- Table View
- List View
American Prisoners Of Japan: Did Rank Have Its Privilege?
by Major Michael A. Buffone ZarateThis thesis examines the story of American POWs held by the Japanese in WWII to see if there were significant differences in treatment based on rank. It examines how the Japanese treated the prisoners according to international law and also distinctions made by the officers themselves simply because of higher rank.The thesis begins by discussing the historical framework for POW rank distinctions by looking at past wars and the development of rank distinctions in international rules. It then covers the American WWII POW experience in the Far East from Bataan and Corregidor to the war's end.Special emphasis is placed on distinctions made in food, housing, pay, medical care, camp administration, work requirements, escape opportunities, transportation, leadership problems, and overall death rates.The study concludes that there were significant differences in treatment based on rank. These differences caused extremely high enlisted death rates during the first year of captivity. The officers fared worse as a group, however, because the Japanese held them in the Philippines until late 1944 because international rules prevented the Japanese from using officers in Japan's labor camps. During shipment to Japan many officers died when the unmarked transport ships were sunk by advancing American forces.
American Privacy: The 400-year History of Our Most Contested Right
by Frederick S. LaneA page-turning narrative of privacy and the evolution of communication, from broken sealing wax to high-tech wiretapping.
American Pro: The True Story of Bike Racing in America
by Jamie SmithAmerican cycling has a long tradition of riding and racing on a shoestring and a prayer. Jamie Smith explores the domestic side of the world&’s biggest amateur sport in American Pro: The True Story of Bike Racing in America. American Pro rips away the thin veneer of professionalism among domestic racing teams to lay bare the heart and soul of a struggling sport. Smith traces the arc of one team&’s racing career to discover colorful personalities, scrappy racing action, humor and heartbreak. American Pro shows what the sport demands: the scramble for contracts, the dynamics of team chemistry, the unending travel, the Herculean struggle to realize the dreamall for the love of bike racing. With sharp humor and insight, Smith uncovers what&’s wrongand what&’s rightwith America&’s broken bike racing system. American Pro will transform how you think of domestic pro racing through a five-season exposé of the sport we love.
American Progressivism: A Reader
by Ronald J. Pestritto William J. AttoAmerican Progressivism is a one-volume edition of some of the most important essays, speeches, and book excerpts from the leading figures of national Progressivism. It is designed for classroom use, includes an accessible interpretive essay, and introduces each selection with a brief historical and conceptual background. The introductory essay is written with the student in mind, and addresses the important characteristics of Progressive thought and the role of Progressives in the development of the American political tradition. Students of American political thought, American politics, American history, the presidency, Congress, and political parties will find this reader to be an invaluable source for insight into Progressivism.
American Project
by Sudhir Alladi VenkateshVenkatesh provides a captivating story on the rise and fall of a modern ghetto.
American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER
by Kai Bird Martin J. SherwinTHE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE OPPENHEIMER • "A riveting account of one of history&’s most essential and paradoxical figures.&”—Christopher Nolan#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.In this magisterial, acclaimed biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer&’s life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War. This is biography and history at its finest, riveting and deeply informative.&“A masterful account of Oppenheimer&’s rise and fall, set in the context of the turbulent decades of America&’s own transformation. It is a tour de force.&” —Los Angeles Times Book Review&“A work of voluminous scholarship and lucid insight, unifying its multifaceted portrait with a keen grasp of Oppenheimer&’s essential nature.... It succeeds in deeply fathoming his most damaging, self-contradictory behavior.&” —The New York Times
American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals and Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice
by Albert J. RaboteauAmerican Prophets sheds critical new light on the lives and thought of seven major prophetic figures in twentieth-century America whose social activism was motivated by a deeply felt compassion for those suffering injustice.In this compelling and provocative book, acclaimed religious scholar Albert Raboteau tells the remarkable stories of Abraham Joshua Heschel, A. J. Muste, Dorothy Day, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer--inspired individuals who succeeded in conveying their vision to the broader public through writing, speaking, demonstrating, and organizing. Raboteau traces how their paths crossed and their lives intertwined, creating a network of committed activists who significantly changed the attitudes of several generations of Americans about contentious political issues such as war, racism, and poverty. Raboteau examines the influences that shaped their ideas and the surprising connections that linked them together. He discusses their theological and ethical positions, and describes the rhetorical and strategic methods these exemplars of modern prophecy used to persuade their fellow citizens to share their commitment to social change.A momentous scholarly achievement as well as a moving testimony to the human spirit, American Prophets represents a major contribution to the history of religion in American politics. This book is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about social justice, or who wants to know what prophetic thought and action can mean in today's world.
