Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy and once one of the most prosperous cities in the United States, is home to a range of cemeteries that tell the story of American trends in honoring the dead. African slaves were interred in Shockoe Bottom�s so-called �burial ground for negroes,� US presidents James Monroe and John Tyler were buried in Hollywood Cemetery, and Civil War soldiers were commemorated throughout the metropolis; indeed, the River City has laid blacks and whites t...

Le Morte D'Arthur Audiobook is Sir Thomas Malory's richly evocative and enthralling version of the Arthurian legend. Recounting Arthur's birth, his ascendancy to the throne after claiming Excalibur, his ill-fated marriage to Guinevere, the treachery of Morgan Le Fay and the exploits of the Knights of the Round Table, it magically weaves together adventure, battle, love and enchantment. Le Morte D'Arthur looks back to an idealized Medieval world and is full of wistful, elegiac regret for a ...

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnm and the brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behavior. Swift's savage satire view mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presen...

The Nantucket whaling ship, the Pequod, spirals the globe in search of Moby Dick, the mythical white whale of the Southern Oceans. Driven on by the obsessive revenge of Captain Ahab, the crew and the outcast Ishmael find themselves caught up in a demonic pursuit which leads inexorably to an apocalyptic climax.

The Golden Gate Bridge links the urbanity of San Francisco with the wildheadlands of Marin County, as if to suggest the paradox of Californiaand America itself-the place that Fitzgerald saw as the last spotcommensurate with the human capacity for wonder. The bridge, completedin 1937, also announced to the world America's engineering prowess andfull assumption of its destined continental dominance. The Golden Gateis a counterpart to the Statue of Li...

A constant factor in human history is the need to protect oneself. Another factor is the urge to attack someone else. Until the Normans imposed their sophisticatedly-designed castles on Britain, the country had seen many structures that met either of these needs. Before the Romans brought their efficient war machine across the Channel and based its troops in a variety of walled buildings, their prehistoric antecedents had met these needs in a different way. For example, pre-Roman hillforts...

Held in Philadelphia from May 10 through October 10, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition celebrated the 100th anniversary of American independence. Philadelphia hosted 37 nations in five main buildings and 250 additional structures on 285 acres of land. The celebration looked backward to commemorate the progress made over the 100-year period, and it announced to the world that American invention and innovation was on a par with that of our foreign counterparts. Patriotism abounded, as did messa...

Finalist for a 2017 Hamilton Literary Award, the Kerry Schooley AwardUnbuilt Hamilton presents the Ambitious City at its most ambitious, exploring the origins and fates of unrealized building, planning, and transportation proposals from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first.Marvel at the sweeping vista down Hamilton’s own version of the Champs-Élysées as you enjoy a concert in the escarpment amphitheatre. Drive up the Gage Avenue tunnel, o...

It has been years since New York has seen anything quite like the old Copacabana. The Copa, Manhattan's best-known night club, was also the most popular nightspot in America. From the moment it burst onto the scene in 1940, an aura of glamour and sophistication hovered over the Copa. It was a luminous glow that, over the course of five decades, served this illustrious establishment well, beckoning the people who made it famous-Hollywood stars, sports heroes, foreign dignitaries, and the to...

As many as 15,000 covered bridges were built in North America over the past 200 years. Fewer than 1,000 remain.In America's Covered Bridges, authors Terry E. Miller and Ronald G. Knapp tell the fascinating story of these bridges, how they were built, the technological breakthroughs required to construct them and above all the dedication and skill of their builders. Each wooden bridge, whether still standing or long gone, has a story to tell about the natur...

Counting to 10 in 10 languages is made easy with this global snapshot of Los Angeles, California.Featuring the numbers in the 10 most common languages spoken in LA—including English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Russian, Korean, Tagalog, Italian, Vietnamese, and Japanese—One to Ten L.A. captures the most iconic images of one of the most diverse cities in the world.

When the world comes to Tennessee, the world is going to have a good time. Once referred to as the "scruffy little city by the Tennessee River," Knoxville hosted the world's fair from May 1 through October 31, 1982, and provided one big party for people to visit from all over to witness the live entertainment, parades, displays, exhibits, musical and sporting events, food, costumes, rides, games, and arcades. Based on the theme "Energy Turns the World," Expo '82 was the first world's fair ...