Lord North
Lord North

Author: Peter Whiteley

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1852851457

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Lord North was in many ways a most successful politician. Prime Minister for an unbroken twelve years, his management of both parliament and of the business of government was adept. He enjoyed the confidence of King George III, not always an easy political ally, avoided factional strife (having no political following of his own), was notably uncorrupt and made virtually no enemies. In many ways he epitomised the political outlook and aristocratic assumptions of the eighteenth century. He is, however, principally remembered for presiding over Britain's loss of her American colonies. Lord North: The Prime Minister Who Lost America is a scholarly but highly readable account of his life. It includes a full study of the American War of Independence, examining it from the perspective of the British government as well as from the colonial standpoint. No senior politician had visited America and few had a proper knowledge or understanding of Americans. Too often the colonists were regarded as unruly and ungrateful children, with whom compromise was either a sign of weakness or the betrayal of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Highmindedness contributed to the final humiliation, as did ignorant overconfidence. Military defeat, to a country that had become preeminent in Europe by the end of the Seven Years War, was not entertained as a possibility.

The Young Lords
The Young Lords

Author: Johanna Fernández

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2019-12-18

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1469653451

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Against the backdrop of America's escalating urban rebellions in the 1960s, an unexpected cohort of New York radicals unleashed a series of urban guerrilla actions against the city's racist policies and contempt for the poor. Their dramatic flair, uncompromising socialist vision for a new society, skillful ability to link local problems to international crises, and uncompromising vision for a new society riveted the media, alarmed New York's political class, and challenged nationwide perceptions of civil rights and black power protest. The group called itself the Young Lords. Utilizing oral histories, archival records, and an enormous cache of police surveillance files released only after a decade-long Freedom of Information Law request and subsequent court battle, Johanna Fernandez has written the definitive account of the Young Lords, from their roots as a Chicago street gang to their rise and fall as a political organization in New York. Led by poor and working-class Puerto Rican youth, and consciously fashioned after the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords occupied a hospital, blocked traffic with uncollected garbage, took over a church, tested children for lead poisoning, defended prisoners, fought the military police, and fed breakfast to poor children. Their imaginative, irreverent protests and media conscious tactics won reforms, popularized socialism in the United States and exposed U.S. mainland audiences to the country's quiet imperial project in Puerto Rico. Fernandez challenges what we think we know about the sixties. She shows that movement organizers were concerned with finding solutions to problems as pedestrian as garbage collection and the removal of lead paint from tenement walls; gentrification; lack of access to medical care; childcare for working mothers; and the warehousing of people who could not be employed in deindustrialized cities. The Young Lords' politics and preoccupations, especially those concerning the rise of permanent unemployment foretold the end of the American Dream. In riveting style, Fernandez demonstrates how the Young Lords redefined the character of protest, the color of politics, and the cadence of popular urban culture in the age of great dreams.

The Men Who Lost America
The Men Who Lost America

Author: Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2013-06-11

Total Pages: 876

ISBN-13: 0300195249

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Questioning popular belief, a historian and re-examines what exactly led to the British Empire’s loss of the American Revolution. The loss of America was an unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing book makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men who directed the British dimension of the war, historian Andrew O’Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. In interlinked biographical chapters, the author follows the course of the war from the perspectives of King George III, Prime Minister Lord North, military leaders including General Burgoyne, the Earl of Sandwich, and others who, for the most part, led ably and even brilliantly. Victories were frequent, and in fact the British conquered every American city at some stage of the Revolutionary War. Yet roiling political complexities at home, combined with the fervency of the fighting Americans, proved fatal to the British war effort. The book concludes with a penetrating assessment of the years after Yorktown, when the British achieved victories against the French and Spanish, thereby keeping intact what remained of the British Empire. “A remarkable book about an important but curiously underappreciated subject: the British side of the American Revolution. With meticulous scholarship and an eloquent writing style, O'Shaughnessy gives us a fresh and compelling view of a critical aspect of the struggle that changed the world.”—Jon Meacham, author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

Silent Witness
Silent Witness

Author: Richard North Patterson

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 1429991836

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From the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Richard North Patterson comes Silent Witness, an "intense courtroom drama... as startling as the bang of a gavel.” (People). After the murder of his high school sweetheart left him shattered, Tony Lord vowed never to return to his Ohio hometown of Lake City. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful California criminal lawyer with a beautiful celebrity wife. He's living the good life...until long-buried memories come crashing down when he hears from an old friend, who needs his help. Sam Robb is a track coach at Lake City High. He swears he is not responsible for the death of one of his female team members...even though forensic evidence reveals that he's the father of her unborn child. Back when they were teenagers, Sam stood by Tony when he was a suspect in his young girlfriend's murder—and Tony desperately wants to do the same for him today. In doing so, Tony will have to revisit his troubled past and probe the darkest secrets of small-town life to get to the truth. And what he will find is more shocking than he ever could have imagined....