A Da Capo paperback

''Biography written by sixty-five authors.''-foreword.

A collection of notes, letters and poems written by Whitman during the war--New York herald tribune lively arts.

A pictorial history of the Negro in American entertainment.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) had its beginning in 1930, in a mountain cave near the China border, with Vo Nguyen Giap and thirty-three others. Giap, with Ho Chi Minh's help, built up this minuscule army from a semi-guerrilla status into a force numbering over one million in the regular army and another three million in paramilitary elements. Pike discusses in depth the relationship of this small, underdeveloped country to Russia, to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, to China. He also accounts for Hanoi's victory in the Vietnam War and discusses the North Vietnam strategy that has proved so successful against three of the world's greatest powers.

Hoyt explores three centuries of America's military sphere, including the history behind excursions onto foreign soil and involvement in political conflicts around the world. He finds a policy and environment largely based on a kind of American political evangelism, which he traces as a distorted offshoot of the American Revolution. Because revolution worked for us, we may be determined to spread the same idea to other countries.

Synopsis: William Safire was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon from 1968 to 1973. During that time, as a Washington insider, Safire was able to observe the thirty-seventh president in his entirety: as noble and mean-spirited; as good and bad; as a man desirous of greatness. Rarely has there been a White House memoir more intimate or revealing in its exploration of the great events that took place "before the fall" of Watergate. In this anecdotal history, Nixon and his associates come alive, not as caricatures, but as men with high and low purpose: Henry Kissinger, William Rogers, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, and Arthur Burns struggle not just for power, but for ideals.^ As William Safire says in his Prologue: "In this memoir, which is neither a biography of [Nixon] nor an autobiography of me nor a narrative history of our times, there is an attempt to figure out what was good and bad about him, what he was trying to do and how well he succeeded, how he used and affected some of the people around him, and an effort not to lose sight of all that went right in examining what went wrong." The book is divided into ten sections, in which run three main themes: the President, the Partisan, and the Person. As a president, Safire discusses Nixon and the Vietnam War, foreign policy, economics, and race relations. As a partisan, he discusses Nixon's attempt to form an alignment across party lines, successful in many respects before the president tolerated the excesses that eventually corrupted his administration.^ And as a person, Safire finds that Nixon was a mixture of Woodrow Wilson, Machiavelli, Theodore Roosevelt, and Shakespeare's Cassius--an idealistic conniver evoking the strenuous life while he thinks too much. This paperback edition of a classic primary source for historians includes a new introduction by its author. Studded with direct quotations that put the reader in the room where history was being made, Before the Fall is a realistic, shades-of-gray study of the Nixon years.

"A psychological thriller about an American exchange student in France involved in a suspicious accident, and the journalist determined to break the story and uncover the dark secrets a small town is hiding"--

LITTLE WARS is the game of kings - for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty - and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple - by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist.

The autobiography of president Theodore Roosevelt.

xii, 449 p. : 24 cm

A collection offering an blend of popular folk songs and rare, old songs in the folk tradition of the American Civil War.

The initial impact of radio may be difficult for today's television public grasp, but Red’s evocation of those early days is choice and pungent.

Originally published in three separate volumes covering three distinct periods, this single edition encompasses all the personal writings by one of this century's most prominent generals and statesmen from the fall of France in 1940 to the aftermath of World War II in 1946. The first section, "The Call to Honor," recounts the confusion and despair triggered by Hitler's blitzkrieg invasion of France. The second section, "Unity," describes de Gaulle's struggles to rally the Free French in Africa and in underground movements throughout Europe, his bitter conflict with the Vichy puppet regime ruling occupied France, and his cooperation with the Allied powers. "Salvation," the final installment, chronicles the turning of the tide of war against Nazi Germany, de Gaulle's triumphant return to France, and the reincarnation of the French Republic as a major international presence. - Back cover.

