Product Description
Adolfo Rodriguez was the only son of a Cuban farmer, who lived nine miles outside of Santa Clara, beyond the hills that surround that city to the north.

When the revolution in Cuba broke out young Rodriguez joined the insurgents, leaving his father and mother and two sisters at the farm.
... Read more

Product Description
When the oppressive Marxist-Leninst dictatorship of the Derg collapsed in 1991, there was hope that a new era might begin for a democratic Ethiopia. However, backed by the United States, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Front established a government that would not share power. Instead of a transition to democracy, the EPRF denied opposition parties meaningful participation in elections, violated human rights, and intensified ethnic distrust among the people. According to critics, repressions of the government are on a scale equivalent to those of the world's worst dictatorships. Vestal examines the plight of the Ethiopian people and counters questionable government pronouncements. He concludes with suggestions for a revised U.S. policy toward Ethiopia and for peaceful negotiations between the government and its political opposition to develop a more democratic approach. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

BOOK REVIEW
IT IS AN EXCELLENT AND EDUCATIONAL BOOK. WELL ANALYSED AND UNBIASED. IT MUST BE READ BY ALL ETHIOPIANS AND THE US STATE DEPT. OFFICIALS. DO YOU HAVE A PLAN TO HAVE IT PRINTED INPAPER PACK SO THAT MANY ETHIOPIANS CANBUY THE BOOK AT A CHEAPER PRICE?

BOOK REVIEW
IT IS AN EXCELLENT AND EDUCATIONAL BOOK. WELL ANALYSED AND UNBIASED. IT MUST BE READ BY ALL ETHIOPIANS AND THE US STATE DEPT. OFFICIALS. DO YOU HAVE A PLAN TO HAVE IT PRINTED INPAPER PACK SO THAT MANY ETHIOPIANS CANBUY THE BOOK AT A CHEAPER PRICE? ... Read more

Product Description

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, anddanger into the life of every American.In this groundbreaking history, Carol Berkinshows us how women played a vital role throughout the conflict.

The women of theRevolution were most active at home, organizing boycotts of British goods, raisingfunds for the fledgling nation, and managing the family business while strugglingto maintain a modicum of normalcy as husbands, brothers and fathers died. Yet Berkinalso reveals that it was not just the men who fought on the front lines, as in thestory of Margaret Corbin, who was crippled for life when she took her husband’s placebeside a cannon at Fort Monmouth.This incisive and comprehensive history illuminatesa fascinating and unknown side of the struggle for American independence.

Customer Reviews (10)

Well-rounded and wonderful history of the female strength.
This book caught my eye as I was browsing through the History section of B & N. I picked it up and read the first 20 pages and bought it. It is a collection of factual accounts written and witnessed by women and men from the dawn of our country. It will be a book I take out over the years again and again. Probably a book I teach from, too. England and others countries have so much more respect for women at this timeframe. The way the Colonials treated women was detrimental to generations after them and undeserving. Even the Native Americans thought the men pushing out the women for meetings and voting purposes were denying themselves the entire point of views those women would have provided. The book does get a bit dry and boring in some places where the author feels the need to reiterate material for the sake of factual proof. This would, however, make a great PBS short using various stories.

Good read
This book is short and too the point.It highlights womens role in history, something that is not done often.It is done in a way that is short and to the point so that people will read the whole book and not quit halfway through.If you are interested in the role women have played in the history of the United States this is a good choice.

A great point of view
This is a very short and easy read.It is well worth the time although I would recommend renting it rather than purchasing it.

I enjoyed reading a book told by a different point of view.

I can only hope others follow up focusing on other specific ways for which people contributed to the Revolution: children, elders, teenagers, the educated, the uneducated, loyalists, libertarian, etc.

Entertaining and Informing
Carol Berkin provides an extraordinary depiction of women of the American Revolution, in her book Revolutionary Mothers.Not only does she write about women supporting the war, but she also writes about the lives of women, and the events that followed, after they claimed support for the British.She even provides entire chapters to the lives of Indian and African American women.The book is an easy read, but is fascinating the entire time.

One may ask while reading this book, "Does Berikin really justify the magnitude of the women's role in the American Revolution?"I would say abosolutely she does.She revives vivid accounts of women's experiences in the war.One such woman is Abigail Adams.Berkin includes a letter of Adams, saying that she witnessed a merchant who refused to sell coffee at a reasonable price and how a band of women seized the merchant's warehouse and took the coffee. (Berkin, 32)

Berkin makes another justified argument when she writes of how women, before the war had begun, shouldered the burden of many of the reforms passed and protested themselves.When the call went out to boycott British goods, women were then not expected to be consumers anymore but rather transform into producers.According to Berkin, they succeeded admirably.

I recommend this book to anyone who was like myself.I understood women played an important part during the American Revolution, but I never fully understood what exactly was they did.Berkin fills the blanks in perfectly.

Every woman should read this
Carol Berkin has written a book so interesting that I can cite the women's names and tell their stories to my friends.An outstanding author who has the ability to bring real women of the past into the present by describing the lives and the actions of these women.I've since ordered Berkin's other books.I've recommended this book to all my friends.The creativity and persistence of women to survive and lead productive, heroine lives out of the most extreme of situations amazes me. ... Read more

Product Description

The Revolutionary War is ordinarily presented as a conflict exclusively between colonists and the British, fought along the northern Atlantic seacoast. This important work recounts the tragic events on the forgotten Western front of the American Revolution—a war fought against and ultimately won by Native America. The Natives, primarily the Iroquois League and the Ohio Union, are erroneously presented in history texts as allies (or lackeys) of the British, but Native America was working from its own internally generated agenda: to prevent settlers from invading the Old Northwest. Native America won the war in the West, holding the land west and north of the Allegheny-Ohio River systems. While the British may have awarded these lands to the colonists in the Treaty of Paris, the Native Americans did not concur.

