Jason Brennan

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions

Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us--it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But, Jason Brennan says, they are all wrong.

In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results--and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse--more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government--epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable--may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out.

A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines.

Against Democracy

6de90e02-588c-4dd6-9e3c-46a997f9c5ef-1

Liz Cheney

Book and dust jacket are in mint condition. 

New York

A Memoir and a Warning

A gripping first-hand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution--leading to the violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021--by the House Republican leader who dared to stand up to it. In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and many around him, including certain other elected Republican officials, intentionally breached their oath to the Constitution: they ignored the rulings of dozens of courts, plotted to overturn a lawful election, and provoked a violent attack on our Capitol. Liz Cheney, one of the few Republican officials to take a stand against these efforts, witnessed the attack first-hand, and then helped lead the Congressional Select Committee investigation into how it happened. In Oath and Honor, she tells the story of this perilous moment in our history, those who helped Trump spread the stolen election lie, those whose actions preserved our constitutional framework, and the risks we still face.

Oath and Honor

b8a9a023-921f-4ba9-9f56-ee3979117442-0

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

and the Quest for Indian Leadership

Tecumseh

Taylor Branch

America in the King Years, 1965-68

A final installment of the author's history of the civil rights movement chronicles Martin Luther King's final years, covering such topics as the 1965 Selma march for the right to vote and King's turbulent alliance with Lyndon Johnson.

At Canaan's Edge

e28be688-2c88-4dc6-aca0-5d857d97357f-1

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Bloomberg Businessweek In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history. The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world. Praise for Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power “This is probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood “A big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Meacham] captures who Jefferson was, not just as a statesman but as a man. . . . By the end of the book . . . the reader is likely to feel as if he is losing a dear friend. . . . [An] absorbing tale.”—The Christian Science Monitor “This terrific book allows us to see the political genius of Thomas Jefferson better than we have ever seen it before. In these endlessly fascinating pages, Jefferson emerges with such vitality that it seems as if he might still be alive today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin

Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power

e45485a8-6a6f-40a9-a510-bf6878501c7d-1

Clint Smith

Virginia

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods--like downtown Manhattan--on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith's debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.

How the Word Is Passed

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History lovers, this one is for you! A thorough look at the period of the Founding Fathers with beautiful images throughout. 
 #history #coffeetablebook #americanhistory #foundingfathers #hardcover #nonfiction

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Iowa

The Fight for Freedom and the Birth of American Liberty

Relates the events, battles, and discussions that led to the American Revolution and the rise of a democratic nation, and offers portraits of the Founding Fathers as well as excerpts from documents penned by George Washington.

Founding Fathers

30508e41-db70-4626-bb7f-5d8bf6464c26-1

Joshua Longman

Primary Sources in American History

America Through the Eyes of Its People

540fd99e-36d1-452c-a0bd-784c8692ef5d-1

Kristin Hannah

Connecticut

A Novel

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 USA TODAY BESTSELLER #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER #1 INDIE BESTSELLER "The Four Winds seems eerily prescient in 2021 . . . Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close.”—The New York Times "A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the indispensable but often overlooked role of Greatest Generation women."—People "Through one woman’s survival during the harsh and haunting Dust Bowl, master storyteller, Kristin Hannah, reminds us that the human heart and our Earth are as tough, yet as fragile, as a change in the wind." —Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them. “My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.” Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family. The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

The Four Winds

811f89db-34d3-4876-8e55-1ebea5c524cb-1

Pennsylvania

Dead Wake (Signed)

Nigel Cawthorne

Nikola Tesla today is largely unknown and overlooked among the great scientists of the modern era. While Thomas Edison, the most famous inventor in American history, gets all the glory for discovering the light bulb. But it was his one-time assistant and life-long arch nemesis, Tesla, who made the breakthrough in alternating current electricity.

Edison and Tesla carried on a bitter feud for years, but it was Tesla's AC generators that illuminated the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago under artificial light. Today all homes and electrical appliances run on Tesla's AC current.

120 years ago, they were billed as the 'Twin Wizards of Electricity', here Nigel Cawthorne chronicles the life and times of the two great men to help us finally decide just who really is the Electric King- Edison or Tesla?

The Oxford People series offers deep dives into the most influential people, subjects, and cultures from history. From horror-fiction legends like H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, to historical heavyweights like Houdini and JFK, to the supernatural world of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts—Oxford People encompasses it all.


Other titles in this series include: Angels, Che, Creating Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe, Extreme Science, Gettysburg, Ghosts, Gunfighters, Houdini, HP Lovecraft, John F. Kennedy, Myths and Legends, Privates and Privateers, Roosevelt and Churchill, Royal Weddings, Skies of WWII, Tesla,  Vampires, Vikings, Werewolves, Women of Invention, Zombies.

Texas

The Life-Long Feud That Electrified the World

Nikola Tesla today is largely unknown and overlooked among the great scientists of the modern era. While Thomas Edison, the most famous inventor in American history, gets all the glory for discovering the light bulb. But it was his one-time assistant and life-long arch nemesis, Tesla, who made the breakthrough in alternating current electricity.

Edison and Tesla carried on a bitter feud for years, but it was Tesla's AC generators that illuminated the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago under artificial light. Today all homes and electrical appliances run on Tesla's AC current.