American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country
by Jack Jenkins“[A] thoroughly reported [and] revelatory history about the intersection of progressive politics and religion in America” (Publishers Weekly).Since the 1970s, the Religious Right has established itself as a coalition of fundamentalist powerbrokers who set the standard for Christian political values. But, as religion reporter Jack Jenkins contends, the country is also driven by a vibrant, long-standing moral force from the left. Taking many forms and many names, the Religious Left has operated since America’s founding—praying, and protesting for progressive values such as abolition, labor reform, civil rights, environmental preservation.In American Prophets, Jenkins examines the re-emergence of progressive faith-based activism, detailing its origins and contrasting its goals with those of the Religious Right. Today’s rapidly expanding interfaith coalition — which includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and other faiths — has become a force within the larger “resistance” movement. Jenkins profiles Washington political insiders—including former White House staffers and faith outreach directors for the campaigns of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton—as well as a new generation of progressive faith leaders, including:Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the Women’s MarchRev. Traci Blackmon, a pastor near Ferguson, Missouri, who lifts up black liberation efforts across the countrySister Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobby and the “Nuns on the Bus” tour organizerNative American “water protectors” who demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing RockBishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop
American Protest Literature
by Zoe TroddAmerican Protest Literature presents sources from eleven protest movements-political, social, and cultural-from the Revolution to abolition to gay rights to antiwar protest. Each section reprints documents from the original phase of the movement as well as evidence of its legacy in later times. Informative headnotes place the selections in historical context and draw connections with other writings within the anthology and beyond. Sources include a wide variety of genres-pamphlets, letters, speeches, sermons, legal documents, poems, short stories, photographs, posters-and a range of voices from prophetic to outraged to sorrowful, from U. S. Presidents to the disenfranchised. Together they provide an enlightening and inspiring survey of this most American form of literature.
American Protest Literature (The John Harvard library #99)
by Howard Zinn“I like a little rebellion now and then”—so wrote Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, enlisting in a tradition that throughout American history has led writers to rage and reason, prophesy and provoke. This is the first anthology to collect and examine an American literature that holds the nation to its highest ideals, castigating it when it falls short and pointing the way to a better collective future.American Protest Literature presents sources from eleven protest movements—political, social, and cultural—from the Revolution to abolition to gay rights to antiwar protest. Each section reprints documents from the original phase of the movement as well as evidence of its legacy in later times. Informative headnotes place the selections in historical context and draw connections with other writings within the anthology and beyond. Sources include a wide variety of genres—pamphlets, letters, speeches, sermons, legal documents, poems, short stories, photographs, posters—and a range of voices from prophetic to outraged to sorrowful, from U.S. Presidents to the disenfranchised. Together they provide an enlightening and inspiring survey of this most American form of literature.
