The 1951 regular season was as good as over. The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. And not once in major league baseball’s 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. But New York rallied, and at 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The Giants won the pennant. The Echoing Green follows the reverberations of that one moment–the Shot Heard Round the World–from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where a home run forever turned hitter and pitcher into hero and goat. It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The spyglass would remain undiscovered until 2001, when, in the jubilee of that home run, Joshua Prager laid bare on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a Giant secret: from July 20, 1951, through the very day of that legendary game, the orange and black stole the finger signals of opposing catchers. The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail the 1951 pennant race and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca. A wonderfully evocative portrait of the great American pastime, The Echoing Green is baseball history, social history and biography–irresistible reading from any angle.

Essays by Oliver Sacks, Jonathan Miller, Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel J. Kevles, & R.C. Lewontin explore forgotten and neglected aspects of the history of science.

Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of “Change We Can Believe In” was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama’s historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery. In The Promise: President Obama, Year One , Jonathan Alter, one of the country’s most respected journalists and historians, uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama’s difficult debut. What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called “a Rubik’s Cube in his brain?" These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office. The Promise is a fast-paced and incisive narrative of a young risk-taking president carving his own path amid sky-high expectations and surging joblessness. Alter reveals that it was Obama alone—“feeling lucky”—who insisted on pushing major health care reform over the objections of his vice president and top advisors, including his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who admitted that “I begged him not to do this.” Alter takes the reader inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and bounces back after a disastrous Massachusetts election to redeem a promise that had eluded presidents since FDR. In Alter’s telling, the real Obama is an authentic, demanding, unsentimental, and sometimes overconfident leader. He adapted to the presidency with ease and put more “points on the board” than he is given credit for, but neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public. We see the famously calm president cursing leaks, playfully trash-talking his advisors, and joking about even the most taboo subjects, still intent on redeeming more of his promise as the problems mount. This brilliant blend of journalism and history offers the freshest reporting and most acute perspective on the biggest story of our time. It will shape impressions of the Obama presidency and of the man himself for years to come.

A clear-eyed view of Winston Churchill, the workings of his historical imagination, and his successes and failures as a statesman, by the celebrated historian of World War II and best-selling author of Five Days in London, May 1940 John Lukacs has spent a lifetime considering the complex personality and statesmanship of Winston Churchill. In previous books Lukacs has told the story of Churchill's titanic struggle with Adolf Hitler in the early days of World War II. Now, in Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian., he turns his attention to Churchill the man and visionary statesman. Each chapter of this book provides an essential portrait of Churchill. Lukacs treats Churchill's vital relationships with Stalin, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower, as well as his complex, farsighted political vision concerning the coming of World War II and the Cold War. Lukacs also assesses Churchill's abilities as a historian looking backward into the origins of the conflicts of which he was so much a part. In addition, the author examines the often contradictory ways Churchill has been perceived by critics and admirers alike. The last chapter is a powerful and deeply moving evocation of the three days Lukacs spent in London attending Churchill's funeral in 1965. In Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian., Lukacs deftly sets forth the essence of this towering figure of twentieth-century history with the consummate mastery of a great historian.

John Feinstein, whom the Boston Globe calls 'the best writer of sports books in America today,' captures the fiercest four days in golf as no other writer could. Chronicling the U.S. Open as it was played, for the first time in history, on a true public golf course-and one of the most challenging courses in the country (only one player, Tiger Woods, finished under par at Bethpage Black)-Feinstein lifts the mystery shrouding golf's most celebrated event and takes the reader through every shot, every trap, every thorny hole, and every bitter rivalry of golf's greatest tournament.

