Western United States

Key West, 1886. The booming cigar industry makes it the most prosperous city in Florida. As a rebel base for the anticolonial insurgency in Cuba, it’s also a tinderbox for six young friends with ambitious dreams. They all brim with secrets.

A transcript of the entire two-day presentation given by Robert Welch at the founding meeting of The John Birch Society in Indianapolis in December 1958. The background, methods, and purposes of The John Birch Society are set forth. It also includes a new introduction by JBS CEO Bill Hahn, reviewing some of Robert Welch’s predictions from the original manuscript, and Welch’s speech “The Truth in Time,” an overview of the national and world situation in 1966.

The revolutionary Ohio Valley is often depicted as a chaotic Hobbesian dystopia, in which Indians and colonists slaughtered each other at every turn. In Unsettling the West, Rob Harper overturns this familiar story. Rather than flailing in a morass, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley actively and persistently sought to establish a new political order that would affirm their land claims, protect them against attack, and promote trade.

Here is the most detailed and most engagingly narrated history to date of the legendary two-year facedown and shootout in Lincoln. Until now, New Mexico's late-19th-century Lincoln County War has served primarily as the backdrop for a succession of mythical renderings of Billy the Kid in American popular culture.

For more than a century, Apaches have kept alive the memory of their hero Lozen. This beautiful, valiant warrior and revered shaman fought alongside Geronimo, Cochise, and her own brother, Victorio, holding out against the armies of both the United States and Mexico. Lozen has known since childhood that the spirits have chosen her to defend Apache freedom. As the U.S. Army prepares to move her people to an Arizona reservation, Lozen forsakes marriage and motherhood to fight among the men.

The cowboy is an iconic figure in American culture. With his hat, boots, and trusty horse, the cowboy rides in at a moment of crisis to intervene against the forces of evil. In the 20th century, the cowboy of the Wild West took center stage in the realm of popular literature.

Chance Torn, U.S. Marshal based in San Francisco, is mixed up in the middle of a tough cattle rustling situation in the middle of Texas. He was assigned it due to his growing up on a cattle ranch. He had to fake it as an out of work cowhand and try to get hired on by the rustlers who seemed to be short handed. He got hired, and helped them rustle another three hundred head of market ready steers to go along with two hundred they had before. His big problem was how to stop this trail drive to the railroad cattle pens without getting himself shot full of holes by the twelve other riders and ...

Serving the shortest presidential term in American history, William Henry Harrison never had the opportunity to demonstrate his skills as the chief executive. -- Like Andrew Jackson, Harrison was elected largely on the basis of his reputation as an Indian fighter and a successful major general in the War of 1812. -- When Harrison ran for president in 1840, his campaign was like no other—parades, slogans, whiskey, and songs rallied the populace to come out and vote for the old frontiersman and war hero. -- In the presidential campaign, he carefully avoided taking a stand on important ...

When justice is for sale, what remains of democracy? This book delves into the values of democracy, examining the troubling influence of money in politics and exposing how wealth can distort the system, manipulate social doctrines, and silence the common voice. It challenges us to confront inconvenient truths: Is power slipping away from the people? Are special interests taking control? Has it ever been different in contemporary history? What, if anything, is new? Can we respond and move toward a more authentic system? Can we build a true democracy, beyond mere words that serve as façades ...

The English had long dreamed of colonizing America, especially after Sir Francis Drake brought home Spanish treasure and dramatic tales from his raids in the Caribbean. Ambitions of finding gold and planting a New World colony seemed within reach when, in 1606, Thomas Smythe extended overseas trade with the launch of the Virginia Company. But from the beginning the American enterprise was a disaster.

Cash McLendon, reluctant hero of the epic Indian battle at Adobe Walls, has journeyed to Mountain View in the Arizona Territory with one goal: to convince Gabrielle Tirrito that he's a changed man and win her back from schoolteacher Joe Saint. As they're about to depart by stage for their new life in San Francisco, Gabrielle is kidnapped by enforcer Killer Boots, who is working on orders from crooked St. Louis businessman Rupert Douglass.

The gruesome corpse of a young woman is found beside a long Montana highway called the Hi-Line. Her jaw and teeth are missing, and she is impossible to identify. Full of anger and without a clue, Du Pre begins to hunt the countryside for her murderer. As more dismembered corpses - all young women - are discovered, the small ranching community goes into shock.

During his life and even after his death, Captain William Kidd’s name was known around England and the American colonies. He was infamous for the very crime for which he was hanged, piracy. This book by Rebecca Simon dives into the details of the two-year manhunt for Captain Kidd and the events that ensued afterward. Captain Kidd was hanged in 1701, and from that sprung a massive hunt for all pirates led by the British during a period known as the Golden Age of Piracy. Ironically, public executions only led to pirates’ growth in popularity and interest.

In the minds of many Americans, the name of Jesse James and the Wild West are practically synonymous. Jesse James was a robber, a murderer, and a notorious outlaw, who carried as many weapons as he could. He could shoot with both hands while he held the reins of his horse in his teeth. He was an extremely popular man in his day, a phenomenon that he readily accepted because he was a person who craved attention.

At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier. In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier’s experience, giving voice to history in the making.

In The Dutch Moment, Wim Klooster shows how the Dutch built and eventually lost an Atlantic empire that stretched from the homeland in the United Provinces to the Hudson River and from Brazil and the Caribbean to the African Gold Coast. The fleets and armies that fought for the Dutch in the decades-long war against Spain included numerous foreigners, largely drawn from countries in northwestern Europe. Likewise, many settlers of Dutch colonies were born in other parts of Europe or the New World.

Jake Timber is a tortured man, repaying his debt to society for avenging the brutal murders of his wife and daughter. In his work as a special agent, tasked with ridding the territory of criminals, he takes no prisoners and gives no mercy. His job is to hunt down wanted men, asking no questions before delivering his own brand of justice through the barrel of a gun. While traveling through the territory, Timber finds himself in the middle of a turf war in the town of Heaven Brook, where he helps bring an end to the tyranny of two powerful men.

"No women need apply." These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West. Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor. Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, delivered generations of babies - and solidified a place for women in the medical field.

Roy Adkins, with his wife, Lesley, returns to the Napoleonic War in The War for All the Oceans, a gripping account of the naval struggle that lasted from 1798 to 1815, a period marked at the beginning by Napoleon's seizing power and at the end by the War of 1812. In this vivid and visceral account, Adkins draws on eyewitness records to portray not only the battles but also the details of a sailor's life: shipwrecks, press-gangs, prostitutes, spies, and prisoners of war.

From Craig Johnson, author of the acclaimed novel The Cold Dish, comes this enthralling Sheriff Walt Longmire mystery that received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. With a distinctive literary flair, Johnson leads us into the wide open space of Absaroka County, Wyoming. When an elderly local woman is found poisoned, Longmire begins an investigation that soon has him ensnared in a deadly spider's web.