Download or read book Virtue Valor and Vanity written by Eric Burns and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington, Adams, Henry, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton: their ambitions, intrigues, and jealousies shaped the birth of the nation, but they overcame their foibles and imperfections to throw off the chains of tyranny and form a more perfect union. We think of them now as faces on money or statues on pedestals, and, as Burns illustrates in luminous prose, that’s exactly what they always wanted to be. They all possessed astonishing brilliance, but many had large egos and more than just a little vanity, especially John Adams, who never felt he received his public due and often complained in his letters about the unjust fame of his peers. History remembers Patrick Henry as the author of the patriotic call to arms, “give me liberty, or give me death!” but, at the beginning of his life in the public eye, he shamelessly traded integrity for renown. Interest in the founding fathers has never been greater; Virtue, Valor, and Vanity presents all of these well-known and oft-quoted men with wisdom and candor. In this fresh, informative work, Burns brings the founding fathers down off their pedestals to reveal the flesh-and-blood men—vain and modest, sensitive and stubborn, brilliant and ambitious—who attempted to overcome their faults in order to establish a new nation that would be a paragon of governance. For the armchair historian, here is an exciting new look at our country’s origins.
Download or read book Virtue Valor Vanity written by Eric Burns and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look at the Founding Fathers, whose broad vision, extraordinary altruism, rare courage, and dedication resulted in a remarkable new concept of government.
Download or read book Virtue Valor and Vanity written by Eric Burns and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: See the Founding Fathers as you never have before.
Download or read book Alexander Hamilton s Revolution written by Phillip Thomas Tucker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite his less-than-promising beginnings as the only key Founding Father not born and raised on American soil, Hamilton was one of the best and brightest of his generation. His notoriety has rested almost entirely on his role as Secretary of the Treasury in Washington's administration, yet few realize that Washington and Hamilton's bond was forged during the Revolutionary War. Alexander Hamilton's Revolution is the first book to explore Hamilton's critical role during the battle for independence. New information presents a little-known and underpublished aspect of Hamilton's life: that he was not only Washington's favorite staff officer, but also his right-hand man for most of the Revolution, serving as Chief of Staff from 1777 to early 1781. While he found this position rewarding, Hamilton continually asked Washington for a field command. Hamilton's wish was granted at the decisive battle of Yorktown, where his Infantry Battalion charged on the defensive bastion on Cornwallis's left flank. Hamilton's capture of this position, while French forced captured the adjacent position, sealed Cornwallis's fate and forced his surrender and ultimate colonial victory. The entire patriotic cause benefited immeasurably from the advice and strategies provided to Washington by his youngest staff officer, Alexander Hamilton. Now, those critical contributions are brought to light in Hamilton's Revolution.
Download or read book Valour and Vanity written by Mary Robinette Kowal and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mary Robinette Kowal's Valour and Vanity is a Regency version of a heist movie with a healthy dose of magic sprinkled in. After Melody's wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on the their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute.Fortunately, one of the gentlemen from the ship is a local banker and arranges for a line of credit and a place to live. Relieved, the Vincents begin the work for which they have come to Italy.All is proceeding apace until a solicitor arrives at their house and charges them with illegal trespass. Jane and Vincent produce letters from their banking friend, but they are all forgeries, and worse, he has used their forged letters to clean out their funds in England. Now, Jane and Vincent owe money to a number of people in town and are forbidden from travel. They manage to find some small work, but it is obvious to both of them that this path will not maintain them for long. Instead, Vincent hatches a reckless plan to get their money back. The ensuing adventure is a glorious envisioning of all the best parts of heist narratives, but in a Regency setting with magic"--
Download or read book The Progress of Vanity and Virtue Or The History of Two Sisters Etc written by and published by . This book was released on 1766 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Politics of Fame written by Eric Burns and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrities can come from many different realms: film, music, politics, sports. But what do all these major celebrities have in common? What elevates them to the status of household names while their equally talented peers remain in relative obscurity? Is it just a question of charisma, or does fame depend more on the collective fantasies of fans than the actual accomplishments of celebrities? In search of answers, cultural historian Eric Burns delves deep into the biographies of some of the most famous figures in American history, from Benjamin Franklin to Fanny Kemble, Elvis Presley to Gene Tierney, and Michael Jordan to Oprah Winfrey. Through these case studies, he considers the evolution of celebrity throughout the ages. More controversially, he questions the very status of fame in the twenty-first century, an era in which thousands of minor celebrities have seen their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. The Politics of Fame is a provocative and entertaining look at the lives and afterlives of America’s most beloved celebrities as well as the mad devotion they inspired. It raises important questions about what celebrity worship reveals about the worshippers—and about the state of the nation itself
