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The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of Rageboy
Part poetry, a splash of marketing genius…
—Slashdot
The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare: A Tale of Forgery and Folly
William-Henry Ireland was nineteen years old in 1795 when he handed his father a document that he claimed was written and signed by William Shakespeare, and alluded to a trunk full of such documents that belonged to a mysterious Mr. H. by whom he was employed. His father, along with an impressive group of scholars, collectors, theatre-goers and the press, enthusiastically and uncritically accepted his claims as true. Encouraged by their credulousness, and beginning to believe his own ruse, William-Henry went on to produce many more signatures, letters, hand-written play scripts, sonnets, and even an entire play.
Cape Wind is the real story, told for the first time in full, of the battle for our energy future. It also is the story of Jim Gordon and his quest to erect the world’s largest wind farm in Nantucket Sound, which is, of course, bounded by the storied vacation lands of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. His project challenges the privileges, power, and assumptions of many of the ultra-rich and ultra-powerful.
Encounter at the Heart of the World: The Rise and Fall of the Mandan People
Most of us have never heard of the Mandans, and yet the Mandan villages of the upper Missouri were a bustling, prosperous, hub of trade and commerce by the middle of the 18th century. Food, trade, and culture; Native American and European visitors, all passed through their densely settled towns. Commercial ties stretched from New Mexico to Hudson Bay. Lewis and Clark wintered with the Mandans in 1804 on their way west and a Mandan chief, Sheheke, accompanied them back to Washington in 1806.
We’ve all been taught that through biological inheritance we acquire traits from our parents and grandparents as a result of the individual genes that they pass along to us, unchanged, barring rare mutations. But what if your grandmother’s diet could affect your health? Obviously if we accept that inherited = genetic, this doesn’t make sense. Nor does it square with that equation’s so-called opposite, acquired = environmental. But examples of non-genetic inheritance are now too widespread to be set aside as anomalies.
While the American South had grown to expect a yellow fever breakout almost annually in the 1800s, the 1878 epidemic was without question the worst ever. Moving up the Mississippi in the late summer, in the span of just a few months the fever killed more than 18,000 people. The city of Memphis was particularly unprepared and hard hit, of the approximately 20,000 who didn’t flee the city, 17,000 contracted the fever and more than 5,000 of its citizens died.
It’s 1884, and America is obsessing over one of the closest and dirtiest presidential races in history. A high-profile tussle in the mud, it seems well suited to American tastes. Even the race for the nation’s highest office has become vulgar and sensational, as the public clamors for trashy stories and celebrity exposes generated by cheap, popular newspapers.
Fire & Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834
…a gripping story of prejudice and pride, courage and cowardice in early nineteenth-century America that not only restores a clouded chapter in the country’s history but also has a poignant resonance for our own times.
Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments That Changed the Course of the Civil War
This absorbing narrative of a little-known Civil War campaign adds a key dimension to our knowledge of black troops in the Civil War. The capture of Jacksonville, Florida in March 1863 by a Union regiment composed of free slaves had important consequences. Its success convinced the Lincoln administration to go forward with the large-scale recruitment of black regiments. Stephen Ash tells this story with flair.
Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey to Seeing in Three Dimensions
“The book is a joy to read.”
The Future of the Wild: Radical Conservation for a Crowded World
Fertile with fresh thinking, this book is an uncommonly eloquent call for urgent but thoughtful action.
Hollowing Out the Middle: Why America's Small Towns are Dying and What Can be Done to Save Them
…A compelling and well-documented discussion of the regrettable youth exodus from our nation’s Heartland… Deftly researched and written, this book is highly recommended for sociologists, educators, policymakers, and anyone concerned about the future of this country.
Imperial America: The Eighteenth-Century Volume in the Oxford History of the United States
A new volume in the prestigious series, The Oxford History of the United States, Imperial America will cover the period from 1672 to 1763. In it, historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton and will retell the history of the pre-Revolutionary era, during which the English, Spanish, and French empires competed for control of North America.
Mesa of Sorrows: Archaeology, Prophecy, and the Ghosts of Awat’ovi Pueblo
In the fall of 1700, Awat’ovi, a Hopi community that had existed peacefully on Antelope Mesa in Arizona for generations, was decimated; its inhabitants the victims of genocide carried out by their neighbors and fellow Hopi Indians. The story of what happened there has been tangled in mystery and fraught with controversy ever since. Told and retold by the Hopi and by archaeologists, anthropologists, Native American activists and others, it continues both to haunt and to take on new meaning as other acts of communitarian violence and genocide echo its story.
No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City
Hard work isn’t always rewarded. Certainly not for the folks who populate Katherine S. Newman’s poignant and powerful No Shame in My Game.
Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination
Ginger, Sandalwood, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ambergris, Galangal, Spikenard, and Zedoary. Spices—some familiar today, others much more exotic—are well known to have been in enormous demand in medieval times. Their widespread appeal fueled an active trade; they were carried from Asia and India to the marketplaces of Europe where they were sold at exorbitant prices.
Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates
Since the rise of Napster and other file sharing services in its wake, most of us have assumed that intellectual piracy is a product of the digital age and that it threatens creative expression as never before. The Motion Picture Association of America, for instance, claimed that in 2005 the film industry lost $2.3 billion in revenue to piracy online. But here Adrian Johns shows that piracy has a much longer and more vital history than we have realized—one that has been largely forgotten and is little understood.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web
For the brief and shining hours that I held this book in my hands, I believed that all was possible.
Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas
The world is smart, Richard Ogle tells us in this fascinating book. Creativity is all the rage in business circles, but harnessing creativity means more than hiring quirky geniuses. It turns on creating what Ogle rightly calls the “extended mind” through interaction, collaboration, and team work. If you’re a CEO looking for the next big breakthrough, a manager looking to harness the creative talents of your people, or someone who wants to better utilize your own creativity, you need to read this book.
Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation
As a beneficiary of the G.I. Bill, I can’t recommend enough Suzanne Mettler’s examination of the Bill and its transformative effect on the lives of so many veterans like me…This book is a must-read not o nly for those interested in the ‘Greatest Generation’ but also for anyone who wants to know what it takes ot make a great country.
Stone By Stone: The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls
…an open invitation to head into the country oneself and explore a stone wall.
Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
An up-close and personal account of nine strong-minded African-American women who became welfare-rights activists in Las Vegas . . . A worthy history of the country“s changing attitudes toward welfare and the various attempts to eradicate poverty.
Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul
It’s becoming commonplace – first government, and then arts organizations, colleges, schools are being “reinvented” in the business model. Even the PTA is remaking itself in the corporate model. So, we should hardly be surprised to find that churches are doing exactly the same thing. In response to congregations that increasingly demand that their churches be shaped by what members want, churches are increasingly serving up entertainment, easy listening, and approval.
The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery
In this dazzling work, Hinderaker recovers two Mohawk chiefs who became transatlantic celebrities in a time of imperial intrigue and violence. He vividly reveals the interplay of empire building, image making, and memory shaping as natives and colonists jockeyed for an edge. Ultimately, the American victors trapped the Indians within legends, but Hinderaker has now restored their rich humanity.
The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
Anderson, a meticulous historian, writes with intelligence and vigor. He has given us a rich, cautionary tale about the unpredictability of war – then no less than today.”
West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America After the Civil War
A substantial achievement. . . . [Richardson] expertly redraws a map of post-Civil War America that only grows more complex a century-and-a-half later.
The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Aging Revolution
An engaging account of the burgeoning field dubbed gerontology—the study of aging and of medicinal tools to block its unwanted effects.
