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The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius
by Joyce ChaplinFamous, fascinating Benjamin Franklin-he would be neither without his accomplishments in science. In this authoritative intellectual biography of America’s most brilliant and cosmopolitan Founding Father, Joyce Chaplin considers Franklin’s scientific work as a career in its own right as well as the basis of his political thought. The famous kite and other experiments with electricity were only part of Franklin’s accomplishments. He charted the Gulf Stream, made important observations in meteorology, and used the burgeoning science of "political arithmetic” to make unprecedented statements about America’s power. Even as he stepped onto the world stage as an illustrious statesman and diplomat in the years leading up to the American Revolution, his fascination with nature was unrelenting.
The First Serious Optimist: A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics
by Ian KumekawaA groundbreaking intellectual biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential economistsThe First Serious Optimist is an intellectual biography of the British economist A. C. Pigou (1877–1959), a founder of welfare economics and one of the twentieth century's most important and original thinkers. Though long overshadowed by his intellectual rival John Maynard Keynes, Pigou was instrumental in focusing economics on the public welfare. And his reputation is experiencing a renaissance today, in part because his idea of "externalities" or spillover costs is the basis of carbon taxes. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, Ian Kumekawa tells how Pigou reshaped the way the public thinks about the economic role of government and the way economists think about the public good.Setting Pigou's ideas in their personal, political, social, and ethical context, the book follows him as he evolved from a liberal Edwardian bon vivant to a reserved but reform-minded economics professor. With World War I, Pigou entered government service, but soon became disenchanted with the state he encountered. As his ideas were challenged in the interwar period, he found himself increasingly alienated from his profession. But with the rise of the Labour Party following World War II, the elderly Pigou re-embraced a mind-set that inspired a colleague to describe him as "the first serious optimist."The story not just of Pigou but also of twentieth-century economics, The First Serious Optimist explores the biographical and historical origins of some of the most important economic ideas of the past hundred years. It is a timely reminder of the ethical roots of economics and the discipline's long history as an active intermediary between the state and the market.
The First Signs of April: A Memoir
by Mary-Elizabeth BriscoeWounds fester and spread in the darkness of silence. The First Signs of April, explores the destructive patterns of unresolved grief and the importance of connection for true healing to occur. The narrative weaves through time to explore grief reactions to two very different losses: suicide and cancer.
The First Stampede of Flores LaDue
by Wendy BrydenThe true love story of Florence and Guy Weadick, in celebration of the Centenary of the Calgary Stampede, 1912 - 2012.The love story of rodeo promoter Guy Weadick and trick roper Flores LaDue began among the rough-and-tumble vaudevillians who preserved the frontier way of life in the first Wild West shows. Their love endured through North American performances in the small-time and big-time circuits, to the audiences of Europe, and culminated in 1912 with the most spectacular of accomplishments - the establishment of the greatest outdoor show on earth, the Calgary Stampede.
The First Star: Red Grange and the Barnstorming Tour that Launched the NFL
by Lars AndersonAcclaimed sportswriter Anderson recounts the thrilling story of Harold "Red" Grange, the Galloping Ghost of the gridiron, and the wild barnstorming tour that earns professional football a place in the American sporting firmament.
The First Survivors of Alzheimer's: How Patients Recovered Life and Hope in Their Own Words
by Dale BredesenFirst person stories of patients who recovered from Alzheimer's Disease--and how they did it.It has been said that everyone knows a cancer survivor, but no one has met an Alzheimer's survivor – until now. In his first two books, Dr. Dale Bredesen outlined the revolutionary treatments that are changing what had previously seemed like the inevitable outcome of cognitive decline and dementia. And in these moving narratives, you can hear directly from the first survivors of Alzheimer&’s themselves--their own amazing stories of hope told in their own words. These first person accounts honestly detail the fear, struggle, and ultimate victory of each patient's journey. They vividly describe what it is like to have Alzheimer's. They also drill down on how each of these patients made the program work for them--the challenges, the workarounds, the encouraging results that are so motivating. Dr. Bredesen includes commentary following each story to help point readers to the tips and tricks that might help them as well.Dr. Bredesen's patients have not just survived; they have thrived to rediscover fulfilling lives, rewarding relationships, and meaningful work. This book will give unprecedented hope to patients and their families.