Download or read book The Golden Lad written by Eric Burns and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a century has passed since Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, but he still continues to fascinate. He became a war hero, reformed the NYPD, busted the largest railroad and oil trusts, passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, created national parks and forests, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and built the Panama Canal—to name just a few.Yet it was the cause he championed the hardest—America's entry in to WWI—that would ultimately divide and destroy him. His youngest son, Quentin, his favorite, would die in an air fight. How does looking at Theodore's relationship with his son, and understanding him as a father, tell us something new about this larger-than-life-man? Does it reveal a more human side? A more hypocritical side? Or simply, if tragically, a nature so surprisingly sensitive, despite the bluster, that he would die of a broken heart?Roosevelt's own history of boyhood illnesses made him so aware of was like to be a child in pain, that he could not bear the thought of his own children suffering. The Roosevelts were a family of pillow-fights, pranks, and "scary bear." And it was the baby, Quentin—the frailest—who worried his father the most. Yet in the end, it was he who would display, in his brief life, the most intellect and courage of all.
Download or read book 1957 written by Eric Burns and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1957, America turned its back on its earlier self and jumped headlong into the nation it has become today. From Sputnik and the beginning of the space race to Little Richard and the underappreciated influence of rock n’ roll in bringing blacks and whites closer together, to President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Act, which forever changed the landscape, 1957 represents the year when all of the energy and anxiety that had followed the end of World War II exploded. In compelling stories from politics, pop culture, business, and the media, Eric Burns captures the excitement of a headspinning year and the lingering fallout that continues to resonate seven decades later. For baby boomers seeking to relive their formative years or readers seeking a window into midcentury America, 1957 provides a highly readable tour through one of the most fascinating years in American history.
Download or read book Treacherous Beauty written by Stephen Case and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Histories of the Revolutionary War have long honored heroines such as Betsy Ross, Abigail Adams, and Molly Pitcher. Now, more than two centuries later, comes the first biography of one of the war’s most remarkable women, a beautiful Philadelphia society girl named Peggy Shippen. While war was raging between England and its rebellious colonists, Peggy befriended a suave British officer and then married a crippled revolutionary general twice her age. She brought the two men together in a treasonous plot that nearly turned George Washington into a prisoner and changed the course of the war. Peggy Shippen was Mrs. Benedict Arnold. After the conspiracy was exposed, Peggy managed to convince powerful men like Washington and Alexander Hamilton of her innocence. The Founding Fathers were handicapped by the common view that women lacked the sophistication for politics or warfare, much less treason. And Peggy took full advantage. Peggy was to the American Revolution what the fictional Scarlett O’Hara was to the Civil War: a woman whose survival skills trumped all other values. Had she been a man, she might have been arrested, tried, and executed. And she might have become famous. Instead, her role was minimized and she was allowed to recede into the background—with a generous British pension in hand. In Treacherous Beauty, Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case tell the true story of Peggy Shippen, a driving force in a conspiracy that came within an eyelash of dooming the American democracy.
Download or read book Mid Strut written by Eric Burns and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has never been a novel like Mid-Strut, virtually a genre unto itself Friday, October 1, 1965. Arnie Stats Castig is a fine, upstanding citizen of a dying western Pennsylvania steel town---until he snaps. He dashes onto the field at halftime of a high school football game and throws his arms around a majorette. But their feet get tangled and he falls on top of her. I just wanna hold you, he keeps saying, as she shrieks into the night. He wishes he could let her go, but he cant---for she has become a symbol to him, his only escape from the changes in his life, changes that reflect the larger changes in all of America at this chaotic time. Arnie has lost his job, having been fired for heroic behavior. The repercussions of this incident echo throughout the rest of the book. He has also lost his music, his favorite radio station now playing rock n roll instead of the sweet old tunes of his courtship days. For all he knows, he may be losing his wife, as well as the steel industry that has been the heart of his town since he was born. And so he seeks relief by immersing himself in the exploits of Joe Namath, the son he might have had, another western Pennsylvania steel town boy, who is about to make his debut as a pro football quarterback. What happens to Arnie after his tangling with the majorette is unexpected, heart-wrenching, and in its surprising way, miraculous.