Throughout the war, the unwavering goal of the Revolutionary Army, under George Washington, and their associated settler militias was to break the power of the Iroquois League, which had successfully held off invasion for the preceding two centuries, and the newly formed Ohio Union. To destroy the Natives in the way of land seizure, Washington authorized a series of rampages intended to destroy the League and the Union by starvation. Food, livestock, homes, and trees were destroyed, first in the New York breadbaskets, then in the Ohio granaries—spreading famine across Native lands. Uncounted thousands of Natives perished from New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio. This book tells how, in the wake of the massive assaults, the Natives held back the American onslaught.

Customer Reviews (1)

MY NEW BOOK
An excellent book. Very well researched. The thesis is convincingly confirmed. I would recommend to students and colleagues. ... Read more

Product Description
Offering an interpretation of the Revolutionary period that places women at the center, Joan R. Gundersen provides a synthesis of the scholarship on women's experiences during the era as well as a nuanced understanding that moves beyond a view of the war as either a "golden age" or a disaster for women. Gundersen argues that women's lives varied greatly depending on race and class, but all women had to work within shifting parameters that enabled opportunities for some while constraining opportunities for others.

Three generations of women in three households personalize these changes: Elizabeth Dutoy Porter, member of the small-planter class whose Virginia household included an African American enslaved woman named Peg; Deborah Franklin, common-law wife of the prosperous revolutionary, Benjamin; and Margaret Brant, matriarch of a prominent Mohawk family who sided with the British during the war. This edition incorporates substantial revisions in the text and the notes to take into account the scholarship that has appeared since the book's original publication in 1996. ... Read more

Product Description
This remarkable collection of letters offers an intimate view of our nation’s most challenging era, and a refreshingly personal portrait of a woman in the White House dedicated to aiding the less fortunate. Dear Mrs. Roosevelt is history from the grassroots and a testament to Eleanor Roosevelt’s influence on the American consciousness and her effectiveness in catalyzing social change. Often addressed as "Mrs. President," Eleanor Roosevelt daily received hundreds of letters during her fourteen years as First Lady, and often responded by using the instruments of government to aid her correspondents. Historian Cathy Knepper has selected nearly two hundred of these letters, with many of Mrs. Roosevelt’s replies, to tell the story of the Greatest Generation in its own words. The letters come from those impoverished during the Depression, the elderly in search of a pension program, blacks suffering the effects of racism, toilers in the New Deal, and mothers of soldiers during World War II. They transport readers to Oklahoma families forced to abandon their farms, mothers dealing with the blight of urban poverty, soldiers in Europe worried about their families at home, and servicemen in the Pacific desperate for a break from long years of war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Poignant letters to a great human rights activist
The letters are published with all the misspellings and grammatical mistakes intact, which make them all the more sincere and poignant.They give a very human understanding of the cataclysmic events in the world and specifically the U.S. during the years of the Great Depression and World War II.They also, of course, give powerful testimony to the almost worshipful admiration that ordinary people had for the extraordinary Eleanor Roosevelt.

An intruiging look into history, from real people
A country with problems - from the Great Depression to war - is reflected by these letters to Eleanor Roosevelt.The First Lady became a sounding board for the country's ills at that time, while Americans, and others, vented their sometimes heartbreaking concerns.Eleanor Roosevelt listened with open ears and answered with compassion and caring, understanding the pulse of the common American citizen, as has no First Lady since.At a time when Americans were in need, Mrs. Roosevelt used her influence to effect change.

Dr. Knepper paints a captivating picture of that history. Her next book should be a follow-up on some of the folks whose letters are included in this rich collection - how did they fare?

an important reminder
In these days of conflicting priorities and overwhelming crises, Dr. Knepper's book reminds us that people have overcome much more difficult odds than we face at present.The letters she has chosen to reprint depict poignant and harrowing situations.It reminds us that all Americans have been pioneers. In a charming touch, each letter is faithfully copied which makes you "hear" the accent in which it was written.This book begs to be performed with a series of actors reading the letters on a stage. Fans of Ken Burns would love this book.
Of course, it also portraits Eleanor Roosevelt in the way she shone best: through her actions.When faced with so many letters carrying pleas for help, she had to say no to so many of them that you almost feel her compulsion to act when she could do so. The greatest impact this book had on me was in reminding me that any action toward the good of others counts, even when there are so many issues to address. I plan to reread this book often.

A touching picture of the depression and war years
This remarkable collection of letters spans the FDR presidency and gives remarkable insight into Eleanor Roosevelt's personal experiences as first lady and her interactions with government agencies. The letters were well chosen to illustrate the hard times during the depression and war years and the desperate condition of many Americans. Each section is introduced by well written overview of the circumstances that confronted Mrs. Roosevelt as well as the letter writers. A very interesting and touching picture of this era. ... Read more

Product Description
Beginning with an extensive overview essay of the period, this book focuses on 26 pressing issues of the war and the early republic. Each issue is presented with an introductory essay and multiple primary documents from the newspapers of the day, which illustrate both sides of the debate. This is a perfect resource for students interested in the Revolutionary War, the birth of the new nation, and the actual opinions and words of those involved. ... Read more

Product Description
This book examines the military organization, strategy, and tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN guerrillas during their efforts to overthrow the government. It is largely based on the authors' personal collections of guerrilla documents captured in the war, interviews with former and captured guerrillas, and personal combat experience during one of the fiercest wars fought in the Western hemisphere in the 20th century. The book describes the guerrilla tactics from a technical point of view, and their evolution during the war in El Salvador. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

informative yes but too bias
I found this book very informative and well set out, however I found it way too bias. Its funny how the writers try over and over to justify why the death squads in El Salvador had no choice but to use heavy handed techniques and at the same time blamingit on the FMLN. I think this book is very informative if one is to ignore their political agenda.
I give it 3 out of 5 because no one else seems to have any information on this subject.
So yeah I would recommend this book perhaps with a bit of caution on its political biasness.

Superb study of an effective insurgency
This is the best study of the strategy and tactics of one of the most effective, albeit unsuccessful, modern guerrilla movements. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) was a tough fighting force with a brilliant political warfare component.