The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story
by Joseph Fink Meg BashwinerA sometimes hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and always entertaining joint memoir by Joseph Fink, cocreator of Welcome to Night Vale, and his wife, writer and performer Meg Bashwiner, chronicling the first ten years of their relationship from both sides.There are two sides to every love story.In 2009, 22-year-old Joseph Fink, newly arrived to New York City from the West Coast, was juggling odd jobs to pay the rent and volunteering with a theater company in the East Village so he could snag free tickets to their shows.Meg Bashwiner, a 22-year-old aspiring performer and playwright, was living with her parents in New Jersey, working a desk job and commuting to her internship with that same East Village theater company.Joseph and Meg's stories meet when they both find themselves selling tickets in a cramped box office. They quickly became friends. Within a year, they were a couple. Within five years they were touring the world, performing on some of the world's greatest and not so great stages.In this candid, soul-baring memoir, Joseph and Meg recount their first ten years together, each telling their story as they remember it, without having consulted the other. We hear both sides of their first kiss, first breakup, first getting back together, the death of a father, marriage, international fame, world tours, mental illness, and discussions about having children. Sometimes, they recall things differently—neither agrees on who paid for the morning after pill on their first date. Sometimes they remember the exact same details in the same way—but still have their own narrative on just what those details mean.Poignant, funny, and real, alternately told in Joseph and Meg’s remarkably different, yet equally compelling voices, The First Ten Years is the story of two individuals finding their way in the world and becoming "adults" as they learn to become a couple.
The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV
by Colton UnderwoodFrom former football player and star of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette comes a fascinating and eye-opening behind-the-scenes look at his drama-filled season on the hit reality show. <P><P>Before Colton Underwood captured the hearts of millions on The Bachelor, he was a goofy, socially awkward, overweight adolescent who succeeded on the football field while struggling with personal insecurities off it. An All American gridiron hero, he was also a complex, sometimes confused, soft-hearted romantic wondering how these contradictions fit together. <P><P> Old-fashioned and out of step with the swipe right dating culture of today, he was saving the most intimate part of life for the love of his life. If only he could find her… <P><P>Now, in The First Time, Colton opens up about how he came to find himself and true love at the same time via the Bachelor franchise. Unencumbered by cameras and commercial breaks, he delivers a surprisingly raw, endearing, and seriously juicy account of his journey through The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Bachelor, along with what has happened with him and Cassie Randolph since his season wrapped. <P><P>He opens up about being dumped by Becca, his secret dalliance with Tia, what it was like to be the world’s most famous virgin, his behind-the-scenes conflicts with production, and how his on-camera responsibilities as the Bachelor nearly destroyed him after he knew he had already fallen in love with Cassie. <P><P>A memoir for Bachelor Nation and anyone who believes in the magic of love, The First Time carries a simple but powerful message: It’s okay to laugh and cry and occasionally jump over a fence, if it means coming one step closer to the right person. <P><P><b> A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
by T. J. StilesA gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. <P><P> Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington's presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation's largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation--in fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live in today. <P> In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore's personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York's social elite. And he was a father who struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with contacting the dead. <P> The First Tycoon is the exhilarating story of a man and a nation maturing together: the powerful account of a man whose life was as epic and complex as American history itself.<P> Winner of the National Book Award<P> Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
The First Woman Cherokee Chief: Wilma Pearl Mankiller (Step into Reading)
by Patricia Morris BuckleyFind out all about Wilma Pearl Mankiller, the first woman Cherokee chief whose image will appear on a 2022 US quarter, in this Step 3 Biography Reader.In 1985, Wilma Pearl Mankiller became the first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She had to convince her people that the chief should be the best person for the job, man or woman.Before the English came to what is now the United States, Cherokee women and men shared the leadership of the tribe. This created balance. But the English colonists told the Native People that men should be in charge. It stayed that way for many years, until Wilma Pearl Mankiller made history. She used the concept of gaduji, of everyone helping each other, to make the Cherokee Nation strong. Step 3 Readers feature engaging characters in easy-to-follow plots and popular topics—for children who are ready to read on their own.
