USA Books - flaccolipan1 - Chomikuj.pl, Strona 64

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Mark E. Neely - The Fate of Liberty, Abraham Linco ln and Civil Liberties (1992).jpg

If Abraham Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator, he was also the only president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Indeed, Lincoln's record on the Constitution and individual rights has fueled a century of debate, from charges that Democrats were singled out for harrassment to Gore Vidal's depiction of Lincoln as an "absolute dictator." Now, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Fate of Liberty, one of America's leading authorities on Lincoln wades straight into this controversy, showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of Lincoln's constitutional policies.
Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events: the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, disintegrating public order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges from this account with this legendary statesmanship intact--mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently. In addition, Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages. He finds that though the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of modern war.
Informed by a deep understanding of a unique period in American history, this incisive book takes a comprehensive look at the issues of civil liberties during Lincoln's administration, placing them firmly in the political context of the time. Written with keen insight and an intimate grasp of the original sources, The Fate of Liberty offers a vivid picture of the crises and chaos of a nation at war with itself, changing our understanding of this president and his most controversial policies.

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Mark E. Neely - The Fate of Liberty, Abraham Linco ln and Civil Liberties (1992).pdf

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Michael S. Neiberg - Fighting the Great War, A Glo bal History (2005).jpg

Despair at Gallipoli. Victory at Vimy Ridge. A European generation lost, an American spirit found. The First World War, the deadly herald of a new era, continues to captivate readers. In this lively book, Michael Neiberg offers a concise history based on the latest research and insights into the soldiers, commanders, battles, and legacies of the Great War.

Tracing the war from Verdun to Salonika to Baghdad to German East Africa, Neiberg illuminates the global nature of the conflict. More than four years of mindless slaughter in the trenches on the western front, World War I was the first fought in three dimensions: in the air, at sea, and through mechanized ground warfare. New weapons systems--tanks, bomber aircraft, and long-range artillery--all shaped the battle environment. Moving beyond the standard portrayal of the war's generals as "butchers and bunglers," Neiberg offers a nuanced discussion of officers constrained by the monumental scale of complex events. Diaries and letters of men serving on the front lines capture the personal stories and brutal conditions--from Alpine snows to Mesopotamian sands--under which these soldiers lived, fought, and died.

Generously illustrated, with many never-before-published photographs, this book is an impressive blend of analysis and narrative. Anyone interested in understanding the twentieth century must begin with its first global conflict, and there is no better place to start than with Fighting the Great War.

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Michael S. Neiberg - Fighting the Great War, A Glo bal History (2005).pdf

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Paul Goalby Cressey - The Taxi-Dance Hall, A Socio logical Study in Commercialized Recreation and Cit y Life (2008).jpg

USA Books - Paul Goalby Cressey - The Taxi-Dance Hall, A Sociologi... Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life 2008.jpg

"This is perhaps my Ur book, a combination guaranteed to satisfy both my Cornell Woolrich induced taxi-hall obsession and my jones for gritty ethnography. . . . An unflinching, keenly observed portrait of the Chicago tax-dance hall circa 1928. Via extensive case studies, interviews, and even historical, economic and geographic analysis, [Cressey] captures the personality of the customers and dancers and the atmosphere of their noirish milieu. . . . This is the real noir." (John Marr Murder Can Be Fun)

First published in 1932, The Taxi-Dance Hall is Paul Goalby Cressey’s fascinating study of Chicago’s urban nightlife—as seen through the eyes of the patrons, owners, and dancers-for-hire who frequented the city’s notoriously seedy “taxi-dance” halls.

Taxi-dance halls, as the introduction notes, were social centers where men could come and pay to dance with “a bevy of pretty, vivacious, and often mercenary” women. Ten cents per dance was the usual fee, with half the proceeds going to the dancer and the other half to the owner of the taxi-hall. Cressey’s study includes detailed maps of the taxi-dance districts, illuminating interviews with dancers, patrons, and owners, and vivid analyses of local attempts to reform the taxi-dance hall and its attendees.