American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy
by David Corn#1 New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party&’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia. A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, American Psychosis offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party&’s interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections—and how this led to Donald Trump&’s triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right. The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was no aberration. American Psychosis shows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right. The gripping tale in American Psychosis covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation&’s discourse and threaten American democracy. "[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I'm so glad he's done a super-readable, modern history of the right...We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now...[American Psychosis] is perfectly timed...Relevant history for where we are right now." —Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show "With American Psychosis, David Corn 'did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.&’" —Lawrence O'Donnell, host, The Last Word
American Public Opinion on the Iraq War
by Ole R. Holsti"A substantial contribution to understanding the role of public opinion and the news media during the Iraq War. Equally impressive, it effectively puts the domestic context of U. S. policy in historical perspective, making the book useful to historians as well as to political scientists. " ---Ralph B. Levering, Davidson College "American Public Opinion on the Iraq Warsets out to chart against a detailed account of the war a nuanced assessment of how public opinion on the conflict evolved, the partisan differences that emerged, how the issue affected other areas of foreign policy opinion, and the limits of public opinion on policy. It succeeds at all of this, and it does so in a manner that is at once informative, inherently interesting, and exceptionally easy to read. " ---Randolph M. Siverson, University of California, Davis Ole R. Holsti explores the extent to which changes in public opinion reflected the vigorous public relations efforts of the Bush administration to gain support for the war and the partisanship marking debates over policies toward Iraq. Holsti investigates the ways in which the Iraq experience has led substantial numbers of Americans to reconsider their nation's proper international role, and he assesses the impact that public opinion has had on policymakers. Significantly, Holsti places his findings in a broader context to address the role of public opinion and of the media in democratic governance.
American Public School Librarianship: A History
by Wayne A. WiegandThe first comprehensive history of American public school librarianship."Can I get a library pass?" Over the past 120 years, millions of American K–12 public school students have asked that question. Still, we know little about the history of public school libraries, which over the decades were pulled together and managed by hundreds of thousands of school librarians. In American Public School Librarianship, Wayne A. Wiegand recounts the unseen history of both school libraries and their librarians.Why, Wiegand asks, did school librarianship turn out the way it did? And what can its history tell us about limitations and opportunities in the coming decades of the twenty-first century? Addressing issues of race, social class, gender, and sexual orientation (among others) as they affected American public school librarianship throughout its history, Wiegand explores how libraries were transformed by the Great Depression, the civil rights era, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, and more recent legislation like No Child Left Behind, Common Core, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Wiegand touches on censorship, the impact of school segregation on school libraries, disparities in funding that fall along lines of race and class, the development of school librarianship as a profession, the history of organizations like the American Association for School Librarians, and how emerging technologies affected school librarianship.Wiegand clarifies the historical role of the school librarian as an opponent of censorship and defender of intellectual freedom. He also analyzes the politics of a female-dominated school library profession, identifies and evaluates the profession's major players and their battles (often against patriarchy), and challenges the priorities of librarianship's current agendas, particularly regarding the role of "reading" in the everyday lives of children and young adults. Filling a huge void in the history of education, American Public School Librarianship provides essential background information to members of the nation's school library and educational communities who are charged with supervising and managing America's 80,000 public school libraries.
American Pulp
by Paula Rabinowitz"There is real hope for a culture that makes it as easy to buy a book as it does a pack of cigarettes."