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A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War)
by Lesley J. GordonA Broken Regiment recounts the tragic history of one of the Civil War's most ill-fated Union military units. Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut's 16th panicked and fled the field. In the years that followed, the regiment participated in minor skirmishes before surrendering en masse in North Carolina in 1864. Most of its members spent months in southern prison camps, including the notorious Andersonville stockade, where disease and starvation took the lives of over one hundred members of the unit. The struggles of the 16th led survivors to reflect on the true nature of their military experience during and after the war, and questions of cowardice and courage, patriotism and purpose, were often foremost in their thoughts. Over time, competing stories emerged of who they were, why they endured what they did, and how they should be remembered. By the end of the century, their collective recollections reshaped this troubling and traumatic past, and the "unfortunate regiment" emerged as the "Brave Sixteenth," their individual memories and accounts altered to fit the more heroic contours of the Union victory. The product of over a decade of research, Lesley J. Gordon's A Broken Regiment illuminates this unit's complex history amid the interplay of various, and often competing, voices. The result is a fascinating and heartrending story of one regiment's wartime and postwar struggles.
A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War
by Sebastian Faulks with Hope WolfA lieutenant writes of digging through bodies that have the consistency of Camembert cheese; a mother sends flower seeds to her son at the Front, hoping that one day someone may see them grow; a nurse tends a man back to health knowing he will be court-martialled and shot as soon as he is fit. Edited by the bestselling author of Birdsong and Dr Hope Wolf, this is an original and illuminating non-fiction anthology of writing on the First World War.Diaries, letters and memories, testaments from ordinary people whose lives were transformed, are set alongside extracts from names that have become synonymous with the war, such as Siegfried Sassoon and T.E. Lawrence. A Broken World is an original collection of personal and defining moments that offer an unprecedented insight into the Great War as it was experienced and as it was remembered.
A Brood of Vipers (Tudor Mysteries, Book 4): A Tudor mystery of murder and espionage
by Paul DohertyRodger embarks on a mission to Florence, in search of an elusive assassin...In his fourth journal, A Brood of Vipers, Roger Shallot encounters treacherous conspiracies and terrible murders as he journeys from Tudor London to Florence. Paul Doherty's Tudor mysteries are perfect for fans of Susannah Gregory and C. J. Sansom.Spring 1523. Benjamin Daunbey and his rapscallion servant, Roger Shallot, are summoned to London. A Florentine envoy, Lord Francesco Abrizzi, has been murdered and King Henry is determined to unmask the perpetrators of this outrage. In London, Shallot experiences King Henry's rage, the insults of the Abrizzis and a murderous attack. Shallot, a born coward, wants to crawl away and hide, but the King and Wolsey insist that he and Benjamin go to Florence, find Abrizzi's assassin, deliver a secret message, and bring back a Florentine painter. It sounds simple enough - but the reality is murderously different.What readers are saying about Paul Doherty:'Paul Doherty weaves a tangled web of murder and intrigue''These novels vividly bring the dirt, squalor and adventure of Henry VIII's reign to life''Excellent story. Always enjoyed the Shallot stories, he is a lovable rouge'
A Brood of Vipers: A Tudor mystery of murder and espionage (Tudor Mysteries, Book #4)
by Paul DohertyRodger embarks on a mission to Florence, in search of an elusive assassin...In his fourth journal, A Brood of Vipers, Roger Shallot encounters treacherous conspiracies and terrible murders as he journeys from Tudor London to Florence. Paul Doherty's Tudor mysteries are perfect for fans of Susannah Gregory and C. J. Sansom.Spring 1523. Benjamin Daunbey and his rapscallion servant, Roger Shallot, are summoned to London. A Florentine envoy, Lord Francesco Abrizzi, has been murdered and King Henry is determined to unmask the perpetrators of this outrage. In London, Shallot experiences King Henry's rage, the insults of the Abrizzis and a murderous attack. Shallot, a born coward, wants to crawl away and hide, but the King and Wolsey insist that he and Benjamin go to Florence, find Abrizzi's assassin, deliver a secret message, and bring back a Florentine painter. It sounds simple enough - but the reality is murderously different.What readers are saying about Paul Doherty:'Paul Doherty weaves a tangled web of murder and intrigue''These novels vividly bring the dirt, squalor and adventure of Henry VIII's reign to life''Excellent story. Always enjoyed the Shallot stories, he is a lovable rouge'
A Brother Is A Stranger
by Marion O. Lerrigo Toru MatsumotoWe in Japan have a saying, "A brother is the beginning of a stranger," because on the father's death the oldest brother acquires such absolute authority as the head of the family that the younger ones and he cannot easily be friends. After our father died, my eldest brother assumed the dictatorial authority of father, as sanctioned by Japanese law and custom. I wanted to live my own life, and I did; but I had to fight for it against the old Japanese tradition that superiors must benevolently govern their inferiors, and inferiors gratefully obey. I have experienced both bitter sorrows and bursting joys. May the young people of a new Japan obtain the happiness of my wife and myself without the struggle we have been through.--A Word From the Author, Toru Matsumoto
