Nick Corey is a terrible sheriff on purpose. He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County actually wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women. Still, Nick has some very complex problems to deal with. Two local pimps have been sassing him, ruining his already tattered reputation. His girlfriend Rose is being terrorized by her husband. And then, there's his wife and her brother Lenny who won't stop troubling Nick's already stressed mind. Are they a little too close for a brother and a sister? With an election coming up, Nick needs to fix his problems and fast. Because the one thing Nick does know is that he will do anything to stay sheriff. Because, as it turns out, Sheriff Nick Corey is not nearly as dumb as he seems. In Pop. 1280, widely regarded as a classic of mid-20th century crime, Thompson offers up one of his best, in a tale of lust, murder, and betrayal in the Deep South that was the basis for the critically acclaimed French film Coup de Torchon.
It was supposed to be only a temporary job -- something to pay the bills until Dusty could get his feet back on the ground and raise enough money for medical school. After all, there's nothing wrong with being a bellboy at a respectable hotel like the Manton -- that is, until she came along. Marcia Hillis. The perfect woman. Beautiful. Experienced. Older and wiser. The only woman to ever measure up to that other her -- the one whose painful rejection Dusty can't quite put from his mind. But while Dusty has designs on Marcia, Marcia has an agenda of her own. One that threatens to pull the Manton inside-out, use Dusty up for all he's worth and leave him reeling and on the run, the whole world at his heels. A richly-imagined crime narrative of the Oedipal and betrayal, A Swell-Looking Babe is Thompson at his very best -- a cornerstone in Thompson's enduring legacy as the Dimestore Dostoyevsky of American fiction.
In The Killer Inside Me, America's "Dimestore Dostoevsky" Jim Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time. Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers — the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between — as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday. But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge — and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him.
Joe Wilmot can't stand his wife Elizabeth. But he sure loves her movie theater. It's a modest establishment in a beat-down town--but Joe has the run of the place, and inside its walls, he's king. Without the theater, he'd be sunk. Without his leadership, the theater would close in a heartbeat. If it isn't the life Joe imagined for himself, at the very least, it's livable. Everything changes when Joe falls for the housemaid Carol, and the two can't keep it a secret from Elizabeth. Elizabeth won't leave Joe the theater unless he provides for her...but he's put all his money into the show house. Carol and Joe's only hope is the life insurance policies they've taken out on each other. If one of them were to be presumed dead, they'd have more than enough money to solve all their problems... No one knows murder better than Jim Thompson and in this incisive foray into the dark dealings of the mid-20th century movie industry, he doesn't disappoint, in the riveting story of a love triangle gone horribly wrong, and just how far one man will go to hold on to a desperate dream.
By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive. A bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, ROUGHNECK chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction's most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir--or wildly entertaining tall tale--as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good.
In trouble more often than not, guilty of assault, manslaughter, and honorably discharged from the military by the skin of his teeth, David "Bugs" McKenna can't seem to help doing the right thing at the wrong time--or the wrong thing, every chance he gets. But when he drifts his way into Ragtown, Texas, things seem to finally be turning around for Bugs. He gets his first job in years as the hotel detective of the landmark Hanlon Hotel. But now that Bugs owes deputy sheriff Lou Ford a favor, things are likely to get ugly, fast--and odds are, it'll have something to do with the bombshell wife of his Bugs' new employer... In WILD TOWN, Jim Thompson returns to the characters from THE KILLER INSIDE ME that made his reputation, in a virtuoso, multi-character portrait of how one man's life can take a turn for the worse.
Deputy sheriff Tom Lord knows by now that far-west Texas is the place he'll always call home. He's spent too much time in the region's small towns to adapt to another place. And that's all right with him. What's not all right is being a deputy sheriff, where if it weren't for family misfortune, he might have been a doctor instead. Lord's got one ace-in-the-hole -- the land deed that makes him the biggest landowner in the county, just as the oil companies have started to move in. When Tom's approached by Aaron McBride of Highlands Oil and Gas with a contract to set up pipelines on his property, he's more than happy to sign on the dotted line with barely more than a cursory glance at the paperwork -- it just might be Lord's way out of a life he never wanted in the first place. But when Lord finds out just what that contract entailed, things start to go sour for Aaron McBride -- and fast. Because in this Texas town, Lord's the law -- and there's nothing more dangerous than a cop with nothing left to lose.
Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character. Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars — the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life — until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.
