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  The Columnist - Leaks Lies and...

  Donald A. Ritchie

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  Long before Wikileaks and social media, the journalist Drew Pearson exposed to public view information that public officials tried to keep hidden. Pearson devoted himself to revealing what politicians were doing behind closed doors. From 1932 to 1969, his daily "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column and weekly radio and TV commentary broke secrets, revealed classified information, and passed along rumors based on sources high and low in the federal government, while intelligence agents searched fruitlessly for his sources.For forty years, this syndicated columnist and radio and television commentator  called public officials to account and forced them to confront the facts. Pearson's daily column, published in more than 600 newspapers, and his weekly radio and television commentaries led to the censure of two US senators, sent four members of the House to prison, and undermined numerous political careers.Breaking secrets was the heartbeat of Pearson's column. He played cat and mouse with the investigators who shadowed him, tapped his phone, read his mail, and planted agents among his friends. Yet they rarely learned his sources. Drawing on Pearson's extensive correspondence, diaries, and oral histories, The Columnist reveals the mystery behind Pearson's leaks and the accuracy of his most controversial revelations.

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  Carl von Clausewitz: The Life...

  Charles River Editors

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  Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz died almost 200 years ago, yet he remains one of the most important and influential of all military thinkers. His teachings combined strategy with military knowledge to produce a dialectic approach to the philosophy of warfare, and his work is still widely taught in military academies around the world. There are few senior military leaders anywhere who are not familiar with his seminal book, On War.  
  	In fact, with the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, no man was more influential on the military tactics and strategy of 19th century warfare than Clausewitz, a Prussian soldier and military theorist who stressed the moral and political aspects of war. On War was mandatory for all military students and officers to read during the 19th century, and it was common practice for generals during the American Civil War to carry Clausewitz’s treatise and read it to assist them in strategy and tactics.  
  	On War covered every conceivable facet of warfare, using historical battles as examples of what to do and what not to do. The treatise discusses how opposite forces interact, and how unexpected new developments unfolding under the "fog of war" called for rapid decisions by alert commanders. In opposition to Antoine-Henri Jomini, he argued war could not be quantified or graphed or reduced to mapwork and graphs.  
  	Perhaps most importantly, Clausewitz realized the correlation between politics and war. Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is, "War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means.” This view of warfare is still the standard viewpoint of war today. What it is easy to overlook is that when On War was first published, Clausewitz was regarded as a fairly insignificant figure, but in hindsight it’s easy to understand why his concepts have stood the test of time.

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  From Harvey River - A Memoir of...

  Lorna Goodison

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  "Throughout her life my mother [Doris] lived in two places at once: Kingston, Jamaica, where she raised a family of nine children, and Harvey River, in the parish of Hanover, where she was born and grew up."In the tradition of Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family and Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana comes Lorna Goodison's luminous memoir of her forebears—From Harvey River. When Doris' English grandfather, William Harvey, discovers a clearing at the end of a path cut by the feet of those running from slavery, he gives his name to what will become his family's home for generations. For Doris, Harvey River is the place she always called home, the place where she was one of the "fabulous Harvey girls" and where the rich local bounty of the land went hand in hand with the Victorian niceties and comforts of her parents' house. It is a place she will return to in dreams when her fortunes change, years later, and she and her husband, Marcus Goodison, relocate to "hard life" Kingston and encounter the harsh realities of urban living in close quarters as they raise their family of nine children.In lush prose, Lorna Goodison weaves memory and island lore to create a vivid, universally appealing tapestry.

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  Up From Slavery: The Incredible...

  Booker T. Washington

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  "Up from Slavery" is the autobiography of Booker T. Washington sharing his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. 
  Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856 – 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants.
  Contents:
  A Slave Among Slaves
  Boyhood Days
  The Struggle For An Education
  Helping Others
  The Reconstruction Period
  Black Race And Red Race
  Early Days At Tuskegee
  Teaching School In A Stable And A Hen-House
  Anxious Days And Sleepless Nights
  A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw
  Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them
  Raising Money
  Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech
  The Atlanta Exposition Address
  The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking
  Europe
  Last Words

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  Pepper and Salt

  Howard Pyle

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  One must have a little pinch of seasoning in this dull, heavy life of ours; one should never look to have all the troubles, the labors, and the cares, with never a whit of innocent jollity and mirth. Yes, one must smile now and then, if for nothing else than to lift the corners of the lips in laughter that are only too often dragged down in sorrow. … Yet listen! One must not look to have nothing but pepper and salt in this life of ours—no, indeed! At that rate we would be worse off than we are now. I only mean that it is a good and pleasant thing to have something to lend the more solid part a little savor now and then! …Are you ready? Very well; then I will tell you a story. - Summary from the Preface

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  Yellowstone National Park: Six...

  Various Various

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  Lost in the wilderness of The Yellowstone for over a month, nearly dying of starvation and wild animal attack, despairing of ever finding his way out.    Here are six relatively unknown early pieces about the U.S.A.’s first national park.   The first is a U.S. Geological booklet about initial exploration and Congress’s institution of the park.  The next two are articles from Scribner’s Monthly, 1871, a very popular magazine of the time, describing the park’s features (vol 2 #1  pp 1-17 and vol 2 #2 pp 113-128) .  The fourth piece is a narrative by the leader of the exploratory expedition described in the first piece, H.V. Hayden (Scribner’s Monthly, vol 3#2 pp 388-396, February 1872)  The fifth piece is a lecture on the park by a very popular lecturer and writer, 1900 (John L. Stoddard’s Lectures, vol 10).  The last piece is a man’s first-person narrative of his being  lost in the Yellowstone wilderness for thirty-seven days, 1871, Scribner’s Monthly again (vol 3#1). - Summary by david wales

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