Cressey’s study reveals these halls to be the distinctive urban consequence of tensions between a young, diverse, and economically independent population at odds with the restrictive regulations of Prohibition America. Thick with sexual vice, ethnic clashes, and powerful undercurrents of class, The Taxi-Dance Hall is a landmark example of Chicago sociology, perfect for scholars and history buffs alike.

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Scott Reynolds Nelson, Carol Sheriff - A People at War, Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil Wa r (2007).jpeg

USA Books - Scott Reynolds Nelson, Carol Sheriff - A People at War...r, Civilians and Soldiers in Americas Civil War 2007.jpeg

Claiming more than 600,000 lives, the American Civil War had a devastating impact on countless numbers of common soldiers and civilians, even as it brought freedom to millions. This book shows how average Americans coped with despair as well as hope during this vast upheaval.
A People at War brings to life the full humanity of the war's participants, from women behind their plows to their husbands in army camps; from refugees from slavery to their former masters; from Mayflower descendants to freshly recruited Irish sailors. We discover how people confronted their own feelings about the war itself, and how they coped with emotional challenges (uncertainty, exhaustion, fear, guilt, betrayal, grief) as well as physical ones (displacement, poverty, illness, disfigurement). The book explores the violence beyond the battlefield, illuminating the sharp-edged conflicts of neighbor against neighbor, whether in guerilla warfare or urban riots. The authors travel as far west as China and as far east as Europe, taking us inside soldiers' tents, prisoner-of-war camps, plantations, tenements, churches, Indian reservations, and even the cargo holds of ships. They stress the war years, but also cast an eye at the tumultuous decades that preceded and followed the battlefield confrontations.
An engrossing account of ordinary people caught up in life-shattering circumstances, A People at War captures how the Civil War rocked the lives of rich and poor, black and white, parents and children--and how all these Americans pushed generals and presidents to make the conflict a people's war.

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Typy Broni i Uzbrojenia 209 - Slawomir Drążkiewicz - Samochód terenowy HMMWV Hummer (2004).jpg

Humvee – to nazwa potoczna, wywodząca się od skrótu HMMWV, czyli High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle ("Wielozadaniowy pojazd kołowy o wysokiej mobilości"), określająca samochód terenowy opracowany dla armii Stanów Zjednoczonych przez AM General Corporation (firmę wywodzącą się z Willis-Overland Company). Później zaczęto produkować go w wersji cywilnej.

Historia

Wstępny projekt wielozadaniowego samochodu terenowego opracowanego dla armii Stanów Zjednoczonych powstał w 1979 roku. Oznaczono go jako M998 High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle. Miał on zastąpić pojazdy typu M151 i inne, starsze, pozostałe jeszcze w służbie lekkie pojazdy taktyczne. Po wygranym przetargu w 1983 rozpoczęły się przygotowania do rozpoczęcia seryjnej produkcji, do której doszło w 1985 roku. Samochód jest obecnie używany przez wiele armii świata (w Europie używa ich m.in. szwajcarska, polska i czeska), jednostki ratownicze, policyjne i straży pożarnej.
Chrzest bojowy odbył się wcześniej (interwencja w Panamie), lecz świat poznał go dopiero podczas wojny w Zatoce Perskiej w 1991 roku.
Sprzedaż luksusowych, cywilnych wersji pod nazwą Hummer H1 rozpoczęła się w 1992 roku. Sześć lat później AM General sprzedała prawa do marki koncernowi General Motors, który przemianował oryginalną nazwę auta na hummera H1.

Pod względem sprzedaży auta rekordowy był rok 2006, w którym salony salony dilerów opuściło 71 524 pojazdów. W kolejnych latach sprzedaż spadała. W styczniu 2010 r. nabywców znalazło tylko 265 samochodów. W związku z systematycznie pogarszającą się sprzedażą GM ogłosiło, że podobnie jak to uczyniło w 2009 r. markami Saturn i Pontiac, w 2010 zlikwiduje nierentowną markę Hummer

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13 mar 16 17:18

Thomas W. Cutrer - The Mexican War Diary and Corre spondence of George B. McClellan (2009).jpg

