).jpg

USA Books - Ed Strosser, Michael Prince - Stupid Wars, A Citizens ...oups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions 2008.jpg

When winners write history, they sometimes "forget" to include their own embarrassing misjudgments. Fortunately, this take-no-prisoners edition of history isn't going to let the winners (or the losers) forget the mistakes of the past. Be prepared to laugh out loud—and gasp in horror—at the most painfully idiotic strategies, alliances, and decisions the world has ever known. These stupid wars have been launched by democracies as well as monarchies and dictatorships, in recent decades just as often as in less "enlightened" times. The ridiculous and reckless conflicts chronicled in Stupid Wars include the misdirected Fourth Crusade, the half-baked invasion of Russia by the U.S., the U.K.'s baffling Falklands War, Hitler's ill-fated Beer Hall Putsch, several incredibly foolish South American conflicts, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and many more. Whether you're a future dictator, war-mongering politician, royal mistress, or history lover, these blow-by-stupid-blow accounts will teach you the valuable lessons you need to stay off the list, including:

* Don't declare war on all your neighbors at the same time.
* Working radios, accurate maps, and weather-appropriate uniforms are big plusses.
* Large amounts of bird poop and very small islands are probably not worth dying for.
* Never invade Russia.
* Seriously. It's a really bad idea.

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Ed Strosser, Michael Prince - Stupid Wars, A Citiz en's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inan e Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions (2008).pdf

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Ruth Oldenziel, Karin Zachmann - Cold War Kitchen, Americanization, Technology, and European Users ( 2009).jpg

Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev's famous "kitchen debate" in 1958 involved more than the virtues of American appliances. Both Nixon and Khrushchev recognized the political symbolism of the modern kitchen; the kind of technological innovation represented in this everyday context spoke to the political system that produced it. The kitchen connects the "big" politics of politicians and statesmen to the "small" politics of users and interest groups. Cold War Kitchen looks at the kitchen as material object and symbol, considering the politics and the practices of one of the most famous technological icons of the mid-twentieth century.

Defining the kitchen as a complex technological artifact as important as computers, cars, and nuclear missiles, the book examines the ways in which a range of social actors in Europe shaped the kitchen as both ideological construct and material practice. These actors—from manufacturers and modernist architects to housing reformers and feminists—constructed and domesticated the technological innovations of the postwar kitchen. The home became a "mediation junction" in which women users and others felt free to advise producers from the consumer's point of view. In essays illustrated by striking period photographs, the contributors to Cold War Kitchen consider such topics as Soviet consumers' ambivalent responses to the American dream kitchen argued over by Nixon and Khrushchev; the Frankfurter Küche, a European modernist kitchen of the interwar period (and its export to Turkey when its designer fled the Nazis); and the British state-subsidized kitchen design so innovative that it was mistaken for a luxury American product. The concluding essays challenge the received wisdom of past interpretations of the kitchen debate.

Contributors: Esra Akcan, Liesbeth Bervoets, Cristina Carbone, Greg Castillo, Irene Cieraad, Shane Hamilton, Martina Hessler, Matthew Hilton, Julian Holder, Ruth Oldenziel, Susan E. Reid Kirsi Saarikangas, Karin Zachmann

Inside Technology series

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Ruth Oldenziel, Karin Zachmann - Cold War Kitchen, Americanization, Technology, and European Users ( 2009).pdf

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Kim Lacy Rogers - Life and Death in the Delta, Afr ican American Narratives of Violence, Resilience, and Social Change (2006).jpg

USA Books - Kim Lacy Rogers - Life and Death in the Delta, African...tives of Violence, Resilience, and Social Change 2006.jpg

Using oral histories with African American activists and community leaders, Kim Lacy Rogers explores the civil rights movement in several Mississippi communities in the context of the region's history of white supremacy, racial oppression, and African American cultural vitality. Terrorism, black poverty, and economic exploitation led to a condition of collective trauma and social suffering for thousands of black Deltans in the twentieth century. This work reveals the impact of that oppression, and of African American traditions of community service and leadership in the lives of women and men who became activists. It also examines the disillusionment and anger that many Delta leaders feel about the changes that took place during the post-movement years.

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Kim Lacy Rogers - Life and Death in the Delta, Afr ican American Narratives of Violence, Resilience, and Social Change (2006).pdf

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Paul N. Spellman - Captain John H. Rogers, Texas R anger (2003).jpg

John Harris Rogers (1863-1930) served in Texas law enforcement for more than four decades, as a Texas Ranger, Deputy and U.S. Marshal, city police chief, and in the private sector as a security agent. He is recognized in history as one of the legendary "Four Captains" of the Ranger force that helped make the transition from the Frontier Battalion days into the twentieth century. Rogers participated in the Brown County fence-cutting wars, the East Texas Conner Fight, the El Paso/Langtry Prizefight, the riots during the Laredo Quarantine, and the hunts for Hill Loftis and Gregorio Cortez.

