Other books that might interest you

• 

  Abraham Lincoln and the American...

  Dan Monroe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Abraham Lincoln was arguably the greatest American president. Now, you can take a deeper look at his powerful presidency and the war that shook America 150 years ago in this insightful course.
  
   
  Raised in Kentucky and Indiana by a father who did not value education, Lincoln had only a year of formal education. Rented out for day labor by his father, Lincoln gained insight into the injustices of slavery and would go on to become a self-educated lawyer.
  
   
  After meeting the young Lincoln and examining his colorful legal adventures and improbably ascendency to the U.S. presidency, you will gain an historian’s insight into the causes of the Civil War. You will explore the war’s surprising first year, the chaos of the first battle at Bull Run, the emergence of the plodding George McClellan, and the dramatic success of Confederate arms under Robert E. Lee. With fresh insight, you will probe Lincoln’s decision to embrace emancipation and explore the reasons behind this game-changing policy change. Examine Lincoln’s unforgettable speech at Gettysburg in 1863, wherein he upheld the Declaration of Independence as the key founding document of the United States of America.
  
   
  Finally, you will explore civil liberties in both the Union and the Confederacy during the war, the emergence of Ulysses S. Grant, and Lincoln’s memorable reflections on the conflict in his Second Inaugural Address followed soon after by his tragic martyrdom.
  
   
  You will relish each lecture as you gain a deeper understanding of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.

  Show book

• 

  The Window Seat

  Aminatta Forna

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Aminatta Forna is one of our most important literary voices, and her novels have won the Windham Campbell Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book. In this elegantly rendered and wide-ranging collection of essays, Forna writes intimately about displacement, trauma and memory, love, and how we coexist and encroach on the non-human world. Movement is a constant here. In the title piece, “The Window Seat,” she reveals the unexpected enchantments of air travel. In “Obama and the Renaissance Generation,” she writes of the gifted young Africans who came to the United Kingdom and the United States for education and were expected to build their home countries anew after colonialism. In “The Last Vet,” time spent shadowing Dr. Jalloh, the only veterinarian in Sierra Leone, becomes a meditation on what a society’s treatment of animals tells us about its principles. In “Crossroads,” she examines race in America from an African perspective; in “Power Walking,” she describes the experience of walking in the world in a Black woman’s body; and in “The Watch,” she explores the raptures of sleep and sleeplessness the world over.  With a wry humor and cutting insight, Forna delves into the forces, natural and manmade, that have shaped our modern world, and with it, us. The Window Seat confirms that Aminatta Forna is a vital voice in international letters.

  Show book

• 

  George Mason - The Founding...

  William G. Hyland Jr.

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  George Mason was a short, bookish man who was a friend and neighbor of athletic, broad-shouldered George Washington. Unlike Washington, Mason has been virtually forgotten by history. But this new biography of patriot George Mason makes a convincing case that Mason belongs in the pantheon of honored Founding Fathers. 
   
  Trained in the law, Mason was also a farmer, philosopher, botanist, and musician. He was one of the architects of the Declaration of Independence, an author of the Bill of Rights, and one of the strongest proponents of religious liberty in American history. In fact, both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison may have been given undue credit for George Mason's own contributions to American democracy.

  Show book

• 

  The Hacker Crackdown - Law and...

  Bruce Sterling

  • 0
  • 1
  • 0

  The bestselling cyberpunk author “has produced by far the most stylish report from the computer outlaw culture since Steven Levy’s Hackers” (Publishers Weekly).   Bruce Sterling delves into the world of high-tech crime and punishment in one of the first books to explore the cyberspace breaches that threaten national security. From the crash of AT&T’s long-distance switching system to corporate cyberattacks, he investigates government and law enforcement efforts to break the back of America’s electronic underground in the 1990s. In this modern classic, “Sterling makes the hackers—who live in the ether between terminals under noms de net such as VaxCat—as vivid as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. His book goes a long way towards explaining the emerging digital world and its ethos” (Publishers Weekly).  This edition features a new preface by the author that analyzes the sobering increase in computer crime over the twenty-five years since The Hacker Crackdown was first published.   “Offbeat and brilliant.” —Booklist   “Thoroughly researched, this account of the government’s crackdown on the nebulous but growing computer-underground provides a thoughtful report on the laws and rights being defined on the virtual frontier of cyberspace. . . . An enjoyable, informative, and (as the first mainstream treatment of the subject) potentially important book . . . Sterling is a fine and knowledgeable guide to this strange new world.” —Kirkus Reviews   “A well-balanced look at this new group of civil libertarians. Written with humor and intelligence, this book is highly recommended.” —Library Journal

  Show book

• 

  Henry VIII’s Wives: History in...

  Julie Wheeler

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. 
  In his ambition to provide a male heir to the throne, Henry VIII married six times. Divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, caused England’s break from the Catholic church in Rome. He went on to divorce Anne of Cleves and behead Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard for infidelities. Jane Seymour died and Catherine Parr survived Henry. 
  Henry VIII’s Wives in an Hour will introduce you to these six entirely diverse and captivating personalities and the events that propelled them to their individual fates. You will learn which wife had what impact on Henry and England and understand why Henry and his six wives form the most popular period of Tudor history. 
  Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour… 
  In Henry VIII’s Wives, Julie Wheeler masterfully weaves the intricate tales of these six women against the backdrop of Britain's royal court. This top-rated biography is a short, yet insightful journey into a fascinating period of European history. 
  For fans of Tracy Borman (Henry VIII and the men who made him)

  Show book

• 

  Mrs Dalloway and To the...

  Virginia Woolf

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Presented here are two of the most important books of the early 20th Century by one of the most original and groundbreaking writers of her era, the feminist literary pioneer Virginia Woolf.  First, the 1925 sensation "Mrs. Dalloway," the breakthrough novel that solidified Woolf's reputation as a fresh, new voice of her generation. Written in a new style - soon dubbed "stream-of-consciousness" - the book details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a British socialite in post-First World War England. Originally written as "The Hours," Woolf's novel was based on two earlier short stories, "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street" and "The Prime Minister." The book takes place in a single day and follows the eponymous lead character as she prepares for and hosts a party. Looping backwards and forwards in time, the reader is given a glimpse inside the mind of Mrs. Dalloway - and some of her party guests - as they goes about their day. Received with rapturous reviews upon its debut, Mrs. Dalloway was included on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels ever written.  Also included in this volume is "To the Lighthouse," which was published in 1927, just two years after Mrs. Dalloway was released. To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf's experimental and brilliant third novel and concerns the annual visits by the Ramsay family to their summer home in the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Once again employing her unique, stream-of-consciousness style, Woolf creates a fascinating and complex novel where the point of view of the narration switches between the various Ramsay family members and their guests. This semi-autobiographical book was hailed in its time as a breakthrough work of genius by critics, has gone on to become one of the most beloved and carefully studied books of all time and has been named by both Modern Library and Time Magazine as as one of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century.

  Show book