In his standard reference work on the Civil War, Generals in Blue, Ezra Warner declared George B. McClellan (1826-1885) "one of the most controversial figures in American military history." In this revealing book, Thomas W. Cutrer provides the definitive edition of McClellan's detailed diary and letters from his service in the Mexican War (1846-1848), during which he began the rise that culminated in his being named general in chief of the Union forces and commander of the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil War.
McClellan graduated second in his class from West Point in 1846 and served as a second lieutenant in Company A of the prestigious Corps of Engineers, the only formation of combat engineers in the United States Army. The company participated in Major General Winfield Scott's invasion of Mexico, playing a prominent role in the siege of Vera Cruz and the battles of Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec and in the capture of Mexico City. Although only twenty-one years old at the war's end, McClellan earned brevet promotions to first lieutenant and then captain for his efforts.
McClellan's colorful diary and frequent letters to his socially and politically prominent Philadelphia family provide a wealth of military details of the campaign, insights into the character of his fellow engineers--including Robert E. Lee and P. G. T. Beauregard--and accounts of the friction that arose between the professional soldiers and the officers and men of the volunteer regiments that made up Scott's command. A courageous, indefatigable, and superbly intelligent young man, McClellan formed close personal loyalties in those years. His diaries also reveal a man contemptuous of those he perceived as less talented than he, quick to see conspiracies where none existed, and eager to place upon others the blame for his own shortcomings and to take credit for actions performed by others.
On the banks of the Rio Grande during his first weeks with the army, McClellan wrote in his diary: "I came down here with high hopes, with pleasing anticipations of distinction, of being in hard fought battles and acquiring a name and reputation as a stepping stone to a still greater eminence in some future and greater war." Carefully edited by Thomas W. Cutrer, these diary entries and letters do indeed trace McClellan's rapid development as a soldier and leader and put on full display the talent, ambition, and arrogance that characterized his career as general and politician.

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Thomas W. Cutrer - The Mexican War Diary and Corre spondence of George B. McClellan (2009).pdf

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Truman K. Gibson Jr., Steve Huntley - Knocking Dow n Barriers, My Fight for Black America (2005).jpg

Sixty years ago, when Truman Gibson reported for duty at the War Department, Washington, D.C. was a southern city in its unbending segregation as well as in its steamy summers. Gibson had no illusions, but as someone who'd enjoyed the best of the vibrant black culture of prewar America, he was shocked to find the worst of the Jim Crow South in the nation's capital. What Gibson accomplished as an advocate for African American soldiers-first as a lawyer working for the Secretary of War, then as a member of President Truman's "Black Cabinet"--is a large part of the history of the struggle for civil rights in the American military; and it is a compelling part of the story that Gibson tells in this book, a memoir of a life spent making a difference in the world one step at a time.
A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Gibson took his fight for racial justice to the corridors of powers, arguing against restrictive real estate covenants before the U.S. Supreme Court, opposing such iconic figures as Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George C. Marshall in campaigning for the integration of the armed forces, and challenging white control of professional sports by creating a boxing promotion empire that made television history. A firsthand account of the nitty-gritty of twentieth-century race relations in the worlds of law, the military, sports, and entertainment, Gibson's memoir is also an engaging recollection of encounters with the likes of Thurgood Marshall, W. E. B. DuBois, Eleanor Roosevelt, George Patton, Jackie Robinson, and Joe Louis, among others. As a historical record and as an intimate look at a bygone era with all its charms and hardships, the book is an essential chapter in our nation's story.

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Steve Fainaru - Big Boy Rules, America's Mercenari es Fighting in Iraq (2008).jpg

