EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Diary of a Vigilante

    Book Details:
  • Author : Shaun Curtis
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2020
  • ISBN : 9781393610649
  • Pages : pages

Download or read book Diary of a Vigilante written by Shaun Curtis and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves'.One man's angel is another man's devil. One man's hero is another man's killer.It's a blurred line between hero and villain, between vigilante and criminal, between decent citizen and maniac - and this is where Jack finds himself. Jack is a man haunted by the failures of a justice system he feels is broken and the seemingly arbitrary punishments measured out to those who have offended the state.When his friend's family find themselves threatened by a sexual predator and let down by the police, Jack snaps, and a journey of vigilantism, anger and revenge pursues. Told from his point of view, the Diary of a Vigilante, Jack descends further into the pits of the underworld, and the man who set out to clean the streets, finds that he becomes the top target of law enforcement.What price will Jack pay for his vengeance, and in a world of eye-for-an-eye justice, what sort of man will he be at the end? Will he become the very same monster he sought to destroy?

Book Montana Vigilantes  1863   1870

Download or read book Montana Vigilantes 1863 1870 written by Mark C. Dillon and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2018-10-22 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history and legal analysis of vigilantism in Montana in the 1860s, from a state Supreme Court justice and legal historian. Historians and novelists alike have described the vigilantism that took root in the gold-mining communities of Montana in the mid-1860s, but Mark C. Dillon is the first to examine the subject through the prism of American legal history, considering the state of criminal justice and law enforcement in the western territories and also trial procedures, gubernatorial politics, legislative enactments, and constitutional rights. Using newspaper articles, diaries, letters, biographies, invoices, and books that speak to the compelling history of Montana’s vigilantism in the 1860s, Dillon examines the conduct of the vigilantes in the context of the due process norms of the time. He implicates the influence of lawyers and judges who, like their non-lawyer counterparts, shaped history during the rush to earn fortunes in gold. Dillon’s perspective as a state Supreme Court justice and legal historian uniquely illuminates the intersection of territorial politics, constitutional issues, corrupt law enforcement, and the basic need of citizenry for social order. This readable and well-directed analysis of the social and legal context that contributed to the rise of Montana vigilante groups will be of interest to scholars and general readers interested in Western history, law, and criminal justice for years to come. “[Justice Dillon’s] book reads like a Western. Dillon masterfully sets the stage for the rise of the Montana vigilantes by bringing alive the people who created and lived in [mining] towns. There are heroes, villains, shady characters, and more than a few politicians, businessmen, lawyers and judges. What sets Dillon’s book apart from historical texts and fictional tales is that he provides legal analyses and explanations of the trials, sentences, due process and procedures of the day . . . And shed[s] grisly light on the details of the hangings. Dillon’s unique background as an attorney and judge and his downright dogged research are what makes this complex story so engaging. The prose is clear, crisp and gets to the point. . . . The book is satisfying because it answers contemporary nagging questions about the law regarding the vigilantes and the hangings.” —Gregory Zenon, Brooklyn Barrister “Dillon’s analysis of the vigilantes of Bannack, Alder Gulch, and Helena in Montana Territory is the most detailed, insightful, and legally nuanced yet produced. . . . This book is a model for historians to follow when dealing with 19th-century criminal proceedings. Establishing historical context includes examining the laws in books as well as the law in action.” —Gordon Morris Bakken, Great Plains Research

Book How to Be a Vigilante  a Diary

Download or read book How to Be a Vigilante a Diary written by Luke Smitherd and published by . This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'THE STONE MAN', SHORTLISTED FOR AUDIBLE UK'S BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015 In the late 1990s, a laptop was found in a service station just outside of Manchester. It contained a digital journal entitled 'TO THE FINDER: OPEN NOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!' Now, for the first time, that infamous diary is being published in its entirety.--------------------------------------------------------------------It's 1998. The internet age is still in its infancy. Google has just been founded. Eighteen year old supermarket shelf-stacker Nigel Carmelite has decided that he's going to become a vigilante.There are a few problems: how is he going to even find crime to fight on the streets of Derbyshire? How will he create a superhero costume - and an arsenal of crime-fighting weaponry - on a shoestring budget? And will his history of blackouts and crippling social inadequacy affect his chances?This is Nigel's account of his journey; part diary, part deluded self-help manual, tragically comic and slowly descending into what is arguably Luke Smitherd's darkest and most violent novel.What do you believe in? And more importantly, should you?Praise for Luke Smitherd's writing:"For me there is no greater joy than seeing an artist excel at his craft...you'll be blown away by the abundance of ideas."- Ain't It Cool News.com

