Slavery is a comprehensive look at the history of an abomination. Words and images reveal the story of slavery around the world and across the centuries, focusing on slavery in the United States in the 1800s. This authoritative, heavily illustrated guide looks at the escalation of the Atlantic slave trade, the African peoples who were targeted, the lives they led as slaves in the American South, the slow growth of worldwide anti-slavery movements, abolition in the United States, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and more. Understand slavery - and how America's slave past has influenced its racial atmosphere today - with Slavery. (Ages: 12+)
In the waning days of World War II, unbeknownst to all but a handful of people, the Japanese tried a last, desperate measure - a different kind of kamikaze mission, this one carried out by two submarines bound for the west coast of the United States, their cargo a revolutionary new strain of biological virus. Neither sub made it to the designated target. But that does not mean they were lost.
In The Wet is a novel by Nevil Shute that was first published in the UK in 1953. It contains many of the typical elements of a hearty and adventurous Shute yarn such as flying, the future, mystic states, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918-1928
This latest volume in the definitive six-volume biography of Herbert Hoover tracks Hoover’s life and career from 1918 to 1928—a period defined largely by his role as United States Secretary of Commerce and leading directly to his election as the thirty-first President of the United States. It tells the story of how Hoover the engineering progressive turned relief and war manager developed a public philosophy for dealing with a wide array of problems. It also fits Hoover into the larger thought, action, and developmental patterns of the period, interweaving his family matters, business affairs, and other projects with the larger historical context.
The Road to Wigan Pier was written by George Orwell and published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions amongst the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half is a long essay on his middle-class upbringing, and the development of his political conscience, questioning British attitudes towards socialism. Orwell states plainly that he himself is in favour of socialism; but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.
