|
|
|
Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement
The dramatic and first popular account of one of the deadliest racial confrontations in the 20th century—in East St. Louis in the summer of 1917—which paved the way for the civil rights movement In the 1910s, half a million African Americans moved from the impoverished rural South to booming industrial cities of the North in search of jobs and freedom from Jim Crow laws. But Northern whites responded with rage, attacking blacks in the streets and laying waste to black neighborhoods in a horrific series of deadly race riots that broke out in dozens of cities across the nation, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Tulsa, Houston, and Washington, D.C. In East St. Louis, Illinois, corrupt city officials and industrialists had openly courted Southern blacks, luring them North to replace striking white laborers. This tinderbox erupted on July 2, 1917 into what would become one of the bloodiest American riots of the World War era. Its impact was enormous. “There has never been a time when the riot was not alive in the oral tradition,” remarks Professor Eugene Redmond. Indeed, prominent blacks like W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Josephine Baker were forever influenced by it. Celebrated St. Louis journalist Harper Barnes has written the first full account of this dramatic turning point in American history, decisively placing it in the continuum of racial tensions flowing from Reconstruction and as a catalyst of civil rights action in the decades to come. Drawing from accounts and sources never before utilized, Harper Barnes has crafted a compelling and definitive story that enshrines the riot as an historical rallying cry for all who deplore racial violence. .
Price: $13.47
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
"Riveting...Not only the definitive examination of the riots but an absorbing history of pre-Stonewall America, and how the oppression and pent-up rage of those years finally ignited on a hot New York night." - Boston Globe In 1969, a series of riots over police action against The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, changed the longtime landscape of the homosexual in society literally overnight. Since then the event itself has become the stuff of legend, with relatively little hard information available on the riots themselves. Now, based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files, and over a decade of intensive research into the history and the topic, Stonewall brings this singular event to vivid life in this, the definitive story of one of history's most singular events. .
Price: $7.15
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
An authoritative new examination of John Brown and his deep impact on American history. Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown within the currents of nineteenth-century life and compares him to modern terrorists, civil-rights activists, and freedom fighters. Ultimately, he finds neither a wild-eyed fanatic nor a Christ-like martyr, but a passionate opponent of racism so dedicated to eradicating slavery that he realized only blood could scour it from the country he loved. By stiffening the backbone of Northerners and showing Southerners there were those who would fight for their cause, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. This is a vivid and startling story of a man and an age on the verge of calamity..
Price: $10.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World
A lively and intriguing tale of the competition between two artists, culminating in the construction of the Duomo in Florence, this is also the story of a city on the verge of greatness, and the dawn of the Renaissance, when everything artistic would change. Florence's Duomo – the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral – is one of the most enduring symbols of the Italian Renaissance, an equal in influence and fame to Leonardo and Michaelangelo's works. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the temperamental architect who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. He was the dome's 'inventor', whose secret methods for building remain a mystery as compelling to architects as Fermat's Last Theorem once was to mathematicians. Yet Brunelleschi didn't direct the construction of the dome alone. He was forced to share the commission with his arch–rival, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose 'Paradise Doors' are also masterworks. This is the story of these two men – a tale of artistic genius and individual triumph. .
Price: $4.32
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
In The Blink Of An Eye: How Vision Sparked The Big Bang Of Evolution
About 550 million years ago, there was literally an explosion of life forms, as all the major animal groups suddenly and dramatically appeared. Although several books have been written about this surprising event, known as the Cambrian explosion, none has explained why it occurred. Indeed, none was able to. Here, for the first time, Oxford zoologist Andrew Parker reveals his theory of this great flourishing of life. Parker's controversial but increasingly accepted "Light Switch Theory" holds that it was the development of vision in primitive animals that caused the explosion. Drawing on evidence not just from biology, but also from geology, physics, chemistry, history, and art, In the Blink of an Eye is the fascinating account of a young scientist's intellectual journey, and a celebration of the scientific method. .
