Showing results by narrator "Norman Dietz" in All Categories

At the dawn of the 19th century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. America's complaints were ignored, until President James Madison declared a second war on Great Britain. British forces would descend on the United States, but America rallied and survived. With stunning detail on land and naval battles, the role Native Americans played in the hostilities, and the larger backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of the turning points of this strange conflict, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Sundown Towns examines thousands of all-white American towns that were - and still are, in some instances - racially exclusive by design.

When Mark Twain was growing up, all he wanted to be was a steamboat man. And so Twain ran away in pursuit of his dream. Life on the mighty river for Twain consisted of paddleboats and history, poker games and gamblers, larger-than-life characters and outlandish festivals like Mardi Gras. Twain recorded it all with his keen eye for detail and biting wit.

On a previous voyage, a mysterious white whale had ripped off the leg of a sea captain named Ahab. Now the crew of the Pequod, on a pursuit that features constant adventure and horrendous mishaps, must follow the mad Ahab into the abyss to satisfy his unslakeable thirst for vengeance.

On the morning of March 6, 1836, in an old abandoned mission called the Alamo, a small Texas garrison, fought to the death rather than yield to an overwhelming army of Mexicans. Through the years, the garrison's heroic stand has become so clothed in folklore and romance that the truth has nearly been lost. In A Time to Stand, Walter Lord rediscovers and recreates the whole fascinating story.

Published in 1936, this novel presents in epic scope the conflicts in the settling of the American Southwest. Set in New Mexico in the late 19th century, The Sea of Grass concerns the often violent clashes between the pioneering ranchers, whose cattle range freely through the vast sea of grass, and the farmers, or "nesters," who build fences and turn the sod. Against this background is set the triangle of rancher Colonel Jim Brewton, his unstable Eastern wife Lutie, and the ambitious Brice Chamberlain.

On the eve of the 65th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, Larry Alexander returns to the very battlefields that made Easy Company a legend. Accompanied by Easy veteran Sgt. Forrest Guth on his final tour, Alexander crosses an ocean and a continent to follow the path to victory taken by the famed Band of Brothers, exploring the living history of the places where they went into action and revealing what makes their story so meaningful for us to this day.

From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at North African pirates to the conquest of Falluja by the Marines, and from the early American explorers who probed the sources of the Nile to the diplomats who strove for Arab-Israeli peace, the United States has been dramatically involved in the Middle East. For well over two centuries, American statesmen, merchants, and missionaries, both men and women, have had a profound impact on the shaping of this crucial region.

As a strategy consultant to Goldman Sachs for more than 30 years, Charles D. Ellis developed close relationships with many of the firm's past and present leaders around the world. In The Partnership he probes deeply into the most important chapters in the firm's history, revealing the key events and decisions that tell the colorful, character-driven story of how Goldman Sachs became what it is today.

The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, among them California and the present-day Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S. Senate was precariously balanced with 15 free states and 15 slave states. Up to this point, states had been admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that tenuous balance in the Senate.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

The unforgettable novelistic recreation of the night before Christmas when General Washington and a rag-tag army slipped across the Delaware to surprise the Hessians and forge a nation.

Eminent historian Richard Brookhiser presents a vivid portrait of James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and one of America's greatest statesmen.

From the best-selling author of Day of Infamy: In the bloodiest island combat of WWII, one group of men kept watch from behind Japanese lines. The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these coastwatchers kept lookout for squadrons of Japanese bombers headed for Allied positions.

All for the Union is the astonishing and eloquent diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, the Union soldier featured in Ken Burns' highly acclaimed PBS television documentary The Civil War. Enlisting as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, Rhodes fought in every major campaign waged by the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Run to Appomattox. Here, in his own powerfully moving words, Rhodes reveals why he was willing to die to preserve his beloved Union.

When Peter Matthiessen was 17, he was told the story of Edgar J. Watson, a popular and successful planter who had been murdered by his neighbors in 1910. This novel is Matthiessen’s attempt to piece together the life of a mysterious man who became a legend, and the dangerous legend that destroyed him.

Two of the greatest heroes in children's literature, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, join forces in this classic tale from master storyteller Mark Twain. Tom and Huck are kidnapped by a mad scientist in a balloon-powered airship who plans to fly around the world then crash in flames - taking the boys with him. But when the madman falls overboard during a storm over the Atlantic Ocean, the youngsters are forced to use all their wits to save themselves from further perils aboard the runaway airship.

Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders.

Meet Mattie Rigsby, 78, who keeps a clean house and bakes the best pound cake in Listre, North Carolina. Her children grown, she lives a comfortable and independent life. Her orderly days are about to be disrupted, however, by a stray. Unkempt and unloved, teenaged and delinquent, Wesley Benfield just might need a piece of her apple pie and a verse or two of "Walking Across Egypt", her favorite hymn.

Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and 20th-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the 20th century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death.