Patrick Cosgrove used to think he'd do anything not to be a prisoner of Sandstone State Reformatory. Fifteen years on the inside for a victimless crime, under the care of a warden whose penchant for violence is legendary -- surely nothing could be worse. But when an unbelievably Samaritan act by a psychologist he's never met places Cosgrove in the care of Roland "Doc" Luther, Cosgrove's not so sure he hasn't traded the frying pan for the fire after all. On the one hand, Doc claims that Cosgrove owes him nothing, and seems at times like the most decent man alive. But at other times, Doc's potential for cruelty seems unimaginable. As it turns out, freedom's not as freeing as he thought it would be -- especially when it might end up getting him killed.
Frank "Dolly" Dillon has a job he hates, working sales and collections for Pay-E-Zee Stores, a wife named Joyce he can't stand, and an account balance that barely allows him to pay the bills each month. Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he has, Dolly crosses paths with a beautiful young woman named Mona Farrell. Mona's being forced by her aunt to do things she doesn't like, with men she doesn't know -- she wants out, any way she can get it. And to a man who wants nothing of what he has, Mona sure looks like something he actually does. Soon Dolly and Mona find themselves involved in a scheme of robbery, murder and mayhem that makes Dolly's blood run cold. As Dolly's plans begin to unravel, his mind soon follows. In A Hell of a Woman, Jim Thompson offers another arresting portrait of a deviant mind, in an ambitious crime novel that ranks among his best work.
A classic crime novel about a kidnapping scheme gone wrong from Jim Thompson's, America's "Dimestore Dostoevsky." William "Kid" Collins was once a respected boxer. Now he's a drifter, on the run after escaping from a mental institution. One afternoon he meets Fay, a beautiful young widow. She is smart and decent — at least when she's sober. Soon Collins finds himself involved in a kidnapping scheme that goes drastically wrong almost before it even begins. Because the kid they've picked up isn't like other kids: he's diabetic and without insulin, he'll die. Not the safest situation for Collins, a man for whom stress and violence have long gone hand-in-hand. After Dark, My Sweet once again displays Jim Thompson as the undisputed master of American noir. The basis of James Foley's critically acclaimed film of the same name, with the sweep of an epic tragedy, Thompson's classic limns the dangerous territory of honest people all-too-easily sucked into wickedness, with no way out but down.
To everyone he's every played dice with, Mitch Corley seems like the luckiest guy around. But in truth, Corley's fast hands are the only gift fate's ever given him. He's never held down a steady job, and when it comes to women, his luck might just be the worst of all -- his girlfriend and partner-in-crime Red would double-cross him in a heartbeat if she knew just how short on cash they really were. And if Red ever finds out about the wife Corley neglected to mention, there's a good chance that Corley might not survive the night. At first, Mitch was sure Texas would be the perfect place for him and Red to run their game -- there are players in nearly every back room and side-street across the state and here, the pockets run just a little deeper. But Corley forgot about one thing: Texans don't forgive easily. And there's nothing they hate more than a cheater.
In the rural town of Verdon, Nebraska, in the early days of the 20th century, you can't go ten feet without running into one of the Fargos. So, Grant Fargo argues to his grandfather Lincoln, it's perfectly all right that he's desperately in love with his first cousin, Bella-she's the only source of intelligent conversation for miles, and in a town like Verdon, it would be hard not to end up with a relative of one kind or another. Before it all plays out, men will be murdered, jailed, tarred and feathered or worse, and while everyone in the Fargo clan would kill for the family deeds, God might just end up with them instead. In Heed the Thunder, one of Thompson's earlier works, Thompson's signature style collides with a sweeping picaresque of the American prairie, in a multigenerational saga that's one part Steinbeck, two parts Dostoyevsky, and all Jim Thompson.