--a civic leader quoted in a New American Library ad (1951)American Pulp tells the story of the midcentury golden age of pulp paperbacks and how they brought modernism to Main Street, democratized literature and ideas, spurred social mobility, and helped readers fashion new identities. Drawing on extensive original research, Paula Rabinowitz unearths the far-reaching political, social, and aesthetic impact of the pulps between the late 1930s and early 1960s.Published in vast numbers of titles, available everywhere, and sometimes selling in the millions, pulps were throwaway objects accessible to anyone with a quarter. Conventionally associated with romance, crime, and science fiction, the pulps in fact came in every genre and subject. American Pulp tells how these books ingeniously repackaged highbrow fiction and nonfiction for a mass audience, drawing in readers of every kind with promises of entertainment, enlightenment, and titillation. Focusing on important episodes in pulp history, Rabinowitz looks at the wide-ranging effects of free paperbacks distributed to World War II servicemen and women; how pulps prompted important censorship and First Amendment cases; how some gay women read pulp lesbian novels as how-to-dress manuals; the unlikely appearance in pulp science fiction of early representations of the Holocaust; how writers and artists appropriated pulp as a literary and visual style; and much more. Examining their often-lurid packaging as well as their content, American Pulp is richly illustrated with reproductions of dozens of pulp paperback covers, many in color.A fascinating cultural history, American Pulp will change the way we look at these ephemeral yet enduringly intriguing books.Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
American Queen: The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague, Civil War "Bell of the North" and Gilded Age Woman of Scandal
by John OllerHad People magazine been around during the Civil War and after, Kate Chase would have made its "Most Beautiful” and "Most Intriguing” lists every year. Kate Chase, the charismatic daughter of Abraham Lincoln’s treasury secretary, enjoyed unprecedented political power for a woman. As her widowed father’s hostess, she set up a rival "court” against Mary Lincoln in hopes of making her father president and herself his First Lady. To facilitate that goal, she married one of the richest men in the country, the handsome "boy governor” of Rhode Island, in the social event of the Civil War. But when William Sprague turned out to be less of a prince as a husband, she found comfort in the arms of a powerful married senator. The ensuing scandal ended her virtual royalty, leaving her a social outcast who died in poverty. Yet in her final years she would find both greater authenticity and the inner peace that had always eluded her. Set against the seductive allure of the Civil War and Gilded Age, Kate Chase Sprague’s dramatic story is one of ambition and tragedy involving some of the most famous personalities in American history. In this beautifully written and meticulously researched biography, drawing on much unpublished material, John Oller captures the tumultuous and passionate life of a woman who was a century ahead of her time.
American Queenmaker: How Missy Meloney Brought Women Into Politics
by Julie Des JardinsThe first biography of Missy Meloney, the most important woman you've never heard of Marie "Missy" Mattingly Meloney was born in 1878, in an America where women couldn't vote. Yet she recognized the power that women held as consumers and family decision-makers, and persuaded male publishers and politicians to take them seriously. Over the course of her life as a journalist, magazine editor-in-chief, and political advisor, Missy created the idea of the female demographic. After the passage of the 19th Amendment she encouraged candidates to engage with and appeal to women directly. In this role, she advised Presidents from Hoover and Coolidge to FDR. By the time she died in 1943, women were a recognized political force to be reckoned with.In this groundbreaking biography, historian Julie Des Jardins restores Missy to her rightful place in American history.
American Queer, Now and Then
by David Shneer Caryn AvivContrasting queer life today and in years past, this landmark book brings together autobiographies, poetry, film studies, maps, documents, laws, and other texts to explore the meaning and practice of the word "queer". By this Shneer and Aviv mean:queer as both a form of social violence and a call to political activism; queer as played by Robin Williams and Sharon Stone and as lived by Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena; queer in the courthouses of Washington D.C. and on the streets of hometown America. Contextualizing these contemporary stories with ones from the past, and understanding them through the analytic tools of feminist social criticism and history, the authors show what it means to be queer in America. queer [adj: 1. differing from what is usual or ordinary; odd; singular; strange 2. slightly ill 3. mentally unbalanced 4. counterfeit; not genuine 5. homosexual: in general usage, still chiefly a slang term of contempt or derision, but lately used by some as a descriptive term without negative connotations --Webster's Dictionary. queer [adj: used to describe a 1. body of theory 2. field of critical inquiry 3. way of proudly identifying a group of people 4. way of seeing the world 5. sense of difference from the norm --David Shneer and Caryn Aviv, American Queer, Now and Then.
American Race Relations and the Legacy of British Colonialism
by Thomas H. StantonColonial rule distorts a colony’s economy and its society, and British rule was no exception. British policies led to a stratified American colonial society with slaves on the bottom and white settlers on top. The divided society functioned through laws that imposed rules and defined roles of the respective races. This occurred in other colonies too, often leading to strife that continues today. Especially since World War II the United States seems finally to have been able to remove many laws and practices that had created barriers between races in the divided society. Appeals to legitimacy, such as by abolitionists and the Civil Rights Movement, were essential to change laws from support of the divided society to instruments for disestablishing it. Thanks to the rule of law – another important British legacy -- the U.S. is much farther along than many former colonies in making progress. By highlighting the history of the interplay of two fundamental concepts, the divided society and the rule of law, and briefly contrasting the experiences of other former colonies, this book shows how the United States has made significant long-term progress, although incomplete, and ways for this to continue today.
