Changed America

The late 1970s were miserable for America. It was the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, a time of high unemployment, ruinous inflation, gasoline lines, communist advances, and bottomed-out US morale. Ronald Reagan’s policies sparked the American renaissance, but the Gipper’s leadership is only part of the story. The economic theory that underpinned America’s success was pioneered by a star professional quarterback turned self-taught intellectual and "bleeding-heart conservative": Jack Kemp.

On February 22, 1978, a devastating freight train derailment drastically altered Waverly, Tennessee, and its place in history. This was one of the worst train explosions of the twentieth century, killing sixteen people, injuring hundreds more, and causing millions of dollars in damage. What could have been dismissed as a single community's terrible misfortune instead became the catalyst for radical change, including the formation of FEMA, much-needed reforms in emergency response training, and the creation and enforcement of national and state safety regulations.

Before there was Coronavirus, before there was the contentious 2020 election or the entire Trump presidency, there was a turning-point year that proved momentous and transformative for American politics and the fate of the nation.

John Taliaferro Thompson had a mission: to develop a lightweight, fast-firing weapon that would help Americans win on the battlefield. His Thompson submachine gun could deliver 100 bullets in a matter of seconds - but didn't find a market in the US military. Instead, the Tommy gun became the weapon of choice for a generation of bootleggers and bank-robbing outlaws, and became a deadly American icon. Following a bloody decade - and 80 years before the mass shootings of our own time - Congress moved to take this weapon off the streets, igniting a national debate about gun control.

Theodore Roosevelt was the president who changed America and molded it into the country that we know and love today. He was the man who took the Presidency to new heights and introduced new powers that were designed to tackle many of the pressing issues of the day.

On the 50th anniversary of her murder, Kevin Cook presents the real Kitty Genovese. She was a vibrant young woman - unbeknownst to most, a lesbian - a bartender working (and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing New York of the ’60s, a cultural kaleidoscope marred by the Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, and race riots. Downtown, Greenwich Village teemed with beatniks, folkies, and so-called misfits like Kitty and her lover. Kitty Genovese evokes the Village’s gay and lesbian underground with deep feeling and colorful detail.

Soon after the new Constitution took effect and George Washington became president, the United States was in serious danger. A bitter political rivalry between two men who had once been allies, and two surging issues that inflamed the nation, led to grim talk of breaking up the Republic. Then, a single great evening, arguably the most important dinner party in American history, achieved the compromises that led to America's mighty expansion.

In Lincoln's Last Days, Bill O'Reilly masterfully adapts his historical thriller to appeal to a younger audience. Shorter text and abundant photographs make this is a useful, inviting, and accessible audiobook for younger listeners interested in American history and the Civil War. Both adults and children are sure to find this volume irresistible on its own, or as a compelling companion to Killing Lincoln.

Michael Beschloss' dramatic and inspiring saga explores crucial times when courageous president changed the history of the United States. With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings these flawed, complex men and their wives, families, friends, and foes to life as if in a gripping novel. Never have we had a more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives.

Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed AmericaWhile conventional accounts focus on the 60s as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed.

William Henry "Chick" Webb (1905-39) was one of the first virtuoso drummers in jazz and an innovative bandleader dubbed the "Savoy King," who reigned at Harlem's world-famous Savoy Ballroom. Along with the likes of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Cab Calloway, Webb helped create the popular dance and music culture, known as Swing, that swept the United States during and after the Great Depression and left an indelible impact on American culture.

Since his election to the US Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has sat on the Senate floor at a mahogany desk with a proud history. In Desk 88, he tells the story of eight of the Senators who were there before him. Despite their flaws and frequent setbacks, each made a decisive contribution to the creation of a more just America. Together, these eight portraits in political courage tell a story about the triumphs and failures of the Progressive idea over the past century.

The inside story of the protest that has given birth to America's most important progressive movement in a half century. In a vivid, fast-paced narrative, the key events of the occupation are described: the pepper spraying of young women corralled between plastic fences by the NYPD; the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge; the victory on October 14th when an announced "clean up" of the square was abandoned by a mayor's office fearful of a PR disaster; and the eventual storming of the occupation that brought it to an abrupt end.

In the early 1960s, tired of reprisals for attempting to register to vote, Selma's black community began to protest. The struggle received nationwide attention when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a voting rights march in January 1965 and was attacked by a segregationist. In February, the shooting of an unarmed demonstrator by an Alabama state trooper inspired a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery.

The year is 1859, and Congressman Daniel Sickles and his beautiful wife Teresa are the toast of Washington society. Philip Barton Key, US Attorney for the District of Columbia, is one of the couple's closest friends - so close, in fact, that he often escorts the beautiful Mrs. Sickles to social events when the congressman is too busy. Then one day, Congressman Daniel Sickles receives an anonymous note about his wife and Key, setting into motion a tragic course of events that culminates in a bloody confrontation in the street that leaves one man dead and the other charged with murder.

On the eve of the Civil War, one soldier embodied the legacy of George Washington and the hopes of a divided land. Both North and South knew Robert E. Lee as the son of Washington's most famous eulogist and the son-in-law of Washington's adopted child. Each side sought his services for high command. Lee could choose only one. The decision he made would change history.

In COVID-19: The Virus That Changed America and the World, renowned author, attorney, and healthcare infrastructure expert Kenneth Foard McCallion offers a fascinating and sweeping view of the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with an exploration of ancient plagues and tackling important and timely subjects such as racial disparities in the virus' impact, what COVID has revealed about the US healthcare system, and how the pandemic has increased the wealth divide.

In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee, Jr., reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.

Ask Not is a beautifully detailed account of the week leading up to the inaugural which stands as one of the most moving spectacles in the history of American politics. At the heart of the narrative is Kennedy's quest to create a speech that would distill American dreams and empower a new generation. Clarke's portrait of JFK during what intimates called his happiest days is balanced, revealing the president at his most dazzlingly charismatic (and cunningly pragmatic).

In Hands Up, Don't Shoot, Jennifer Cobbina draws on in-depth interviews with nearly 200 residents of Ferguson and Baltimore, conducted within two months of the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. She examines how protestors in both cities understood their experiences with the police, how those experiences influenced their perceptions of policing, what galvanized Black Lives Matter as a social movement, and how policing tactics during demonstrations influenced subsequent mobilization decisions among protesters.