The First Woman Doctor
by Rachel BakerIn 1847, there were no women doctors. Elizabeth Blackwell was however, determined to become the first woman doctor, no matter what everyone else told her.
The First Woman in Congress: Jeannette Rankin
by Judy Rachel BlockBiography of the first woman in Congress, Jeannette Rankin.
The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child
by Carolyn L. KarcherFor half a century Lydia Maria Child was a household name in the United States. Hardly a sphere of nineteenth-century life can be found in which Lydia Maria Child did not figure prominently as a pathbreaker. Although best known today for having edited Harriet A. Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she pioneered almost every department of nineteenth-century American letters--the historical novel, the short story, children's literature, the domestic advice book, women's history, antislavery fiction, journalism, and the literature of aging. Offering a panoramic view of a nation and culture in flux, this innovative cultural biography (originally published by Duke University Press in 1994) recreates the world as well as the life of a major nineteenth-figure whose career as a writer and social reformer encompassed issues central to American history.
The First World War, 1914-1918; Personal Experiences Of Lieut.-Col. C. À Court Repington Vol. I [Illustrated Edition] (The First World War, 1914-1918; Personal Experiences Of Lieut.-Col. C. À Court Repington #1)
by Lieut.-Col. Charles à Court Repington C.M.G.Includes the First World War Illustrations Pack - 73 battle plans and diagrams and 198 photosA fascinating history of the First World War seen through the eyes of a highly respected and connected War Correspondent.Lieut.-Col. Charles à Court Repington was a career soldier in the British Army; renowned for his service in the Sudan, Burma and the Boer War, he was drummed out of the service for having an affair with the wife of British official in 1902. He was well known as an excellent staff officer and remained closely tied to the comrades that he had fought and served with including the future leaders of the British Army in the First World War. Cutting his teeth as a war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he was ideally placed as the War Correspondent of the Times when war broke out in 1914 to report on the unfolding tragedy. Using all of his connections and influence he visited the Western Front many times and was in intimate correspondence and contact with the senior figures of the British Army such as Sir John French, Sir Douglas Haig, Herbert Plumer and Horace Smith-Dorrien. No great respecter of private conversations or confidences he lost many friends when he wrote The First World War; his work was critical, well-written, caustic and unbiassed.These classic memoirs remain as valuable and vivid as they when they were written. This first volume covers the outbreak of the war to early 1917.
The First World War, 1914-1918; Personal Experiences Of Lieut.-Col. C. À Court Repington Vol. II [Illustrated Edition] (The First World War, 1914-1918; Personal Experiences Of Lieut.-Col. C. À Court Repington #2)
by Lieut.-Col. Charles à Court Repington C.M.G.Includes the First World War Illustrations Pack - 73 battle plans and diagrams and 198 photosA fascinating history of the First World War seen through the eyes of a highly respected and connected War Correspondent.Lieut.-Col. Charles à Court Repington was a career soldier in the British Army; renowned for his service in the Sudan, Burma and the Boer War, he was drummed out of the service for having an affair with the wife of British official in 1902. He was well known as an excellent staff officer and remained closely tied to the comrades that he had fought and served with including the future leaders of the British Army in the First World War. Cutting his teeth as a war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he was ideally placed as the War Correspondent of the Times when war broke out in 1914 to report on the unfolding tragedy. Using all of his connections and influence he visited the Western Front many times and was in intimate correspondence and contact with the senior figures of the British Army such as Sir John French, Sir Douglas Haig, Herbert Plumer and Horace Smith-Dorrien. No great respecter of private conversations or confidences he lost many friends when he wrote The First World War; his work was critical, well-written, caustic and unbiassed.These classic memoirs remain as valuable and vivid as they when they were written. This second volume covers the period from spring 1917 until the end of the war.