American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation
by Holly JacksonA dynamic, timely history of nineteenth-century activists—free-lovers and socialists, abolitionists and vigilantes—and the social revolution they sparked in the turbulent Civil War era“In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s people’s histories, American Radicals reveals a forgotten yet inspiring past.”—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country’s fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy—as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free? A new network of dissent—connecting firebrands and agitators on pastoral communes, in urban mobs, and in genteel parlors across the nation—vowed to finish the revolution they claimed the Founding Fathers had only begun. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America even while they fought to preserve the nation’s founding ideals: the brilliant heiress Frances Wright, whose shocking critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point; the Philadelphia businessman James Forten, who presided over the first mass political protest of free African Americans; Marx Lazarus, a vegan from Alabama whose calls for sexual liberation masked a dark secret; black nationalist Martin Delany, the would-be founding father of a West African colony who secretly supported John Brown’s treasonous raid on Harpers Ferry—only to ally himself with Southern Confederates after the Civil War. Though largely forgotten today, these figures were enormously influential in the pivotal period flanking the war, their lives and work entwined with reformers like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Henry David Thoreau, as well as iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson writes them back into the story of the nation’s most formative and perilous era in all their heroism, outlandishness, and tragic shortcomings. The result is a surprising, panoramic work of narrative history, one that offers important lessons for today.
American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe’s Secrets
by Colonel Wolfgang W. SamuelAt the close of World War II, Allied forces faced frightening new German secret weapons—buzz bombs, V-2's, and the first jet fighters. When Hitler's war machine began to collapse, the race was on to snatch these secrets before the Soviet Red Army found them. The last battle of World War II, then, was not for military victory but for the technology of the Third Reich. In American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets, Wolfgang W. E. Samuel assembles from official Air Force records and survivors' interviews the largely untold stories of the disarmament of the once mighty Luftwaffe and of Operation Lusty—the hunt for Nazi technologies. In April 1945 American armies were on the brink of winning their greatest military victory, yet America's technological backwardness was shocking when measured against that of the retreating enemy. Senior officers, including the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, knew all too well the seemingly overwhelming victory was less than it appeared. There was just too much luck involved in its outcome. Two intrepid American Army Air Forces colonels set out to regain America's technological edge. One, Harold E. Watson, went after the German jets; the other, Donald L. Putt, went after the Nazis' intellectual capital—their world-class scientists. With the help of German and American pilots, Watson brought the jets to America; Putt persevered as well and succeeded in bringing the German scientists to the Army Air Forces' aircraft test and evaluation center at Wright Field. A young P-38 fighter pilot, Lloyd Wenzel, a Texan of German descent, then turned these enemy aliens into productive American citizens—men who built the rockets that took America to the moon, conquered the sound barrier, and laid the foundation for America's civil and military aviation of the future. American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets details the contest won, a triumph that shaped America's victories in the Cold War.
American Railroads
by John F. StoverFew scenes capture the American experience so eloquently as that of a lonely train chugging across the vastness of the Great Plains, or snaking through tortuous high mountain passes. Although this vision was eclipsed for a time by the rise of air travel and trucking, railroads have enjoyed a rebirth in recent years as profitable freight carriers. A fascinating account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, John F. Stover's "American Railroads" traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to today's newly revitalized industry. Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s. In two new chapters, Stover recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real savior for the railroads, though, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944. Bringing both a seasoned eye and new insights to bear on one of the most American of industries, Stover has produced the definitive history of railroads in the United States.