Baseball, Chicago Style explores the exciting, enticing, enduring and frequently frustrating panorama of our national pastime. For the first time the colorful saga of Major League Baseball in Chicago is wrapped between the covers of a single book sure to appeal to both Cubs and White Sox fans. No writers are better suited to survey it than Holtzman, a Hall of Fame member and the first official historian of Major League Baseball, and partner Vass, both of whom covered the teams for many seasons. When it comes to baseball tradition, Chicago is second to none, the sole city to embrace two major league teams without interruption from their founding to the present. The Cubs haven't missed a beat since 1876 as the oldest uninterrupted franchise in all pro sports, while the White Sox have challenged them without letup since 1901 for the backing of Chicago's vast fandom. The Cubs' best known exploit of the last 55 seasons may have been to not win the pennant in 1969, the year of the Great Collapse. Not even division titles in 1984 and 1989, or a "wild card" post-season excursion in 1998, all of which ended in tears, have displaced the sorrow of 1969 in the collective memory of Cubs fans. But those who scoff at Cubs' tradition willfully ignore several glorious periods of their history. It's true they've won only two World Series (1907-08), but they've played in 10, far more than most teams. And their 1906 record of 116-36, for a percentage of .847, is unmatched in major league history. What's best-known nationally about the White Sox is that they "threw" the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The dastardly act, commemorated in history, literature, film and television, transformedtheir previously innocuous nickname of Black Sox, based on the hue of their uniforms in previous seasons, into an invidious epithet which clings to them like a burr to corduroy. The tale of stinginess, greed and the betrayal of "the faith of 50 million people" forms the book's first chapter. It has never been told so fully and objectively without glib sentiment obscuring its uglier aspects. Even if Chicago's teams have waged war by frequently marching to the rear since the White Sox last brought the World Series to the city in 1959, more than four decades ago, they've played the game with a gusto that belongs solely to Baseball, Chicago Style.

The New York Times bestselling author of Rise of ISIS exposes the dangers of radical Islam and the effects it has on the American way of life in this informative and eye-opening new book. In Unholy Alliance , Jay Sekulow highlights and defines the looming threat of radical Islam. A movement born in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, radical Islam has at its heart the goal of complete world domination. As this movement has grown, Iran has entered into alliances with Syria and Russia, leading to a deadly game of geopolitical threats and violence. Not only will you better understand jihadist terror, but you will also learn about Sharia law—a legal code that removes all personal liberty and is starkly incompatible with the US Constitution. All Muslims are required to follow Sharia—as are all who live in lands controlled by Islam. It is the goal of radical Islam to see Sharia instituted across the globe. If we are to combat radical Islam’s agenda of domination, we must arm ourselves with knowledge. With carefully researched history, legal-case studies, and in-depth interviews, Unholy Alliance lays out the ideology and strategy of radical Islam, as well as the path we must take to defeat it.

Dick Cheney is the most powerful yet most unpopular vice president in American history. He has thrived alongside a president who, from day one, had little interest in policy and limited experience in the ways of Washington. Yet Cheney's relentless rise to prominence over three decades has happened almost by stealth. Now veteran reporters Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein reveal the disturbing truth about the man who has successfully co-opted executive control over the U.S. government, serving as the de facto 'shadow president' of the most dominant White House in a generation. Cheney has always been an astute politician. He survived the collapse of the Nixon presidency, finding a position of power in the administration of Gerald Ford. He was then elected to the House of Representatives and later served in the cabinet of the first Bush presidency. But when he became George W. Bush's running mate, Cheney reached a new level of influence. From the engineering of his own selection as vice president to his support of policies allowing torture as a permissible weapon in the 'war on terror', Cheney has consistently steered America to the right. With unique access to numerous first-hand sources, Vice provides an unprecedented expose of Cheney's career. Its startling revelations concern the war in Iraq, his relationship with the CIA and with big business, his involvement with Enron, his attitude towards Iran and his ruthless manoeuvering which today effectively puts him in charge of American policy at home and abroad. In the tradition of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's All the President's Men , this powerful work of investigative journalism takes us behind the scenes in Washington, into hitherto secret meetings and deep into the heart of political decision-making. Utterly gripping, Vice chronicles and exposes the hijacking of the American presidency and illustrates the arrogance of power as never before.

Traces United States history from the Reconstruction through World War I.

In Put It In the Book , New York Mets broadcaster and lifelong fan Howie Rose takes fans behind the microphone, into the locker rooms, and through the last 50 years of Mets baseball. Millions of fans have listened to Rose's trademark calls over the years, and now, with his patented honesty and humor, he gives a firsthand account of the Amazins'--from the greatness of Tom Seaver to Johan Santana's recent no-no. In addition to a personalized look at the rich history of the of the team, this work also features Rose's thoughts and opinions on the current Mets team and roster and his thoughts on the future of the club.