I spent a lot of time in El Salvador during the war to help the Salvadoran army and saw the FMLN firsthand, and can verify many of the book's findings from my own experiences in the field. The FMLN was a worthy opponent, and well deserving of respect and serious academic study. Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte and David Spencer have faithfully and incisively dissected how the FMLN operated, and they draw lessons to apply to future conflicts.

This book is to the FMLN what Douglas Pike's landmark book "Vietcong" (MIT Press, 1966) was to the North Vietnamese-run insurgency in South Vietnam. Spencer's companion volume, "From Vietnam to El Salvador: The Saga of FMLN Sappers and Other Guerrilla Special Forces in Latin America" (1996) rounds out the most complete picture yet, in English, of the once-formidable guerrilla group.

This guy wanna make a quick buck with a book of this kind...
This is a well writen book clearly because the author did hired a good editor. But how will this guy really know the FMLN strategies when he hasn't been part of FMLN. The beutiful words used in this book and the so called documetation and interviews are not reason enough to become an expert in the matter. He just want to make some money out of this. Stay away from this book, many inocent people was murdered for this guys (and I'm talking about the salvadorean army).

Freedom kept by ballotAND bullet...
I truly enjoyed reading this book! It has GREAT information concerning the weapons and tactics in this terrible war without being too political. Rare is a book about the War in El Salvador that doesn't have some kind of political spin, Left or Right. The author keeps it real by explaining in great detail tactics, weapons, and order of battle, of the Communist insurgents. It also has information about who TRULY armed the FMLN. It's intersting to know that the FMLN had American M-16 rifles BEFORE the Salvadoran military did!! I also enjoyed Mr. Bracamonte's attention to detail concerning the small,everyday events in the FMLN battlefield, particularly about the unforseen role of most FMLN female radio operators... I believe it is a great book to get if you are intrested in the actual battelfield events during the civil war in El Salvador. In my opinion, it proves that the FMLN was better off as a political organization, without resorting to violence and how a PR defeciant Salvadoran Army managed to grab victory from the jaws of defeat.The Salvadoran people have Democracy today because they refused to be intimidated by the FMLN and voted. Freedom was kept by the ballot AND the bullet. In conclusion, GREAT book!!!!!!

Largely ignores the real reasons of the conflict
This book is a very good at describing the strategies and tatics of the Salvadoran FMLN freedom fighters, but it ignores the real reasons why Salvadorans had no choice but to fight the government. They blame it on 'communist aggression', but this was a civil revolution; these were people who had been denied their right of self-determination as peoples through democratic elections. If Salvadorans wanted communism, so be it: it's their right and duty as peoples to determine their own political, social, and economic future. The authors weakly defend the small elite class that violated non-deregable human rights through state terrorism for centuries. If you choose to read this book, read it along with: Revolution in El Salvador by Tommie Sue Montgomery. ... Read more

Product Description
At the start of the new millennium, Americans look out on the world triumphant in our political and religious freedom, the power of our armed services, the wealth of our businesses, and the dominance of our language and ideals.It is no exaggeration to say that for the past two centuries Anglo-America has dominated world politics and transformed global culture.

In his revealing new book, THE COUSINS' WARS: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America, author Kevin Phillips explores and identifies the powerful relationship between religion, politics, and warfare that turned a small Tudor kingdom into a hegemonic global community.Sure to spark a widespread debate on our nation's place in world history, Phillips asserts that the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War forged religious, political, and cultural alignments critical to the emergence of imperial Britain and the "American Century."

THE COUSINS' WARS describes the struggle, over three centuries, between two competing religious, political, and commercial ideologies.The winning side, in the broader sweep of all three conflicts, had its roots in the Puritan and dissenting Protestant southeast of seventeenth-century England and then, across the Atlantic, in the Yankee offspring of that Englandthe New England of the 1770s and the Greater New England that stretched from Boston west through New York and the Great Lakes states in the 1860s.

Phillips marshals overwhelming evidence that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries religious differences determined political alignment, and religious revivals and divisions were central to the loyalties and causes of each civil war.War shaped U.S. politics from the beginning.Other new presentations, conclusions and examinations include:

Religions central role in U.S. politics from the seventeenth century onwards;

War by war: the strong imprint on U.S politics and culture through the mid-twentieth centurywhich is now fading;

Details on the particular crippling impact of the eighteen and nineteenth century internal wars and subsequent North-South agreements on black culture in the United States;

The whys of calling the three combats "cousins wars," given the family resemblance of their internal divisions within the English-speaking community and their inevitable effects on both sides of the Atlantic;

The decisive importance of the English-speaking communitys split in 1776into aristocratic Britain which would dominate the imperial nineteenth century and the egalitarian U.S. which would shape the twentieth century;

An unprecedented analysis of Anglo-Americas first three emerging republican majorities:the brief English Puritan one of the mid-seventeenth century, the first lasting republican majority of the Revolution, and the first Republican (party) majority of the 1860s;

How Anglo-America reached the Millenium as the strongest politico-linguistic culture since Rome; and its uncertain prospects from here.

As part of his exciting new explanation for the two hundred-year dominance of Anglo-America, Phillips also explores the cultural changes that profoundly affected the English and American wars.Phillips is meticulous as he assesses the impact of Irish and German immigration, Protestant-Catholic rivalry, the rapid rise of Lincoln and the Republican party, and the all-important growth of tolerance and ecumenicalism.THE COUSINS' WARS gives the broad outline of English and American wartime strategies, as well as tantalizing "what if?" moments. Phillips makes it clear that our history has often hung in the balance, and it was often the new nation's religious dynamism that catalyzed the victorious forces.

THE COUSINS' WARS also includes two dozen detailed maps, some showing patterns and phenomena never before mapped, and thanks to Phillips' attention to detail, readers can easily trace the geography of nearly four hundred years of ethnic, cultural, political, and wartime upheaval.

