A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, The Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Sally Hacker Prize for the History of Technology “A panoramic vision of cultural change” —The New York Times Through the story of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the author of Orwell's Roses explores what it was about California in the late 19th-century that enabled it to become such a center of technological and cultural innovation The world as we know it today began in California in the late 1800s, and Eadweard Muybridge had a lot to do with it. This striking assertion is at the heart of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, which weaves together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art and technology to create a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. The story of Muybridge—who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically—becomes a lens for a larger story about the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post–Civil War California led directly to the two industries—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is a predator lying in wait. He’s undercover as an outlaw to infiltrate a pair of vicious border gangs and bring them down. This mission has already had its share of casualties, and if Burrack has his say, there will be more. A cloud of dust rises as four men ride toward the Twisted Hills. The only thing between them and certain death at the hands of the Apaches is Sam, who also wants those men dead. But fighting in a land where gunfire draws a rain of arrows means silence is golden, and if Sam keeps his wits about him, he’ll be painting these hills red. More Than 2.5 Million Ralph Cotton Books in Print
Shadow Tribe offers the first in-depth history of the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia River Indians -- the defiant River People whose ancestors refused to settle on the reservations established for them in central Oregon and Washington. Largely overlooked in traditional accounts of tribal dispossession and confinement, their story illuminates the persistence of off-reservation Native communities and the fluidity of their identities over time. Cast in the imperfect light of federal policy and dimly perceived by non-Indian eyes, the flickering presence of the Columbia River Indians has followed the treaty tribes down the difficult path marked out by the forces of American colonization. Based on more than a decade of archival research and conversations with Native people, Andrew Fisher’s groundbreaking book traces the waxing and waning of Columbia River Indian identity from the mid-nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries. Fisher explains how, despite policies designed to destroy them, the shared experience of being off the reservation and at odds with recognized tribes forged far-flung river communities into a loose confederation called the Columbia River Tribe. Environmental changes and political pressures eroded their autonomy during the second half of the twentieth century, yet many River People continued to honor a common heritage of ancestral connection to the Columbia, resistance to the reservation system, devotion to cultural traditions, and detachment from the institutions of federal control and tribal governance. At times, their independent and uncompromising attitude has challenged the sovereignty of the recognized tribes, earning Columbia River Indians a reputation as radicals and troublemakers even among their own people. Shadow Tribe is part of a new wave of historical scholarship that shows Native American identities to be socially constructed, layered, and contested rather than fixed, singular, and unchanging. From his vantage point on the Columbia, Fisher has written a pioneering study that uses regional history to broaden our understanding of how Indians thwarted efforts to confine and define their existence within narrow reservation boundaries.
FROM FORMER GREEN BERET AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR JASON KASPER "Jason Kasper is a name to watch in the thriller world." -Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of the Gray Man Series When American citizens in Nigeria are kidnapped and held for ransom, David Rivers and his team of CIA contractors find themselves enveloped in an international firestorm. With a US administration determined to protect American lives, David has the authority to do whatever it takes. But as David's team tracks down the mysterious terror cell responsible for the kidnapping, they uncover a conspiracy beyond anything they could have imagined. And in a race against time to recover the hostages, David and his team must infiltrate the Sambisa Forest, a sprawling Boko Haram stronghold overflowing with enemy soldiers. Failure is not an option. Survival is not guaranteed.
“I owe Alaska. It gave me everything I have.” Says Sidney Huntington, son of an Athapaskan mother and white trader/trapper father. Growing up on the Koyukuk River in Alaska’s harsh Interior, that “everything” spans 78 years of tragedies and adventures. When his mother died suddenly, 5-year-old Huntington protected and cared for his younger brother and sister during two weeks of isolation. Later, as a teenager, he plied the wilderness traplines with his father, nearly freezing to death several times. One spring, he watched an ice-filled breakup flood sweep his family’s cabin and belongings away. These and many other episodes are the compelling background for the story of a man who learned the lessons of a land and culture, lessons that enabled him to prosper as trapper, boat builder, and fisherman. This is more than one man's incredible tale of hardship and success in Alaska. It is also a tribute to the Athapaskan traditions and spiritual beliefs that enabled him and his ancestors to survive. His story, simply told, is a testament to the durability of Alaska's wild lands and to the strength of the people who inhabit them.