A Brother's Honor
by Jo Ann FergusonWhen Dominic St. Clair, a French privateer, captures an American ship, he has the American officers transferred to his ship, offering them the respect of one officer for another. He even asks if they need to bring anything from their ship with them. The American captain says no, but then Dominic discovers Abigail Fitzgerald, the captain's daughter, has been left behind on the ship he now is overseeing. Abigail barely knows her father, for she has lived ashore with her aunt her whole life. She looked forward to getting to know him on this voyage. She cannot believe that he would leave her behind with the enemy. But he did. So begins the battle between Abigail and Dominic, but they must become allies when they barely survive the ship being blown up by her father's men. They reach the shore of England, where both are considered enemies. There they find both unexpected allies and an unexpected love. Even so, betrayal stalks them as lies long told draw them into a web of treachery and bring Dominic a heritage he never imagined would be his, for he is the heir of a duke killed during the Terror. Not that he will be able to claim his legacy unless he can escape their enemies and save Abigail for a horrible fate. Their two hearts must be as powerful as thunder and dare to grasp love in the midst of hatred.
A Brotherhood Of Valor: The Common Soldiers Of The Stonewall Brigade C S A And The Iron Brigade U S A
by Jeffry D. WertThis unusual and moving chronicle covers some of the most important battles of the Civil War—Sharpsburg (Antietam), Gettysburg, and Chancellorsville—through the stories of the two brigades who confronted each other on the bloody fields of battle.Drawing on original source material, Jeffry Wert reconstructs the drama and terrors of war through the eyes of the ordinary men who became members of two of the most respected fighting units of their respective armies, the Stonewall Brigade of the Confederacy and the Iron Brigade of the Union. There are tales of grueling marches and almost unbearable deprivations; eyewitness accounts of ferocious fighting and devastating losses on both sides; and portraits of acts of courage and valor performed by soldiers and officers who, despite the difficulties they faced, remained dedicated to the cause for which they were fighting.
A Brotherhood of Liberty: Black Reconstruction and Its Legacies in Baltimore, 1865-1920 (America in the Nineteenth Century)
by Dennis Patrick HalpinIn A Brotherhood of Liberty, Dennis Patrick Halpin shifts the focus of the black freedom struggle from the Deep South to argue that Baltimore is key to understanding the trajectory of civil rights in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1870s and early 1880s, a dynamic group of black political leaders migrated to Baltimore from rural Virginia and Maryland. These activists, mostly former slaves who subsequently trained in the ministry, pushed Baltimore to fulfill Reconstruction's promise of racial equality. In doing so, they were part of a larger effort among African Americans to create new forms of black politics by founding churches, starting businesses, establishing community centers, and creating newspapers. Black Baltimoreans successfully challenged Jim Crow regulations on public transit, in the courts, in the voting booth, and on the streets of residential neighborhoods. They formed some of the nation's earliest civil rights organizations, including the United Mutual Brotherhood of Liberty, to define their own freedom in the period after the Civil War.Halpin shows how black Baltimoreans' successes prompted segregationists to reformulate their tactics. He examines how segregationists countered activists' victories by using Progressive Era concerns over urban order and corruption to criminalize and disenfranchise African Americans. Indeed, he argues the Progressive Era was crucial in establishing the racialized carceral state of the twentieth-century United States. Tracing the civil rights victories scored by black Baltimoreans that inspired activists throughout the nation and subsequent generations, A Brotherhood of Liberty highlights the strategies that can continue to be useful today, as well as the challenges that may be faced.
A Brotherhood of Spies: The U-2 and the CIA's Secret War
by Monte ReelA thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of disasterOn May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survived, he had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide. But against all odds, Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage charges, revealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people--and to the Soviet Premier. Infuriated, Nikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations. In A Brotherhood of Spies, award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternity, made up of Edwin Land, best known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnson, a hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissell, the secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powers, set out to replace yesterday's fallible human spies with tomorrow's undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions.
