Lady Selina Shirley was the daughter of Washington Shirley, second earl Ferrers; she married Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon. As Selina, countess of Huntingdon, she became the patroness of the evangelicals in – and out – of the Church of England, including the early Methodists in England, Wales, and America alike.And she had a distant cousin in America: George Washington, to whom she decided to write about her plans for a mission to the Native Americans and the settli...

Markham Shaw Pyle, historian of the George Washington – Selina Huntingdon correspondence, the events of that portentous year 1937, Congress' decision, four months before Pearl Harbor, to keep the draft (by one vote), and the investigations into the loss of RMS Titanic, looks back on his 2014 heart attack and triple bypass, his recovery, and the missed diagnoses, misdiagnoses, and dangerous consequences of thirty years' untreated illness.A long essay at once harrowing, hopeful, and ...

This is the story of America on August 12, 1941, four months before Pearl Harbor. Isolationism was still strong, FDR was hammering out the Atlantic Charter with Churchill (to the fury of America Firsters), the Japanese were ready to kick off a war, most Americans were more interested in baseball and radio shows than in a distant conflict, and Congress decided to keep the draft - by one vote.Markham Shaw Pyle's snapshot of America on a day more fateful than any then knew is the stor...

RMS Titanic sank in 1912, a US presidential election year; and in the very first days of the great House of Commons debate on Home Rule for Ireland. The Marconi companies were heroes to the press and the public, who credited them with saving the lives that were saved; JP Morgan, who owned the shipping trust that controlled Titanic's White Star Line, was a major political target for the trust-busters. And members of the British Cabinet, including the Attorney-General who was to direct (and ...

It was the year of Amelia Earhart's disappearance, the destruction of Guernica from the air, the New London School Explosion, and the Hindenburg disaster; of Alban Berg's Lulu and MC Escher's first 'impossible' print, the Panay Incident and Howard Hughes' newest airspeed record. Spain bled, and Hitler outlined his plans for Lebensraum: the Hoßbach Memorandum.The Ohio River and the Lower Mississippi flooded. The recovery of 1936 plummeted into the Recession of 1937 – 1938. Churchill...

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features a table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the iPad, Nook, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including eReaders, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.

A New York Times science bestseller from "America's funniest science writer" ( Washington Post ), this "quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession" ( Wall Street Journal ). With a New Epilogue by the Author."Delightful—though never disrespectful" ( Time Out New York), science ...

A bestselling historian shows how the British Empire created the modern world.**“Scrupulous scholarship and a rattling good tale.” —**Wall Street JournalThe British Empire was the largest in all history, its reach the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of the Second World War, over a fifth of the world's land surface and nearly a quarter of the world's population were under some form of British rule. Yet fo...

"Though the story of the potato famine has been told before, it's never been as thoroughly reported or as hauntingly told." — New York PostIt started in 1845 and before it was over more than one million men, women, and children would die and another two million would flee the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was the worst disaster in the nineteenth century—it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perf...

The classic account of the lead-up to World War I, told with “a rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish” (The New York Times)—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of AugustDuring the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged few enjoyed Olympian luxury as the underclass was “heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.” In The Pr...

A "brief but potent" appreciation of one of the most influential and revolutionary works of political thought "mixing biography, criticism and philosophy" ( Los Angeles Times).Christopher Hitchens, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of God Is Not Great, has been called a Tom Paine for our times. In this addition to the Books that Changed the World Series, Hitchens vividly introduces Paine and his Declaration of the Rights of Man...

The true story of a 1933 plot to overthrow the American president in a fascist coup, and the patriot who helped put an end to the scheme.Many people might not know that in 1933, a group of wealthy industrialists—working closely with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League—planned to overthrow the U.S. government and run F.D.R. out of office in a fascist coup. Readers will learn of their plan to turn unhappy war veterans into American “brown shirts,” ...