America First History

A Magnificent Catastrophe tells the story of the most perverse, bizarre, nail-biting, and influential election battle ever in U.S. history: America's first true presidential campaign, and a contest so important to the future of the country that Jefferson referred to it as "the second American Revolution" because the outcome resolved so much unfinished business about just what kind of government we would have. This election in many ways determined just how democratic a country we would be.

Cornelius Vanderbilt I had no illusions about his life. He didn’t start out with grand plans and ungodly greed. He merely stepped in this world one foot at a time, one boat at a time, one market at a time - one day at a time. He worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. He worked hard and played hard. When all was said and done, though, he was a simple man who pushed the world of transportation to be all it could be - to be what it is today. Vanderbilt was a man of steel, and we can learn incredible things from him.

The Great Match Race is a captivating account of America's first sports spectacle, a horse race that pitted North against South in three grueling heats. On a bright afternoon in May 1823, an unprecedented sixty thousand people showed up to watch two horses run the equivalent of nine Kentucky Derbys in a few hours' time. Eclipse was the majestic champion representing the North, and Henry, an equine arriviste, was the pride of the South.

To Provide and Maintain a Navy, a succinct but encompassing treatise on sea power by Dr. Henry J. "Jerry" Hendrix, goes beyond the numbers to reveal the crucial importance of Mare Liberum (Free Sea) to the development of the Western thought and the rules based order that presently governs the global commons that is the high seas. Proceeding from this philosophical basis, Hendrix explores how a "free sea" gave way to free trade and the central role sea borne commercial trade has played in the overall rise in global living standards.

In a shocking, never-before-told story from the vaults of American history, Tonight We Bombed the US Capitol takes a close look at the explosive hidden history of M19 - the first and only domestic terrorist group founded and led by women - and their violent fight against racism, sexism, and what they viewed as Ronald Reagan’s imperialistic vision for America.

U.S. Army Captain Kimberly N. Hampton was living her dream: flying armed helicopters in combat and commanding D Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, the armed reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division. On January 2, 2004, Captain Hampton was flying an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter above Fallujah, Iraq, in support of a raid on an illicit weapons marketplace, searching for an illusive sniper on the rooftops of the city. A little past noon her helicopter was wracked by an explosion....

Central to America's idea of itself is the character of Benjamin Franklin. We all know him, or think we do: In recent works and in our inherited conventional wisdom, he remains fixed in place as a genial polymath and self-improver who was so very American that he is known by us all as the first American.

The fourth volume of this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography vividly recounts Jefferson's eventful first presidential term. Though characterized by calmer seas than his second presidential voyage, Jefferson's first years in office find him confronting a nation deeply divided following the administrations of Washington and Adams, and many subsequent conflicts. He acquires the vast territory of Louisiana for the United States and challenges the growing power of the federal judiciary.

Barack Obama was the first African American president of the United States. The fact that he was elected already says a great deal about the change of perception in most Americans. But how did little Barack grow up to become president? Learn about his life and be inspired by his courage and determination. Buy a copy today.

With the end of the war, concern over German subversives was replaced with concerns over communist subversives. In this powder keg, all that was needed was a spark to create full-blown hysteria, and the spark came on June 2, 1919, when the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was bombed, injuring Palmer and killing the bomber. The anarchist leaflets he was carrying were scattered in the bomb debris, and this attack on his home prompted Palmer, who had been a reformist Quaker, to launch an all-out war against left-wing radicals. The Red Scare had begun in earnest.

Robert Carter III, also known as Councillor Carter, was one of the wealthiest men in the United States in the 1700s. He emancipated more than 500 of his enslaved African Americans. And in today's world, his wisdom and teachings are needed more than ever. A Man Named Robert chronicles the actions of Robert Carter III's life and identifies the key leadership lessons he displayed. This book is part history and part guide to becoming a great leader, inspired by Robert Carter III, an advocate of peaceful change while never wavering in making the opposition listen and give in.

After moonrise on the cold night of January 21, 1897, a mob of 25 White men gathered in a patch of woods near Big Road in Southwestern Simpson County, Kentucky. Half carried rifles and shotguns, and a few tucked pistols in their pants. Their target was George Dinning, a freed slave who'd farmed peacefully in the area for 14 years and who had been wrongfully accused of stealing livestock from a neighboring farm. When the mob began firing through the doors and windows of Dinning's home, he fired back in self-defense, shooting and killing the son of a wealthy Kentucky family.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man - a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity.

In the late 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project set out to create a first-person portrait of America by sending young writers around the country to interview people from diverse ethnic groups, occupations, and backgrounds. When the Writers Project closed its doors, some 10,000 of these oral histories were left gathering dust in a remote storeroom at the Library of Congress. In First Person America, Ann Banks has collected dozens of these oral histories.

In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed the nation spend $20 billion to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Based on eyewitness accounts and newly discovered archival material, Chasing the Moon reveals the unknown stories of the fascinating individuals whose imaginative work across decades culminated in America’s momentous achievement. More than a story of engineers and astronauts, the moon landing - now celebrating its 50th anniversary - grew out of the dreams of science fiction writers, filmmakers, military geniuses, and rule-breaking scientists.

For the better part of the last half century, the United States has been the world's police, claiming to defend ideologies, allies, and our national security through brute force. But is military action always the most appropriate response? Drawing on his vast experience, retired four-star general Tony Zinni argues that we have a lot of work to do to make the process of going to war-or not-more clear-eyed and ultimately successful.

An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian Black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.

Rosemarie Kuptana is no ordinary woman. She is a Canadian politician and an Inuit rights activist. She is also a broadcaster and a journalist. But did you know that she was born on an igloo while her parents were out hunting? Her birth into the world is the best introduction to her story of great will and greater actions.

Alanis Obomsawin used the art of documentary film making to bring into public consciousness the plight of the indigenous people of Canada. As a member of the Abenaki Nation herself, Alanis encountered bullying and the promotion of European cultural superiority in her community.