Kevin Phillips is widely regarded as one of America's foremost political historians. As he recounts the dramatic religious and political conflicts that brought us together as a nation, it becomes apparent that many of the forces that rip and tear at today's social fabric have roots stretching back over four hundred years. Whether Anglo-America continues as the world's most powerful political and cultural force may depend upon how well we learn the lessons of the "Cousins' Wars."Amazon.com Review
Political commentator Kevin Phillips (author of the 1991bestseller The Politics of Rich and Poor) takes a break fromanalyzing the latest election returns with this sweeping history ofAnglo-American exceptionalism.How did the political culture ofAnglo-America rise "from a small Tudor kingdom to a global communityand world hegemony"? asks Phillips. His answer comes in the course ofstudying three wars--the English Civil War, the American Revolution,and the U.S. Civil War. Phillips does not examine the military historyof these conflicts, looking instead at the political, religious,economic, and sectional interests that shaped them. He makes severaleye-opening observations, comparing, for instance, a "state-by-stateportrait of which counties, towns, districts, or regions were loyal"during the American Revolution to "ethnoreligious maps of themodern-day Balkans." This is a hefty book (over 600 pages, notincluding appendices and footnotes), and while Phillips's preface is abit self-absorbed, admirers of David Landes's The Wealth andPoverty of Nations and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, andSteel will find much to like between its covers.--JohnJ. Miller ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Thought Provoking
You need to invest time and attention into this probing book, which does not read like a breezy work of popular history, but the nearly county-by-county analysis of historical trends hits home.

was in gr8 condition...it was like i wnt 2 store n bought it :)
was very happy wth the book...like i said in gr8 condition (brand new lookin....like it came right from a store :))

A fresh perspective
Kevin Phillips argues that the English Civil War, the American Revolutionary War and the U.S. Civil War were all battles in the same civil war. Roundheads versus Cavaliers, merchants versus nobles, Yankees versus Virginians, Whigs versus Tories, North versus South, the names might change but the opponents were essentially the same. According to Phillips, the origins of the struggles lay in geographic, religious, and socio-economic divisions in England.

On the one side were East Anglian Puritans, low church protestant tradesmen and merchants, both those who stayed in England and those who emigrated to New England. On the other side were the bishops, high church Anglicans, aristocrats, and other loyalists, including lower-class footsoldiers from the northern border regions of England who migrated to the inland, mountainous regions of the South and mid-Atlantic North America, while their upper-class allies became the Virginian colonial elite.

The freshness of Phillips's thesis for an American audience comes from his attention to the English Civil War of the mid-seventeenth century. From that perspective, the main conflict of the Revolutionary War was not between Britain and the United States, but between old enemies that cut across national boundaries within the English-speaking world. Then, following that conflict through the U.S. Civil War give a fresh perspective on a war that is in need of one.

Phillips concludes that the outcome of the three struggles led to Anglo American world dominance. It is a sympathetic account, as Phillips clearly approves of Anglo dominance, but the book is worth reading even for those who don't.

The best book on American history i have ever read
This is an amazing book, written, not by a formal scholar, but someone who made history himself, through his political activism for the Republican party in the late 60s. Kevin Phillips has clearly developed intellectually since then. Reading this book, and especially his subsequent "American Theocracy", makes me wonder whether he now understands the words of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity".

There is an absolute wealth of detail in this book, covering both Britain and America from 1640-1865, which demonstrates that the US History course I took in a New Jersey high school in 1972 was, in many ways, a litany of untruth. Specifically, in school I did not learn:
That, during the revolutionary war, Toryism was so strong in the mid Atlantic states (see pages 194-219),
That support in Britain for American independence was so high, or so important in securing victory for the patriots (pp 296-300),
Anything about a middle ground in the lead up to or during the Civil War, particularly the ambivalent attitudes of the northern Scotch-Irish and German and Irish immigrants to Negroes and slavery, let alone about anti-draft riots in New York City in July 1863 (pp 415-440),
That the German ancestry population of America was so huge or influential (see map on page 565),
That the Irish ancestry population was so widespread or so Protestant (map page 575),
That religion, especially the Second Great Awakening, was so important in generating the impulse to war.

After finishing the book, I found myself pondering a number of questions. Perhaps the most important are:
Are German-Americans still more cautious about war than Yankees? But, if so, why did Iowa vote for Bush in 2004, having voted for Gore in 2000?
If the "culture wars" between the "Greater South" and "Greater New England" persist, will there, some day, be a fourth cousins' war with actual shooting? Will the USA ever split up?
What effect will completely new people (Hispanics, Muslims, East Asians) in America have on the dynamic of the cousins' relationship?

Repetitive and long-winded, but useful
Cousins' Wars looks at American History from an often-overlooked angle, which is as an extension of British civilization.From this point of departure, Kevin Phillips traces the migration of British political divisions across the Atlantic, and into the foundations of American history. His thesis, that the American Revolution and the U.S. Civil War were, in essence, later installments of the English Civil War, is both interesting and persuasive.I also liked his in-depth analysis of British public opinion toward the American Revolution and Civil War, and how it closely mirrored the alignments of the English Civil War.Finally, I think that Mr. Phillips goes to great lengths to show how seriously divided the United States was between gaining independence and the Civil War.This last fact has often been kicked to the side in favor of a simple North vs. South division that neglects many significant exceptions.