Book Vigilante Diaries

Download or read book Vigilante Diaries written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Empire of Shadows

    Book Details:
  • Author : George Black
  • Publisher : St. Martin's Press
  • Release : 2012-03-27
  • ISBN : 1429989742
  • Pages : 560 pages

Download or read book Empire of Shadows written by George Black and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "George Black rediscovers the history and lore of one of the planet's most magnificent landscapes. Read Empire of Shadows, and you'll never think of our first—in many ways our greatest—national park in the same way again." —Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the nineteenth century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history - the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars and the "civilizing" of the frontier - and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries: Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted but tormented cavalryman known as "the man who invented Wonderland"; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and Gen. Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero and architect of the Indian Wars, who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the US Cavalry. George Black1s Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of America1s majestic national landmark.

Book The Peep Diaries

    Book Details:
  • Author : Hal Niedzviecki
  • Publisher : City Lights Publishers
  • Release : 2009-06-01
  • ISBN : 0872865223
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book The Peep Diaries written by Hal Niedzviecki and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have entered the age of "peep culture": a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security and even humanity. Peep culture is reality TV, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, over-the-counter spy gear, blogs, chat rooms, amateur porn, surveillance technology, Dr. Phil, Borat, cell phone photos of your drunk friend making out with her ex-boyfriend, and more. In the age of peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing. With hilarious, exasperated acuity, social critic Hal Niedzviecki dives into peep, starting his own video blog, joining every social network that will have him, monitoring the movements of his toddler, selling his secrets on Craigslist, hiring a private detective to investigate him, spying on his neighbors, trying out for reality TV shows and stripping for the pleasure of a web audience he isn’t even sure exists. Part travelogue, part diary, part meditation and social history, The Peep Diaries explores a rapidly emerging digital phenomenon that is radically changing not just the entertainment landscape, but also the firmaments of our culture and society. The Peep Diaries introduces the arrival of the age of peep culture and explores its implications for entertainment, society, sex, politics and everyday life. Mixing first-rate reporting with sociological observations culled from the latest research, this book captures the shift from pop to peep and the way technology is turning gossip into documentary and Peeping Toms into entertainment journalists. Packed with stranger-than-fiction true-life characters and scenarios, The Peep Diaries reflects the aspirations and confusions of the growing number of people willing to trade the details of their private lives for catharsis, attention and notoriety. Hal Niedzviecki is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and has published numerous works of social commentary and fiction, including Hello I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity and Look Down, This Is Where It Must Have Happened, which is also published by City Lights Publishers.

Book Littleton Washington s Journal

Download or read book Littleton Washington s Journal written by Douglas Lee Gibboney and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2001-06-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW AVAILABLE! THE NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED MEMOIRS OF THE CONFEDERATE SECRETARY OF STATES CHIEF AIDE! As seen on Book TV! Born in the District of Columbia to one of the First Families of Virginia, Littleton Q. Washington attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, before securing a clerkship at the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1855, he joined the U.S. Customs House in San Francisco and became embroiled in that citys Vigilante Uprising. Dismissed from his patronage job during James Buchanans administration, Washington made a wild and dangerous journey home across Mexico, which was then entering a bloody reform war. Returning to the District of Columbia, Littleton tried using his government connections to earn a living as a lobbyist but he was not financially successful. He also became more active in journalism and party politics. An ardent secessionist, Washington helped send secret information to South Carolinas governor during the Fort Sumter crisis. In April 1861, he fled from the District of Columbia and traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, where he secured a lieutenants commission in the Confederate Army from Jefferson Davis. Washington served at the battle of First Bull Run. He then briefly edited the Richmond Examiner before joining the Confederate State Department where he worked as the chief aide to Judah Benjamin for the balance of the war. He also enlisted in the home guard called out to defend the Confederate capital in 1863 and 1864. Littleton was a close friend of Mary Chesnut and is mentioned frequently in her famous diary. This book is a valuable reference as another first-person account of wartime Richmond. The journal offers a fascinating character study of one man caught up in the most turbulent period of American history. LITTLETON WASHINGTONS JOURNAL IS REFERENCED NUMEROUS TIMES IN WILLIAM C. DAVIS NEW HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERACY "LOOK AWAY!" About the Editor: Douglas Lee Gibboney is the author of several books, including "Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg," "Murder at Cleaver Stadium" and "Tragic Glory." His CD of original songs, "Guitars, Girls & Motels," is available through Amazon.com.

