American High

Some of America's foremost historians - including James M. McPherson, Allan Nevins, and Stephen B. Oates - recount the extraordinary life of Abraham Lincoln in this collection of the best essays from 60 years of American Heritage.

Over the past three decades, the once-efficient American health care system has evolved into a complex maze of monopolies and a racket of bureaucratic checks, approvals, denials, roadblocks, and detours. This shift has created a massive and at times redundant workforce that frustrates patients, as well as physicians, nurses, and administrative staff. Health care costs the United States more than $11,000 for each person in the country each year - more than double what it costs in most Western European countries to deliver equal or even better care.

The "silent majority" - a phrase coined by Richard Nixon in 1969 in response to Vietnam War protests and later used by Donald Trump as a campaign slogan - refers to the supposed wedge that exists between protesters in the street and the voters at home. The Loud Minority upends this view by demonstrating that voters are in fact directly informed and influenced by protest activism. Consequently, as protests grow in America, every facet of the electoral process is touched by this loud minority, benefiting the party perceived to be the most supportive of the protesters' messaging.

Award-winning journalist J. Malcolm Garcia's essays highlight the struggle, survival, and endurance of average people affected by the injustices of America's remorseless mammoth institutions and public indifference. They include families and small businesses still recovering from the BP oil spill; the man sentenced to life in prison for transporting drugs to save his son's life; the widows of soldiers who died, not in war, but from toxic fumes at their bases; and the Iraqi interpreter who was promised American asylum, only to arrive and be forced to live in poverty.

The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for 40 years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife's fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their small family farm - and their entire way of life - are under siege.

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.

In 1765, as the Stamp Act riled eastern seaports, frontiersmen clashed with the British Empire over another issue: Indian relations. When British officials launched a diplomatic expedition into the American interior to open trade with the Indian warrior Pontiac, the Black Boys formed to stop it and led an uprising that threatened the future of Britain's empire. Clashing with traders, diplomats, Native warriors, and imperious British officials, the Black Boys evolved into an organized political movement that resisted the Crown years before the Declaration of Independence.

In an inspiring narrative history, Jeff Biggers reframes today's battles as a continuum of a vibrant American tradition. Resistance is a chronicle of the courageous resistance movements that have insured the benchmarks of our democracy - movements that served on the front lines of the American Revolution, the defense of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the defeat of fascism during World War II, and landmark civil rights and environmental protection achievements.

A satirical series of reports from a young progressive student to the DNC, outlining ways to undermine the conservative movement and create a progressive nation.

When we think of '70s cinema, we think of classics like The Godfather and Taxi Driver...but the riches found in the overlooked B-movies of the time, rolled out wherever they might find an audience, unexpectedly tell an eye-opening story about post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America. Revisiting the films that don't make the Academy Award montages, Charles Taylor finds a treasury many of us have forgotten, movies that in fact "unlock the secrets of the times".

Here, National Book Award winner Richard Winston explores life in the Middle Ages - from the fifth to the 15th centuries - beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire and ending with the dawn of the Renaissance. In both countryside and cities, from the peasants to the bourgeoisie to the nobility, no aspect of life in this era is left unexplored.

Bills to pay, decisions to make, bosses to please, commitments to fulfill, relationships to mend, fears to suppress - all circumstances that seem to drive the ball down the field of life poised to score again. We try to fight back but our opponent is relentless, tough, and intimidating. Are you tired of living life day to day, letting your circumstances win, while you fight just to get by? Follow the journey of Mike Shelby as he hits rock bottom and then stumbles upon an old notebook from his past that holds a proven secret to success.

Revised and updated, Diabetes A to Z covers everything a person living with diabetes needs to know in simple, direct, and easy-to-understand language. Whether the topic is eye disease, high blood pressure, or skin care, Diabetes A to Z gives the answers curious listeners want to know. This new edition contains a variety of important updates, including information on new medications and insulins, new nutrition recommendations to match the Associations new dietary guidelines, an all new insurance section discussing new coverage options and details, and much more.

From the opening shots to General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, Bruce Catton tells the dramatic story of the battle that resulted in more than 51,000 Union and Confederate casualties and changed the course of the war.

The struggle for North Africa was unlike any other campaign of World War II. The desert proved a real test of generalship, pitting Germany's Erwin Rommel against Britain's Bernard Montgomery and America's George Patton. Here, from award-winning military historian Stephen W. Sears, is the dramatic story of the generals, politicians, and soldiers who changed the course of the war.

As the 2020 presidential campaign begins to take shape, there is widespread distrust of the fairness and accuracy of American elections. In this timely and accessible book, Richard L. Hasen uses riveting stories illustrating four factors increasing the mistrust. Voter suppression has escalated as a Republican tool aimed to depress turnout of likely Democratic voters, fueling suspicion. Pockets of incompetence in election administration, often in large cities controlled by Democrats, have created an opening to claims of unfairness.

It has been called Robert E. Lee's supreme moment: riding into the Chancellorsville clearing...the mansion itself aflame in the background...his gunpowder-smeared soldiers crowding around him, hats off, cheering wildly. After one of the most audacious gambits of the war, Lee and his men had defeated a foe more than two and half times their size. The Federal commander, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, had boasted days earlier that his plans were perfect - yet his army had crumbled, and Hooker himself had literally been knocked senseless.

In total, Coach Ken Purcell and Chris Doelle have been involved in Texas high school football for over 87 years!..with a unique insight into what make Texas high school football coaches so effective in positively affecting the lives of these kids. The impact they have, instills in their students a self-worth that makes all the difference in their adult lives. The knowledge included in this audiobook is applicable to any parent regardless of a child's interest in sports. These are life lessons - not football lessons.