Early one May morning in 1874, in the hills above Williamsburg, Massachusetts, a reservoir dam suddenly burst, sending an avalanche of water down a narrow river valley lined with factories and farms. In just thirty minutes, the Mill River flood left 139 people dead and 740 homeless -- and a nation wondering how this terrible calamity had happened. In this compelling tale of a man-made disaster peopled with everyday heroes and arrogant scoundrels, Elizabeth Sharpe opens a rare window into industry and village life in nineteenth-century New England, a time when dam failures and other industrial accidents were widespread and laws favored factory owners rather than factory workers. In the Mill Valley, the townsfolk depended upon generally benevolent patriarchs who assured them that the dam was safe, when most people could see that it was not. The story of the Mill River flood is the story of those townsfolk: of George Cheney, the dam keeper whose repeated warnings about leaks in the dam had been ignored by the mill owners; of his wife, Elizabeth, who watched in disbelief as the dam burst open from the bottom; of Isabell Hayden, the mother who saw her young son swept away in the river's torrent; and of Fred Howard, a box maker who spent the days after the flood searching for bodies, burying friends, and waiting to see if the button factory he relied upon for his livelihood would be rebuilt. It is also the story of the well-meaning but overconfident businessmen who built the dam: of Onslow Spelman, the manufacturer who dismissed the dam keeper's flood warning, irrationally insisting that the dam could not break; of Lucius Fenn and Joel Bassett, the engineer and contractor whose roles in the construction of the dam would be questioned during the public inquest into the causes of the flood; of William Skinner, the factory owner who struggled to decide whether or not to rebuild his silk factory in the village that bore his name; and of many others. The flood highlighted class divisions between worker and owner, as well as the disorganized state of professional engineering, then still in its infancy. As the flood exposed the dangers of allowing mill owners -- who were not trained engineers -- to design their own dam, legislation to regulate the building of reservoir dams in Massachusetts was enacted for the first time. Engineers, politicians, and business owners battled over control of the reform measures to prevent similar tragedies, yet saw them continually repeated. In the Shadow of the Dam is the story of an event that reshaped a society. Told through the eyes of villagers like Collins Graves, lauded as a hero for his desperate ride through the valley to warn people of the impending flood, and industrialists like Joel Hayden Jr., entrusted with the responsibility of disaster relief despite his culpability in failing to maintain the leaking dam, In the Shadow of the Dam is a history of our uneasy relationship with industrial progress and a riveting narrative of a tragic disaster in small-town Massachusetts.
Boot Camp. The starting point for everyone who joins the military. No one who signs up expects it to be easy. It’s not supposed to be. But everyone at some point during boot camp comes to the end of their own strength. It is at that point where a little encouragement makes all the difference. Resting in God’s Shadow offers encouragement specifically written for those in this especially challenging period of the military. Chaplain (Major) Jeffrey L. Brooks, U.S. Army Retired knows what he’s talking about, with 22 years of active military service. During that time, he served as chaplain at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, encouraging the men and women in boot camp to never give up on themselves or their dreams, keep a positive mental attitude, and give it their best. Since then he’s had a passion to write these encouragements into a book. This book is a collection of twelve devotionals, followed by a prayer book with spaces to record your thoughts. The devotionals in Part One correspond with the prayer book in Part Two. Concise and focused devotions fit into even the most rigorous training schedule. Whether you’re active in the military, or have a loved one headed to boot camp, this devotional is sure to provide just the right words of encouragement and Scripture.
From the River to the Sea: Palestine and Israel in the Shadow of ‘Peace’ provides original analyses of how different coping strategies were developed as well as new forms of political expression, interaction, and mobilization since the 1993 peace deal between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. Its premise is that an historical realism is essential in order to develop a route out of the post-Oslo impasse that extended and solidified the power imbalance under the auspices of ‘peace’. The book includes chapters from experts across the disciplines of anthropology, economics, law, political science and sociology to map out and critically assess the impacts and responses to this ‘peace’ in different geographical and political settings. These innovative analyses also investigate processes that might enable a future to be built based on greater equality and an end to the oppression and violence that currently exists between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (and beyond).
"Doug Peacock, as ever, walks point for all of us. Not since Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature has a book of such import been presented to readers. Peacock’s intelligence defies measure. His is a beautiful, feral heart, always robust, relentless with its love and desire for the human race to survive, and be sculpted by the coming hard times: to learn a magnificent humility, even so late in the game. Doug Peacock’s mind is a marvel—there could be no more generous act than the writing of this book. It is a crowning achievement in a long career sent in service of beauty and the dignity of life."—Rick Bass, author of Why I Came West and The Lives of Rocks Our climate is changing fast. The future is uncertain, probably fiery, and likely terrifying. Yet shifting weather patterns have threatened humans before, right here in North America, when people first colonized this continent. About 15,000 years ago, the weather began to warm, melting the huge glaciers of the Late Pleistocene. In this brand new landscape, humans managed to adapt to unfamiliar habitats and dangerous creatures in the midst of a wildly fluctuating climate. What was it like to live with huge pack-hunting lions, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and gigantic short-faced bears, to hunt now extinct horses, camels, and mammoth? Are there lessons for modern people lingering along this ancient trail? The shifting weather patterns of today—what we call "global warming"—will far exceed anything our ancestors previously faced. Doug Peacock's latest narrative explores the full circle of climate change, from the death of the megafauna to the depletion of the ozone, in a deeply personal story that takes readers from Peacock's participation in an archeological dig for early Clovis remains in Livingston, MT, near his home, to the death of the local whitebark pine trees in the same region, as a result of changes in the migration pattern of pine beetles with the warming seasons. Writer and adventurer Doug Peacock has spent the past fifty years wandering the earth's wildest places, studying grizzly bears and advocating for the preservation of wilderness. He is the author of Grizzly Years; Baja; and Walking It Off and co-author of The Essential Grizzly. Peacock was named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2011 Lannan Fellow.
Erin Hunter’s #1 bestselling Warriors series continues in A Vision of Shadows #5: River of Fire. StarClan’s prophecy has been fulfilled, and the long-lost SkyClan has returned to its rightful place among the other four warrior Clans. Many cats believe the danger is past. But after moons of division and strife, ShadowClan is in danger of falling apart forever.... Full of epic adventure and thrilling intrigue, this fifth Warriors series is the perfect introduction for readers new to the Warriors world—while for dedicated fans, it’s a long-awaited return to the era of Bramblestar’s ThunderClan, after the events of Omen of the Stars.