On a critical note, I think that Mr. Phillips often repeats the same themes and facts over and over, leading to some quick page-turning at certain points.Moreover, he takes on a lot of tangential subjects that he should include in a separate book.This book could have had fewer pages without giving up its quality. ... Read more

Product Description
Introduction by Robert W. Stallman ... Read more

Customer Reviews (316)

The Red Badge of Courage shows the horrors of war through the eyes of a young Civil War recruit
Stephen Crane (1871-1900) lived a short life but managed to write the classic of Civil War combat in his 1895
masterpiece "The Red Badge of Courage."
The story shows us the sights, sounds, smells and horror of the battle through the eyes of Henry Fleming. Henry is a farm lad from New York who has left behind a mother who laments his leaving for the army. On the first day of battle the boy runs away but he later redeems himself with heroism under fire. Irony reigns as he is hit on the head by a fleeing soldier! The wound from that blow is his red badge of courage!His best friend in the regiment Jim Conklin is killed by a horrific wound. Henry survives the battle. The short novel shows us the cruelty of war. Soldiers are merely pawns while the heavens look on with indifference to the plight of suffering humanity. Crane believed in social darwinism; the world is a harsh place where only the strong and lucky survive. Crane was the son of a New Jersey Methodist minister but his universe is godless.
This masterpiece of American literature was praised by Ernest Hemingway and filmed by John Huston with war hero Audie Murphy in the role of Henry Fleming. It is an essential of war fiction and a brutal look at warfare.
Other stories are included in this Penguin Edition:
1. The Veteran-this short story records the death of the aged Henry Fleming. He is living on a farm and dies in an attempt to save his ponies when his barn burns to the ground. The story says the battle Henry was involved in during the Civil War was Chancellorsville.
2. The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky tells of a lawman who has returned to a Western town with a wife. Gunman Scratchy Wilson refuses to fight lawman Potter as the story concludes.
3. The Blue Hotel revolves around a cheating at cards incident in a Western town in Nebraska.
4. A Self Made Man is a parody of a Horatio Alger Story.
5. The Open Boat is a tale of survival. A captain, cook, oiler and journalist are castaways from a sinking boat off the Florida coast. They must work together to survive against the backdrop of uncaring and indifferent nature.

Apocalypse Then
Stephen Crane's best-known work remains singularly powerful more than a century after publication, a remarkably vivid acid-trip-like ride told in a grippingly naturalistic way. The product of a man in his mid-20s who had never been closer to war than military school and veteran's parades, "Red Badge Of Courage" captures both the lulls and terrors of combat as experienced in the Civil War.

Henry Fleming is a young man newly recruited to the Union cause. When his regiment, the 304th New York, is put on the front line, the youth recoils from a strong Confederate attack and finds himself wandering the broken hinterlands of the battlefield. As the war around him continues, another war goes on inside Henry as he tries to convince himself he is not a coward. But only battle will restore his sense of self.

The edition I read is billed as the "only complete edition", from Crane's original manuscript. People who complain that the later final edition is too purple for its own good would probably dislike this even more. There's more of Fleming's internal struggle, and more adjectives. Certainly editing had its advantages. I don't think one of "Red Badge's" most famous lines benefits from the adjective "fierce", as in "The red sun was pasted in the sky like a fierce wafer."

But there are compensatory benefits to this editions. While narrating Henry's various self-justifications for his running away from battle, some of which have a ring of meretricious substance about them, there is this nice line, excised from the final text: "...he peers into the core of things and sees that the judgment of man is thistle-down in wind".

Editor Henry Binder overstates how much of the editing was to the novel's detriment, arguing that it obscures Crane's message of Fleming as a badly-flawed character only made worse after answering Mars' call to duty at last. Fleming doesn't strike me as guilty of more than being a kid in a tricky situation, out on his own for the first time in the most testing of circumstances. I've never been to war, but I identified with the highly vivid journey of self-discovery Henry takes. It's to Crane's credit he keeps so much of Fleming under the table, even barely referencing him by name. That way he becomes an everyman, and a reader surrogate.

What kind of takeaway does Crane desire from his readers? Was it, to echo a title of a later Crane poem, that "War is kind"? "He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion," Crane writes of Fleming. "Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy."

Yet you also get vividly horrific descriptions of dead bodies reeking in the sun, and senseless death and suffering.

Ultimately Crane probably saw war as a natural byproduct of humanity and an uncaring universe, neither good nor bad. It's a limited philosophical construct, perhaps, but one that "Red Badge" makes a case for in bold, unforgettable hues.

Inspiring
I wasn't expecting to enjoy this much but I did.I found it gripping. I have never been involved in a war but for what its worth, I found this the most convincing account of being in a battle I have ever read.The only other thing I have seen which gives the same feel is Clint Eastwood's film about Iwo Jima.

I liked the way Crane describes the swirling and shifting thoughts of a young man under extreme stress, in a group of many others in the same state.

It shows how, if one is lucky enough to survive, war can mature a person almost overnight.

Essential American Classic
The Red Badge of Courage is Stephen Crane's most famous work and generally considered his masterpiece. I am a major Crane fan and think him one of America's greatest writers but believe Red is inferior to his short stories. However, it is still significant and enjoyable. A true classic, it is highly recommended for fans of realism, naturalism, and Crane as well as Civil War buffs.

It is rightly revered as an accurate, compelling Civil War story but is not what most will expect. No epic war tale, it is in fact very short and goes into detail about only one battle. However, Civil War veterans marveled at how stunningly and movingly well Crane conveyed what the war was really like, specifically his focus on the human element all too often missing in histories. Time has if anything only increased admiration of this angle. This is all the more remarkable in that Crane was born after the war and had no battle experience; his ability to get inside soldiers' heads and vividly recreate their world - one so unimaginable to nearly everyone - is truly incredible. All this of course gives significant historical value.

Perhaps even more impressive is that Red revolutionized war's literary portrayal. It has no glorious, hard fought battles or conventional mighty heroes; appeals to masculinity, strength, and other primal urges ubiquitous since Homer are notably absent. Crane shows what war is really like for the average soldier:scary, surreal, and immensely intimidating. Henry Fleming, the protagonist, bit off far more than he could proverbially chew just like millions and millions of soldiers throughout history. The book details his pained, uncertain journey; the vague but very real fear, pressing doubts, and sheer cowardice consuming him are familiar to far more soldiers than will ever admit it. Red severely undercuts the ancient cliché of glorious war, depicting it as truly awful in every sense of the word. This did not become standard until after World War I, showing just how far ahead of his time Crane was as well as his immense eventual influence.

