DailyLit: History Books

Wikipedia Tours: Famous Women Throughout History

by Wikipedia

Description

For many years invisible to the eyes of historians, the experience of women through the ages comes to life in Famous Women Throughout History. The daring and sometimes controversial women included in this tour were all pioneers in politics, activism, science, or the arts. Their achievements and contributions were varied, but together their stories make a compelling statement about the genius, creativity, and sheer will possessed by women throughout history and around the world.

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This image provided by Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia Tours: World Capitals

by Wikipedia

Description

Journey to a different international capital city each day without ever leaving your seat with the World Capitals tour. From Nairobi to Caracas, Vienna to Kuala Lumpur, you’ll learn about fifty selected capital cities, each with its own unique history, culture, and people.

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This photograph is available from Wikimedia Commons under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Wikipedia Tours: Wonders of the World

by Wikipedia

Description

The seven ancient wonders meet medieval, modern, and natural marvels for this incredible tour of some of the world’s most amazing sights. Although many of the original ancient wonders have disappeared, destroyed by the passage of time, medieval and modern people have kept the tradition alive, routinely creating new lists that cover everything from industrial to natural sites. Your sense of wonder will soar as you explore the breathtaking sites and structures that have captivated the world.

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This photograph, by Hajor, is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 License.

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Wikipedia Tours: Famous Inventors

by Wikipedia

Description

Ever wondered who invented the television? Or who invented Kodak film (hint: his last name wasn't Kodak)? In the Famous Inventors tour, you'll learn about the people behind some of the innovations that have changed and shaped our world. Reading about their lives and their inventions, perhaps you'll feel inspired to do some inventing of your own!

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This image provided by Wikimedia Commons.

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Wikipedia Tours: Greek Mythology

by Wikipedia

Description

Take a tour of Mount Olympus with the Wikipedia Tour of Greek Mythology. The stories, legends, and gods from Ancient Greece will come alive as you read about them. Learn about Aphrodite and Zeus, Tartarus and the Titans; each day you'll escape into an amazing world of gods and heroes and discover the (sometimes shocking) stories that informed and inspired the ancient civilization of the Greeks.

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This photograph provided by Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia Tours: The Presidents of the United States

by Wikipedia

Description

Here we have the lives of the distinguished men who have led the United States from its beginning to today. An inspiring compilation of Wikipedia's articles about the people who have held the nation's highest office, the Presidents of the United States will take you from George Washington to the new George W. (Bush), along the way increasing your knowledge of American history and giving you a glimpse into the lives of the nation's leaders.

The text of this Wikipedia Tour is available from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Cover: This image provided by Wikipedia.

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Truth at Last

by John Larry Ray and Lyndon Barsten

Description

For forty years, the plea bargain of James Earl Ray for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. has been the subject of intense inquiry and debate among historians and researchers. Was Ray—a small-town petty thief—really the criminal mastermind the Shelby County, Tennessee, prosecutors said he was? Or was he a pawn in a broader conspiracy that involved an entity much more powerful: the U.S. government?

In reality, evidence reveals James Earl Ray was inducted into the CIA as a young man in the U.S. Army and subjected to mind control experimentation—in the same era when psychological drugs are known to have been administered by the armed services to unknowing recruits in an attempt to control human behavior. Later, in the two years prior to the King assassination, Ray was under the influence of several government-connected hypnotists seemingly working to make him an obedient patsy.

Ray's case never went to trial, and many, including the King family, concluded that there had been a conspiracy, yet a government investigation in 2000 revealed that there was no evidence to suggest it.

In Truth At Last, Ray's eldest brother John Larry Ray and Martin Luther King Jr. historian Lyndon Barsten, offer incontrovertible evidence that James Earl Ray could not have assassinated Dr. King. John Larry Ray reveals the true secret history of his infamous brother, who for a lifetime claimed, "The Army put me on the road to ruin." Barsten documents John Larry Ray's assertions by drawing on scores of personal interviews and more than 4,000 Freedom of Information Act requests—including Ray's Army unit records. Together, they offer a startling new look at Ray's life, his encounters with the Feds and the Mob, and the crime that shook the world.

Extended Copyright Information

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to The Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford CT 06437.

Published in April 2008 by Globe Pequot Press and DailyLit.

Sample Installment

Scorpion Down

by Ed Offley

Description

One Navy admiral called it "one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era." To this day, the U.S. Navy officially describes it as an inexplicable accident. For decades, the real story of the disaster has eluded journalists, historians, and the family members of the lost crew. But a small handful of Navy and government officials knew the truth from the very beginning: The sinking of the USS Scorpion and its crew of 99 men on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. In this major work of historical reporting, Ed Offley reveals that the sinking of the USS Scorpion has never been a mystery, but rather a secret buried by the U.S. government in a frantic attempt to keep the Cold War from turning into a hot war. The Soviets had torpedoed the Scorpion in reprisal for the destruction of the Soviet missile sub K-129, which the Americans had sunk in the Pacific just ten weeks earlier. But why does the U.S. Navy continue to hide the real story of what happened on that fateful day in 1968? In Scorpion Down, military reporter Ed Offley tells the true story of the USS Scorpion for the first time and dramatically recounts a little-known episode that nearly brought about World War III. And he conclusively demonstrates that the Navy's official account of the Scorpion incident—from the frantic open-ocean hunt for the wreckage to a court of inquiry's final conclusions—is nothing more than a carefully constructed series of lies.

