Alexander II: the last great tsar

By Radzinskiĭ, Ėdvard

Publishing Date: c2005

Classification: 900

Call Number: 947.08 RAD

Alexander II was Russia's Lincoln, and the greatest reformer tsar since Peter the Great. He was also one of the most contradictory, and fascinating, of history's supreme leaders. He freed the serfs, yet launched vicious wars. He engaged in the sexual exploits of a royal Don Juan, yet fell profoundly in love. He ruled during the "Russian Renaissance" of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Turgenev -- yet his Russia became the birthplace of modern terrorism. His story could be that of one of Russia's greatest novels, yet it is true. It is also crucially important today.It is a tale that runs on parallel tracks. Alexander freed 23 million Russian slaves, reformed the justice system and the army, and very nearly became the father of Russia's first constitution and the man who led that nation into a new era of western-style liberalism. Yet it was during this feverish time that modern nihilism first arose. On the sidelines of Alexander's state dramas, a group of radical, disaffected young people first experimented with dynamite, and first began to use terrorism. Fueled by the writings of a few intellectuals and zealots, they built bombs, dug tunnels, and planned ambushes. They made no less than six unsuccessful attempts on Alexander's life. Finally, the parallel tracks joined, when a small cell of terrorists, living next door to Dostoevsky, built the fatal bomb that ended the life of the last great Tsar. It stopped Russian reform in its tracks.Edvard Radzinsky is justly famous as both a biographer and a dramatist, and he brings both skills to bear in this vivid, page-turning, rich portrait of one of the greatest of all Romanovs. Delving deep into the archives, he raises intriguing questions about the connections between Dostoevsky and the young terrorists, about the hidden romances of the Romanovs, and about the palace conspiracies that may have linked hard-line aristocrats with their nemesis, the young nihilists.Alexander's life proves the timeless lesson that in Russia, it is dangerous to start reforms, but even more dangerous to stop them. It also shows that the traps and dangers encountered in today's war on terrorists were there from the start. - (Simon and Schuster)

The Viking heart: how Scandinavians conquered the world

By Herman, Arthur

Publishing Date: 2021

Classification: 900

Call Number: 948.022 HER

"From a New York Times best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist, a sweeping epic of how the Vikings and their descendants have shaped history and America"--

The little book of the Icelanders: 50 miniature essays on the quirks and foibes of the Icelandic people

By Alda Sigmundsdóttir

Publishing Date: 2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 949.12 ALD

"After more than 20 years away, Alda Sigmundsdottir returned to her native Iceland as a foreigner. With a native person's insight yet an outsider's perspective, Alda quickly set about dissecting the national psyche of the Icelanders. Among the fascinating subjects broached in The Little Book of the Icelanders: The appalling driving habits of the Icelanders' naming conventions and custom, the Icelanders' profound fear of commitment, the irreverence of the Icelanders, why Icelandic women are really men, how the Icelanders manage to make social interactions really complicated, the importance of the family in Icelandic society, where to go to meet the real Icelanders (and possibly score some free financial advice), rituals associated with weddings, confirmations, graduations, and deaths ... and many, many more. One chapter leads to the next, creating a continuous chain of storytelling. It feels as if you're sitting in the author's kitchen, enjoying a cup of coffee and conversing with her about the quirks of her countrymen, every now and then bursting out laughing ..." ... amazon.com

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the epic story of the Taiping Civil War

By Platt, Stephen R

Publishing Date: 2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 951.034 PLA

This narrative history of China's nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion (which cost some twenty million lives) brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and sometimes gruesome battles, in a portrait of the largest civil war in history, a conflict that shaped the fate of modern China. The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus. After years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Here the author recounts these events in detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China's future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China's modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure. This is the history of the rise and fall of the movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China on an entirely different path into the modern world.