When Jackie Robinson was penciled into the lineup for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, America’s national pastime and America’s future changed forever. How much is reflected in a remark Martin Luther King Jr. made to Don Newcombe: “You’ll never know what you and Jackie and Roy did to make it possible to do my job.” Red Barber was perfectly situated to observe this drama. Broadcaster for the Dodgers, friend of Branch Rickey—who confided in him before and during the year of decision—and keen student of the game and the behavior of its players, Red held the microphone as the story unfolded with a cast of characters that included baseball immortals Duke Snyder, Leo Durocher, Pee Wee Reese, Peter Reiser, Larry McPhail, and Joe DiMaggio. Towering above them all are Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey—who together made baseball and American history and whose courage and toughness Red Barber captures so beautifully in this book.

Tracing his ancestry, Grant gives insight into the upbringing of a heralded military and political leader. On a broader scale, his first-person account of America’s armed forces outlines both civil and foreign insurrection.Grant wrote the two-volume Memoirs, published by Mark Twain, during his final battle – a battle against cancer that he would ultimately lose.

Chiefly by means of anecdotes, a friend and colleague of Toscanini presents the Italian conductor both as a man and as a musician-at work and at play in America and in Europe, in all his intense concentration on music and in some of his ourbursts of temperament. (Publisher) Parts of this book appeared serially in "Holiday" in slightly different form.

Inscribed by W. C. Handy. Handy's Hill -- Songbirds and School Days -- Wilberforce, Wallace and Wanderlust -- Mahara's Minstrel Men -- Work is the Measure of Worth -- Mississippi Mud -- "Pee Wee's," Pimps and Politics -- Memphis Blues - A Bungled Bargain -- St. Louis Blues and Solvent Bank -- Blue Diamonds in the Rough Polished and Mounted -- Mother -- From Beale Street to Broadway -- "Trouble, Trouble, I've Had it All my Days!" -- Peace & Handy - Setting a Pace -- All In - Down and Out -- The Blues Get Glorified -- No Fool No Fun -- Down Memory Lane -- "Way Down South Where the Blues Began" -- ASCAP -- Treasure Island -- Black and White -- World of Tomorrow - God Bless America Compositions, Arrangements and Books

"The Civil War was a revolution in many ways," writes Benjamin Quarles in this renowned work. "But on one point there is common agreement: without slavery there would have been no resort to arms. Hence the slave was the key factor in the war. But the Negro's tale was not merely a passive one; he did not tarry in the wings, hands folded. He was an active member of the cast, prominent in the dramatis personae. To him freedom was a two-way street; indeed he gave prior to receiving." Quarles writes powerfully about the role of three-and-a-half million blacks in the South, who were impressed into noncombatant service building forts and entrenchments, working in factories and mines. In the North, black Americans fought with distinction on the front lines, shedding blood for an ideal -- emancipation -- that was cruelly betrayed during Reconstruction. The story of black Americans in the Civil War, in which they, in more ways than one, stood in the middle, was largely untold until this book by a distinguished scholar offered the wisdom and verve to make a great episode in our history come alive. - Back cover.

"In all my whole career the Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in. It was the honky-tonk where levee workers would congregate every Saturday night and trade with the gals who'd stroll up and down the floor and the bar. Those guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy, and there was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all, I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn." So says Louis Armstrong, a tough kid who just happened to be a musical genius, about one of the places where he performed and grew up. This raucous, rich tale of his early days in New Orleans concludes with his departure to Chicago at twenty-one to play with his boyhood idol King Oliver, and tells the story of a life that began, mythically, on July 4, 1900, in the city that sowed the seeds of jazz [Publisher description].

Contains primary source material.

Makes clear the extent to which Negroes were involved in planning the battle against slavery and examines the special concerns which they brought to the struggle.

Contains primary source material.

Future Indefinite, Round Three of The Great Game"Dave Duncan writes one excellent book after another."—LocusIn a place called Nextdoor—the farthest flung outpost of British imperialism—earthborn mortals possess the power of gods.Young Englishman Edward Exeter has spent five years trying to escape the magnetic and powerfully magical pull of The Great Game which has designated him as its most important player. But war and bloodthirsty intrigues rage on both sides of magical portals and across worlds and Exeter can resist his destiny no longer. He accepts the mantle of Liberator that has been thrust upon him and the decision turns old friends into foes and old enemies into acolytes as he is surrounded by murderous plots and betrayalsBut this is not the uninformed Edward Exeter who came naked into this hidden realm years ago. He has lived the Game and learned it well—and he intends to play it boldly to its shocking, worlds-shattering conclusion.

