The Men Who United The States

Download or read book The Men Who United the States written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.” —Tom Brokaw Simon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings. How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.

Download or read book A Nation of Counterfeiters written by Stephen Mihm and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.

Download or read book Common Men in the War for the Common Man written by Dr. Verel R. Salmon and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 810 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the never before told story of hundreds of Americans who went to war in defense of their beliefs, to seek adventure and to see some of the world beyond their rural Pennsylvania neighborhoods. Developed largely in the words of the soldiers of the 145th Pennsylvania Infantry, Common Men highlights some of the men's lives before the war and then carries the reader through trials and triumphs from enlistment, Jubilant send-off, action from Antietam through Gettysburg and casualty, Democracy and the Union are sustained through the actions of common men, men not always given the best of orders.

Download or read book Between the World and Me written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by One World. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Download or read book The Wise Men written by Walter Isaacson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997-06-04 with total page 852 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Download or read book The Vice Presidents written by Carole Chandler Waldrup and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-10-14 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Nance Garner once colorfully described the office of vice president of the United States as not worth "a pitcher of warm piss," and no doubt many of the 45 men elected to it would agree. Though it is the second highest elective office in the United States, there is but one constitutional duty: to preside over the Senate. Historically, vice presidents have often been relegated to attending state funerals and heading mostly ceremonial committees. Unless, of course, the president dies or resigns; they are then thrust into the presidency, often with little or no preparation. From John Adams to Albert Gore, Jr., this reference work provides biographies of 45 vice presidents of the United States. Despite the fact that many think of the office as a stepping stone to the White House, only 14 have actually served as president. Outside the public spotlight, many vice presidents led fascinating lives and served their country with distinction, though little has been written about them. The biographies herein focus on their work as vice president, their relationship with the president under whom they served, and their role in the White house. Their lives after the end of their terms are also examined fully. A bibliography follows each biography.

Download or read book Signing Their Rights Away written by Denise Kiernan and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book jacket unfolds to reveal a full-color reproduction of the U.S. Constitution.