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For years legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke brought America to the rest of the world with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his classic "personal history" of America, guiding us through centuries of changing life in the USA. Beginning with his own arrival in America as a graduate in the...

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in and interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Its authority and stature are routinely invoked by voices from every point on the political spectrum, with frequent references to the Founding Fathers and their true "intent." What really was their true intent? As these 12 surprising lectures show, many of those Founding Fathers-including Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry-were highly critical of the new Constitution and staunchly opposed it when it was first put forth for ratification by the states as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation.

In January of 1965, 24-year-old US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for 40 years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The exhilarating true story of the U.S. Navy’s improbable victory at the Battle of Samar—“a dire survival-at-sea saga” (Denver Post) from the acclaimed author of Neptune’s Inferno “A critically acclaimed, blow-by-blow look at a small American force...

Why is Benjamin Franklin so compelling? What made him so successful in his day? And why has he continued to influence generations of Americans? Tackle these questions and more in The Age of Benjamin Franklin, a thorough - and sometimes surprising - course that presents a full portrait of a personality that defies easy definition.

The history of computing could be told as the story of hardware and software or the story of the Internet or the story of "smart" handheld devices, with subplots involving IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter. In this concise and accessible account of the invention and development of digital technology, computer historian Paul Ceruzzi offers a broader and more useful perspective. He identifies four major threads that run throughout all of computing's technological development.

The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them.

Taken from writings, orations, and recorded observations of life, this audiobook selects the best of Native American wisdom and distills it to its essence in short, digestible quotes - perhaps even more timely now than when they were first written. In addition to the short passages, this edition includes the complete "Soul of an Indian", as well as other writings by Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman), one of the great interpreters of American Indian thought, and three great speeches by Chiefs Joseph, Seattle, and Red Jacket.

Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant’s is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood, to his heroics in battle, to the grinding poverty from which the Civil War ironically rescued him, these memoirs are a mesmerizing, deeply moving account of a brilliant man told with great courage.

This national best-seller chronicles the true story of two brothers coming of age in the Henry Horner public housing complex in Chicago. Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers are 11 and nine years old when the story begins in the summer of 1987. Living with their mother and six siblings, they struggle against grinding poverty, gun violence, gang influences, overzealous police officers, and overburdened and neglectful bureaucracies. Immersed in their lives for two years, Kotlowitz brings us this classic rendering of growing up poor in America’s cities.

Bruno Maçães offers a compelling vision of America's future, both fascinating and unnerving. From the early American Republic, Maçães takes us to the turbulent present, when, he argues, America is finally forging its own path. We can see the birth pangs of this new civilization in today's debates on guns, religion, foreign policy, and the significance of Trump. What will its values be, and what will this new America look like? 

VC tells the riveting story of how the industry arose from the United States' long-running orientation toward entrepreneurship. Venture capital has been driven from the start by the pull of outsized returns through a skewed distribution of payoffs - a faith in low-probability but substantial financial rewards that rarely materialize. Whether the gamble is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the newest startup in Silicon Valley, VC is not just a model of finance that has proven difficult to replicate in other countries.

A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known. 

In African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow, investigate the complex period between slavery and lunch counter sit-ins. A new 12-part course designed and presented by Associate Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries, of The Ohio State University, African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow tracks the spread of Jim Crow laws across the South. You will learn about Northern racism as well, from violence against migrating Black families to housing discrimination.

What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing? Let This Radicalize You is a practical and imaginative resource for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe. Longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine some of the political lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and consider what this confluence of power can teach us about a future that will require mass acts of care, rescue, and defense, in the face of both state violence and environmental disaster.

What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander during World War II than he was as president? Why was Grant one of the best presidents of his day, if not in all of American history? What drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics? Find the surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more in this collection of new essays by great historians.

“Utterly captivating and beautifully written, this book is a hugely entertaining and enlightening exploration of a bird so wickedly smart, curious, and social, it boggles the mind.”—Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Bird Way “A fascinating, entertaining, and totally engrossing story...

As the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, the Pentagon burned, and a small group of passengers fought desperately to stop a third plane from completing its deadly flight plan, America went on war footing. Killing the Killers narrates America's intense global war against extremists who planned and executed not only the 9/11 attacks but hundreds of others in America and around the world, and who eventually destroyed entire nations in their relentless quest for power.

The full audio of the inaugural address delivered by Joseph R. Biden Jr. on January 20, 2021 after he was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Biden calls for unity as he states: "The American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us."

More than 100 years after his birth, Pablo Neruda's poetry is as vital and beloved as ever. This collection presents 50 of the most essential poems by one of history's greatest poets in dynamic new translations, the result of an unprecedented collaboration among a team of poets, translators, and the world's leading Neruda scholars.