Yet, in the end, Fleming learns from his experiences, achieving a kind of courage and even glory at least as great in its way as - and in many ways far more real than - any illustrious soldier's in history or myth. The book is thus also a bildungsroman; Fleming moves from naïveté and ignorance to hard-won, if unconventionally gained, knowledge of humanity's and life's dark side. Crane's other work is far more piercing here, with Red focusing more on relatively positive and practical applications. Even so, the book was significantly far ahead of its time in this regard also, positing a complex view of identity and how it is influenced by environment and other factors. Despite brevity, simple prose, and a straight-forward story, Red is therefore one of the first truly modern novels.

I strongly urge anyone who likes this to read Crane's short stories, which have considerably more artistry and depth. However, this is a good entry point and a book that all Americans - as well as anyone else interested in its elements - should read for many reasons, not least its unflinching look at the dark side of the nation's darkest conflict.

A search for courage, meaning and justification
I will direct my review to "Red Badge", for the first two stories the gifted young writer wasted his prose on the pathetic lives of a couple suburban families; they were not very interesting, nor enriching.

Though in "Red Badge", Crane brought out uniquely beautiful and detailed prose with the characters written in the dialect of the day.He put more into this rather short story than a book ten times its size, though the momentum slowed the last quarter.The story is about a young soldier searching for courage, meaning and justification while fighting in a single battle during the Civil War.He was out to prove himself after running from his first skirmish.After receiving his wound (red badge of courage) he began to writhe in guilt in the way he received it.As time past he became cocky, and he fooled himself and others into believing a different battle tale.

Crane's style can add to your writing skills, though be wary, his "lostness" does radiate in his words.

Lord bless
Scott ... Read more

Product Description
In a certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the present to the future, and impart to it the significance of what may soon be a "portion and parcel" of our extremely forgetful past.

It is also in a supremely transitional moment: one might say that last year it was not quite what it is now, and next year it may be altogether different. In fact, our summer colony is in that happy hour when the rudeness of the first summer conditions has been left far behind, and vulgar luxury has not yet cumbrously succeeded to a sort of sylvan distinction.

The type of its simple and sufficing hospitalities is the seven-o'clock supper. Every one, in hotel or in cottage, dines between one and two, and no less scrupulously sups at seven, unless it is a few extremists who sup at half-past seven. At this function, which is our chief social event, it is 'de rigueur' for the men not to dress, and they come in any sort of sack or jacket or cutaway, letting the ladies make up the pomps which they forego. From this fact may be inferred the informality of the men's day-time attire; and the same note is sounded in the whole range of the cottage life, so that once a visitor from the world outside, who had been exasperated beyond endurance by the absence of form among us (if such an effect could be from a cause so negative), burst out with the reproach, "Oh, you make a fetish of your informality!"



Download The Confessions Of A Summer Colonist Now! ... Read more

Product Description
Much of what the British public knew about the American Revolution was learned through letters from readers published in the British press. Unlike contemporary letters to the editor, these letters were written by professional journalists and often exhibited some of the final prose of the 18th century. The "scribblers" used pseudonyms to make it possible for them to offer views that differed with the official government line.These letters, to six of the most influential British newspapers of the time, provide a unique look at how the British public viewed the American Revolution. The ebb and flow of public support of the war is well documented, as is the way the people reconciled themselves to the ultimate loss of the American colonies. Most clearly, the letters demonstrate that the British public were neither unanimous or consistent in their support of the Crown's efforts to defeat the American colonists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Were all the British happy with the war?
Far from it.Many were not happy with how the government was handling the war OR the fact there was a war.The book starts with a timeline of the events before and during the American Revolution AND a chapter dealing with the relationship between the press and the government.Then, after the foundation is poured the book starts to build up the case by dealing with how the public, via the letters in British newspapers, show their support or lack of support.They react to the American's petitions to the Crown for peace, the question of Peace or War, worries about trade, the French and the aftermath. Slightly over 200 pages and worth it.MUST for History lover or anybody interested in American Revolutions. ... Read more

Product Description
CHAPTER I.

Parentage and Childhood.

The Emigrant.--Crossing the Alleghanies.--The Boundless Wilderness.--The Hut on the Holston.--Life's Necessaries.--The Massacre.--Birth of David Crockett.--Peril of the Boys.--Anecdote.--Removal to Greenville; to Cove Creek.--Increased Emigration.--Loss of the Mill.--The Tavern.--Engagement with the Drover.--Adventures in the Wilderness.--Virtual Captivity.--The Escape.--The Return.--The Runaway.--New Adventures. . . . 7

CHAPTER II.

Youthful Adventures.

David at Gerardstown.--Trip to Baltimore.--Anecdotes.--He ships for London.--Disappointment.--Defrauded of his Wages.--Escapes.--New Adventures.--Crossing the River.--Returns Home.--His Reception.--A Farm Laborer.--Generosity to his Father.--Love Adventure.--The Wreck of his Hopes.--His School Education.--Second Love adventure.--Bitter Disappointment.--Life in the Backwoods.--Third Love Adventure. . . . 35



Download American Pioneers And Patriots Now!



... Read more

Product Description
Getting ready to tackle the AP U.S. History exam? AP U.S. History For Dummies is a practical, step-by-step guide that will help you perfect the skills and review the knowledge you need to achieve your best possible score! Discover how to identify what the questions are really asking and find out how to combine your history knowledge with context clues to craft thoughtful essays. Try your hand at two true-to-life AP exams, complete with detailed answer explanations and scoring guides.

You’ll find out how to put together a game plan, develop a study strategy, decode the Political – Economic – Social (PES) answer secret, and understand exactly what’s going to be on the stress. This easy-to-understand guide reviews all periods of U.S. history, from the country’s earliest inhabitants to the present day. Ease your mind on stress day and feel completely prepared by completing the two practice exams with answers and explanations. Find out how to:

• Prepare a study plan for the time leading up to the exam
• Decode your score and learn how to get the best score
• Put your knowledge to work
• Approach the different types of questions: multiple choice, document-based, and essay questions
• Navigate all exam topics, from the Native Americans to the present day
• Analyze and connect political, economic, and social themes
• Recognize trick words

Complete with lists of ten monster event topics AP wants you to know, ten unstoppable cultural trends, and ten key court decisions, AP U.S. History For Dummies will help you ace this test! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

One Happy Customer
Thank you.I was very happy when I received this book.It was like new and well-priced.

