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  Insurrection - Rebellion Civil...

  Hawa Allan

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  The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off lawlessness and rebellion, but it soon became much more than the sum of its parts. Its power is integrally linked to the perceived threat of black American equity in what lawyer and critic Hawa Allan demonstrates is a dangerous paradox. While the Act was initially used to repress rebellion against slavery, during Reconstruction it was invoked by President Grant to quell white-supremacist uprisings in the South. During the civil rights movement, it enabled the protection of black students who attended previously segregated educational institutions. Most recently, the Insurrection Act has been the vehicle for presidents to call upon federal troops to suppress so-called "race riots" like those in Los Angeles in 1992, and for them to threaten to do so in other cases of racial justice activism. 
   
   
   
  Allan's distinctly literary voice underscores her paradigm-shifting reflections on the presence of fear and silence in history and their shadowy impact on the law. Throughout, she draws revealing insight from her own experiences as one of the only black girls in her leafy Long Island suburb, as a black lawyer at a predominantly white firm, and as a thinker about the use and misuse of appeals to law and order.

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  All to Play For - The Advance of...

  Michael Ashcroft

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  A Waterstones Best Politics Book of the Year 2023
  All to Play For, the anticipated follow-up edition to Going for Broke: The Rise of Rishi Sunak
  ★★★★✰  –Daily Telegraph
  "The overarching theme of Lord Ashcroft's revised and updated biography of Rishi Sunak is a portrayal of a politician trying to do the right thing."– George Parker, The House
  "The family history of both Sunak and his in-laws is fascinating and frequently quite moving." – Times Literary Supplement
  "Ashcroft has dug up a great deal of detail." – Eastern Eye
  PRAISE FOR GOING FOR BROKE
  "The fullest account yet written of Sunak the rising star." – Andrew Gimson, ConservativeHome
  "Clearly written, lively and perceptive, and contains much insight on the complex world of Tory politics." – Vernon Bogdanor, Prospect Magazine
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  The speed of Rishi Sunak's advance to 10 Downing Street is without precedent in modern British politics. In mid-2019, he was an unknown junior minister; seven months later, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer; and by October 2022, he had secured the highest office in the land. Aged forty-two, he was Britain's youngest Prime Minister in more than 200 years.
  Michael Ashcroft's biography – first published in 2020 and now fully revised and updated – charts Sunak's ascent to the University of Oxford, the City of London, Silicon Valley and Westminster before assuming the most powerful job in the country in chaotic circumstances.
  It is the story of a clever and hard-working son of immigrant parents who marries an heiress and makes a fortune of his own; a polished southerner who wins over the voters of North Yorkshire; a fiscal conservative who becomes the biggest-spending Chancellor in history; and a fastidious political operator tasked with reuniting the Conservative Party and repairing an economy in flux.
  Casting new light on Sunak's tense working relationship with his predecessor, Boris Johnson, All to Play For shows what makes him tick ahead of a general election whose outcome will have profound consequences for Britain.

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  The Greatest Cities of Ancient...

  Editors Charles River

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  Long before Alexandria was a city and even before Memphis and Babylon had attained greatness, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur stood foremost among ancient Near Eastern cities. Today, the greatness and cultural influence of Ur has been largely forgotten by most people, partially because its monuments have not stood the test of time the way other ancient culture’s monuments have. For instance, the monuments of Egypt were made of stone while those of Ur and most other Mesopotamian cities were made of mud brick and as will be discussed in this report, mud-brick may be an easier material to work with than stone but it also decays much quicker. The same is true to a certain extent for the written documents that were produced at Ur. Likewise, no site better represents the importance of the Sumerians than the city of Uruk. Between the fourth and the third millennium BCE, Uruk was one of several city-states in the land of Sumer, located in the southern end of the Fertile Crescent, between the two great rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates. 
  As Hittite power grew during the Old Kingdom, the royal city of Hattusa became more important and even wealthier. From his citadel overlooking Hattusa, Hattusili I launched the first major Hittite attacks into the Near East, first conquering the cities between Hattusa and the Mediterranean (Macqueen 2003, 36). Although the Biblical accounts of the Assyrians are among the most interesting and are often corroborated with other historical sources, the Assyrians were much more than just the enemies of the Israelites and brutal thugs. Among all the cities that thrived in the ancient Near East, few can match the opulence and ostentatiousness of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire for much of the seventh century BCE. 

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  A Rare Recording of Physicist...

  Richard Feynman

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  Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 - February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. In 1965, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.

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  Spitfire Command - A Fighter...

  Bobby Oxspring

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  Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Channel Dash, North Africa, Sicily, Dieppe, D-Day, and the fight against the V1 menace—Group Captain Bobby Oxspring saw action in many of the most famous battles of the Second World War. 
   
   
   
  His memoir of time as a Spitfire fighter is the perfect book for fans of First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, Samurai! by Saburo Sakai, and The First and the Last by Adolf Galland. 
   
   
   
  Beginning in 66 Squadron, by the end of the Battle of Britain, he was already an ace with eight enemy aircraft destroyed: three Heinkel 111s, one Dornier 17, one Me110, and three Me109s. He then went on to become flight commander in No. 41 Squadron RAF and later took command of three more squadrons. 
   
   
   
  His memoir, Spitfire Command, is a remarkable account of life as one of The Few, charting his journey through the war, flying all marks of the Spitfire—from the Mk I to the Mk XIV—right through to when he ended operational duty just a week before the war ended. Written vividly, Oxspring provides an authentic insight into the lives of the men who fought in the air. It is a fascinating and inspiring story of bravery, good humor, and sacrifice.

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  Beyond Blue and White - The...

  Genevieve Wheeler Brown

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  An engaging work of cultural history that reveals the stories behind one of the world's most coveted and beloved ceramic. 
   
  When over seventy-five pieces of rare and intriguing seventeenth and eighteenth century Delftware are rediscovered in an historic Manhattan townhouse, decorative art advisor and writer Genevieve Wheeler Brown quickly recognizes that, together, these pieces tell an amazing story. What begins as a curatorial exercise quickly evolves not only into an exploration of this colorful, expressive, and sometimes even humorous decorative art, coveted for hundreds of years, but also an unexpected uncovering of forceful female lives yet untold.Connecting the accounts of women across centuries, Beyond Blue and White allows us to craft a more complete picture of female experience through the lens of material culture. Beyond Blue and White is a colorful celebration of an iconic decorative art and dynamic women living in extraordinary times. Wheeler-Brown's rich narrative encourages us to see beyond the dazzling cobalt glaze of Delftware to consider that these vessels are also our connection to a history with a fascinating group of women at its center.

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