Until 1997, author Joseph Howard Tyson did not know that he descended from Germantown's original settlers. This realization deepened his concern for Philadelphia and his appreciation of William Penn's legacy. During the past eight years, he has tried to view the city through Penn's eyes. Penn's Luminous City is Tyson's record of that journey. A devout Quaker, William Penn believed that God's power would manifest more powerfully in a "City of Light." He chose the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers as the site for his Holy Experiment: an ideal society with a model capital city, governed by an assembly, and dedicated to religious toleration. He chose the name Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love, after the devoutly Christian Asia Minor town mentioned by Scripture. Penn regarded the blighted areas as products of human vice. However, Tyson believes that genuine urban renewal requires spiritual regeneration. Positive actions such as slum clearance, creek cleanup, Philadelphia's reconnection with the trail system, and school reformations manifest the healing actions of the "Light." The expansion of Philadelphia's green infrastructure would not only spur redevelopment but improve the city's spiritual condition. Through Penn's Luminous City, Tyson conveys Penn's prophetic vision that still inspires citizens to make the city a better place.
Joseph Brown was a pivotal figure in southern history and a prototype of a new breed of southern politician in the mid-nineteenth century-the hill country newcomer who was considered to represent the “common man.” As governor of Georgia from 1857 to 1865, Brown enthusiastically supported the Confederacy in the early years of the war, though he refused to sacrifice what he considered states’ rights to the interest of a Confederate victory. Brown was constantly at odds with Jefferson Davis concerning Georgia’s supply of Confederate troops and was openly hostile, to the .point of urging Davis’ removal over the matters of conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus. When defeat came for the South, Brown accepted the collapse of the old economic order as quickly as he did the loss of slavery and states’ rights. He advocated a new South and amassed a fortune in the development of real estate, mining, and railroads. He turned Republican and promoted congressional Reconstruction measures, temporarily losing his influence in Georgia. But in 1871 he rejoined the Democratic party and served in the United States Senate from 1880 to 1891. Here is the first full-scale biography of a man of meager education and limited political experience who worked his way from the North Georgia mountains to the positions of governor and United States senator. Drawing on previously unavailable documents, Parks captures the mood of Georgia as well as the personality of this astute and controversial politician.
Notable Reprobates examines the pathological phenomena of serial killing and mass murder. It provides detailed case studies of notorious multi-murderers Elizabeth Bathory, H. H. Holmes, Belle Gunness, Ted Bundy, and Joseph J. DeAngelo Jr. Chapter 6 explains DNA and other modern methods of crime detection. The final section deals with heinous political regimes that have resorted to serial mass murder as a matter of policy, including Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Mao Zedong’s Red China, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge Movement in Cambodia. In the final analysis, criminal despots such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were exponentially worse for humanity than the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Well before AI was “born”, before Graphing Calculators were available to solve algebraic, geometric and trigonometric problems, the Wright Brothers designed an airplane that actually took flight. Before there was GPS, before there were navigation and weather satellites, and before the first turbo-jet aircraft, Amelia Earhart bravely flew across oceans and against bias. The courage and dedication of those three aviators are spoken of here, in grandparent-grandchild conversations. “Wilbur and Orville had endured periods of ridicule and abuse such as seldom been known in the history of scientific investigations. Through straightforwardness, intelligence, and tenacity, the Wright brothers achieved one of the most beautiful inventions of the human genius.” at an awards ceremony November 1908 Amelia Earhart had flown over the Atlantic Ocean, alone. She had been in the air almost 16 hours. As she climbed down from her plane, a farmer approached and asked where she’d come from. She replied, “America.” She then asked, “Where exactly am I?” The surprised farmer replied, as if it was obvious, “Gallagher’s pasture!” as reported in several newspapers published in Ireland, May 1932
The Third Reich proves Lord Byron's maxim that truth is stranger than fiction. Hitler's mania made the Reich surreal. This book documents his neuroses, charisma, ruthlessness, and "storybook" rise to power. It's alarming that an astute psychopath with acting ability became an absolute dictator in a modern European state. German political naivety contributed to his miraculous ascent. During election campaigns between 1927 and 1933 Hitler posed as an anti-Communist savior, while concealing his real agenda of war, genocide, and quack "eugenics." The Surreal Reich closely examines all leading Nazis. It shows how Hitler had different sets of favorites at various times. Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, and Ernst Rohm in the early years; Hermann Goering and Josef Goebbels through the middle period, then Heinrich Himmler and Martin Bormann from 1939 to 1945. Nazism's heyday occurred during an era of supposed progress. Yet escalating war casualties in that "enlightened age" tell a different story. 620,000 people died in America's Civil War, only 5% of them civilians. World War I caused approximately 16 million fatalities. Most of the 5 million non-combatants succumbed from starvation or Spanish Influenza. World War II resulted in 60 million deaths, 52% of them civilians. One warped "idealist" sparked that fruitless orgy of destruction: Adolf Hitler.
Author Joseph Howard Tyson, who has written biographies of William Penn, Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, Dietrich Eckart, and Adolf Hitler, admits to being a "closet astrologer." In World War II Leaders: A Historical & Astrological Study he puts Astrology to the test by juxtaposing biographical sketches of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Emperor Hirohito, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt with detailed interpretations of their natal charts. On another level this work sets forth six different perspectives on the Second World War-- from the standpoints of Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, Britain, and America. Those interested in history and the occult will find this book an unforgettable reading experience.