Herman Wouk has ranged in his novels from the mighty narrative of The Caine Mutiny and the warm, intimate humor of Marjorie Morningstar to the global panorama of The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. All these powers merge in this major new work of nonfiction, The Will to Live On, an illuminating account of the worldwide revolution that has been sweeping over Jewry, set against a swiftly reviewed background of history, tradition, and sacred literature. Forty years ago, in his modern classic This Is My God, Herman Wouk stated the case for his religious beliefs and conduct. His aim in that work and in The Will to Live On has been to break through the crust of prejudice, to reawaken clearheaded thought about the magnificent Jewish patrimony, and to convey a message of hope for Jewish survival. Although the Torah and the Talmud are timeless, the twentieth century has brought earthquake shocks to the Jews: the apocalyptic experience of the Holocaust, the reborn Jewish state, the precarious American diaspora, and deepening religious schisms. After a lifetime of study, Herman Wouk examines the changes affecting the Jewish world, especially the troubled wonder of Israel, and the remarkable, though dwindling, American Jewry. The book is peppered with wonderful stories of the author's encounters with such luminaries as Ben Gurion, Isidor Rabi, Yitzhak Rabin, Saul Bellow, and Richard Feynan. Learned in general culture, warmly tolerant of other beliefs, this noted author expresses his own other beliefs, this noted author expresses his own faith with a passion that gives the book its fire and does so in the clear, engaging style tha-as in all Wouk's fiction -- makes the reader want to know what the next page will bring.

In this major work, Blumenberg takes issue with Karl Löwith's well-known thesis that the idea of progress is a secularized version of Christian eschatology, which promises a dramatic intervention that will consummate the history of the world from outside. Instead, Blumenberg argues, the idea of progress always implies a process at work within history, operating through an internal logic that ultimately expresses human choices and is legitimized by human self-assertion, by man's responsibility for his own fate.

"What do the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, and the Vietnam antiwar movement have in common? These are examples of the profound moments in American history when ordinary Americans collectively and persuasively told the government ENOUGH! Challenging Authority argues that ordinary people exercise exrtodinary political courage and power in American politics when, frustrated by politics as usual, they rise up in anger and hope, and defy the authorities and the status quo rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives. By doing so, they disrupt the workings of important institutions and become a force in American politics." From the bookjacket.

An inspiring memoir about love, race, identity, and contested narratives told with unflinching mettle. Through her childhood spent in 1940s New York being raised by two mothers, her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, and raising her own children in the coalfields of West Virginia, Faith S. Holsaert has been defined by the intertwined forces of race, activism, and family. As a young woman on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement, she learned the power of contested narratives and came to understand her whiteness, her queer identity, and her stakes in overturning racism. Later in life, she confronted sexual abuse and mental illness across three generations of women in her family to find that these painful histories have played a significant role in the development of her identity as a woman, activist, and mother. Through a lifetime laid bare in prose and poetry, Holsaert beautifully quilts memoir, social history, and historic events into a gripping and inspirational narrative. This powerful and structurally innovative work lends new categories of meaning to those who would strive to find their place, hope, and sense of belonging in efforts to fight against systemic racism and lead lives characterized by openness and love.

A powerfully written history . . . Eric Hammel has demonstrated again his genius for bringing the past to life in language that is both understandable and digestible. He accompanies his magnificent prose with many never-before-published photographs of Marines in action during the war. The result is a history masterpiece. . . . A must-read for future generations of Marines. For those who fought the battles, endured the suffering and paid the price, this book is a tribute to their honor, glory and steadfast devotion to duty.— Leatherneck Magazine Where did the U.S. Marines earn their reputation as being the "first to fight?" It was on the South Pacific Island of Guadalcanal, America’s first land victory of World War II. There, on August 7, 1942, the 1st Marine Division stormed ashore to begin one of the most difficult and brutal campaigns of military history—and an unbroken string of victories staged across the Pacific. Pacific Warriors takes you from the fighting leatherneck’s first victory at Guadalcanal to their final victory on Okinawa in 1945, their last battle of the war. The book features 300 photographs, many which were never before published.