Book The Wild West

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael Wallis
  • Publisher : Abrams
  • Release : 2011-05-27
  • ISBN : 161312144X
  • Pages : 750 pages

Download or read book The Wild West written by Michael Wallis and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extensively illustrated day-by-day adventure that tells the stories of pioneers and cowboys, gold rushes, and saloon shoot-outs on America’s frontier. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the lure of land rich in minerals, fertile for farming, and plentiful with buffalo bred an all-out obsession with heading westward. The Wild West: 365 Days takes you back to these booming frontier towns that became the stuff of American legend, breeding characters such as Butch Cassidy and Jesse James. Prize-winning journalist and historian Michael Wallis spins a colorful narrative, separating myth from fact, in 365 vignettes. Learn the stories of Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, and Annie Oakley; travel to the O.K. Corral and Dodge City; ride with the Pony Express; and witness the invention of the Colt revolver. Included throughout are images drawn from Robert G. McCubbin’s extensive collection of Western memorabilia, encompassing rare books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts, including Billy the Kid’s knife.

Book Montana

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael P. Malone
  • Publisher : University of Washington Press
  • Release : 1991
  • ISBN : 9780295971292
  • Pages : 484 pages

Download or read book Montana written by Michael P. Malone and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Montana: A History of Two Centuries first appeared in 1976 and immediately became the standard work in its field. In this thoroughgoing revision, William L. Lang has joined Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder in carrying forward the narrative to the 1990s. Fully twenty percent of the text is new or revised, incorporating the results of new research and new interpretations dealing with pre-history, Native American studies, ethnic history, women's studies, oral history, and recent political history. In addition, the bibliography has been updated and greatly expanded, new maps have been drawn, and new photographs have been selected.

Book The World of Horrotica

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Edward Collier
  • Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
  • Release : 2013-09-05
  • ISBN : 1483690814
  • Pages : 670 pages

Download or read book The World of Horrotica written by David Edward Collier and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE APOCALYPSE CODEX PROPHESIZES THE COMING OF THE APOCALYPSE, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE CAN PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE FROM HAPPENING. HOWEVER, IN THE TRICKY PROCESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE, THE APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE INSTEAD CAUSES THE APOCALYPSE TO BEGIN. IS THE ZOMBIE DOOMSDAY UPON US: IN SHADOW OF TOMORROW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL ARE ORPHANED TWINS RAISED AS DAY-WALKING VAMPIRE HUNTERS BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD, OTHERWISE KNOWN DOWN THE ROAD AS THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE. WALKING DEAD MEN WANTED AS VIGILANTE OUTLAWS HUNTED DOWN BY THE LAW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL MUST HUNT DOWN THE DEVIL INCARNATE BEFORE THE DEVIL INCARNATE HUNTS DOWN SIN INCARNATE. OTHERWISE, SIN INCARNATE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO DEATH INCARNATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DID YOU KNOW ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON PENNED DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE ON A SIX-DAY COCAINE BINGE? LIKE DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, EACH ONE OF US HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY. THE GOOD SIDE THAT WE SHOW OFF DURING THE DAY, AND THEN THAT DARK SIDE THAT WE TRY TO KEEP HIDDEN IN THE DARKEST CORNER OF OUR CLOSET. I HIDE THESE EPISODES INSIDE THE CLOSET. WE ALL HAVE SKELETONS BURIED IN OUR CLOSET. BUT ME, I HAVE A CEMETERY BURIED IN MINE. HOWEVER, I FEAR SOMEONE WILL UNLOCK MY CLOSET. I SEE IT EVERY NIGHT IN MY NIGHTMARES, NIGHTMARES THAT WAKE ME EVERY NIGHT. LIKE FRANKENSTEIN, I SEE MYSELF FLEEING IN FEAR, RUNNING FASTER AND FASTER, RUSHING DOWN A DARK ROAD DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SNOW-SWEPT WOODS GROWING DARKER AMIDST A BITTER WINTER, RUNNING FARTHER AND FURTHER AWAY, RUSHING THROUGH THE WIND-SWEPT WILD. IT WANDERS WAYWARD ACROSS UNFOLDING VIRGIN VISTAS AS IT WONDERS TO GOD IN HEAVEN, WHY THE HELL IN THE WORLD ARE THE RABID DOGS IN SUCH RUTHLESS, PITILESS, RELENTLESS PURSUIT? THERE ARE SOME DOGS THAT BARK. HOWEVER, THERE ARE OTHER DOGS THAT BITE. SAVE ME FROM MY SINS BEFORE THEY CATCH UP TO ME. MAN MAKES HIS HELL AND MY MIND IS MINE. SAVE ME FROM THE DEVIL AND FREE MY SOUL FROM THIS LIVING HELL. AS A WALKING DEAD MAN HUNTED DOWN IN THE DEAD MANS LAND, YUPPIE CITY WAS HOOKED ON MALE FUEL. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MAN. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MACHINE. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MONSTER. HOWEVER, WHEN BIO/CIDE WENT UNDER, BIO/CIDE CITY NO LONGER MASS-PRODUCED MALE FUEL. THE ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOM OF MALE FUEL WAS THAT YOU DEVELOPED VIOLENT ZOMBIE-LIKE BEHAVIOR THAT TURNED YOU INTO A HUMAN BEAST THAT BEHAVED LIKE A ZOMBIE. WHAT WAS STILL LEFT AT THE BIO/CIDE CITY WAS HORDED BY HUMANS THAT TOOK REFUGE UNDERGROUND. HOWEVER, FOR THOSE THAT WERE STILL ALIVE, THE UNDERWORLD WAS NOT ANY BETTER THAN THE WORLD THEY LEFT BEHIND. FOLLOWING THE GRAVEYARD WARS, THE WORLD OF HORROTICA WAS RECLAIMED BY THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS WHO WEATHERED THE STORM WHILE LIVING UNDERGROUND WHERE THE REMAINING REMNANTS OF THE HUMAN CIVILIZATION RETURNED TO THE MORTAL WORLD WHERE THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS TOOK CONTROL OF THE HUMAN WORLD, WHICH BECAME KNOWN AS THE LAWLESS LAND.