Winner of the 2024 SABR Larry Ritter Book Award for best Deadball Era baseball book. Second place finisher for 2023 CASEY Award for best baseball book of the year. While ostensibly a tool for collectors to identify and authenticate Deadball Era photographs, a purpose at which it excels, this book is so much more. At its heart, Baseball Photography of the Deadball Era is the definitive story of the rise of baseball press photographers in the early 20th century and a celebration of the visual splendors of the game they captured. Collectors have long admired the artistry of their beautiful sepia toned baseball prints from the early 1900’s. These images are visual time machines that transport us back to those halcyon days when we romanticize that baseball was pure. What collectors haven’t appreciated, as they have long been shrouded in mystery, are the stories of the men behind the lens and the photo syndicates who distributed their work. These Photographers’ indelible images brought the game from the field to the fans and helped create the baseball legends we still revere. This book lifts the veil on their previously untold stories. Through extensive research and newfound discoveries, the lives of many of the photographic artists and innovators who brought the game to life have been revealed. Their stories are as fascinating as those of the more famous men in front of the lens. Some names are iconic, such as Charles Conlon. Some should be, such as Frances Burke. Dozens more are profiled, all in far more detail than has ever been presented before. The clues to uncovering their stories are embedded in their photos and stamped on the back of their vintage prints. Baseball Photography of the Deadball Era contains extensive and groundbreaking research on identifying and authenticating Deadball photographs through the examination of back stampings. The hundreds of stamps presented, dated and interpreted in this book represent a quantum leap forward in the knowledge base regarding the era’s photographers. Of course, the book contains hundreds of gorgeous are rare images of the Deadball Era, many never seen before by the public. Longtime collectors have generously granted use of their private collections to embellish this story, and what a visual feast it is. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other ballyard legends are all here, as seen in their glory days. Many readers will buy the book for the images alone. My hope is they stick around for the stories.
The origins of Colorado place names offer insightful glimpses into the state's formative years. Emanuel Saltiel named his new community along the Arkansas River Cotopaxi, after a volcano in Ecuador. Rifle Creek and the town of Rifle earned their names thanks to a rifle left behind along the banks of the creek. Optimistic miners mistakenly believed Tarryall had an abundance of gold and thus named it as a place where prospectors could mine and tarry. And despite attempts by government officials to rename a small community along the I-70 corridor in western Colorado, locals refused to call it anything other than No Name. Learn these stories and more as author Jim Flynn unravels the intriguing origins of Centennial State place names.
How do you measure the soul of a city? In Denver, for the better part of five decades it’s been by the Broncos. From an ugly and inauspicious beginning to the first nationally televised Monday-night game in 1973, through postseason games that included back-to-back World Championships and five other Super Bowl appearances, the Broncos have provided the Mile-High City’s primary identity on a national level. The nation’s first truly regional sports franchise, the Broncos were the first major league team to call Denver home, beginning play as a charter member of the American Football League, with its first season in 1960. In this newly revised edition of Game of My Life Denver Broncos, fans past and present will relive the greatest moments of Mile-High football through the eyes of the players themselves. Floyd Little shares the pride and joy of scoring a touchdown in his last game as a Bronco and John Elway describes the glory of leading the Broncos to their first Super Bowl victory in 1998. From those infamous striped socks to back-to-back Super Bowl Championships, Game of My Life Denver Broncos has it all—a must-have for any Broncos fan. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Drama with 5 male and 3 female characters. Father Sean Connally, an Irish, Roman Catholic priest, returns to Holy Contrition Catholic Parish, the parish of his youth, to come to a decision about his faith and ministry. Does he still have faith in God? Should he continue as a priest if he is doubting? To come to his decision, he must also come to issue with his feelings for his old flame, Peggy Keenan, a terrific woman who is still in love with him. His estranged father, Joseph Connally, an old, Irish-Catholic bartender with a unique perspective on life, becomes Sean's valued counselor. This is a genuine look at real people struggling with their faith.
This true crime history reveals the harrowing story of a black man brutally murdered by a lynch mob in 1932 Virginia. In 1932, a black man was found hanging on Rattlesnake Mountain in Fauquier County, Virginia. Though a mob set fire to his body, officials were able to identify him as Shedrick Thompson, who had been wanted for the abduction and rape of a local white woman. Some claimed Thompson killed himself, framing his gruesome death as the final act of a desperate fugitive. But residents knew better. Thompson had been the victim of a lynching—the last one known in Virginia. In The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia, author Jim Hall pieces together Thompson’s life, the weeks-long manhunt to find him, and his final hours. He also details the lawless practice of lynching in Fauquier County. This true crime chronicle takes an in-depth look at Thompson’s case to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Virginia history.