Download or read book Baxter s Explore the Book written by J. Sidlow Baxter and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 1846 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the Book is not a commentary with verse-by-verse annotations. Neither is it just a series of analyses and outlines. Rather, it is a complete Bible survey course. No one can finish this series of studies and remain unchanged. The reader will receive lifelong benefit and be enriched by these practical and understandable studies. Exposition, commentary, and practical application of the meaning and message of the Bible will be found throughout this giant volume. Bible students without any background in Bible study will find this book of immense help as will those who have spent much time studying the Scriptures, including pastors and teachers. Explore the Book is the result and culmination of a lifetime of dedicated Bible study and exposition on the part of Dr. Baxter. It shows throughout a deep awareness and appreciation of the grand themes of the gospel, as found from the opening book of the Bible through Revelation.
Download or read book Treasury of Thought Forming an Encyclop dia of Quotations from Ancient and Modern Authors written by Maturin Murray Ballou and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-05-17 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.
Download or read book Infamous Scribblers written by Eric Burns and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2007-02-13 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the raucous journalism of the Revolutionary era, showing how it helped build a nation that endured and offering new perspectives on today's media wars.
Download or read book Pickett s Charge written by Phillip Thomas Tucker and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Main Selection of the History Book Club The Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War’s turning point, produced over 57,000 casualties, the largest number from the entire war that was itself America’s bloodiest conflict. On the third day of fierce fighting, Robert E. Lee’s attempt to invade the North came to a head in Pickett’s Charge. The infantry assault, consisting of nine brigades of soldiers in a line that stretched for over a mile, resulted in casualties of over 50 percent for the Confederates and a huge psychological blow to Southern morale. Pickett’s Charge is a detailed analysis of one of the most iconic and defining events in American history. This book presents a much-needed fresh look, including the unvarnished truths and ugly realities, about the unforgettable story. With the luxury of hindsight, historians have long denounced the folly of Lee’s attack, but this work reveals the tactical brilliance of a master plan that went awry. Special emphasis is placed on the common soldiers on both sides, especially the non-Virginia attackers outside of Pickett’s Virginia Division. These fighters’ moments of cowardice, failure, and triumph are explored using their own words from primary and unpublished sources. Without romance and glorification, the complexities and contradictions of the dramatic story of Pickett's Charge have been revealed in full to reveal this most pivotal moment in the nation’s life. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book 1920 written by Eric Burns and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roaring Twenties is the only decade in American history with a widely-applied nickname, and our fascination with this era continues. But how did this surge of innovation and cultural milestones emerge out of the ashes of The Great War? No one has yet written a book about the decade’s beginning.Acclaimed author Eric Burns investigates the year of 1920, not only a crucial twelve-month period of its own, but one that foretold the future, foreshadow the rest of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. Burns sets the record straight about this most misunderstood and iconic of periods. Despite being the first full year of armistice, 1920 was not, in fact, a peaceful time—it contained the greatest act of terrorism in American history to date. And while 1920 is thought of as staring a prosperous era, for most people, life had never been more unaffordable. Meanwhile, African Americans were putting their stamp on culture and though people today imagine the frivolous image of the flapper dancing the night away, the truth was that a new power had been bestowed on women, and it had nothing to do with the dance floor . . . From prohibition to immigration, the birth of jazz, the rise of expatriate literature, and the original Ponzi scheme, 1920 was truly a year like no other.
Download or read book The Book of Virtues written by William J. Bennett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 1917 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history. William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in The Book of Virtues, an instructive and inspiring anthology that will help children understand and develop character -- and help adults teach them. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions -- the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, The Book of Virtues is a book the whole family can read and enjoy -- and learn from -- together.