Book Terror from the Extreme Right

Download or read book Terror from the Extreme Right written by Tore Bjorgo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first volume in a new series comprises nine contributions originally presented at a workshop supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin in August, 1994. Topics range from right-wing violence in North America to the development, patterns, and causes of violence against fore

Book A Decent  Orderly Lynching

Download or read book A Decent Orderly Lynching written by Frederick Allen and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-07-17 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The deadliest campaign of vigilante justice in American history erupted in the Rocky Mountains during the Civil War when a private army hanged twenty-one troublemakers. Hailed as great heroes at the time, the Montana vigilantes are still revered as founding fathers. Combing through original sources, including eye-witness accounts never before published, Frederick Allen concludes that the vigilantes were justified in their early actions, as they fought violent crime in a remote corner beyond the reach of government. But Allen has uncovered evidence that the vigilantes refused to disband after territorial courts were in place. Remaining active for six years, they lynched more than fifty men without trials. Reliance on mob rule in Montana became so ingrained that in 1883, a Helena newspaper editor advocated a return to “decent, orderly lynching” as a legitimate tool of social control. Allen’s sharply drawn characters, illustrated by dozens of photographs, are woven into a masterfully written narrative that will change textbook accounts of Montana’s early days—and challenge our thinking on the essence of justice.

Book Race and the Wild West

Download or read book Race and the Wild West written by Laura J. Arata and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Western Writers of America “SPUR Award” and the Western Association of Women Historians “Gita Chaudhuri Prize”! Born a slave in eastern Tennessee, Sarah Blair Bickford (1852–1931) made her way while still a teenager to Montana Territory, where she settled in the mining boomtown of Virginia City. Race and the Wild West is the first full-length biography of this remarkable woman, whose life story affords new insight into race and belonging in the American West around the turn of the twentieth century. For many years, Sarah Bickford’s known biography fit into a single paragraph. By examining her life in all its complexity, Arata fills in what were long believed to be unrecoverable “silent spaces” in her story. Before establishing herself as a successful business owner, we learn, she was twice married, both times to white men. Her first husband, an Irish immigrant, physically abused her until she divorced him in 1881. Their three children all died before the age of ten. In 1883, she married Stephen Bickford and gave birth to four more children. Upon his death, she inherited his shares of the Virginia City Water Company, acquiring sole ownership in 1917. For the final decade of her life, Bickford actively preserved and promoted a historic Virginia City building best known as the site of the brutal lynching in 1864 of five men. Her conspicuous role in developing an early form of heritage tourism challenges long-standing narratives that place white men at the center of the “Wild West” myth and its promotion. Bickford’s story offers a window into the dynamics of race in the rural West. Although her experiences defy easy categorization, what is clear is that her navigation of social norms and racial barriers did not hinge on exceptionalism or tokenism. Instead, she built a life that deserves to be understood on its own terms. Through exhaustive research and nuanced analysis, Laura J. Arata advances our understanding of a woman whose life embodied the contradictory intersections of hope and disappointment that characterized life in the early-twentieth-century American West for brave pioneers of many races.