Orphaned by a tragic accident at sixteen, Tommy Burwell's been scraping out a meager existence working dead-end jobs for years. When he and fellow nomad Four Trey Whitey get jobs working with dynamite, making way for a new pipeline across the deserted plains of Far West Texas, disaster ensues. In a matter of days, Tommy is brutally beaten and witness to an act of cold-blooded murder the law can't be bothered to investigate. When Carol, a knockout beauty, shows up looking to follow the caravan of workers, Tommy falls for her almost immediately. There aren't any jobs for women on the pipeline, but Carol knows a few things she could do for the workers to keep afloat -- an arrangement that Tommy can't bear for long. As Tommy's about to find out, when you're South of Heaven, you're far from grace - -and sometimes the only way out is down.
Canadians have an ambivalent feeling towards the North. Although climate and geography make our northern condition apparent, Canadians often forget about the north and its problems. Nevertheless, for the generation of historians that included Lower, Creighton, and Morton, the northern rivers, lakes, forests, and plains were often seen as primary characters in the drama of nation building. W.L. Morton even went so far as to write that the ìmain task of Canadian life has been to make something of that formidable heritageî of the northern Canadian shield. For many politicians and developers, "to make something" of the North came to mean thinking of the North as an empty hinterland waiting to be exploited, and today, hydroelectric projects, mining, milling, pulp and paper, and other industries have changed much of the North beyond recognition.One of the first parts of the North to be aggressively industrialized was northern Manitoba. When all of Manitoba was given in 1670 to a group of entrepreneurs, a precedent was set that was replicated throughout the provinceís history. After the province entered confederation in 1870, provincial politicians and business leaders began to look to the northern resources as a new key to the provinceís economic development. Particularly after 1912, they saw resource development in the North as a strategy to expand the provincial economy from its agricultural base. Jim Mochoruk shows how government and business worked together to transform what had been the exclusive fur-trading preserve of the Hudsonís Bay Company into an industrial hinterland. He follows the many twisting paths established by developers and politicians as they chased their goal of economic growth, and recounts the ultimate costs of development in economic, ecological, and political terms.
John Davidson came to the North Carolina back country circa 1751 as a young man, with his sister and widowed mother. Typical of Scots-Irish settlers, they arrived with little more than basic farming tools, determined to make it on their own terms. Davidson worked hard, prospered, married well and built a plantation on the Catawba River he called Rural Hill. The Davidson's were loyal British citizens who paid their taxes and participated in colonial government. When the Crown's overbearing authority interfered, independence became paramount and Davidson and his neighbors became soldiers in the Revolutionary War. After the war Davidson managed his plantation, created shad fisheries, helped develop the local iron industry with his sons-in-law and was an early planter of cotton. His sons and grandsons, along with their slave families, continuously increased and improved the acreage and became early practitioners of scientific farming. Drawing on public documents, family papers and slave records, this history describes how a fiercely independent family grew their lands and fortunes into a lasting legacy.
This witty thriller about sentient artificial intelligence “makes you think a little [and] smile a lot” (The New York Times). Brewster Billings is perhaps a little too wrapped up with his computer. He has given it a pet name, Lingo. He has programmed it with the ability to talk to its owner. In fact, Lingo has begun to respond to Brewster's programming skill surprisingly well. Lingo soon makes the jump from polite conversation to elaborate requests for specific television shows to be left on throughout the day. Eventually, Billings begins to suspect that his computerized friend is surpassing him in knowledge and abilities. By the time his suspicions are confirmed, not only is Brewster Billings in trouble—the rest of the human race is, too. Lingo raises many serious questions about Artificial Intelligence—what differentiates man from computer, and which one will control the other?
This book follows the careers of Alaska's pioneering pilots, who, with cranky open-cockpit biplanes, started the great change in Alaska's way of travel. Aviation first arrived at Fairbanks, the trade center of mainland Alaska, from which dog sled trails spider-web to mines, villages, and trap-lines. During winters, goods and people traveled mostly by dog sled. During the summer of 1923 Ben Eielson was the first to fly commercially from Fairbanks, ferrying passengers and light freight with an open cockpit Jenny (JN4) biplane. It was the beginning of the leap from ground travel to the air. Noel Wien was the next. In the summers of 1924-26 he flew open cockpit biplanes from Fairbanks. Starting in 1927, he flew a cabin biplane year-around on scheduled flights in the 579 miles between Fairbanks and Nome. In March, 1929, Wien flew from Alaska to the Elisif, an ice-locked trading schooner in Siberia, to return with a load of valuable furs. In the following November, Ben Eielson repeated this flight to the Nanuk, another ice-bound trading schooner in Siberia. And when he and his mechanic, Earl Borland returned for a second load of Siberian fur, their Hamilton airplane disappeared in a winter snowstorm. This brought on one of the most famous, and difficult aerial searches ever made from and in Alaska. By the 1930s, Alaska's growing aviation industry had revolutionized transportation in the Territory. This volume is a fond look back at the triumphs and tragedies of the pioneering Ben Eielson, Noel Wien, Harold Gillam, Joe Crosson, Ed Young, and others, the great pilots who were the first bush pilots of Alaska.