Flight: an Air America pilot's story of adventure, descent and redemption

By Hansen, Neil Graham

Publishing Date: [2018]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 959.7043 HAN

In 1964, I embarked on a journey that was to be my life's adventure. I hired on as a pilot for Air America and its clandestine operations in Southeast Asia. Flying for the CIA's secret airline was a dream come true. Air America's operations were unknown. Its schedules were irregular. Its pilots were shadow people. It was the world of spooks, covert air ops and adventure. I had already been a pilot for more than half of my life when I left my home in Detroit for the wild escapades that awaited me in Southeast Asia. Air America had been the pinnacle of my life and, had the trajectory remained steady, my world and my career should have gone onward and upward from that point. The intent of telling my story is to take the reader on an historical journey of a little-known place in time through my own personal account. Within the context of history, my narrative is not to be considered anything but my own experience. The ranks of Air America were comprised of a host of patriotic professionals who deserve a place of honor in the annals of history. However, many colorful characters wore the Air America wings, and inside the course of my narrative, the reader will be subjected to people and situations that cannot be filed neatly under anything resembling normal sanity. Most names, except those of a known or high-ranking or public nature, and those I wish to recognize for heroic performances, have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.

American revolutions: a continental history, 1750-1804

By Taylor, Alan

Publishing Date: [2016]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.3 TAY

The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history of the nation's founding. Rising out of the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, Taylor's Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain's mainland colonies, fueled by local conditions, destructive, hard to quell. Conflict ignited on the frontier, where settlers clamored to push west into Indian lands against British restrictions, and in the seaboard cities, where commercial elites mobilized riots and boycotts to resist British tax policies. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. Brutal guerrilla violence flared all along the frontier from New York to the Carolinas, fed by internal divisions as well as the clash with Britain. Taylor skillfully draws France, Spain, and native powers into a comprehensive narrative of the war that delivers the major battles, generals, and common soldiers with insight and power. With discord smoldering in the fragile new nation through the 1780s, nationalist leaders such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton sought to restrain unruly state democracies and consolidate power in a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of "We the People," the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. But their opponents prevailed in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, whose vision of a western "empire of liberty" aligned with the long-standing, expansive ambitions of frontier settlers. White settlement and black slavery spread west, setting the stage for a civil war that nearly destroyed the union created by the founders.

Founding fathers: the fight for freedom and the birth of American liberty

By Kostyal, K. M.

Publishing Date: [2014]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.3092 KOS

Kostyal tells the story of the great American heroes who created the Declaration of Independence, fought the American Revolution, shaped the US Constitution--and changed the world.

Bunker Hill: a city, a siege, a revolution

By Philbrick, Nathaniel

Publishing Date: [2013]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.3312 PHI

In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists. Philbrick gives us a fresh view of the story and its dynamic personalities, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and George Washington. With passion and insight, he reconstructs the revolutionary landscape—geographic and ideological—in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America. - (Penguin Putnam)

Betrayal: the final act of the Trump show

By Karl, Jonathan

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.933 KAR

As the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl tells the story of Trump's downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency. Packed with on-the-record interviews with central figures in this drama who are telling their stories for the first time, this is a definitive account of what was really going on during the final weeks and months of the Trump presidency-- and what it means for the future of the Republican Party. He has been taunted, praised, and vilified by Trump-- and now Karl finds himself in a singular position to deliver the truth. -- adapted from jacket

The divided ground: Indians, settlers and the northern borderland of the American Revolution

By Taylor, Alan

Publishing Date: 2006

Classification: 900

Call Number: 974.7004 TAY

The changing relationship of Joseph Brant, a young Mohawk, and Samuel Kirkland, the son of a colonial clergyman is set against the role of the Native American peoples in North America during the American Revolution.

Running with Roselle: how a blind boy and a puppy grew up, became best friends, and together survived one of America's darkest days

By Hingson, Michael

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 900

Call Number: 974.7104 HIN

Discover how blindness and a bond between dog and man saved lives and brought hope during one of America's darkest days.