The First Year of Nursing
by Barbara FinkelsteinNurses from different walks of life and with different nursing specialties share the experiences they had when first entering the profession.
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe
by Marlene L. DautThe essential biography of the controversial rebel, traitor, and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe is one of the most richly complex figures in the history of the Americas, and was, in his time, popular and famous the world over: in The First and Last King of Haiti, a brilliant, award-winning Yale scholar unravels the still controversial enigma that he was.Slave, revolutionary, traitor, king, and suicide, Henry Christophe was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. Born in 1767 to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, Christophe first fought to overthrow the British in North America, before helping his fellow enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then called, to gain their freedom from France. Yet in an incredible twist of fate, Christophe ended up fighting with Napoleon&’s forces against the very enslaved men and women he had once fought alongside. Later, reuniting with those he had betrayed, he offered to lead them and made himself their king. But it all came to a sudden and tragic end when Christophe—after nine years of his rule as King Henry I—shot himself in the heart, some say with a silver bullet.Why did Christophe turn his back on Toussaint Louverture and the very revolution with which his name is so indelibly associated? How did it come to pass that Christophe found himself accused of participating in the plot to assassinate Haiti&’s first ruler, Dessalines? What caused Haiti to eventually split into two countries, one ruled by Christophe in the north, who made himself king, the other led by President Pétion in the south? The First and Last King of Haiti is a riveting story of not only geopolitical clashes on a grand scale but also of friendship and loyalty, treachery and betrayal, heroism and strife in an era of revolutionary upheaval.
The First and the Last of the Sheffield City Battalion
by John CornwellThis is the story of two British men from very different social backgrounds, who both joined a new Pals battalion during World War I.To encourage men to volunteer, the British Army established Pals battalions that allowed men who enlisted together to serve together during the First World War. One of these men was Vivian Simpson, a 31-year-old solicitor who was well known in the city; partly because he was an outstanding footballer, playing for Sheffield Wednesday and an England trialist. Simpson was the very first man to enroll for the new battalion and was commissioned in January 1915.The other man was Reg Glenn, a clerk in the Education Offices who served as a signaler in each battle the 12th Battalion fought in until the summer of 1917, when he was selected to become an officer.To his annoyance, Vivian Simpson was kept back in England as a training officer until after the battalion’s disaster on the Somme on 1 July 1916. However, after that he became a most energetic and courageous officer. He was awarded an MC in 1917, but was killed in the German offensive on the Lys in April 1918.Reg Glenn went back to France in 1918 as a subaltern in the North Staffordshires and was wounded on the Aisne in his first day of combat as an officer. He was never fit enough to go back to the trenches and became a training officer in Northumberland with his new regiment and later with the Cameronians at Invergordon. He survived the war and lived to be 101 years old, making him the last survivor of the 12th Battalion.
The Firstborn: A Reflection on Fatherhood
by Laurie LeeAn intimate and lyrical consideration of what it means to be a fatherThis moment of meeting seemed to be a birth-time for both of us; her first and my second life. Nothing, I knew, would be the same again . . .Full of warmth and candor, this essay composed on the occasion of his daughter&’s birth is one of Laurie Lee&’s most delightful and inspiring works. From the moment Jessy is born, &“purple and dented like a bruised plum,&” to the first time his kiss quiets her cries, Lee describes the joys and responsibilities of new fatherhood with a poet&’s precision and boundless capacity for wonder.