Book Violence     Mercurial Gestalt

Download or read book Violence Mercurial Gestalt written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One afternoon, a patient who had been in three times weekly ... psychotherapy ... left my office after her session, drove down to the train tracks half a mile from my office, and sat down facing an oncoming train.” This tragic event opens the essay by psychoanalyst Susanne Chassay who explores the relationship between private and political terrorism. Her viewpoint complements analyses of violence – that ‘mercurial gestalt’ – by other contributors to this collection derived from a 2003 Cultures of Violence conference held at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, organized by the Inter-disciplinary Net. From fields as diverse as philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, political science, literary criticism, and forensics, authors consider, for instance, hostility to European minorities; military training and torture; the ‘endemic violence’ aesthetically recorded by Haitian novelists; child abuse in film; female genital mutilation in fiction; or the massacre of Koreans during the 1923 Japanese earthquake. Violence in contact zones in Northern Ireland or in the memory of South African museum directors trying to comply with Truth and Reconciliation Commission mandates is also an object of scrutiny here. Finally, that vexed, primordial issue of violence – nature or nurture? – is probed.

Book Discovery Men

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gary R. Forney
  • Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
  • Release : 2009-02-19
  • ISBN : 1469104318
  • Pages : 211 pages

Download or read book Discovery Men written by Gary R. Forney and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no available information at this time.

Book The Rustler

    Book Details:
  • Author : Frances McElrath
  • Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
  • Release : 2015-09-01
  • ISBN : 0803290268
  • Pages : 246 pages

Download or read book The Rustler written by Frances McElrath and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in the spring of 1902, the same year as The Virginian, Frances McElrath's novel The Rustler enjoyed only brief success before fading from public memory. While The Virginian has indisputably served as the model for the genre of the Western, The Rustler remains virtually unknown. Although both novels were inspired by the Johnson County massacre, The Rustler is an account sympathetic to the perspective of the small cattleman, while The Virginian takes the part of the large cattle operations. Both novels also address, with differing conclusions, the clash between the independent Western man and the genteel Eastern woman. In this story of the stoic, competent, and fiercely independent cowboy Jim and his ill-fated love for the beautiful Hazel Clifford, McElrath offers an alternative view of the West and the standard marriage plot. In contrast to The Virginian, The Rustler points to the vulnerability of the cowboy ethos and a different sort of redemption for the frivolous Eastern woman. The Rustler is also a significant example of the connection between popular and literary traditions whereby sentimentalism, the Western, and a feminist perspective converge in surprising and fascinating ways.

Book Dirty Deeds

    Book Details:
  • Author : Nancy J. Taniguchi
  • Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
  • Release : 2016-10-27
  • ISBN : 0806157062
  • Pages : 321 pages

Download or read book Dirty Deeds written by Nancy J. Taniguchi and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The California gold rush of 1849 created fortunes for San Francisco merchants, whose wealth depended on control of the city’s docks. But ownership of waterfront property was hotly contested. In an 1856 dispute over land titles, a county official shot an outspoken newspaperman, prompting a group of merchants to organize the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. The committee, which met in secret, fed biased stories to the newspapers, depicting itself as a necessary substitute for incompetent law enforcement. But its actual purpose was quite different. In Dirty Deeds, historian Nancy J. Taniguchi draws on the 1856 Committee’s minutes—long lost until she unearthed them—to present the first clear picture of its actions and motivations. San Francisco’s real estate comprised a patchwork of land grants left from the Spanish and Mexican governments—grants that had been appropriated and sold over and over. Even after the establishment of a federal board in 1851 to settle the complicated California claims, land titles remained confused, and most of the land in the city belonged to no one. The acquisition of key waterfront properties in San Francisco by an ambitious politician motivated the thirty-odd merchants who called themselves “the Executives” of the Vigilance Committee to go directly after these parcels. Despite the organization’s assertion of working on behalf of law and order, its tactics—kidnapping, forced deportations, and even murder—went far beyond the bounds of law. For more than a century, scholars have accepted the vigilantes’ self-serving claims to honorable motives. Dirty Deeds tells the real story, in which a band of men took over a city in an attempt to control the most valuable land on the West Coast. Ranging far beyond San Francisco, the 1856 Vigilance Committee’s activities affected events on the East Coast, in Central America, and in courts throughout the United States even after the Civil War.