American Century

In this startling and original work, best-selling author Charles Higham (Howard Hughes: The Secret Life) addresses one of the greatest historical mysteries: Did John Wilkes Booth act alone on the night of Good Friday, 1865, or was he part of a wide conspiracy? Drawing from letters, diaries, previously unstudied records of official hearings, railway timetables, and obscure shipping manifests, Higham weaves a spellbinding account of intrigue.

On a hot rainy summer night in Nassau, the Bahamas, in 1943, someone murdered Sir Harry Oakes, one of the richest men in the world, as he slept. When police found him the next morning, there were four wounds to his skull. His corpse had been abused, covered ritualistically with feathers and set on fire. The murder was perverse, horrific, and jaded by anyone’s standards. A few evenings later in New York City, the phone rang in the home of Alan Hynd, identified in that era by the NY Times as America’s highest paid true crime reporter.

Nineteenth-century America was rife with Protestant-fueled anti-Catholicism. Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez reveals how Protestants nevertheless became surprisingly and deeply fascinated with the Virgin Mary, even as her role as a devotional figure who united Catholics grew. Documenting the vivid Marian imagery that suffused popular visual and literary culture, Alvarez argues that Mary became a potent shared exemplar of Christian womanhood around which Christians of all stripes rallied.

This box set includes the complete Ghosts of Southampton series, Books 0, 1, and 2! Meg and Charlie meet on Titanic, but their lives were intertwined long before they ever stepped foot on the doomed ship. Follow their story from the very beginning.Prelude: A Prequel Book 0 An arranged marriage, an abusive family, a dream of freedom in America just out of reach.... After Meg Westmoreland’s father mysteriously dies when she’s a small child, her life quickly spirals out of control. Her mother is mean and manipulative, her uncle abusive in a way Meg won’t even speak of. Getting away from ...

Become a part of living Tottenville history with me in this first book in a series, looking at Tottenville from a more global perspective. Meet the people from each century, rather than only studying a list of historical dates and facts. Immerse yourself into the century to experience how events impacted life in Tottenville through what was happening on Staten Island, in New York City, in the United States, and in the World.

A storm. A rip in time. A mishap. Erika Becquerel finds herself in an impossible world. A Harvest Moon Ball in her beloved grandfather's home? As she struggles to make sense of claims that she fell into the year 1837, her grandfather's life hangs in the balance. Resigned to a life of misery, colonial man Charles Becquerel faces a life already mapped out for him. But when Erika suddenly and inexplicably appears in his life, he senses an unexpected change. Though from two different centuries, Erika and Charles find themselves in a romance that defies time itself. But will their love for each ...

The Fortune Chaser by H. Wilhelm Starkweather is a historical fiction and psychological fiction novel set in 19th-century America, tracing the ambitious journey of a man seeking redemption and prosperity. Are you intrigued by tales of ambition and redemption set against the backdrop of 19th-century America? If so, then this book is for you. Discover the captivating story of Calvin Michael Blake, an ambitious entrepreneur whose journey takes him from the bustling streets of Philadelphia to the emerging metropolis of Chicago. Even if you've never been a fan of historical fiction, this epic ...

From one of America’s greatest nonfiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man. Richard Holbrooke was one of the most legendary and complicated figures in recent American history. Brilliant, utterly self-absorbed and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites, he was both admired and detested. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage.

American cities are distinct from almost all others in the degree to which freeways and freeway travel dominate urban landscapes. In The Drive for Dollars, Brian D. Taylor, Eric A. Morris, and Jeffrey R. Brown tell the largely misunderstood story of how freeways became the centerpiece of US urban transportation systems, and the crucial, though usually overlooked, role of fiscal politics in bringing freeways about.

Romantic sparks fly when a fiercely independent woman who has cast-iron plans for her life and an eligible bachelor who’s rarely seen without a beautiful lady on his arm, clash in a fateful meeting in this 1950s sweet Southern romance. Joanna Gardner’s past disturbs her every waking moment. Only her painting soothes her unrest, and there, she submerges herself, shutting out all social interactions. Until Junior Neale enters her life. When the respected lawyer Junior Neale first meets Joanna, he is rendered almost speechless, and all those other women’s charms fade away. But then he ...

A sweeping history of one of the nation’s most important African American churches and a profound story of courage and grace amid the fight for racial justice.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN's The Big Idea: 150 Years of the Best and Worst Ideas in Modern Science goes beyond the headlines to present the passions, prejudice, and outrage that, from 1845 on, formed the ideas of modern science -- from the sublime to the ridiculous. This fascinating new book, based on SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN's wildly popular feature, "50, 100, and 150 Years Ago in Science Today", presents the often hilarious human aspect of science as well as a serious timetable of scientific discovery. **

In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large - 12 feet tall, 15 feet wide - had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for 11 generations. Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres.

Natalie Spencer was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives, she lacked a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as she threw at random, to right and left, was trivial and distracted. Yet, the dinner was an unimportant one. It had been given with an eye more to the menu than to the guest list, which was characteristic of Natalie's mental processes.

Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner were the new media moguls of their day. With their photographs they brought the Civil War - and all of its terrible suffering - into Northern living rooms. By the end of the war, they were locked in fierce competition. And when the biggest story of the century happened - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln - their paparazzi-like competition intensified.

In this survey of eighteenth and nineteenth century American drama, Tice L. Miller examines American plays written before a canon was established in American dramatic literature and provides analyses central to the culture that produced them. Entertaining the Nation evaluates plays in the early years of the republic, reveals shifts in taste from the classical to the contemporary in the 1840s and 1850s, and considers the increasing influence of realism at the end of the nineteenth century.

1943: Europe is at war - but neutral Ireland is isolated from the storm. In a sleepy coastal village south of Dublin, eighteen-year-old Aileen Sweeney meets soldier Niall O’Rourke at a dance, and the spark between them soon ignites a powerful love. But when Niall makes a life-changing and contentious decision, Aileen’s hopes and dreams fall apart. In an instant Niall is transformed from dashing suitor to social outcast, and the fallout leaves each of them navigating the consequences alone. Putting her innocence behind her, Aileen must make her own tough choices.

Today the United States considers immigration a federal matter. Yet, despite America's reputation as a "nation of immigrants," the Constitution is silent on the admission, exclusion, and expulsion of foreigners. Before the Civil War, the federal government played virtually no role in regulating immigration. Offering an original interpretation of nineteenth-century America, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic argues that the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery were central to the emergence of a national immigration policy.

Barbara Kreiger's intriguing narrative presents the account of Clorinda Minor, a charismatic American Christian woman whose belief in the second coming prompted her to leave a comfortable life in Philadelphia in 1851 and take up agriculture in Palestine.

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Americans underwent a dramatic transformation in self-conception: having formerly lived as individuals or members of small communities, they now found themselves living in networks, which arose out of scientific and technological innovations.