The FitzPatrick Tapes: The Rise and Fall of One Man, One Bank, and One Country
by Tom Lyons Brian CareyThe FitzPatrick Tapes: The sensational story of the man and the bank that brought Ireland lowOne day in May 2009, Sean FitzPatrick - the disgraced former chief executive and chairman of Anglo Irish Bank - sat down to lunch in a Holiday Inn in Dublin. Across the table sat Tom Lyons, a business reporter with the Sunday Times. Seven months later, the two met for the first of what would be seventeen formal, tape-recorded interviews over the course of 2010: a year when Ireland, its public finances ruined in large part by the cost of covering Anglo's losses, went bust itself. In these interviews, FitzPatrick talked at length and in detail about his banking experiences and philosophy, his colleagues and clients, his investments, his public disgrace, his arrest and his bankruptcy.Lyons and his colleague Brian Carey draw on the FitzPatrick tapes and on their many sources within Anglo, the state and the business community to tell the story of that crisis - and of the man who became the face of it. This is a tale of toothless regulators, hopeless accountants, politicians and civil servants out of their depth, and businessmen in denial about the crash. Above all, though, it is the story of FitzPatrick: the man who built that bank that has been at the centre of Ireland's economic meltdown.'A sensational document' Eamon Dunphy, Newstalk'It is a journalistic scoop; the story of a bank that got too big; a snapshot of an economic era; and, already, a piece - or at least a version - of history' Sunday Business Post
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga
by Doris Kearns GoodwinFamily portraits through 1961.
The Five Silent Years of Corrie Ten Boom
by Pamela Rosewell MoorePam Roswell Moore had her doubts when she interviewed to be companion of the much-loved author Corrie ten Boom. Corrie's bestselling book The Hiding Place, which recounted how she and her family had hidden Jews during World War II in Holland until their betrayal and arrest by the Nazis, had launched for Corrie a worldwide ministry of travel and speaking. Awed by the spiritual challenge this companionship posed, Pam wondered how she could keep up with the energetic 83-year-old.But God knit a strong bond between the young Englishwoman and the remarkable Dutch evangelist. Then Corrie suffered a stroke. Hospitalization followed; physical therapy; then long, loving hours at home. Corrie regained a little mobility for a time--until the next strokes hit. She never regained her speech. But the ministry that had touched millions continued as Corrie communicated through her eyes, through elaborate guessing games with those around her, through silent intercession for people God brought to mind.For those five silent years of imprisonment, Corrie's spiritual depth offered mute testimony to her ongoing trust in her heavenly Father. The details of these years will move all who loved Corrie ten Boom. They will encourage those involved with the elderly or handicapped--and those who are themselves bedridden--that God is at work mysteriously in and through even the most incapacitated. This book attests to the truth Corrie loved so dearly: that, in spite of everything else, Jesus is always Victor.
The Five of Hearts
by Patricia O'TooleThe Five of Hearts, who first gathered in Washington in the Gilded Age, included Henry Adams, historian and scion of America's first political dynasty; his wife, Clover, gifted photographer and tragic victim of depression; John Hay, ambassador and secretary of state; his wife, Clara, a Midwestern heiress; and Clarence King, pioneering geologist, entrepreneur, and man of mystery. They knew every president from Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt and befriended Henry James, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and a host of other illustrious figures on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie RubenholdFive devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London—the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time—but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.
The Fix: A Father's Secrets, A Daughter's Search
by Sharon LederWho is Josef Katz? The fun-loving, harmonica-playing dad Sara loves so much? Or the monster who abuses Sara’s mother and locks himself in the bathroom, unable to beat his addiction? Eight-year-old Sara Katz huddles under the covers, listening to her parents’ muffled arguments and fighting the sleep that inevitably brings her bad dreams—dreams of her terrifying Shadow Father, a heroin addict. Is my daddy not a good father? Is it my job to fix him? As Josef’s sickness worsens, young Sara is torn apart by her family’s need to keep its “shame” a secret from its Jewish community in Brooklyn. Sara finds herself drawn to the liberation movements of the 1960s while feeling trapped in the darkness of her father’s addiction and, ultimately, his untimely death. Will Sara ever learn the truth about how her father became addicted and why he couldn’t get well? How will she find her own identity if her family can’t embrace its truth? And if Sara reveals her father’s secret, will she find freedom—or destroy her family? The author’s proceeds from The Fix will benefit The Fix Fund, which was established to battle the addiction epidemic in the Cape Cod area.