Price: $0.89
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer
“Solomon’s fascinating and sweeping history of the legal fight over mandatory school prayers is compelling, judicious, and elegantly written. Fabulous!” —David Rudenstine, Dean, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University “Stephen Solomon’s Ellery’s Protest provides a brilliant analysis of a major Supreme Court decision that redefined the relationship between church and state almost a half century ago. This study goes well beyond simply offering a gripping account of the course of litigation that brought before the Justices the contentious issue of prayer and Bible reading in public schools, though the thoroughness of that account would merit careful reading by itself. Especially impressive is the author’s deep probing of hitherto neglected sources, and invaluable primary material including extensive direct contact with the plaintiff, the ‘Ellery’ of the book’s title. Finally, and perhaps most impressive, is Solomon’s careful placement of the issue and the case in a far broader context that is as critical to national life and policy today as it was four and a half decades ago when the high Court first tackled these questions.” —Robert O’Neil, Professor of Law, University of Virginia Great legal decisions often result from the heroic actions of average citizens. Ellery’s Protest is the story of how one student’s objection to mandatory school prayer and Bible reading led to one of the most controversial court cases of the twentieth century—and a decision that still reverberates in the battle over the role of religion in public life. Abington School District v. Schempp began its journey through the nation’s courts in 1956, when sixteen-year-old Ellery Schempp protested his public school’s compulsory prayer and Bible-reading period by reading silently from the Koran. Ejected from class for his actions, Schempp sued the school district. The Supreme Court’s decision in his favor was one of the most important rulings on religious freedom in our nation’s history. It prompted a conservative backlash that continues to this day, in the skirmishes over school prayer, the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance with the phrase “under God.” Author Stephen D. Solomon tells the fascinating personal and legal drama of the Schempp case: the family’s struggle against the ugly reactions of neighbors, and the impassioned courtroom clashes as brilliant lawyers on both sides argued about the meaning of religious freedom. But Schempp was not the only case challenging religious exercises in the schools at the time, and Ellery’s Protest describes the race to the Supreme Court among the attorneys for four such cases, including one involving the colorful atheist Madalyn Murray. Solomon also explores the political, cultural, and religious roots of the controversy. Contrary to popular belief, liberal justices did not kick God out of the public schools. Bitter conflict over school Bible reading had long divided Protestants and Catholics in the United States. Eventually, it was the American people themselves who removed most religious exercises from public education as a more religiously diverse nation chose tolerance over sectarianism. Ellery’s Protest offers a vivid account of the case that embodied this change, and a reminder that conservative justices of the 1950s and 60s not only signed on to the Schempp decision, but strongly endorsed the separation of church and state. .
Price: $9.95
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention Of The 19th Century & The Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked A Revolution
The world at the turn of the twentieth century was in the throes of "Marconi-mania"-brought on by an incredible invention that no one could quite explain, and by a dapper and eccentric figure (who would one day win the newly minted Nobel Prize) at the center of it all. At a time when the telephone, telegraph, and electricity made the whole world wonder just what science would think of next, the startling answer had come in 1896 in the form of two mysterious wooden boxes containing a device one Guglielmo Marconi had rigged up to transmit messages "through the ether." It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi himself, could at first explain how it worked…it just did. And no one knew how far these radio waves could travel, until 1903, when a message from President Theodore Roosevelt to the king of England flashed from Cape Cod to Cornwall clear across the Atlantic.Here is a rich portrait of the man and his era-and a captivating tale of science and scientists, business and businessmen. There are stories of British blowhards, American con artists-and Marconi himself: a character par excellence, who eventually winds up a virtual prisoner of his worldwide fame and fortune. .
Price: $2.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Slave Nation: How Slavery United The Colonies And Sparked The American Revolution
This carefully documented, chilling history presents a radically different view of the profound role that slavery played in the founding of the republic, from the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution through the creation of the Constitution. The book begins with a novel explanation about the impact slavery had on the founding of the republic. In 1772, a judge sitting in the High Court in London declared slavery "so odious" that it could not exist as common law and set the conditions which would consequently result in the freedom of the 15,000 slaves living in England at that time. This decision eventually reached America and terrified the predominantly southern slaveholders because America was then a collection of British colonies and as such were subject to British law, and they feared that this decision would cause the emancipation of the slaves here. Thus, to ensure the preservation of slavery, the southern states joined the northern colonies in their fight for "freedom" and their rebellion against England. This decision was codified in the First Continental Congress in 1774 when John Adams promised southern leaders the support of their right to maintain slavery and drafted a Declaration of Colonial Independence from Parliament. What follows is a fascinating account of the role slavery played in the drawing of the United States Constitution. It was only in the end, when the northern states threatened to walk out over the issue of slavery, that the southern states agreed to the prohibition of slavery north of the Ohio River, embodied in the Northwest Ordinance which created the largest slave-free area in the world. This would eventually give birth to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which codified Benjamin Franklin's affirmative action plan. Features an introduction by Congresswoman Elanor Holmes Norton, and an in requiem poem by Barbara Chase-Riboud..
Price: $3.64
[Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Pandora's Baby: How the First Test-tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution
This is the highly acclaimed book by Robin Marantz Henig about the early days of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the ethical and legal battles waged in the 1970s, as well as the scientific advances that eventually changed the public perception of test tube babies. Published in paperback for the first time, this timely and provocative book brilliantly presents the scientific and ethical dilemmas in the ongoing debate over what it means to be human in a technological age. About the author: Robin Marantz Henig is the author of eight books. Her previous book The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She writes about science and medicine for the New York Times Magazine, where she is a contributing writer, as well as for publications such as Scientific American, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post. Robin Henig garnered two prestigious awards in 2006: The Science in Society Award, the highest honor in science journalism, awarded by the National Association of Science Writers, and The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize awarded by The History of Science Society for the best book in the history of science for general readers..
Price: $16.84
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
|
|
|
