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  William Howard Taft - The...

  Jeffrey Rosen

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  William Howard Taft never wanted to be president and yearned instead to serve as chief justice of the United States. But despite his ambivalence about politics, the former federal judge found success in the executive branch as governor of the Philippines and secretary of war, and he won a resounding victory in the presidential election of 1908 as Theodore Roosevelt's handpicked successor. 
  In this provocative assessment, Jeffrey Rosen reveals Taft's crucial role in shaping how America balances populism against the rule of law. Taft approached each decision as president by asking whether it comported with the Constitution, seeking to put Roosevelt's activist executive orders on firm legal grounds. But unlike Roosevelt, who thought the president could do anything the Constitution didn't forbid, Taft insisted he could do only what the Constitution explicitly allowed. This led to a dramatic breach with Roosevelt in the historic election of 1912. 
  Nine years later, Taft achieved his lifelong dream when President Warren Harding appointed him chief justice, and during his years on the Court he promoted consensus among the justices and transformed the judiciary into a modern, fully equal branch. Though he had chafed in the White House as a judicial president, he thrived as a presidential chief justice.

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  Vinnie Ream - An American Sculptor

  Edward Cooper

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  An intriguing biography of the American woman sculptor and Civil War–era Washington, DC, fixture. One of America’s least known and most controversial women artists of the Civil War era was Vinnie Ream, who sculpted a bust of Abraham Lincoln from life when she was only sixteen years old and had almost no artistic training.  She was able, through clever maneuvering and dogged determination, to achieve a commission from the Congress for a life-sized statue of the assassinated president—this despite the very real animus against women artists at that time, which is apparent in the heated arguments against granting her the Lincoln commission—arguments spearheaded in the Senate by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.  Steeped in the history of her time, Vinnie Ream was involved with dozens of senators and congressmen and other powerful men—not least of all Generals Sherman and Custer—and her studio on Capitol Hill became a legendary stopping place for many admirers and tourists. Her statue of Lincoln stands in the rotunda of the capitol building; her statue of Admiral Farragut stands in a Washington, DC, park; other works are in Statuary Hall and various museums. This is an engaging biography of a spirited female artist, and an effective portrait of Washington, DC, in the Civil War era. Praise for Vinnie Ream “Ream’s intellect, artistic talents, indomitable will, seductiveness, and grand ambitions were already evident when she was a teenager newly arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1861. . . . Endlessly intriguing. . . . Kudos to Cooper for resurrecting Ream and enriching so vividly the history of women in art.” —Booklist“A sharply focused biography, which skillfully exploits unpublished papers, journals and scrapbooks of Vinnie Ream.” —New York Review of Books

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  Honor Thy Father

  Gay Talese

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  A classic masterwork newly updatedThe electrifying true story of the rise and fall of New York's notorious Bonanno crime familyOn New York's Park Avenue on a rainy Tuesday night in October 1964, the famous Mafia chieftain Joseph Bonanno was kidnapped by two mobsters and reported by the police as dead on the following morning. More than a year later, Bonanno mysteriously reappeared, setting off a bloody mob feud that came to be known as the “Banana War.”In this monumental work—packed with intimate details and brilliant reporting—bestselling author Gay Talese first brought to the American consciousness a world and a life previously known to only a few. No other book has done more to acquaint readers with the secrets, structure, wars, power plays, family lives, and fascinating, frightening personalities of the Mafia.

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  A Widower's Walk

  Danny White

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  On December 14, 1997, Marine Corps Captain Danny White thought he had it all. He had married his high school sweetheart and they had three children and another on the way, when an accident on an Arizona highway shattered his life and left him and two of his children stranded in a desert of the soul. Through his faith in God, Danny eventually found his life and a new love to lead him to his destiny.

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  The Path to Power

  Margaret Thatcher

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  In her international bestseller, The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher provided an acclaimed account of her years as Prime Minister. This second volume reflects on the early years of her life and how they influenced her political career.

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  The American Heroes Collection -...

  Mike Guardia

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  Three stirring military portraits—including a biography of the Vietnam War hero who wrote the New York Times bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young.  Hal Moore: A heroic commander in the Vietnam War, Harold G. Moore cowrote the New York Times–bestselling memoir of the battle at Ia Drang and was portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film We Were Soldiers. This “outstanding” and definitive biography expands on the account of that pivotal battle to encompass Moore’s distinguished military career from the Korean War through his courageous and invaluable service in Vietnam (Armchair General).  Shadow Commander: In World War II, US Army legend Donald Blackburn escaped from Bataan along with Russell W. Volckmann and organized the guerrilla fighters known as “Blackburn’s Headhunters” against the Japanese. He would go on to play a key role in the Vietnam War, revitalizing Army Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia, spearheading Operation White Star in Laos, and eventually taking command of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG). Blackburn was also the architect of the infamous Son Tay Prison Raid, officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the largest prisoner-of-war rescue mission of the Vietnam War.   “A follow-up to a fine bio of Russell Volckmann, this tale of guerrilla warfare spans from Bataan to Vietnam.” —World War II Magazine  American Guerrilla: Here is Russell Volckmann’s own story, from his refusal to surrender at Bataan to raising a Filipino army of more than twenty-two thousand men and leading a guerrilla war against the Japanese for the next three years. When General Yamashita finally surrendered, he made his initial overtures not to General Douglas MacArthur, but to Volckmann. The progenitor of modern counterinsurgency doctrine, Volkmann wrote the field manuals that became the US Army’s first handbooks outlining the precepts for both special warfare and counter-guerrilla operations, making him the true “father” of Army Special Forces.   “[Volckmann’s private army] waged arguably the most successful guerrilla campaign of the entire war . . . Mr. Guardia argues, convincingly, that Volckmann deserves the title of ‘father’ of Special Forces.” —The Washington Times

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