American Railroads (Chicago History Of American Civilization Ser.)
by John F. StoverFew scenes capture the American experience so eloquently as that of a lonely train chugging across the vastness of the Great Plains, or snaking through tortuous high mountain passes. Although this vision was eclipsed for a time by the rise of air travel and trucking, railroads have enjoyed a rebirth in recent years as profitable freight carriers. A fascinating account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, John F. Stover's American Railroads traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to today's newly revitalized industry. Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s. In two new chapters, Stover recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real savior for the railroads, though, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944. Bringing both a seasoned eye and new insights to bear on one of the most American of industries, Stover has produced the definitive history of railroads in the United States.
American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance in the Twentieth Century
by Robert E. Gallamore John R. MeyerOnce an icon of American industry, railroads fell into a long decline beginning around the turn of the twentieth century. Overburdened with regulation and often displaced by barge traffic on government-maintained waterways, trucking on interstate highways, and jet aviation, railroads measured their misfortune in lost market share, abandoned track, bankruptcies, and unemployment. Today, however, as Robert Gallamore and John Meyer demonstrate, rail transportation is reviving, rescued by new sources of traffic and advanced technology, as well as less onerous bureaucracy. In 1970, Congress responded to the industry's plight by consolidating most passenger rail service nationwide into Amtrak. But private-sector freight service was left to succeed or fail on its own. The renaissance in freight traffic began in 1980 with the Staggers Rail Act, which allowed railroad companies to contract with customers for services and granted freedom to set most rates based on market supply and demand. Railroads found new business hauling low-sulfur coal and grain long distances in redesigned freight cars, while double-stacked container cars moved a growing volume of both international and domestic goods. Today, trains have smaller crews, operate over better track, and are longer and heavier than ever before. Near the end of the twentieth century, after several difficult but important mergers, privately owned railroads increased their investments in safe, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly freight transportation. American Railroads tells a riveting story about how this crucial U. S. industry managed to turn itself around.
American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Trains
by Thomas Curtis ClarkeThe early history of the American railroad by the man the New York Times calls "one of the best-known civil engineers in America. ” The American Railway provides an exciting look at the railroad industry in the 1880s and how it developed as the business boomed. Originally published in 1889, it contains a thorough history of how railroads were built, the types of railways, the lives of railway workers, the various ways the railway affected political and business economics, as well as the safety precautions of people who rode or worked with the railway system. You’ll also find more than two hundred hand-drawn illustrations--visual representations of great steam engines, graceful bridges, life in a Pullman car, railway accidents, views of track construction, and portraits of railroad pioneers and magnates of the times--and stories from real rail workers. Learn how far we’ve come from such humble beginnings and grow to have a newfound appreciation for the railways that paved our country’s future. This edition features a new foreword by Jeff Smith, editor of the NRHS Bulletin, the quarterly magazine published by the National Railway Historical Society.
American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal
by Neil King“American Ramble is a dazzling mixture of travelogue, memoir, and history. At times profound, funny, and heartbreaking, this is the story of a traveler intoxicated by life. I couldn’t put it down.” — Nathaniel PhilbrickA stunning, revelatory memoir about a 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City—an unforgettable pilgrimage to the heart of America across some of our oldest common ground. Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency. His neighborhood still reeled from the January 6th insurrection. Covid lockdowns and a rancorous election had deepened America’s divides. Neil himself bore the imprints of a long battle with cancer.Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, Neil turned north with a small satchel on his back and one mission in mind: To pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met.What followed is an extraordinary 26-day journey through historic battlefields and cemeteries, over the Mason-Dixon line, past Quaker and Amish farms, along Valley Forge stream beds, atop a New Jersey trash mound, across New York Harbor, and finally, to his ultimate destination: the Ramble, where a tangle of pathways converges in Central Park. The journey travels deep into America’s past and present, uncovering forgotten pockets and overlooked people. At a time of mounting disunity, the trip reveals the profound power of our shared ground.By turns amusing, inspiring, and sublime, American Ramble offers an exquisite account of personal and national renewal—an indelible study of our country as we’ve never seen it before.