Praise for Scorpion Down:

". . . this well-told narrative history holds much appeal for naval historians and conspiracy buffs."
—Publishers Weekly

"Based on 25 years of research, which included investigating declassified navy documents, Offley reveals details of the events that led to the vessel's sinking and the cover-up that followed. He has written a searing account of this tragedy at sea."
—Booklist

"Offley . . . has put together an astoundingly detailed picture of the last cruise of a nuclear attack submarine. The USS Scorpion, with a crew of 99, was reported lost on May 27, 1968."
—Library Journal

"Here's the payoff when a veteran military affairs correspondent spends almost a quarter century investigating one of the greatest mysteries in U.S. Naval submarine history. A meticulously researched, gripping narrative that draws you in with the first sentence. Read Scorpion Down and prepare to be jarred."
—Douglas Waller, author of Big Red: Inside the Secret World of a Trident Nuclear Submarine

About the Author

Ed Offley has been a military reporting specialist for newspapers and online publications since 1981, including the Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Virginia, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Stripes.com, and Defensewatch magazine. He is currently Military Reporter for the News Herald in Panama City, Florida. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Offley served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. He lives in Panama City Beach, Florida, with his wife Karen T. Conrad.

Extended Copyright Information

Previously published by Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover design by Eric Fuentecilla.
Cover photograph copyright Bettmann/CORBIS.

Sample Installment

Praying for Sheetrock

by Melissa Fay Greene

Description

Finalist for the 1991 National Book Award and a New York Times Notable book, Praying for Sheetrock is the story of McIntosh County, a small, isolated, and lovely place on the flowery coast of Georgia—and a county where, in the 1970s, the white sheriff still wielded all the power, controlling everything and everybody. Somehow the sweeping changes of the civil rights movement managed to bypass McIntosh entirely. It took one uneducated, unemployed black man, Thurnell Alston, to challenge the sheriff and his courthouse gang—and to change the way of life in this community forever.

Quotes

"An inspiring and absorbing account of the struggle for human dignity and racial equality"
— Coretta Scott King

"A luridly entertaining nonfiction debut . . . a cautionary tale as wonderfully knotty as a plank of Georgia pine . . ."
—Newsweek

"Melissa Fay Greene has written a superb account of life and struggle in a tiny place. Because of its themes and the brilliant way the author has handled them, this book could stand as a metaphor for the halting American effort to become something better than we have been . . . Most of all, it is a story of simple black people enduring and rising very, very slowly and then a little faster on the broad back of a flawed leader who ultimately breaks because he is human and has aspirations and burdens that push him past his limits."
—Los Angeles Times

"Greene's achievement recalls Jane Austen's description of her novels as fine brushwork on a 'little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory'. . . What Greene has written is political history of a rare kind . . ."
—The New Yorker

"The facts and much more spring to life in Melissa Fay Greene's dazzling first book . . . The civil rights movement will never look quite the same."
—The Nation

"No, Praying for Sheetrock isn't a novel: it is a highly original work of [nonfiction], with elements of what we seek in serious fiction. There is a landscape of mystery in coastal Georgia: a Robin Hood-like sheriff who owns four houses and his own airfield but is otherwise a charming good old boy; the first black county commissioner since Reconstruction; a handful of heroic white Legal Services lawyers charging into town. . . .The personalities in this remarkable book are like Faulknerian characters."
—The New York Times

Extended Copyright Information

Originally published by Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters (e.g., Sheetrock, which is a registered trademark of United States Gypsum Company).

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Silver Jingle Music for permission to reprint previously published excerpts from "The Saga of the Great Sapelo Bust," by Vic Waters. Copyright 1978 by Vic Waters. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Sample Installment

Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House

by Mark Updegrove

Description

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives," but more and more, our fomer presidents are proving him wonrg. No longer fading into the background upon leaving the highest office in the land, ex-presidents perform valuable services as elder statesmen and international emissaries-- and by pursuing their own agendas. From Eisenhower taking Kennedy to the woodshed (literally) on the Bay of Pigs crisis, to Carter earning the NObel Peace Prize, to Bush Sr. and Clinton joining forces in an unlikely partnership for sunami and Hurricane Katrina relief, the author examines the increasingly important roles that former presidents assume in our nation and throughout the world.

Through interviews with former presidents, first ladies, family members, friends, and staffers, the author also delves into the very human stories that play out as the modern ex-presidents--from Truman to Clinton--adjust to life after the White House and attempt to shape their historical legacies. In this, the first narrative history of the modern post-presidency, Mark K. Updegrove makes a refreshingly unique contribution to literature on the American presidents.

Please note that photographs from the hardcover edition are not included in this electronic version.

Quotes

"Mark K. Updegrove's Second Acts is a smart and provocative look at the most exclusive club in America – ex-presidents. Highly recommended!"
— Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History and Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Tulane University

"Former presidents have been likened to Cinderella after the ball. In this intimate, often surprising group portrait, Mark Updegrove reveals how our ex-presidents since Truman have dealt with the loss of power that is their pumpkin. From Ike struggling to master the intricacies of the dial tone, to LBJ raging like Lear on the Perdenales [River], to Jimmy Carter, the Extra President--Updegrove gives us riveting history by twilight. His evening stars cast a memorable glow."
— Richard Norton Smith, president historian, Scholar in Residence, George Mason University

"Mark Updegrove's Second Acts is a fascinating read about a subject that has been neglected for too long. It is history at its best; a well researched and well told narrative that illuminates the recent past in surprisingly unexpected ways. Filled with wit as well as wisdom, Second Acts is a delight."
— Don Carleton, Director, University of Texas Center for American History

" Highly recommended."
— Library Journal

"For those interested in the former presidents, this popular history will do the trick."
— Publishers Weekly

"Revealing in detail and context."
— Kirkus Reviews

Extended Copyright Information

Originally published by The Lyons Press
an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.

Sample Installment