"After Thomas Jefferson visited Mount Vernon in 1801 to pay his respects to George Washington's widow, Martha Washington remembered the encounter as the second-worst experience of her life-after the death of her husband. The two founders had become estranged by the time that Washington died. But for most of the time that they had known one another, from their first meeting in 1769, they enjoyed a productive and positive relationship. Contrary to the...

The history of the United States displays an uncanny pattern: At moments of crisis, when the odds against success seem overwhelming and disaster looks imminent, fate intervenes to provide deliverance and progress. Historians may categorize these incidents as happy accidents, callous crimes, or the product of brilliant leadership, but the most notable leaders of the past four hundred years have identified this good fortune as something else--a reflection...

"TIn 1785, just a few years after U.S. Independence, a young American named James Leander Cathcart is kidnapped at sea and carried as prisoner to the maverick North African statelet of Algiers, where he is held as a political hostage along with hundreds of other seamen captured on the open seas. The piratical corsairs of Algiers have decided, without any warning, to exploit the vulnerability of the newborn United States by seizing its mariners and...

Presents speeches given by great Americans that inspired, provoked and changed history.

In an extraordinary career David Fenton has learned first-hand what to do--and not to do--to propel progressive causes into the public eye and create real, impactful, lasting change. A visionary activist, Fenton has been the driving force behind some of the most important and history-making campaigns of the last 50 years, from the No-Nukes concerts with Bruce Springsteen in 1979, to the campaigns to free Nelson Mandela and end apartheid in the late...

"This set, like its predecessor, chronicles important historical events from around the world that have identified, defined, and legally established the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and transsexual, transgender, intersex, and asexual persons."--Volume 1, publisher's note.

"The Right to Die: A Reference Handbook provides a complete examination of right-to-die issues in the United States that dissects the complex arguments for and against a person's liberty to receive a physician's assistance to hasten death. It covers the legal aspects and the politics of the right-to-die controversy, analyzes the battles over the right to die in state and federal courts, and supplies primary source documents that illustrate the political,...