Russell Shorto
Author
Language
English
Description
"Family secrets emerge as a best-selling author dives into the history of the mob in small-town America. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a city "in its brawny postwar prime," is where "Little Joe" Regino and Russ Shorto build a local gambling empire on the earnings of factory workers for whom placing a bet--on a horse or pool game, pinball or "tip seal"--is their best shot at the American dream. Decades later, Russell Shorto grew up knowing that his grandfather...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In his epic new book, Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. They include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course, and a certain Mr. Washington, who was admired for his social graces but harshly criticized...
Author
Pub. Date
[2008]
Physical Desc
xx, 299 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Language
English
Description
The best-selling author of The Island at the Center of the World chronicles the more than three-hundred-year debate between religion and science as revealed through the long and momentous odyssey of the skeletal remains of French philosopher Ren̈еe Descartes, creator of the famous phrase "I think, therefore I am."
Author
Pub. Date
[2013]
Physical Desc
357 pages, 24 unnumbered pages : illustrations (some color), color maps ; 25 cm
Language
English
Description
Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography--the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay--and the democratic philosophy that this enduring...