Great review though badly organized
I found this book to be very helpful when preparing for the AP US History exam. It was practically the only source I used the last two weeks before the test.However, I found its organization to be a bit illogical and somewhat confusing. Unlike most history books, this one does not seem to follow a linear timeline. It constantly jumps back and forth with dates.Most of the time this doesn't pose a huge inconvenience, but there were a few times when I felt a little unsure about the order in which events occurred.Besides chronology, I really did like this review book and would certainly recommend it.

a good review
Rather than trying to be a synopsis of a text, Velm captures the spirit and essence of each period covered as well as consistently helpful hints on test prep. It's kind of like having Alt. U.S. History version 2, the view from the left side of the fence.Entertaining as a stand alone 'read' even if you're not prepping for the test.

Well-written, comprehensive, engaging
I really enjoyed reading this book.It's not easy to make history come alive, especially with the looming threat of a major exam. This book doesn't just summarize facts that you might need for the exam.It takes the drudgery out of the exam review. I found myself forgetting that preparation for the exam was the focus and just enjoying the history that became truly compelling in this book. I really think that it would be helpful if this book were used in classrooms along with other methods of test prepration. It is comprehensive without ever being dull, and it's written with wit and compassion.If it's possible to take the stress out of preparation for an AP exam, this book accomplishes that task.
... Read more

Product Description
The most widely practiced and read form of verse in America, “elegies are poems about being left behind,” writes Max Cavitch. American Elegy is the history of a diverse people’s poetic experience of mourning and of mortality’s profound challenge to creative living. By telling this history in political, psychological, and aesthetic terms, American Elegy powerfully reconnects the study of early American poetry to the broadest currents of literary and cultural criticism.Cavitch begins by considering eighteenth-century elegists such as Franklin, Bradstreet, Mather, Wheatley, Freneau, and Annis Stockton, highlighting their defiance of boundaries—between public and private, male and female, rational and sentimental—and demonstrating how closely intertwined the work of mourning and the work of nationalism were in the revolutionary era. He then turns to elegy’s adaptations during the market-driven Jacksonian age, including more obliquely elegiac poems like those of William Cullen Bryant and the popular child elegies of Emerson, Lydia Sigourney, and others. Devoting unprecedented attention to the early African-American elegy, Cavitch discusses poems written by free blacks and slaves, as well as white abolitionists, seeing in them the development of an African-American genealogical imagination. In addition to a major new reading of Whitman’s great elegy for Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Cavitch takes up less familiar passages from Whitman as well as Melville’s and Lazarus’s poems following Lincoln’s death. American Elegy offers critical and often poignant insights into the place of mourning in American culture. Cavitch examines literary responses to historical events—such as the American Revolution, Native American removal, African-American slavery, and the Civil War—and illuminates the states of loss, hope, desire, and love in American studies today.Max Cavitch is assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. ... Read more

Product Description
The late insurrection in Southampton has greatly excited the public mind, and led to a thousand idle, exaggerated and mischievous reports. It is the first instance in our history of an open rebellion of the slaves, and attended with such atrocious circumstances of cruelty and destruction, as could not fail to leave a deep impression, not only upon the minds of the community where this fearful tragedy was wrought, but throughout every portion of our country, in which this population is to be found. Public curiosity has been on the stretch to understand the origin and progress of this dreadful conspiracy, and the motives which influences its diabolical actors. The insurgent slaves had all been destroyed, or apprehended, tried and executed, (with the exception of the leader,) without revealing any thing at all satisfactory, as to the motives which governed them, or the means by which they expected to accomplish their object. Every thing connected with this sad affair was wrapt in mystery, until Nat Turner, the leader of this ferocious band, whose name has resounded throughout our widely extended empire, was captured. This "great Bandit" was taken by a single individual, in a cave near the residence of his late owner, on Sunday, the thirtieth of October, without attempting to make the slightest resistance, and on the following day safely lodged in the jail of the County. His captor was Benjamin Phipps, armed with a shot gun well charged. Nat's only weapon was a small light sword which he immediately surrendered, and begged that his life might be spared. Since his confinement, by permission of the Jailor, I have had ready access to him, and finding that he was willing to make a full and free confession of the origin, progress and consummation of the insurrectory movements of the slaves of which he was the contriver and head; I determined for the gratification of public curiosity to commit his statements to writing, and publish them, with little or no variation, from his own words. That this is a faithful record of his confessions, the annexed certificate of the County Court of Southampton, will attest. They certainly bear one stamp of truth and sincerity. He makes no attempt (as all the other insurgents who were examined did,) to exculpate himself, but frankly acknowledges his full participation in all the guilt of the transaction. He was not only the contriver of the conspiracy, but gave the first blow towards its execution.



Download The Confessions Of Nat Turner Now! ... Read more

Product Description
A declaration by the representatives of the united colonies of North America, now met in Congress at Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms.

