A high-spirited history of the role bourbon has played in American life and culture, "documented and full of folklore" ( Kirkus Reviews).The distinctive beverage of the Western world, bourbon is Kentucky's illustrious gift to the nation. While much has been written about whiskey, the particular place of bourbon in the American cultural record has long awaited detailed and objective presentation. A fascinating and informative contribution to Americana, ...

Personal intrigue and social history are combined in this fascinating account of an American dentist in nineteenth century Paris. Dr. Thomas W. Evans, a Philadelphia dentist of pioneering skill and great charm, moved in the highest circles of France's Second Empire. His expertise gave American dentistry a special distinction, while his discretion made him the confidant of Europe's reigning families. When they wished to communicate discreetly, they simply made an appointment with their dent...

A smooth and engaging narrative of the development of our most ubiquitous levy and an entertaining exegesis of its scripture, the Internal Revenue Code. Starting with history's earliest recorded taxes, Carson recounts the political and social forces which produced the Sixteenth Amendment and how that single fateful sentence has shaped American life for two generations. With each successive war, he shows, the personal income tax has grown more prepotent. In discussing the tax today, Carson ...

Crossbreeding folklore, myth and history, Carson, who has a flair for cultural oddities (The Polite Americans, 1966; The Social History of Bourbon, 1963), offers an arresting account of how men have treated their beasts from the Stone Age to the 20th century pet shop.

At various times there arises some extraordinary popular sorcerer to exploit the people in one or all of such potentially profitable fields as religion, politics and, of course, medicine. Such a man was John R. Brinkley, of Kansas, Texas, and Arkansas, medical maverick and potent radio personality, a physician and surgeon with sketchy training, lone-wolf ethics, a sense of glittering destiny and a free-wheeling spirit of adventure, who missed winning the governorship of Kansas twice by a m...

Absolutely hilarious—this is the captivating account of the Cornflake Crusade—that nineteenth-century evangelical movement of food faddists which brought ready-to-eat breakfast foods into every American home and put Battle Creek, Michigan, on the world map. This s the authentic story of our fantastic and insatiable interest in “scientific eating,” and is the obly book in print that will explain why the American child eats breakfast, while buried behind a fascinating cereal box. Strangely e...

Americans have traveled a far piece since Goody Randall climbed over the back of a Bay Colony pew in defense of her social position, or a frontier Congressman tried to eat the doilies at a White House dinner, or, more recently, since the adjustable Emily Post interpreted the social law on whether a lady’s maid could appear in bobbed hair. (She could not!) With unfailing scholarship, great good humor and occasional overtones of irony when snobbery raises its ugly nose, Gerald Carson here po...

American social history has many faces, and this in its frame of reference is a not unimportant one. For the old country store was the focus of much of the economic, political, commercial, and human activity over a hundred years and more of our history. The storekeeper, at the end of the War of Independence, faced disaster until the country's currency was stabilized. Barter was the rule and not the exception- and continued to reflect the pattern of progress, as commodities changed hands. T...

Bourbon, pronounced “ber-bun” in Kentucky where they ought to know, is the distinctive spirit of the Western world, the fine champagne cognac of the United States. Its place in American culture has long waited for objective treatment. The saga is a lively one, intimately associated with valor and splendor and the grace of life; with villainy, too, and folly and man’s inhumanity to man. And it has dramatic events such as the Whiskey Rebellion, the notorious “whiskey forts” of the fur trade,...

To European explorers, it was Eden, a paradise of waist-high grasses, towering stands of walnut, maple, chestnut, and oak, and forests that teemed with bears, wolves, raccoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today, it is the site of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and the home of millions of people, who have come from every corner of the nation and the globe. In Gotham, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have produced a monumental work of...

"THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF BOURBON."— Sacramento BeeA Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance BestsellerA ROLLICKING BIOGRAPHY OF BOURBON WHISKEY THAT DOUBLES AS "A COMPLEX AND ENTERTAINING" ( WALL STREET JOURNAL) HISTORY OF AMERICA ITSELFFew products are so completely or intimately steeped in the American story as bourbon whiskey. As Dane Huckelbridge's masterfully crafted history reveals, the i...

In 1789, George Washington became the first president of the United States. He has been called the father of our country for leading America through its early years. Washington also served in two major wars during his lifetime: the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. With over 100 black-and-white illustrations, Washington's fascinating story comes to life - revealing the real man, not just the face on the dollar bill!