Library History

Das Organisierte Verbrechen und die erfolgreichsten Mafiafamilien der Geschichte faszinieren und fesseln dich? Dann ist dieses Buch über die Mafiafamilie Genovese genau das Richtige für dich! Im Zuge jahrzehntelanger Herrschaft über die Straßen von New York City wuchsen die Genoveses zu einem bedeutenden Namen heran und bauten seit den 30er Jahren bis ins 21. Jahrhundert hinein ihre Dominanz aus.

Did the Black Death destroy medieval Europe? Did cholera pave the way for modern Manhattan? Did yellow fever help end the slave trade? Remarkably, the answer to all of these questions is "Yes". Time and again, diseases have impacted the course of human history in surprisingly powerful ways. From influenza to smallpox, from tuberculosis to yellow fever, Bryn Barnard describes the symptoms and paths of the world’s worst diseases - and how the epidemics they spawned have changed history forever.

The American Revolution is well under way in 1776, but things are looking bleak for General George Washington and his Continental Army. With Washington's hasty retreat from New York City in August, many think the war might soon be over. After all: how on Earth is this ragtag group going to defeat its enemy, the well-trained and well-funded military of the largest empire in history? But Washington soon realizes he can't win with military might. Instead, he must outsmart the British, so he creates a sophisticated intelligence network: the top-secret Culper Spy Ring.

Jordan is going to join a gang. But just as he's about to start his future with the Cobras, his past calls him back. Way back - to the 19th-century, where he meets his ancestors and gets a bitter taste of what life was like for them as slaves. Jordan must live with the constant threat of the whip's lash. His journey back in time will strike a chord with any young person who has felt trapped by hard times and difficult choices.

Richard Peck is a master of stories about people in transition, but perhaps never before has he told a tale of such dramatic change as this one, set during the first year of the Civil War. The whole country is changing in 1861, even the folks from a muddy little Illinois settlement on the banks of the Mississippi. Here, 15-year-old Tilly Pruitt frets over the fact that her brother is dreaming of being a soldier and that her sister is prone to supernatural visions.

During a long, hot July in 1863, the worst race riots the United States has ever seen erupt in New York City. Earlier that year, desperate for more Union soldiers, President Abraham Lincoln instituted a draft - a draft that would allow the wealthy to escape serving in the army by paying a $300 waiver, more than a year's income for the recent immigrant Irish. And on July 11, as the first drawing takes place in Lower Manhattan, the city of New York explodes in rage and fire.

Born into the household of a wealthy slave owner in Cuba in 1797, Juan Francisco Manzano spent his early years by the side of a woman who made him call her Mama, even though he had a mama of his own. Denied an education, young Juan still showed an exceptional talent for poetry. His verses reflect the beauty of his world, but they also expose its hideous cruelty.

In curiously parallel lives, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both orphaned at an early age. Both were brilliant students who attended college - one at Princeton, the other at Columbia - and studied law. Both were young staff officers under General George Washington, and both became war heroes. Politics beckoned them, and each served in the newly formed government of the fledgling nation. Why, then, did these two face each other at dawn in a duel that ended with death for one and opprobrium for the other?

Bobby Burns knows he's a lucky lad. Growing up in sleepy Keely Bay, Bobby is exposed to all manner of wondrous things: stars reflecting off the icy sea, a friend that can heal injured fawns with her dreams, a man who can eat fire. But darkness seems to be approaching Bobby's life from all sides.

Meggie Dillon's life has been turned upside down by World War II. Her older brother Eddie enlisted and was shipped off to fight in Europe. And people say that anywhere else Grandpa would be turned in because he's German, and people might think he's a spy. Is it true? Could Grandpa be taken away?

Jessie Bollier often played his fife to earn a few pennies down by the New Orleans docks. One afternoon a sailor asked him to pipe a tune, and that evening Jessie was kidnapped and dumped aboard The Moonlight, a slave ship, where a hateful duty awaited him. He was to play music so the slaves could "dance" to keep their muscles strong, their bodies profitable. Jessie was sickened by the thought of taking part in the business of trading rum and tobacco for blacks and then selling the ones who survived the frightful sea voyage from Africa.

The whole world seems to transform during the summer of 1965. When Eden’s cousin Winter comes for a visit, it turns out he’s not just there to sightsee. He wants to figure out what happened to his dad, who disappeared 10 years earlier from the Watts area of L.A. So the cousins set out to investigate together, and what they discover brings them joy - and heartache. It also opens up a whole new understanding of their world, just as the area they’ve got their sights on explodes in a clash between the police and the Black residents.

Ever since it was established in 1789, the United States Supreme Court has had a major impact on the lives of all Americans. Some of its landmark decisions have helped end segregation, protected a person’s privacy, and allowed people to marry whomever they love.

Today, most people remember E. B. White as the beloved children's book author who gave us Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, but did you know that most of his career was spent writing for famous magazines like The New Yorker? His lifelong dream to write a children's book about a mouse would take years to get published before it became the classic book we know and love today. A few years later, White would publish yet another children's book inspired by a pig he had raised and a spider whose webs he loved to admire in his barn.

The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown, and the unexplained. Is the Loch Ness Monster really lurking beneath Scottish waters, or is it just a myth? Find out all that there is to know about the most famous aquatic cryptid! Also known as Nessie, this creature of the lake's history dates all the way back to the year 565. Since then, there have been photographs and films that allegedly show proof of the monster's existence. But are they fact or fiction?

The Great Death arrived with the man from downriver, the one who came with the light-colored strangers and had little red spots covering his body. Thirteen-year-old Millie and her younger sister, Maura, are fascinated by the guests, but soon sickness takes over their village. As they watch the people they know and love die, the sisters remain unaffected and begin to realize that they will have to find a new home.

Abraham Lincoln stood out in a crowd as much for his wit and rollicking humor as for his height. Here is a warm, appealing biography of our Civil War president. Russell Freedman begins with a lively account of Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood, his career as a country lawyer, and his courtship and marriage to Mary Todd. Then the author focuses on the presidential years (1861 to 1865), skillfully explaining the many complex issues Lincoln grappled with as he led a deeply divided nation through the Civil War.

When Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain in 1519, he believed he could get to the Spice Islands by sailing west through or around the New World. He was right, but what he didn't know was that the treacherous voyage would take him three years and cost him his life.

The Earth is definitely getting warmer. There's no argument about that, but who, or what, is the cause? While the vast majority of scientists who study the environment agree that humans play a large part in climate change, there is a counterargument. Author Gail Herman presents both sides of the debate in this fact-based, fair-minded, and well-researched book that looks at the subject from many perspectives, including scientific, social, and political.

Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany with nothing but a desperate dream that he might one day find his parents again. But that golden land called New York has turned away the ship full of refugees, and Daniel finds himself in Cuba. As the tropical island begins to work its magic on him, the young refugee befriends a local girl with some painful secrets of her own. Yet even in Cuba, the Nazi darkness is never far away.