"[Rogers's] philosophy was: `Once you have pulled your guns use them with absolute resolve.' He certainly did during his career as a Ranger. . . . A good addition to Texas Ranger lore."--True West

"Spellman offers a narrative biography that is exceedingly well crafted. . . . It is a must read for scholars and laymen alike."--Journal of the West

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Paul N. Spellman - Captain John H. Rogers, Texas R anger (2003).pdf

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W. Dale Nelson - Interpreters With Lewis and Clark , The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau (2003).jpg

USA Books - W. Dale Nelson - Interpreters With Lewis and Clark, Th... The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau 2003.jpg

This is the story of Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian fur trader, and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, who both joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 as interpreters and guides. Sacagawea has become a near-legendary figure for her role on the expedition, but Toussaint's contribution largely has been overlooked--Lewis himself called him "a man of no peculiar merit." Now W. Dale Nelson offers a frank and honest portrayal of Toussaint, showing that his contributions as interpreter and guide were just as valuable as Sacagawea's help. Nelson also explores the life of Toussaint and Sacagawea's son, Jean Baptiste, who was born on the expedition, and follows his later western exploits as mountain man, scout, mayor, and judge in this family biography.

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W. Dale Nelson - Interpreters With Lewis and Clark , The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau (2003).pdf

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David Johnson - The Mason County ''Hoo Doo'' War, 1874-1902 (2006).jpg

In 1874 the "Hoo Doo" War erupted in the Texas Hill Country of Mason County. The feud began with the rise of the mob under Sheriff John Clark, but it was not until the premeditated murder of rancher Timothy Williamson in 1875, a murder orchestrated by Sheriff Clark, that the violence escalated out of control. His death drew former Texas Ranger Scott Cooley to the region seeking justice, and when the courts failed, he began a vendetta to avenge his friend.

In the ensuing months, Sheriff Clark's mob ambushed ranchers George Gladden and Moses Baird, which drew gunfighters such as John Ringo into the violence. Local and state officials proved powerless, and it was not until the early 1900s that the feud burned itself out.

David Johnson analyzes the myths and legends surrounding the feud and presents the first definitive account of what happened in Mason County-a case study in frontier violence of the bloodiest kind.

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David Johnson - The Mason County ''Hoo Doo'' War, 1874-1902 (2006).pdf

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James J. Cozine, Jr. - Saving the Big Thicket, Fro m Exploration to Preservation, 1685-2003 (2004).jpg

The Big Thicket of East Texas, which at one time covered over two million acres, served as a barrier to civilizations throughout most of historic times. By the late nineteenth century, however, an assault on this wilderness by settlers, railroads, and timber companies began in earnest. By the 1920s, much of the wilderness had been destroyed. Spurred on by the continued destruction of the region, the Big Thicket Association (BTA) organized in 1964 to fight for its preservation. Arguing that the Big Thicket was a unique botanical region, the BTA and their supporters convinced President Gerald Ford to authorize an 84,550-acre Big Thicket National Preserve in 1974.

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James J. Cozine, Jr. - Saving the Big Thicket, Fro m Exploration to Preservation, 1685-2003 (2004).pdf

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Spencer C. Tucker - Encyclopedia of the Cold War, A Political, Social, and Military History (2008).jpg

The confrontation of Western capitalism and Soviet and Chinese Communism shaped world affairs for almost the entire second half of the 20th century—a period defined by pervasive political tension, nuclear-fueled nightmares, intense diplomacy, and the transformation of regional/national disputes into test-case ideological battlefields where the superpowers squared off.

The conflict that dominated world events for nearly five decades is now captured in a multivolume work of unprecedented magnitude—from a publisher widely acclaimed for its authoritative military and historical references. Under the direction of internationally known military historian Spencer Tucker, ABC-CLIO's The Encyclopedia of the Cold War: A Political, Social, and Military History offers the most current and comprehensive treatment ever published of the ideological conflict that not so long ago enveloped the globe.

From the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union, The Encyclopedia of the Cold War provides authoritative information on all military conflicts, battlefield and surveillance technologies, diplomatic initiatives, important individuals and organizations, national histories, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. The nearly 1,300 entries, plus topical essays and an extraordinarily rich documents volume, draw heavily on recently opened Russian, Eastern European, and Chinese archives. The work is a definitive cornerstone reference on one of the most important historical topics of our time.

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Spencer C. Tucker - Encyclopedia of the Cold War, A Political, Social, and Military History (2008).pdf

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Jon Meacham - American Lion, Andrew Jackson in the White House (2008)_cr.jpg

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

Jon Meacham in American Lion has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency–and America itself.

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