If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason to believe, that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the parliament of Great-Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them, has been granted to that body. But a reverance for our Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end. The legislature of Great-Britain, however, stimulated by an inordinate passion for a power not only unjustifiable, but which they know to be peculiarly reprobated by the very constitution of that kingdom, and desparate of success in any mode of contest, where regard should be had to truth, law, or right, have at length, deserting those, attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of enslaving these colonies by violence, and have thereby rendered it necessary for us to close with their last appeal from reason to arms. Yet, however blinded that assembly may be, by their intemperate rage for unlimited domination, so to sight justice and the opinion of mankind, we esteem ourselves bound by obligations of respect to the rest of the world, to make known the justice of our cause. Our forefathers, inhabitants of the island of Great-Britain, left their native land, to seek on these shores a residence for civil and religious freedom. At the expense of their blood, at the hazard of their fortunes, without the least charge to the country from which they removed, by unceasing labour, and an unconquerable spirit, they effected settlements in the distant and unhospitable wilds of America, then filled with numerous and warlike barbarians. -- Societies or governments, vested with perfect legislatures, were formed under charters from the crown, and an harmonious intercourse was established between the colonies and the kingdom from which they derived their origin. The mutual benefits of this union became in a short time so extraordinary, as to excite astonishment. It is universally confessed, that the amazing increase of the wealth, strength, and navigation of the realm, arose from this source; and the minister, who so wisely and successfully directed the measures of Great-BriDeclaration Of The Causes And Necessity Of Taking Up Arms - Varioustain in the late war, publicly declared, that these colonies enabled her to triumph over her enemies. --Towards the conclusion of that war, it pleased our sovereign to make a change in his counsels. -- From that fatal movement, the affairs of the British empire began to fall into confusion, and gradually sliding from the summit of glorious prosperity, to which they had been advanced by the virtues and abilities of one man, are at length distracted by the convulsions, that now shake it to its deepest foundations. -- The new ministry finding the brave foes of Britain, though frequently defeated, yet still contending, took up the unfortunate idea of granting them a hasty peace, and then subduing her faithful friends.

Download Declaration Of The Causes And Necessity Of Taking Up Arms Now! ... Read more

Product Description

Here in a beautifully bound cloth gift edition are the two founding documents of the United States of America: the Declaration of Independence (1776), our great revolutionary manifesto, and the Constitution (1787-88), in which “We the People” forged a new nation and built the framework for our federal republic. Together with the Bill of Rights and the Civil War amendments, these documents constitute what James Madison called our “political scriptures,” and have come to define us as a people. Now a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian serves as a guide to these texts, providing historical contexts and offering interpretive commentary.

In an introductory essay written for the general reader, Jack N. Rakove provides a narrative political account of how these documents came to be written. In his commentary on the Declaration of Independence, Rakove sets the historical context for a fuller appreciation of the important preamble and the list of charges leveled against the Crown. When he glosses the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the subsequent amendments, Rakove once again provides helpful historical background, targets language that has proven particularly difficult or controversial, and cites leading Supreme Court cases.A chronology of events provides a framework for understanding the road to Philadelphia. The general reader will not find a better, more helpful guide to our founding documents than Jack N. Rakove.

Customer Reviews (3)

Crackpot leftist view of the Constitution
As a leftist, Rakove predictably has a jaundiced view of the Constitution. He, like Obama and others of their ilk, finds the amazing document too restrictive for his taste, and approves of Justices finding in it whatever they wish.
For a balanced view of the meaning of the Consitution and the Amendments read Seth Lipsky's book instead.

Useful
This handsome volume contains the texts of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, all Constitutional amendments, annotations/commentary by the distinguished historian Jack Rakove, and a nice introductory essay.The bibliography is excellent.Rakove's introduction and comments provide the basic historical context and contemporary meanings of each component discussed and Rakove does well in providing important information while keeping the commentary brief.There is some reference to important legal history and Supreme Court decisions.Some aspects discussed by Rakove will be surprising to many readers, such as his emphasis on the Declaration as statement about national, rather than individual freedom.Rakove is not afraid of expressing his opinions on controversial subjects, which given his great knowledge of the subject, is welcome.In general, he is skeptical of dogmatic originialism.While you have to look in some of the footnotes, he directly attacks practices like the Reagan-BushII signing statements, which strike him as an effort to flout Presidential responsibilities.He is critical also of what he refers as the Court's recent "creation" of an individual right to bear arms.

Annotations help
It is important to understand fully the intent of authors of older texts, and well-researched annotations gives modern readers a better grasp of the original documents. ... Read more

Product Description
The facts about Franklin as a printer are simple and plain, but impressive. His father, respecting the boy's strong disinclination to become a tallow-chandler, selected the printer's trade for him, after giving him opportunities to see members of several different trades at their work, and considering the boy's own tastes and aptitudes.
... Read more

Product Description
In the Granary Burying Ground are the tombs of many whom history has gathered and recorded as her own. But history looks in vain among the blue-black slabs of semi-slate for the name of one who was greatest perhaps of them all; but whose last days were so strangely clouded and whose sepulchre was so obscure as to leave the world in doubt for more than a half century as to where the body of the great sleeper had been laid. Curiosity, whetted by patriotism, then discovered the spot. But the name of another was on the covering slab, and no small token was to be found indicative of the last resting place of the lightning-smitten body of James Otis, the prophetic giant of the pre-revolutionary days. He who had lived like one of the Homeric heroes, who had died like a Titan under a thunderbolt, and had been buried as obscurely as Richard the Lion Hearted, or Frederick Barbarossa, must lie neglected in an unknown tomb within a few rods of the spot where his eloquence aforetime had aroused his countrymen to national consciousness, and made a foreign tyranny forever impossible in that old Boston, the very name of which became henceforth the menace of kings and the synonym of liberty.

Tradition rather than history has preserved thus much. In the early part of the present century a row of great elms, known as the Paddock elms, stood in what is now the sidewalk on the west side of Tremont Street skirting the Granary Burying Ground. These trees were cut away and the first section of the burial space was invaded with the spade. Tomb No. 40, over which the iron railing now passes, was divided down as far as where the occupants are lying. Within the sepulchre were several bodies. One was the body of Nathaniel Cunningham, Sr. Another was Ruth Cunningham, his wife. The younger members of the family were also there in death.

When the lid of one coffin in this invaded tomb was lifted, it was found that a mass of the living roots of the old strong elm near by had twined about the skull of the sleeper, had entered through the apertures, and had eaten up the brain. It was the brain of James Otis which had given itself to the life of the elm and had been transformed into branch and leaf and blossom, thus breathing itself forth again into the free air and the Universal Flow.


Download James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist Now! ... Read more