A Brush with Shadows (A Lady Darby Mystery #6)
by Anna Lee HuberSebastian Gage returns home to battle the ghosts of his past and prevent them from destroying his future with Kiera in the latest exciting installment in this national bestselling series.July 1831. It's been fifteen years since Sebastian Gage has set foot in Langstone Manor. Though he has shared little with his wife, Lady Kiera Darby, about his past, she knows that he planned never to return to the place of so many unhappy childhood memories. But when an urgent letter from his grandfather reaches them in Dublin, Ireland, and begs Gage to visit, Kiera convinces him to go.All is not well at Langstone Manor. Gage's grandfather, the Viscount Tavistock, is gravely ill, and Gage's cousin Alfred has suddenly vanished. He wandered out into the moors and never returned. The Viscount is convinced someone or something other than the natural hazards of the moors is to blame for Alfred's disappearance. And when Alfred's brother Rory goes missing, Kiera and Gage must concede he may be right. Now, they must face the ghosts of Gage's past, discover the truth behind the local superstitions, and see beyond the tricks being played by their very own eyes to expose what has happened to Gage's family before the moors claim yet another victim...
A Brush with the Chinese and What Came of it
by G. A. HentyIt was early in December that H.M.S. Perseus was cruising off the mouth of the Canton River. War had been declared with China in consequence of her continued evasions of the treaty she had made with us, and it was expected that a strong naval force would soon gather to bring her to reason. In the meantime the ships on the station had a busy time of it, chasing the enemy's junks when they ventured to show themselves beyond the reach of the guns of their forts, and occasionally having a brush with the piratical boats which took advantage of the general confusion to plunder friend as well as foe.
A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
by Peter CozzensThe story of the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable, young United States for control over the Deep South—from the acclaimed historian and prize-winning author of The Earth is WeepingThe Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland. The war also gave Andrew Jackson his first combat leadership role, and his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House.In A Brutal Reckoning, Peter Cozzens vividly captures the young Jackson, describing a brilliant but harsh military commander with unbridled ambition, a taste for cruelty, and a fraught sense of honor and duty. Jackson would not have won the war without the help of Native American allies, yet he denied their role and even insisted on their displacement, together with all the Indians of the American South in the Trail of Tears.A conflict involving not only white Americans and Native Americans, but also the British and the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for the American Civil War yet to come. No other single Indian conflict had such significant impact on the fate of America—and A Brutal Reckoning is the definitive book on this forgotten chapter in our history.
A Bubble That Broke the World
by Garet GarrettThe burden of Europe's private debt to this country is now greater than the burden of her war debt; and the war debt, with arrears of interest, is greater than it was the day the peace was signed. And it is not Europe alone. Debt was the economic terror of the world when the war ended. How to pay it was the colossal problem. -from "Cosmology of the Bubble" The names of the players are different, but these cautionary essays about massive national debt-written in the long wake of World War I and as the Great Depression was starting to make its horrible power fully known-are still fully applicable today. A powerful libertarian voice of the early 20th century, Garet Garrett, writing originally in the Saturday Evening Post, warned about the extension of American credit to a Europe staggering under a massive debt leftover from the financing of World War I... a situation echoed, if reversed, today as the overextended United States continues her rampant borrowing. Collected in book form, Garrett's writings are a cry for a retreat from financial insanity, a clear-eyed look at a complicated and little understood era of financial history, and perhaps an ominous warning for today.