There are tens of thousands of them in Iraq. They work for companies with exotic and ominous-sounding names, like Crescent Security Group, Triple Canopy, and Blackwater Worldwide. They travel in convoys of multicolored pickups fortified with makeshift armor, belt-fed machine guns, frag grenades, and even shoulder-fired missiles. They protect everything from the U.S. ambassador and American generals to shipments of Frappuccino bound for Baghdad’s Green Zone. They kill Iraqis, and Iraqis kill them.
And the only law they recognize is Big Boy Rules.
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter comes a harrowing journey into Iraq’s parallel war. Part MadMax, part Fight Club, it is a world filled with “private security contractors”—the U.S. government’s sanitized name for tens of thousands of modern mercenaries, or mercs, who roam Iraq with impunity, doing jobs that the overstretched and understaffed military can’t or won’t do.
They are men like Jon Coté, a sensitive former U.S. army paratrooper and University of Florida fraternity brother who realizes too late that he made a terrible mistake coming back to Iraq. And Paul Reuben, a friendly security company medic who has no formal medical training and lacks basic supplies, like tourniquets. They are part of America’s “other” army—some patriotic, some desperate, some just out for cash or adventure. And some who disappear into the void that is Iraq and are never seen again.
Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru traveled with a group of private security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day. He joined Jon Coté and the men of Crescent Security Group as they made their way through Iraq—armed to the teeth, dodging not only bombs and insurgents but also their own Iraqi colleagues. Just days after Fainaru left to go home, five men of Crescent Security Group were kidnapped in broad daylight on Iraq’s main highway. How the government and the company responded reveals the dark truths behind the largest private force in the history of American warfare. . . .

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William S. Triplet - A Colonel in the Armored Divi sions, A Memoir, 1941-1945 (2001).jpg

"Colonel Triplet's World War II memoir is distinguished by blunt realism that does not sugarcoat the realities of battle, the deficiencies of American training and equipment, and the shortcomings of preparation and leadership in World War II. There is a certain tendency abroad to romanticize World War II, to make all our soldiers brave and gallant and all our generals more than competent if not mostly brilliant. Triplet offers a useful antidote to such nonsense."-Russell F. Weigley.In this fascinating memoir, William S. Triplet continues the saga begun in his earlier book, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917-1918. This book provides readers the rare opportunity to see firsthand what a real professional in the U.S. Army thought about America's preparation for and participation in World War II.

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William S. Triplet - A Colonel in the Armored Divi sions, A Memoir, 1941-1945 (2001) [PDF].rar

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Michael Ian Black - My Custom Van, And 50 Other Mi nd-Blowing Essays that Will Blow Your Mind All Ove r Your Face (2008).jpeg

USA Books - Michael Ian Black - My Custom Van, And 50 Other Mind-B...says that Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face 2008.jpeg

Get ready for the read of your life. Never before has a single book combined awesome vans, unicorns, Billy Joel, and erotic fiction in such a potent combination. A writing tour de force? Perhaps. A reading experience that will sear itself into your consciousness like a red-hot branding iron? Without question.
Comedian and basic cable superstar Michael Ian Black unleashes the full fury of his astonishing intellect in this collection of short comic essays. My Custom Van is a no-holds-barred assault to the funny bone that will literally beat you into submission with hilarity*.
How did he do it? How did he create such a fine anthology? Answer: With love. Michael opened his heart and used the magical power of love to write more than fifty thought-provoking essays like, "Why I Used a Day-Glo Magic Marker to Color My Dick Yellow," and "An Open Letter to the Hair Stylist Who Somehow Convinced Me to Get a Perm When I Was in Sixth Grade."
Maybe you think love is not a substitute for "good writing skills" and "spell check." Bull pucky! When it comes to writing books, love is the most powerful word processor of all.
Sounds pretty great, right? And yet...something is still holding you back from paying the full purchase price of this book. What is it? Perhaps you secretly believe you do not deserve a book this good. Nonsense -- you deserve this book and so much more. In fact, if Michael could have written you all the stars in the sky, that's what he would have done. But he couldn't do that, due to his lack of knowledge in the area of astronomy. So he wrote this book instead.
And this flap copy.
Enjoy.
* Michael Ian Black is not responsible for any actual injuries caused by reading this book.

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Gerald M. Carbone - Nathanael Greene, A Biography of the American Revolution (2008).jpg

When the Revolutionary War began, Nathanael Greene was a private in the militia, the lowest rank possible, yet he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer--celebrated as one of three most important generals. Upon taking command of America's Southern Army in 1780, Nathanael Greene was handed troops that consisted of 1,500 starving, nearly naked men. Gerald Carbone explains how within a year, the small worn-out army ran the British troops out of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and into the final trap at Yorktown. Despite his huge military successes and tactical genius Greene's story has a dark side. Gerald Carbone drew on 25 years of reporting and researching experience to create his chronicle of Greene's unlikely rise to success and his fall into debt and anonymity.