If this work is of men it will come to nothing: but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it " -Rabbi Gamaliel, Acts 5:38?39 Was Theosophical Society founder Helena P. Blavatsky a prophetess or charlatan? Since the 1870's detractors have lambasted both her character and ideas. Yet, H.P.B.'s reputation has continued to grow. Theosophy's non-dogmatic and ecumenical approach to spirituality offers 21st Century seekers a viable alternative to religious fundamentalism. Today thousands of people on every continent belong to the Theosophical Society. All of Madame's books and articles remain in print. The freshness and wit of her letters make them seem as if they were written yesterday. Though controversial, she's withstood time's test. Madame Blavatsky Revisited tells H.P.B.'s remarkable story in an entertaining manner.
“This book is meaty, succinct, well organized, and attractively written. It is a praiseworthy contribution to American biography and to Confederate history.” —Bell I. Wiley Here is the first critical biography of the Confederate general who commanded the largest theater of the Civil War, the Trans-Mississippi Department, and who held the same important command post longer than any other officer on either side. Edmund Kirby Smith, one of only seven full generals commanding Confederate armies in the field, exercised civil as well as Military authority in the isolated Trans-Mississippi area to such an extent that this part of the Confederacy came to be known as “Kirbysmithdom.” A native of St. Augustine, Florida, Kirby Smith was twice breveted for the bravery in the Mexican War. He spent the 1850s at various frontier posts and at the outbreak of the Civil war hurried to Confederate headquarters to offer his services. Soon he was a brigadier with Joseph E. Johnston in northern Virginia, and he is credited with playing a key role in the rout of the Union forces at first Manassas. In the spring of 1863 he assumed command of the vast Trans-Mississippi Department. At the fall of the Confederacy, Kirby Smith was the last general to surrender. He spent the final twenty years of his life as a teacher and died in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1893, where he had been a professor at the University of the South. At the time of its origin publication in 1954, this book won the first Sydnor Memorial Award, given by the Southern Historical Association for the best book in southern history.
Early associates such as Rudolf Hess, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and Hermann Esser all claimed that Hitler revered alcoholic playwright Dietrich Eckart more than any other colleague. Eminent German historians Karl Dietrich Bracher, Werner Maser, Georg Franz-Willig, and Ernst Nolte have confirmed this assessment. Hitler not only dedicated Mein Kampf to Eckart, he hung his portrait in Munich's Brown House, placed a bust of him in the Reich Chancellery next to one of Bismarck, and named Berlin's 1936 Olympic stadium the Dietrich Ekcart Outdoor Theater. Yet British-American scholarship has virtually ignored "Nazism's Spiritual Father." J. H. Tyson weaves Eckart's biography into a colorful account of modern German history.
Few nations have undergone such agony as Russia experienced between 1896 and 1953. The Khodynka Meadow Disaster of May 30, 1896 killed 1,389 people, and ominously marred Tsar Nicholas IIs coronation. Eight years later the Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905) claimed 71,453 military servicemens lives, without bringing any benefit to Russia. Over 13,000 people died in the consequent Revolution of 1905. Roughly two million Russian soldiers and sailors, plus 400,000 civilians perished in the slaughter of World War I (1914 - 1918.) Lenin kicked off his Bolshevik regime with a bloody civil war against the tsarist Whites, in which one million combatants lost their lives. During this same chaotic period at least three million people succumbed to the Spanish Influenza and typhus pandemics. Shoddy record-keeping obscured the death toll wrought by Lenins Red Terror (1918 - 1923). Estimates range from 250,000 to 1,000,000, with 400,000 probably being more accurate than the lowball guess. Historians still debate the severity of Stalins purges (1928 - 1953.) The actual number of dead most likely falls somewhere between twenty and thirty million. By a very conservative count, Adolf Hitlers Nazi war machine slew 15,700,000 Soviet subjects during World War II (8,700,000 military personnel and 7,000,000 civilians.) Another study has calculated the total at 25,850,000. This book examines a fifty-seven year time frame of our enlightened modern age, during which at least forty million Russians were exterminated due to misgovernment.
J. H. Tyson writes that astrology is neither a science nor pseudoscience. It falls into the category of crafts which somehow work, though science can’t fathom why. In that respect it resembles acupuncture and Feng Shui (the Chinese art of proper arrangement.) Astrology holds that cosmic forces influence us, just as the moon affects the ebb and flow of tides. Since 6,000 B.C. learned astrologers have collaborated on a body of data which links planetary positions at birth with certain human traits. A birth chart summarizes the native’s personality characteristics and provides an indication as to how that person might fare in various departments of life. Astrologers help clarify clients’ aptitudes with the intention of facilitating their development. Natal charts may be conceived of as blueprints which encourage people to cultivate their strengths, overcome faults, and circumvent avoidable problems. Tyson’s book outlines the history and principles of astrology, then provides examples of its value by juxtaposing biographical sketches of Napoleon, Theodore Roosevelt, Empress Alexandra of Russia, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and others with their natal charts. Tyson argues for Earth’s inclusion into astrological theory. This globe under our very feet exerts great influence. He demonstrates how the slower-moving planets (Jupiter-through-Pluto) provide more accurate generational profiles than the “boomer,” gen-x-er, millennial classifications bandied about by pundits. In his chapter on Esoteric Astrology Tyson explains the Sixteen Astrological Ages of Humankind. Check out J. H. Tyson’s latest book for new insights into the prehistoric art of astrology.
The distinguished director, Howard Hawks, discusses his techniques of filmmaking, analyzes the artistry of his movies, and portrays his experiences working in Hollywood.
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