A Buccaneer at Heart
by Stephanie Laurens<P>Unexpected love-plus passion, intrigue, and danger-challenge our hero to embrace his true nature. <P>#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens continues THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, a riveting blend of Regency-era high seas adventure, a mystery shrouded in the heat of tropical jungles, and the passionate romances of four couples and their unexpected journeys into love. <P>After a decade of captaining diplomatic voyages for Frobisher Shipping, alongside covert missions for the Crown, Captain Robert Frobisher decides that establishing a home-with hearth and wife-should be his next challenge. But an unexpected mission intervenes. Although Robert sees himself as a conservative businessman-cum-diplomat and this mission is far from his usual sphere, it nevertheless falls within the scope of his abilities. As matters are urgent, he agrees to depart for West Africa forthwith. <P>To Robert, his way forward is clear: Get to Freetown, determine the location of a slavers' camp, return to London with the information, and then proceed to find himself a wife. Already in Freetown, Miss Aileen Hopkins is set on finding her younger brother Will, a naval lieutenant who has mysteriously disappeared. Find Will and rescue him; determined and resolute, Aileen is not about to allow anyone to turn her from her path. <P>But all too quickly, that path grows dark and dangerous. And then Robert Frobisher appears and attempts to divert her in more ways than one. Accustomed to managing diplomats and bureaucrats, Robert discovers that manipulating a twenty-seven-year-old spinster lies outside his area of expertise. Prodded by an insistent need to protect Aileen, he realizes that joining forces with her is the surest path to meeting all the challenges before him-completing his mission, keeping her safe, and securing the woman he wants as his wife. But the villains strike and disrupt their careful plans-leaving Robert and Aileen no choice but to attempt a last throw of the dice to complete his mission and further her brother's rescue. <P>Compelled to protect those weaker than themselves and bring retribution to a heartless enemy, they plunge into the jungle with only their talents and inner strengths to aid them-and with the courage of their hearts as their guide. The first voyage is one of exploration, the second one of discovery. The third journey brings maturity, while the fourth is a voyage of second chances. Continue the journey and follow the adventure, the mystery, and the romances to the cataclysmic end. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
A Buccaneer at Heart: The Adventurers Quartet (The Adventurers Quartet #2)
by Stephanie LaurensOnly from #1 New York Times bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS, the second story of THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, where Regency-era intrigue, danger, romance and passion abound.A secret mission… After a decade leading diplomatic voyages and covert missions for the Crown, Captain Robert Frobisher decides that establishing a home—with hearth and wife—should be his next challenge. But when an urgent summons arrives, Robert puts his wishes aside and agrees to set sail immediately. His goal is clear: get to Freetown, determine the location of a slavers’ camp and return to London with the information. A distracting complication… In Freetown, Miss Aileen Hopkins is determined to find her brother Will, a naval lieutenant who has mysteriously disappeared, and she will not allow anyone to turn her from her path. But all too quickly, that path grows dark and dangerous. And then Robert Frobisher appears and attempts to divert her in more ways than one. An unexpected alliance… Joining forces with Aileen, Robert vows to complete his mission and secure the woman he wants as his wife. Compelled to protect the innocent and bring retribution to a heartless enemy, they plunge into the jungle with only each other to rely on, and with the courage of their hearts as their guide. Follow THE ADVENTURERS as they continue their voyages across the high seas to the riveting and triumphant conclusion.Originally published in 2016
A Bucket of Sunshine: Life on a Cold War Canberra Squadron
by Mike BrookeA Bucket of Sunshine - a term used for the use of a nuclear bomb - is a firsthand insight into life in the mid-1960s on a RAF Canberra nuclear-armed squadron in West Germany on the frontline in the Cold War. Mike Brookes describes not only the technical aspect of the aircraft and its nuclear and conventional roles and weapons, but also majors on the low-level flying that went with the job of being ready to go to war at less than three minutes notice. Brooke tells his story warts and all, with many amusing overtones, in what was an extremely serious business when the world was standing on the brink of nuclear conflict. The English-Electric Canberra was a first-generation jet-powered light bomber manufactured in large numbers in the 1950s. The Canberra could fly at a higher altitude than any other bomber through the 1950s and set a world altitude record of 70,310 feet. Due to its ability to evade early interceptors and providing a significant performance advancement over piston-engine bombers, the Canberra was a popular export product and served with many nations. Although jet powered, the Canberra design philosophy was very much in the Mosquito mould, providing room for a substantial bomb load, fitting two of the most powerful engines available, and wrapping it in the most compant and aerodynamic package possible. Rather than devote space and weight to defensive armament, the Canberra was designed to fly fast and high enough to avoid air-to-air combat entirely.