The agitators: three friends who fought for abolition and women's rights

By Wickenden, Dorothy

Publishing Date: 2021

Classification: 900

Call Number: 974.768 WIC

"From the intimate perspective of three friends and neighbors in mid-nineteenth century Auburn, New York-the "agitators" of the title-acclaimed author Dorothy Wickenden tells the fascinating and crucially American stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad, the early women's rights movement, and the Civil War. Harriet Tubman-no-nonsense, funny, uncannily prescient, and strategically brilliant-was one of the most important conductors on the underground railroad and hid the enslaved men, women and children she rescued in the basement kitchens of Martha Wright, Quaker mother of seven, and Frances Seward, wife of Governor, then Senator, then Secretary of State William H. Seward. Harriet worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a river raid in which 750 enslaved people were freed from rice plantations. Martha, a "dangerous woman" in the eyes of her neighbors and a harsh critic of Lincoln's policy on slavery, organized women's rights and abolitionist conventions with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Frances gave freedom seekers money and referrals and aided in their education. The most conventional of the three friends, she hid her radicalism in public; behind the scenes, she argued strenuously with her husband about the urgency of immediate abolition. Many of the most prominent figures in the history books-Lincoln, Seward, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison-are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about women's roles and rights during the abolition crusade, emancipation, and the arming of Black troops; and about the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Beginning two decades before the Civil War, when Harriet Tubman was still enslaved and Martha and Frances were young women bound by law and tradition, The Agitators ends two decades after the war, in a radically changed United States. Wickenden brings this extraordinary period of our history to life through the richly detailed letters her characters wrote several times a week. Like Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals and David McCullough's John Adams, Wickenden's The Agitators is revelatory, riveting, and profoundly relevant to our own time"--

Twilight of the tenderfoot: a Western memoir

By Ackerman, Diane

Publishing Date: 1980

Classification: 900

Call Number: 978.924 ACK

Black fire: the true story of the original Tom Sawyer--and of the mysterious fires that baptized Gold Rush-era San Francisco

By Graysmith, Robert

Publishing Date: [2013], ©2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 979.4 GRA

The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer, told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco. When San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. He learned that Sawyer was a volunteer firefighter, local hero, and a former “Torch Boy,” racing ahead of hand-drawn fire engines at night carrying torches to light the way. When a mysterious serial arsonist known as “The Lightkeeper” was in the process of burning San Francisco to the ground, Sawyer played a key role in stopping him, helping to contain what is now considered the most disastrous and costly series of fires ever experienced by an American metropolis. By chronicling how Sawyer took it upon himself to investigate, expose, and stop the arsonist, Black Fire details Sawyer’s remarkable life and illustrates why Twain would later feel compelled to name his iconic character after him when writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. A vivid portrayal of the gritty, corrupt, and violent world of the Gold Rush-era West, Black Fire is the most vibrant and thorough account of Sawyer’s relationship with Mark Twain, and of the devastating fires that baptized San Francisco.- (Random House, Inc.)

Home baked: my mom, marijuana, and the stoning of San Francisco

By Volz, Alia

Publishing Date: 2020

Classification: 900

Call Number: 979.4 VOL

"In the 1970s, when cannabis was as illicit as heroin, Alia Volz's mother ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, a pioneering underground bakery that delivered ten thousand marijuana edibles per month to a city in the throes of change--from the joyous upheavals of gay liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple. Dressed in elaborate costumes, Alia's parents hid in plain sight, parading through the city's circus-like atmosphere with the goods tucked into her stroller. When HIV/AIDS swept San Francisco in the 1980s, Alia's mom turned from dealer into healer, providing soothing edibles to those fighting for their lives at the dawn of medical marijuana." - From the publisher's website

Thirsty: William Mulholland, California water, and the real Chinatown

By Weingarten, Marc

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 979.494 WEI

"Thirsty is the history of Los Angeles and its fraught relationship with water. As a city on the make since the early twentieth century, Los Angeles' resources fought hard to keep up with its unchecked growth. The city's water chief William Mulholland built an aqueduct to grab water over 200 miles away in Owens Valley, but it wasn't enough. Thirsty is the gripping tale of Los Angeles' epic battles for water, the larger-than-life characters that shaped a city's destiny, and the man-made tragedy that killed 400 and forever changed the way water would be harnessed and allocated."--

Extraterrestrial archaeology

By Childress, David Hatcher

Publishing Date: 1995

Classification: 900

Call Number: 999 CHI

This book seeks to prove that many of the planets and moons of our solar system are in some way inhabited by intelligent life.