American Places

Summer, 1851. Racial tensions in America were higher than ever. The year before, President Millard Fillmore had passed the Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves to the South. In February, Congress had established the reservation system, forcing Native Americans to leave their homelands. White Americans were strengthening dominance over people of color across the continent. In Oregon City, one biracial man named Jacob Vanderpool found himself in the crosshairs of this racist discrimination.

Each "poem," "story," "yarn," whatever you want to call it, tells a tale of some life-altering experience in Simpson's journey through the cosmos. The places he's ventured. The folks he's met. The stuff he's seen and done.

There are countless examples of battles that take place in wars after a peace treaty is signed. The last battle of the Civil War was a skirmish in Texas that Confederate forces won, nearly a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. As fate would have it, the last fighting of the Civil War took place two days after Confederate President Jefferson Davis had been captured in Georgia

George Washington didn't really walk around with a mouthful of wooden teeth. Those are real teeth and pearl inlays in Washington's dentures. A recent study by Mary Thompson suggests Washington experimented with early dental transplants. He purchased replacement teeth from his slaves for 13 shillings (roughly $50 in 2015 money).

They called her Lady Stewart when she was married to a British aristocrat. They called her Miss Cora when she ran a brothel in Florida. But she called herself Mrs. Crane when she asked Sherlock Holmes to locate her common-law husband, writer Stephen Crane, who'd gone missing in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In their attempt to fulfil the lady's request, Holmes and Watson encounter a world of celebrity authors, terrorist bombings, and haunted manor houses.

Found alive after the massacre at Wounded Knee, twelve-year-old John Iron Horse is determined not to end up like so many others of his people. Then he learns the motto of the school he's required to attend: "Kill the Indian, save the man." Carter Heath teaches in the government-run educational system and knows there's more to his position than what's happening in his classroom. He'll soon learn that in bureaucracy, politics, money, and ulterior motives are always intertwined.

Experience the Battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, and experience the events of the American Civil War during the first half of 1862 in the Trans-Mississippi Theater in this captivating audiobook on the Arkansas campaign of Pea Ridge. The Pea Ridge campaign is considered the most important series of events in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. The Battle of Pea Ridge, which took place from March 6th to March 8th, 1862, was the climax of the campaign, in which the Union Army was ultimately victorious.

“You were supposed to find God here / the signs said.” In these poems, hinterlands demand our close attention; overlooked places of industry become sites for pilgrimage; and history large and small—of a city, of a family, of a shirt—is unearthed.

Over the years, many top historians have cited Major General Robert E. Rodes as the best division commander in Robert E. Lee’s vaunted army. Despite those accolades, Rodes faltered badly at Gettysburg, which stands as the only major blemish on his otherwise sterling record. Although his subordinates were guilty of significant blunders, Rodes shared the blame for the disjointed attack that led to the destruction of Alfred Iverson’s brigade on the first day of the battle.

Sheila Ramos’s story mirrors the lives of millions of Americans who have lost their homes since the beginning of the housing crisis in 2007. The Great American Foreclosure Story details with clarity and empathy the road that led Ramos and so many like her toward financial ruin. Alongside Ramos’s story are additional investigations documenting the systematic failures at banks, mortgage servicers, and government watchdogs that have exacerbated the country’s most severe foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression.

The Spanish-American War really only lasted about ten weeks (the buildup and decision to go to war took longer than the war itself), but a peace treaty was not signed until December of 1898. This was an event that was the tipping point for the end of the Spanish Empire and the rise of the US as a formidable player on the world stage. Not all Americans were happy with the change, with famous Americans like Mark Twain speaking out about the US occupation of the lands that it was meant to save.

Boon, a lawyer from Chicago, is a hopeless romantic; however, life keeps dealing him a shady hand when it comes to the opposite sex. It seems as though every woman in whom Boon finds interest tears him down. Gorgeous and intelligent, Amerie is also a lawyer from Chitown; Boon meets her, and soon, the sparks fly. Boon falls head over heels, and he soon begins to wonder if she is the one. However, the ultimate betrayal soon sends one of the lovebirds into a downward spiral.

Welcome to Madison Park, a small community in Alabama founded by freed slaves in 1880. And meet Eric Motley, a native son who came of age in this remarkable place where constant lessons in self-determination, hope, and unceasing belief in the American dream taught him everything he needed for his journey to the Oval Office as a Special Assistant to President George W. Bush. This charming, engaging, and deeply inspiring memoir will help you remember that we can create a world of shared values based on love and hope.

The causes of the American Civil War, which lasted from April 1861 to May 1865, were many and complex. At the heart of the disagreement, however, was slavery. The Southern states of the newly formed but illegal Confederacy were prepared to fight the US federal government to the death to retain their right to keep slaves for their plantations. The election of President Abraham Lincoln in late 1860, whose open intention was to abolish slavery, created a military upheaval south of Washington, DC, and civil war ensued. 

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Underground Railroad, then pay attention...The Underground Railroad wasn’t underground. Nor was it a railroad. It was, however, an awe-inspiring piece of history, and one that speaks of hope even today. Two hundred years ago, slavery had the Southern United States firmly in its evil grip. The only hope that these enslaved people had of escaping their brutal fates was the Underground Railroad. This fabled network delivered tens of thousands of escaped slaves all the way across the northern United States and into Canada.

With its lush settings and a taste for the unknown, Another Time, Another Place is a treat for the adventurous soul. This delicious collection, featuring five of the hottest African-American authors today, brings whole new worlds to life. Led and edited by New York Times best-selling author Zane, Another Time, Another Place transports sensuous and steamy encounters across the world and through history.

Johnnie Roane returns from four years of military service in World War II to his wife, Glory. They had been married just a year when he left Lennox, Connecticut, where both their families live and work. In his taxi ride home, Johnnie receives foreboding hints that all has not been well in his absence. Eager to mend his fraying marriage, Johnnie attempts to cajole Glory to recommit to their life together. But something sinister has taken place during the intervening years - an infidelity that has not gone unnoticed in the superficially placid New England town. 

Es 24 de diciembre y el año está por terminar. No sólo eso, también Pedro y Ana dejarán de ser pareja y cada uno emprenderá su camino. Ellos ya lo acordaron, pero ni sus familiares ni sus amigos lo saben. Hasta hoy. Esta Nochebuena será para Pedro un largo recuento de los momentos compartidos, de sus errores y de sus aciertos, además de su cumpleaños cuarenta.

When Dr. Lise Shields arrived at the correctional psychiatric facility five years ago, she was warned that many of its patients - committed by Maryland's judicial system for perpetrating heinous crimes - would never leave. But what happens when a place like Menaker is corrupted, when it becomes a tool to silence the innocent, conceal an injustice, contain a secret?

Balancing direct language with a suggestive “aslantness,” Nye probes the fragile connection between language and meaning. She never shies from the challenge of trying to name the mysterious logic of childhood or speak truth to power in the face of the horrors of war.