A Buckeye Titan
by William E. SmithHere is a panorama of life as it was lived and witnessed by one Ohio citizen, his family, and his friends, from 1816-1876. From the diary and correspondence of John H. James of Urbana, Ohio, and from contemporary manuscripts, periodicals, and newspapers, William E. and Ophia D. Smith have created an authentic picture of the times. A Buckeye Titan is not so much a biography of a man as it is an exposition of the contribution of his manuscripts to American history in general and to Ohio history in particular. The point of view presented is that of the protagonist and his friends.Cincinnati and Louisville are seen when slow-moving, square-rigged barges and primate boats propelled by “elastic vigor” crowded their landings, and when stately floating castles received and discharged passengers and cargoes upon their busy rivers. Lexington, Athens of the West, is portrayed as it was in the lush days of Horace Holley. The sophistication of New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York sets off the awkward adolescence of such Mid-Western towns as Columbus, Dayton, Urbana, and Indianapolis. Against a background of devious politics and frenzied finance, the Mad River and Lake Erie Rail Road begins in Sandusky and stubbornly fights its way to Springfield. Whigs and Loco Focos engage in a titanic struggle of the establishment of a second banking system.Civil War days are graphically drawn. The tumultuous conflict of opinion, the graft and corruption, the political chicanery in the raising of troops and in the promotion of officers and men, the strength and the weakness of the Northern fighting forces and their leaders—all are here.Statesmen and politicians, reformers and scholars, authors and artists, actors and actresses, soldiers, travelers, bankers and merchants, founders of the first Swedenborgian college in the world, and plain everyday people, as well as intimate glimpses of distinguished characters, appear in these pages.
A Buddhist Sensibility: Aesthetic Education at Tibet's Mindröling Monastery (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)
by Dominique TownsendFounded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Its founders sought to systematize and institutionalize a worldview rooted in Buddhist philosophy, engaging with contemporaries from across Tibetan Buddhist schools while crystallizing what it meant to be part of their own Nyingma school. At the monastery, ritual performance, meditation, renunciation, and training in the skills of a bureaucrat or member of the literati went hand in hand. Studying at Mindröling entailed training the senses and cultivating the objects of the senses through poetry, ritual music, monastic dance, visual arts, and incense production, as well as medicine and astrology.Dominique Townsend investigates the ritual, artistic, and cultural practices inculcated at Mindröling to demonstrate how early modern Tibetans integrated Buddhist and worldly activities through training in aesthetics. Considering laypeople as well as monastics and women as well as men, A Buddhist Sensibility sheds new light on the forms of knowledge valued in early modern Tibetan societies, especially among the ruling classes. Townsend traces how tastes, values, and sensibilities were cultivated and spread, showing what it meant for a person, lay or monastic, to be deemed well educated. Combining historical and literary analysis with fieldwork in Tibetan Buddhist communities, this book reveals how monastic institutions work as centers of cultural production beyond the boundaries of what is conventionally deemed Buddhist.
A Buffalo in the House: The True Story of a Man, an Animal, and the American West
by R. D. RosenFrom a #1 New York Times–bestselling author, &“a heartwarming tale of bonding between people and animals&” (Booklist). A sprawling suburban house in Santa Fe is not the kind of home where a buffalo normally roams, but Veryl Goodnight and Roger Brooks are not your ordinary animal lovers. Over a hundred years after Veryl&’s ancestors, Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight, hand-raised two baby buffalo to help save the species from extinction, the sculptor and her husband adopt an orphaned buffalo calf of their own. Against a backdrop of the American West, A Buffalo in the House tells the story of a household situation beyond any sitcom writer&’s wildest dreams. Charlie has no idea he&’s a buffalo and Roger has no idea just how strong the bond between man and buffalo can be. In the historical shadow of the near-extermination of a majestic and misunderstood animal, Roger sets out to save just one buffalo—in a true story featuring &“one of the most memorable characters in recent nature writing&” (Publishers Weekly). &“More than a touching man-beast buddy tale . . . lovingly chronicles the history of an embattled species and its importance in the American West.&” —Entertainment Weekly &“Moving proof of the restorative powers of man&’s relationship with nature.&” —People
A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market
by Jim RogersIf the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of "the greatest economic boom since Englandâ ²s Industrial Revolution. " In this indispensable new book, one of the worldâ ²s most successful investors, Jim Rogers, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential. Rogers didnâ ²t just...
A Bungalow for Two
by Carole Gift PagePEACE, QUIET AND...LOVE?Sculptor Frannie Rowlands figured some time alone at the windswept shore was all she needed to recover from a creative slump-and from her father’s and sisters’ weddings. But when a near disaster brought her handsome neighbor to the rescue, Frannie realized that solitude wasn’t the only thing that was good for the soul....At his tranquil beach house, Scott Winslow discovered he could live the simple life he craved. Now the reclusive billionaire had unexpectedly found something else there: a woman who had no idea who he was, a woman who might be able to love the real Scott-if only she would let herself....