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John C. Fredriksen - American Military Leaders, Fr om Colonial Times to the Present (2 Volumes) (1999 ).jpg

This work presents outstanding generals, admirals, sergeants, privates, fighter aces, militiamen, frigate and submarine captains, and theorists as well as doctors and nurses. The 422 A-to-Z biographies highlight each individual's background, contributions, and significance to America's fortunes in war. American Military Leaders cites works for further research and includes a list of leaders organized by their military titles and a comprehensive index.

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John C. Fredriksen - American Military Leaders, Fr om Colonial Times to the Present (2 Volumes) (1999 ).chm

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Peter Harnik, Mayor Michael Bloomberg - Urban Gree n, Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities (2010).jpg

For years American urban parks fell into decay due to disinvestment, but as cities began to rebound—and evidence of the economic, cultural, and health benefits of parks grew— investment in urban parks swelled. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently cited meeting the growing demand for parks and open space as one of the biggest challenges for urban leaders today. It is now widely agreed that the U.S. needs an ambitious and creative plan to increase urban parklands.

Urban Green explores new and innovative ways for “built out” cities to add much-needed parks. Peter Harnik first explores the question of why urban parkland is needed and then looks at ways to determine how much is possible and where park investment should go. When presenting the ideas and examples for parkland, he also recommends political practices that help create parks.

The book offers many practical solutions, from reusing the land under defunct factories to sharing schoolyards, from building trails on abandoned tracks to planting community gardens, from decking parks over highways to allowing more activities in cemeteries, from eliminating parking lots to uncovering buried streams, and more. No strategy alone is perfect, and each has its own set of realities. But collectively they suggest a path toward making modern cities more beautiful, more sociable, more fun, more ecologically sound, and more successful.

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Peter Harnik, Mayor Michael Bloomberg - Urban Gree n, Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities (2010).pdf

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Weston Andrew Price - Nutrition and Physical Degen eration (2006).jpg

First published in 1939, this seminal book startled the worlds of science and nutrition with its documented evidence of primitive populations encountering civilisation, adopting modern diets, and finding that their health worsened. It remains the basic book in this area and is essential reading for those concerned with food and health.

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Weston Andrew Price - Nutrition and Physical Degen eration (2006).pdf

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Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle (2011).jpg

There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living.

Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the U.S. government. He has always been the keeper of other people's stories, never a part of the story himself...

Until now.

When Clementine Kaye, Beecher's first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the President of the United States privately reviews classified documents. After they accidentally happen upon a priceless artifact - a 200 hundred-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, hidden underneath a desk chair, Beecher and Clementine find themselves suddenly entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder.

Soon a man is dead, and Beecher is on the run as he races to learn the truth behind this mysterious national treasure. His search will lead him to discover a coded and ingenious puzzle that conceals a disturbing secret from the founding of our nation. It is a secret, Beecher soon discovers, that some believe is worth killing for.

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S. Torriano Berry - Historical Dictionary of Afric an American Cinema (2007).jpg

The dictionary lists movies with predominantly Negro themes, and also Negro actors. As you might expect, famous movies like "In the Heat of the Night" and stars like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte are described. The text also gives listings for topics like the late, unlamented "blackface" custom of early vaudeville and movies.Note that as far as Negro-related movies go, there are very few before the late 1960s. Plus, if you look at the actors, few of them rose to prominence before then, in any type of movies. All this of course reflects the pervasive discrimination of earlier times. While the book seems impressively comprehensive, there really aren't that many movies in it, compared to all the films made in the US since the 1910s.