Joel smiled at the thought that he was becoming an important member of the Blades. Tonight he was the trusted lookout while others took anything of value from the run-down store. This is only the beginning, he thought. Heaven has its hands full looking after Joel Somers. Fifteen and a member of the Blades, a dangerous street gang, Joel considers the other gang members his only true family, even when they treat him like dirt. On the run after the Blades' failed attempt to rob a video store, Joel seeks refuge at a Christian youth conference. There, after hearing a speaker with a story strikingly similar to his own, he gives his life to Christ. So begins a life-changing journey in which Joel experiences the angst of sudden homelessness, the deepening joy of Christian friendships, increasingly dangerous clashes with former gang members, and the ambivalent return of his once-criminal dad. In Double-Edged Blade, readers are given a unique glimpse of the unseen battle between good and evil. God himself and Abner, an angel assigned to protect Joel, discretely nurture his newfound faith while combating human and spiritual antagonists bent on Joel's destruction. But does Joel have enough faith to get him through the deadliest encounter of his life?
Professional boxing in the UK during the 1980s & 90s was dominated by the big time promoters & managers Mickey Duff, Harry Levene, Jarvis Astaire and Terry Lawless and their BBC television contracts, until Frank Warren came along and challenged the establishment backed by ITV. Next on the scene was Barry Hearn with his SKY connections and amongst them arose Frank Malony backed by the fruadster financier Rodger Levett. This book is not about them but instead is the story of a small time boxing stable and fighters striving for success and trying to beat their opponents and the system. A boxers record is more than a simple win-loss or draw and this story presents the alternative view.
The first-ever book on the science of imagination, which sheds light on both the complex inner-workings of our mind and the ways in which we can channel imagination for a better life. We don’t think of imagination the way that we should. The word is often only associated with children, artists and daydreamers, but in reality, imagination is an integral part of almost every action and decision that we make. Simply put, imagination is a person’s ability to create scenarios in his or her head: this can include everything from planning a grocery list, to honing a golf swing, to having religious hallucinations. And while imagination has positive connotations, it can also lead to decreased productivity and cooperation, or worse, the continuous reliving of past trauma.The human brain is remarkable in its ability to imagine—it can imagine complex possible futures, fantasy worlds, or tasty meals. We can use our imaginations to make us relaxed or anxious. We can imagine what the world might be, and construct elaborate plans. People have been fascinated with the machination of the human brain and its ability to imagine for centuries. There are books on creativity, dreams, memory, and the mind in general, but how exactly do we create those scenes in our head? With chapters ranging from hallucination and imaginary friends to how imagination can make you happier and more productive, Jim Davies' Imagination will help us explore the full potential of our own mind.
This book reveals that, far from being the result of a groundswell of support for parental choice in American education, the origins of school vouchers are seated in identity politics, religious schooling, and educational entrepreneurship. Inserting much-needed historical context into the voucher debates, Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education treats school vouchers as a series of social movements set within the context of evolving American conservatism. The study ranges from the use of tuition grants in the 1950s and early 1960s in the interest of fostering segregation to the wider acceptance of vouchers in the 1990s as a means of counteracting real and perceived shortcomings of urban public schools. The rise of school vouchers, author Jim Carl suggests, is best explained as a mechanism championed by four distinct groups—white supremacists in the South, supporters of parochial school in the North, minority advocates of community schools in the nation's big cities, and political conservatives of both major parties. Though freedom was the rallying cry, this book shows that voucher supporters had more specific goals: continued racial segregation of public education, tax support for parochial schools, aid to urban community schools, and opening up the public school sector to educational entrepreneurs.