This is the fascinating story of 150 years of the musical theatre by one of the great legends of Broadway. Filled with inside stories and backstage anecdotes, this book traces the fascinating development of the musical, which had its origins in Offenbach's Vienna, came to Gilbert and Sullivan's London, and finally landed in America, where it found its finest flowering.

The author chronicles the siege of Leningrad and describes the suffering of its people and exposes the role of Stalin's political police throughout the war and the endless blunders of the military. Included are events leading up to the siege and the "Leningrad Affair" which occurred three years later. Some of the data comes from Russian documents only recently made available.--from the publisher.

Autobiography.

Herndon was Lincoln's friend, law partner, and biographer during the "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" days; this book reveals how a country lawyer became a national figure and what happened to the friend he left behind when he became President.--From the publisher.

"1100 biographies, 200 photographs."

Among the many novel features of this volume: It carefully examines Lincoln's views on a wide variety of subjects such as economics, race, the Constitution, Indians, patronage, habeas corpus, and dozens more. It offers biographical sketches of members of Lincoln's family and describes how he felt about them, including his "rebel" sister-in-law and an enterprising cousin who used Lincoln's Presidential nomination to launch a flourishing souvenir business. It portrays and clearly captures scores of Lincoln's associates, assistants, colleagues, and enemies, from Charles Francis Adams and George Atzerodt to Fernando Wood and Richard Yates. It appraises all the major Lincoln biographers and their books and also covers others associated with the subject: collectors and collections, portrait painters and photographers, famous documents and sites. - From Publisher.

An account of the revolutions in Russia from 1905 to 1917 that resulted in the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and the establishment of a new form of government.

No one can read this book without coming away with a more nuanced appreciation of Grant and his abilities. Many will find a new affection for the man. If you want to understand Grant as he appeared to those closest to him, read this masterful first-hand account of Horace Porter's time on Grant's staff during the American Civil War. There is no more intimate and appealing portrait of the great general than that drawn by Porter. A keen observer of all around him and a great admirer of Grant to his dying day, Porter brings Grant to life in struggle and victory. Here we get fully dimensional anecdotes of Grant's humor, poise, anger (rare), and his thoughts on a variety of subjects from swearing to lying to naughty jokes to military tactics and strategy. In addition, Porter provides wonderful stories of the other famous men among whom he served, including William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, George Gordon Meade, George Thomas, and many, many others. Long considered one of the most important classics of Civil War literature, this is a book you are assured to read more than once.

For contents, see Author Catalog.

"General Maxwell D. Taylor was one of the great military heroes of recent American history. During World War II, Taylor fought in Sicily and Italy before parachuting into France as head of the 101st Airborne Division on Dday, 1944. Later he commanded the Division in the Arnhem drop in Holland and in the defense of Basting in the Bulge. After the war, Taylor served as superintendent of West Point, U.S. Commander in Berlin, Commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, and Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower. John F. Kennedy named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sent him to Vietnam in 1961; he returned to that country as Ambassador in 1965, and served as a key advisor to President Johnson until 1969. In Swords and Plowshares, Taylor tells the firsthand story of a life of action, courage, strategy, and dedication. Offering candid and controversial views of such central figures as Dwight Eisenhower, John Dulles, the Kennedy’s, and General Westmoreland, Taylor contrasts their varying views of the role of air power in modern warfare, and presents his own approach to the problems of winning wars and making peace. These memoirs ably illustrate why General Maxwell Taylor deserves to rank among Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton as one of the great American military geniuses of our time."--Provided by publisher.

The Vital Center is an eloquent and incisive defense of liberal democracy against its rivals to the left and to the right, communism and fascism. It shows how the failures of free society had led to the mass escape from freedom and sharpened the appeal of totalitarian solutions. And it calls for a radical reconstruction of the democratic faith based on a realistic understanding of human limitation and frailty.

This special edition of Doolittle's biography commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the first "blind flight" and Dooliittle's entire career. It has been said that he led. "one of the most 'useful' lives of American history. Doolittle once stated his philosophy:I believe we were put on this earth for a purpose...to make it, within our capabilities, a better place in which to live."He was a man of wisdom, humor, and warm humanity and a legend in his own time.