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S. Torriano Berry - Historical Dictionary of Afric an American Cinema (2007).pdf

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Thomas Beyer - The American Battleship in Commissi on as Seen by an Enlisted Man, Also Many Man-O'-Wa r Yarns (1906).jpg

USA Books - Thomas Beyer - The American Battleship in Commission a...een by an Enlisted Man, Also Many Man-O-War Yarns 1906.jpg

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Thomas Beyer - The American Battleship in Commissi on as Seen by an Enlisted Man, Also Many Man-O'-Wa r Yarns (1906).pdf

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Robert E. Wright - The First Wall Street, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American F inance (2009).jpg

USA Books - Robert E. Wright - The First Wall Street, Chestnut Str..., Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance 2009.jpg

When Americans think of investment and finance, they think of Wall Street—though this was not always the case. During the dawn of the Republic, Philadelphia was the center of American finance. The first stock exchange in the nation was founded there in 1790, and around it the bustling thoroughfare known as Chestnut Street was home to the nation's most powerful financial institutions.

The First Wall Street recounts the fascinating history of Chestnut Street and its forgotten role in the birth of American finance. According to Robert E. Wright, Philadelphia, known for its cultivation of liberty and freedom, blossomed into a financial epicenter during the nation's colonial period. The continent's most prodigious minds and talented financiers flocked to Philly in droves, and by the eve of the Revolution, the Quaker City was the most financially sophisticated region in North America. The First Wall Street reveals how the city played a leading role in the financing of the American Revolution and emerged from that titanic struggle with not just the wealth it forged in the crucible of war, but an invaluable amount of human capital as well.

This capital helped make Philadelphia home to the Bank of the United States, the U.S. Mint, an active securities exchange, and several banks and insurance companies—all clustered in or around Chestnut Street. But as the decades passed, financial institutions were lured to New York, and by the late 1820s only the powerful Second Bank of the United States upheld Philadelphia's financial stature. But when Andrew Jackson vetoed its charter, he sealed the fate of Chestnut Street forever—and of Wall Street too.

Finely nuanced and elegantly written, The First Wall Street will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the United States and the origins of its unrivaled economy.

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Tracey E. W. Laird - Louisiana Hayride, Radio and Roots Music along the Red River (2004).jpg

On a Saturday night in 1948, Hank Williams stepped onto the stage of the Louisiana Hayride and sang "Lovesick Blues." Up to that point, Williams's yodeling style had been pigeon-holed as hillbilly music, cutting him off from the mainstream of popular music. Taking a chance on this untried artist, the Hayride--a radio "barn dance" or country music variety show like the Grand Ole Opry--not only launched Williams's career, but went on to launch the careers of well-known performers such as Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Broadcast from Shreveport, Louisiana, the local station KWKH's 50,000-watt signal reached listeners in over 28 states and lured them to packed performances of the Hayride's road show. By tracing the dynamic history of the Hayride and its sponsoring station, ethnomusicologist Tracey Laird reveals the critical role that this part of northwestern Louisiana played in the development of both country music and rock and roll. Delving into the past of this Red River city, she probes the vibrant historical, cultural, and social backdrop for its dynamic musical scene. Sitting between the Old South and the West, this one-time frontier town provided an ideal setting for the cross-fertilization of musical styles. The scene was shaped by the region's easy mobility, the presence of a legal "red-light" district from 1903-17, and musical interchanges between blacks and whites, who lived in close proximity and in nearly equal numbers. The region nurtured such varied talents as Huddie Ledbetter, the "king of the twelve-string guitar," and Jimmie Davis, the two term "singing governor" of Louisiana who penned "You Are My Sunshine." Against the backdrop of the colorful history of Shreveport, the unique contribution of this radio barn dance is revealed. Radio shaped musical tastes, and the Hayride's frontier-spirit producers took risks with artists whose reputations may have been shaky or whose styles did not neatly fit musical categories (both Hank Williams and Elvis Presley were rejected by the Opry before they came to Shreveport). The Hayride also served as a training ground for a generation of studio sidemen and producers who steered popular music for decades after the Hayride's final broadcast. While only a few years separated the Hayride appearances of Hank Williams and Elvis Presley--who made his national radio debut on the show in 1954--those years encompassed seismic shifts in the tastes, perceptions, and self-consciousness of American youth. Though the Hayride is often overshadowed by the Grand Ole Opry in country music scholarship, Laird balances the record and reveals how this remarkable show both documented and contributed to a powerful transformation in American popular music.

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