Britain in the 1950s had a distinctive political and intellectual climate. It was the age of Keynesianism, of welfare state consensus, incipient consumerism, and, to its detractors - the so-called 'Angry Young Men' and the emergent New Left - a new age of complacency. While Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously remarked that 'most of our people have never had it so good', the playwright John Osborne lamented that 'there aren't any good, brave causes left'.Philosophers, political scientists, economists and historians embraced the supposed 'end of ideology' and fetishized 'value-free' technique and analysis. This turn is best understood in the context of the cultural Cold War in which 'ideology' served as shorthand for Marxist, but it also drew on the rich resources and traditions of English empiricism and a Burkean scepticism about abstract theory in general. Ironically, cultural critics and historians such as Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson showed at this time that the thick catalogue of English moral, aesthetic and social critique could also be put to altogether different purposes. Jim Smyth here shows that, despite being allergic to McCarthy-style vulgarity, British intellectuals in the 1950s operated within powerful Cold War paradigms all the same.
The fact that governments lie is generally accepted today, but World War I was the first global conflict in which millions of young men were sacrificed for hidden causes. They did not die to save civilization; they were killed for profit and in the hopes of establishing a one-world government. By 1917, America had been thrust into the war by a President who promised to stay out of the conflict. But the real power behind the war consisted of the bankers, the financiers, and the politicians, referred to, in this book, as The Secret Elite. Scouring government papers on both sides of the Atlantic, memoirs that avoided the censor's pen, speeches made in Congress and Parliament, major newspapers of the time, and other sources, Prolonging the Agony maintains that the war was deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged and that the gross lies ingrained in modern "histories" still circulate because governments refuse citizens the truth. Featured in this book are shocking accounts of the alleged Belgian "outrages," the sinking of the Lusitania, the manipulation of votes for Herbert Hoover, Lord Kitchener's death, and American and British zionists in cahoots with Rothschild's manipulated Balfour Declaration. The proof is here in a fully documented exposé—a real history of the world at war.
The husband and wife team of Emil and Leela Pulaski are drawn back into violence and intrigue once again when they are asked to investigate an unsolved murder of a local Coeur d'Alene, Idaho writer. The investigation leads to a diamond fencing operation and a neo-Nazi organization, and eventually to Geneva, Switzerland, where it comes to an unexpected end.
The story of Chicago gangsters in the 1920s is legendary. Less talked about is the tale of the politicians who allowed those gangsters to thrive. During the heyday of organized crime in the Prohibition era, Chicago mayor Big Bill Thompson and Gov. Len Small were the two most powerful political figures in Illinois. Thompson campaigned on making Chicago a wide open town for bootleggers. Small sold thousands of pardons and paroles to criminals, embezzled $1 million, and was then acquitted after mobsters bribed the jury. This book is the story of those Jazz Age politicians whose careers in government thrived on and endorsed corruption and racketeering, from Chicago to Springfield. It complements author Jim Ridingss groundbreaking biography, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters, which was praised by critics and situated Ridings as a trailblazer among Chicago crime authors.
In a powerful Civil War epic coursing with raw human drama, award-winning author and master historian Jim R. Woolard forges a young man’s harrowing coming-of-age journey from Confederate captive to Union prisoner to unchained force of vengeance during the most controversial episode in American history… Autumn, 1864. Rebel bushwhackers have seized and looted a small town in Missouri. Wounded and left for dead by his half-brother, seventeen-year-old Owen Wainwright is captured and conscripted by the Confederate Army. As the troops’ blacksmith, he witnesses the horrors of war firsthand: the savagery of General Selby’s Iron Brigade, the massacres of Union troops, the bloody battles at Lexington, Westport, and Mine Creek. Against all odds, Owen survives with the help of an unlikely ally—a new friend in arms and the only person he trusts. But if fate is cruel, war can be crueler . . . Caught in the crossfire of a deadly Yankee ambush, Owen is arrested and jailed in a Union prison. Beaten and brutalized by guards, he begins to give up hope—until a U.S. marshal comes to him with an unusual offer. Owen’s traitorous half-brother is wanted for murder. If Owen agrees to help the U.S. marshal infiltrate the Texas winter camp of Confederate guerillas—and bring his brother to justice—Owen will have both his freedom and his revenge. But the risks are great. The price of getting caught is death.
Born to Be By: Jim Hill Born to a poverty-stricken Black family, Jim Hill’s memoir recounts his life as a child and his journey to break out of the ghetto. An inspiring tale of strength and resilience, Hill, now seventy-five, depicts a life of ups and downs and his passion for life leading him to success. Now seventy-five years old, Hill can say he has never worked a day in his life, and attributes that happiness to finding joy and meaning in his careers. His story is one of hope, a symbol to others in poverty that success and a better life is possible, no matter how far the odds are stacked against you.
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