There were no bats or balls on the campus of Wichita State University in the spring of 1977. Five years later, the resurrected varsity baseball program was in the final game of the College World Series, fulfilling the seemingly impossible promise made by Gene Stephenson when he began recruiting players to a place that didn't even have a practice field. Stephenson would lead the Shockers for over three decades, but those first five years with the team set him on the course that put him amon...

The Flint Hills stretch across eighty-two thousand square miles of American history in a long, rocked-up, grassed-up finger pointing from the Oklahoma border all the way to Nebraska. This history winds though the mythos of the cowboy, climbing among families built on fierce independence, respect for the land and the water, and stubborn refusal to sacrifice a way of life to enforced economic change. These stories tell the hard truths of hard people whose traditional values have carried them...

John E. Brown (April 2, 1879 February 12, 1957) was a prominent Methodist evangelist, publisher, radio pioneer, and educator in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1919, he established John Brown University, one of Arkansas’ leading private universities to provide an interdenominational, Christian education for needy students. He was also the leading figure in securing passage of a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in Benton County, a ban that continued into the twenty-first cent...

This acclaimed New York Times bestselling biography of the legendary Sioux warrior Red Cloud, is **“**a page-turner with remarkable immediacy…and the narrative sweep of a great Western” (The Boston Globe).Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms. At the peak of Red Cloud’s powers the Sioux could claim control o...

Published in 1973, this first volume in the History of Wisconsin series remains the definitive work on Wisconsin's beginnings, from the arrival of the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634, to the attainment of statehood in 1848. This volume explores how Wisconsin's Native American inhabitants, early trappers, traders, explorers, and many immigrant groups paved the way for the territory to become a more permanent society. Including nearly two dozen maps as well as illustrations of ...

This "fascinating, engaging" history of St. Louis's monument to American expansion reveals a story of greed, discrimination, and community displacement (NextSTL.com).Rising to a triumphant height of 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is one of the world's most widely recognized structures and attracts millions of tourists to St. Louis every year. Envisioned in 1947 but not completed until the mid-1960s, its story is one of innovation and greed; civic pride and backroom dea...

Ben Marzan–-Searching for meaning in his life, Marzan studies with The Imam and converts to a radical sect of Islam. He's the perfect candidate for a terrorist...American-born, assimilated, and eager to embrace Jihad.Anatoly Shenko–-A disaffected Russian scientist working in Siberia, Shenko is one of the world's top experts on biological warfare. But he, his wife and son are in ill health and he's in desperate need of money.Abdul Saidadov–-A former Chechen rebel, Saidadov a...

Winner of the Midwestern History Association's 2016 Hamlin Garland PrizeThe Iron Range earned its name honestly: it was once among the world’s richest iron ore mining districts. The Iron Range propelled the U.S. steel industry in the late nineteenth century, and iron mining sustained generations in the region with work and a strong economy. But long before most other parts of the country faced the realities of industrial decline, Minnesota’s Iron Range was already striving to maint...

During the heyday of spas, two luxurious hotels, owned by flamboyant competing visionaries, attracted the rich and famous to southern Indiana. Hotel guests came from throughout the United States in search of cures and pleasure. Among the many noted celebrities visiting the French Lick Springs and West Baden Springs Hotels were Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Al Capone, Joe Lewis, and professional golfer Walter Hagen, and the West Baden Springs Hotel was known as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World.' Af...

Geneva Lake was formed by a glacier tens of thousands of years ago. The Oneota left historic footprints with a cultural gift in the form of the shore path, which is accessible for all to walk just as the natives did many centuries earlier. Images of America: Geneva Lake illustrates the early history of the communities surrounding the lake�Lake Geneva, Linn, Fontana, and Williams Bay�through scrapbooks, vintage photographs, and storytelling. The chapters in this book cover the history of pe...

Although it was first settled in the 1830s, Oak Park did not become an independent municipality until it split from Cicero Township in 1902. No longer a rustic small town, the village soon became a population magnet, attracting ever-larger numbers of prosperous, progressive people to settle in what many soon referred to as "the finest of the streetcar suburbs."Coincidentally, use of the penny picture postcard had approached a national mania during this era. Thus from the earliest years of ...

The sports landscape changed in the spring of 1994 when the Cleveland Indians moved into their new stadium at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. No longer the joke of the league, The Jake made them the jewel of baseball and helped revitalize a city and a fan base. For the first time ever, these interviews and stories from the players, managers and front office personnel give the inside scoop on what happened on the field, in the dugout and behind the scenes of this exciting time in Clevel...