Everyone has his own picture of Jesus - few historical figures have been so overlaid with centuries of mythmaking. But is it possible for us to discover what he was like from the historical evidence? Professor Sanders, author of Paul and Palestinian Judaism and Jesus and Judaism, has placed the study of the relationship between Judaism and early Christianity on a new one that is historical and descriptive rather than theological and antagonistic. In this book he uses a clear and logical approach, carefully distinguishing the 'certain' from the 'less certain' and the 'improbable' to present a fresh and dramatic account of Jesus as a person. Since scholars first began to analyse the gospels using the tools of critical study, Jesus has proved a tantalizing puzzle. There is enough evidence to offer the hope of a full explanation of who he was and what he did, but on examination it turns out to be difficult and sometimes contradictory. In the first part of this study Professor Sanders proposes that we can have excellent knowledge about Jesus on a general level where he fits into the history and religious movements of first-century Palestine, the main themes of his teaching, some of his principal activities, and the people who followed him. More specific questions, such as 'What precisely was he like?', 'What are the nuances of his teaching?' and 'What were his aims', can be answered with less certainty. The second part of the book identifies the range of possible answers and weighs the evidence in favour of each. Historical research into the life and career of Jesus cannot fully explain the emergence and phenomenal spread of the new religion of Christianity. The author discusses how the disciples decided to put together the reports of Jesus' life which we now have as the gospels, and their desire to present his person in the teachings of what became a powerful religion that spread from the Jews to the Gentiles and throughout the world. Although we must acknow

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. The plays included in the volume—three of the most popular domestic dramas and one history play—provide a representative selection of Chikamatsu’s work for Western readers. In his introduction to the translations, Dr. Keene provides the reader with the background essential for an understanding of Chikamatsu’s work. He discusses customs and beliefs in Chikamatsu’s time, their reflection in the behavior ofhis characters, and the essential features of Japanese drama as they developed entirely independently of foreign influence. The four plays included in the book “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki”“The Battles of Coxinga”“The Uprooted Pine”“The Love Suicides at Amijima”

The problem of the causes of the decline and fall of the classical world as represented by the Roman Empire in the West is at least as old as the Renaissance and was posed in definitive form by Edward Gibbon in the eighteenth century. It has not yet lost its fascination, for in the twentieth century historians and philosophers of history have continued to use it as the focal point for speculations on the nature of historical change. The Roman Empire is admirably suited as a subject for such speculations, because it represents a complete cycle of civilization. At the same time, it is of special interest to students of Western civilization, for the classical heritage is a vital component of that civilization. The difficulties presented by the problem of the decline and fall are enormous. The passage of time and the vagaries of fortune have destroyed many of the sources we should like to have as evidence and have preselected the rest; but beyond the problem of sources is the difficult methodological problem of distinguishing cause from effect and assigning the proper weight to each contributing factor. In light of these difficulties it is not surprising that there seem to be as many interpretations as there are scholars and that each age has seen the problem from a different perspective. The selections presented here give some idea of the nature of the debate.

To most graph theorists there are two outstanding landmarks in the history of their subject. One is Euler's solution of the Konigsberg Bridges Problem, dated 1736, and the other is the appearance of Denes Konig's textbook in 1936. "From Konigsberg to Konig's book" sings the poetess, "So runs the graphic tale . . . " [10]. There were earlier books that took note of graph theory. Veb len's Analysis Situs, published in 1931, is about general combinato rial topology. But its first two chapters, on "Linear graphs" and "Two-Dimensional Complexes," are almost exclusively concerned with the territory still explored by graph theorists. Rouse Ball's Mathematical Recreations and Essays told, usually without proofs, of the major graph-theoretical advances ofthe nineteenth century, of the Five Colour Theorem, of Petersen's Theorem on I-factors, and of Cayley's enumerations of trees. It was Rouse Ball's book that kindled my own graph-theoretical enthusiasm. The graph-theoretical papers of Hassler Whitney, published in 1931-1933, would have made an excellent textbook in English had they been collected and published as such. But the honour of presenting Graph Theory to the mathe matical world as a subject in its own right, with its own textbook, belongs to Denes Konig. Low was the prestige of Graph Theory in the Dirty Thirties. It is still remembered, with resentment now shading into amuse ment, how one mathematician scorned it as "The slums of Topol ogy.""

A gripping history that plumbs the extraordinary stories of American relief and rescue workers during World War II.