A Burdensome Experiment: Race, Labor, and Schools in New Orleans after Katrina (Atelier: Ethnographic Inquiry in the Twenty-First Century #18)
by Christien Philmarc TompkinsA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans public school board fired nearly 7,500 teachers and employees. In the decade that followed, the city created the first urban public school system in the United States to be entirely contracted out to private management. Veteran educators, collectively referred to as the "backbone" of the city's Black middle class, were replaced by younger, less experienced, white teachers who lacked historical ties to the city. In A Burdensome Experiment, Christien Philmarc Tompkins argues that the privatization of New Orleans schools has made educators into a new kind of racialized worker. As school districts across the nation backslide on school integration, Tompkins asks, who exactly deserves to teach our children? The struggle over this question exposes the inherent antiblackness of charter school systems and the unequal burdens of school choice.
A Burglar's Fate: The Pinkerton Files, Volume 3
by David LuchukThe Pinkerton Files is based on the new audio series starring Battlestar Galactica 's Michael Hogan. It sets the real cases of America's first private detective in a world of radical inventions driving a bitterly divided nation toward civil war.Agency founder Allan Pinkerton senses a conspiracy mounting against him, his sons and his operatives. Every step they take toward solving three seemingly disconnected cases draws them further into a conflict that will be their downfall. If Allan allows them to become embroiled in the war, they will never find their way out.A Burglar's Fate opens with a bank robbery in a frontier town, a tiny case Allan would normally not take on except that his Agency is falling to pieces. One of his agents has to be rescued from a botched undercover assignment while another disappears into the political intrigue of the capital. His son risks being arrested again to follow clues only he can understand. As the case unravels, Allan faces pressure from the White House to do the one thing he has resisted all along: join the war effort.
A Burnable Book: A Novel
by Bruce HolsingerIn Chaucer's London, betrayal, murder, royal intrigue, mystery, and dangerous politics swirl around the existence of a prophetic book that foretells the deaths of England's kings. Bruce Holsinger's A Burnable Book is an irresistible historical thriller reminiscent of the classics An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Name of the Rose, and The Crimson Petal and the White.London, 1385. Surrounded by ruthless courtiers—including his powerful uncle, John of Gaunt, and Gaunt's artful mistress, Katherine Swynford—England's young, still untested king, Richard II, is in mortal peril, and the danger is only beginning. Songs are heard across London—catchy verses said to originate from an ancient book that prophesies the end of England's kings—and among the book's predictions is Richard's assassination.Only a few powerful men know that the cryptic lines derive from a "burnable book," a seditious work that threatens the stability of the realm. To find the manuscript, wily bureaucrat Geoffrey Chaucer turns to fellow poet John Gower, a professional trader in information with connections high and low. Gower discovers that the book and incriminating evidence about its author have fallen into the unwitting hands of innocents, who will be drawn into a labyrinthine conspiracy that reaches from the king's court to London's slums and stews—and potentially implicates his own son. As the intrigue deepens, it becomes clear that Gower, a man with secrets of his own, may be the last hope to save a king from a terrible fate.Medieval scholar Bruce Holsinger draws on his vast knowledge of the period to add colorful, authentic detail—on everything from poetry and bookbinding to court intrigues and brothels—to this highly entertaining and brilliantly constructed epic literary mystery that brings medieval England gloriously to life.
A Burning House: Redeeming American Evangelicalism by Examining Its History, Mission, and Message
by Brandon WashingtonDespite the civil rights progress he fought for and saw on the horizon in the 1950s and '60s, Martin Luther King Jr.—increasingly concerned by America's moral vision, admitted—"I've come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house."In A Burning House, Brandon Washington contends that American Evangelicalism is a house ablaze: burning in the destructive fires of discrimination and injustice. The stain of segregation remains prevalent, not only in our national institutions, but also in our churches, and this has long tarnished the witness of Christianity and hampered our progress toward a Christ-like vision of Shalom—peace, justice, and wholeness—in the world. Common doctrine may unite black and white evangelicals, but rifts such as social ethics and cultural influences still separate us.Throughout this challenging but reconciliatory book, Washington gives a historical and theological appraisal of American evangelicalism to understand how we came to be where we are and what our response should be. Instead of calling the movement to become something new, he challenges it to live into what it has always been in Christ and strive for deliberate and sacrificial integration—the unity of believers of all ethnicities.A Burning House is a rallying call to a waning movement whose most public leaders have often turned a blind eye to, or even justified, the sin of racism—a movement whose theology is sometimes compromised by a secular anthropology. This is a call to both white and black evangelicals to better understand our past so that we can better embrace the unifying and comprehensive message of the gospel we preach.