120 years ago, they were billed as the 'Twin Wizards of Electricity', here Nigel Cawthorne chronicles the life and times of the two great men to help us finally decide just who really is the Electric King- Edison or Tesla?

The Oxford People series offers deep dives into the most influential people, subjects, and cultures from history. From horror-fiction legends like H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, to historical heavyweights like Houdini and JFK, to the supernatural world of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts--Oxford People encompasses it all.





Other titles in this series include: Angels, Che, Creating Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe, Extreme Science, Gettysburg, Ghosts, Gunfighters, Houdini, HP Lovecraft, John F. Kennedy, Myths and Legends, Privates and Privateers, Roosevelt and Churchill, Royal Weddings, Skies of WWII, Tesla,  Vampires, Vikings, Werewolves, Women of Invention, Zombies.

Tesla vs Edison

7322d26d-8efa-4528-b194-6c64711b5e0b-1

16 books, hardcover & paperback. Fair condition. All related to American history. 

Oversized Hardcover (4 to 6 lbs)

Florida

Americana Kids Collection

Osborne Russell

'Reader, if you are in search of a Classical and Scientific tourist, please to lay this Volume down, and pass on, for this simply informs you what a Trapper has seen and experienced. But if you wish to peruse a Hunter's rambles among the wild regions of the Rocky Mountains, please to read this and forgive the authors foibles and imperfections, considering as you pass along that he has been chiefly educated in Nature's School under that rigid tutor experience..'

Journal of a Trapper

bfd2dc11-ae30-4cc8-8e05-dc64ef523fa1-1

Buzz Bissinger

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Oregon

A Game of Life and Death in World War II





"Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it." -- John Grisham

An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity.  As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war - the invasion of Okinawa--their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: Former All Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL.   

When the trash-talking between the 4th and 29th over who had the better football team reached a fever pitch, it was decided: The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal.  The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as "The Mosquito Bowl." 

Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in "The Mosquito Bowl" would be killed at Okinawa, by far the largest number of American athletes ever to die in a single battle. The Mosquito Bowl is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not.  It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence.  

Writing with the style and rigor that won him a Pulitzer Prize and have made several of his books modern classics, Buzz Bissinger takes us from the playing fields of America's campuses where boys played at being Marines, to the final time they were allowed to still be boys on that field of dirt and coral, to the darkest and deadliest days that followed at Okinawa. 

The Mosquito Bowl

caff1e7f-82c5-4ad8-9026-525ffb611f50-1

Eric Foner

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Documentary History

Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History is the only reader with a thematic focus on American freedom in its many dimensions. The organization of this compact, unintimidating collection of primary source documents mirrors that of the enormously successful Give Me Liberty! family of U.S. survey texts, and has been fully updated to match the Fifth Edition. Affordable and an exceptional value when packaged with Give Me Liberty!, Voices of Freedom is now available for the first time in an alternative ebook format.

Voices of Freedom

4011815f-9d12-4ece-afe6-e04971c563f6-1

Tracey Enerson Wood

Based on the true story of the woman who built the Brooklyn Bridge

She built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow. Discover the fascinating woman who helped design and construct an American icon, perfect for readers of The Other Einstein. Emily Warren Roebling refuses to live conventionally--she knows who she is and what she wants, and she's determined to make change. But then her husband Wash asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible. Emily's fight for women's suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when Wash, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. Lines blur as Wash's vision becomes her own, and when he is unable to return to the job, Emily is consumed by it. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whoselegacy she is building--hers, or her husband's. As the monument rises, Emily's marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it?

The Engineer's Wife

25030b4b-d4f9-43ee-bb87-78fb86c99e82-1

Fred Anderson

Excellent book on the Seven Years War and French Indian War. Some highlights in book but no writing.

History

A Short History of the French and Indian War

Examines how the French and Indian War of the mid-eighteenth century had a definitive impact on history, tracing how it served to overturn the balance of power on two continents and laid the groundwork for the American Revolution.

The War That Made America

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Part of the Time-Life book series called the Old West.
1978
Beautiful pictures in color and b&w.  Lots of facts and stories about the old west!

The Old West

The Indians

The Great Chiefs

The Women

The Gunfighters

Part of the Time-Life book series called the Old West.
1978
Beautiful pictures and in color and b&w.  Lots of facts and stories about the old west!

The Cowboys

Frank James

Dick Liddil

Clarence B. Hite

Tennessee

The Trial of Frank James for Murder, with Confessions of Dick Liddil and Clarence Hite, and History of the "James Gang"

8b4f01bd-d8a3-4f75-9be1-b7583331f2ff-1

James H. Merrell

Jerald Podair

Andrew Kersten

Faces pages are excellent, back cover sticker mark over ISBN

Georgia

From Centennial Through Millennium

This two volume anthology of original sources treats U.S. history from early colonization through the turn of the millennium. The second volume begins with the railroad strike of 1877 and ends with reflections on a post-9/11 world.

American Conversations

050320f9-87c8-44c9-ba25-77a638328314-1

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Jason Brennan

Against Democracy

Liz Cheney

Oath and Honor

R. David Edmunds

Tecumseh

Taylor Branch

At Canaan's Edge

Jon Meacham

Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power

Clint Smith

How the Word Is Passed

K. M. Kostyal; Jack N. Rakove (Foreword by)

Founding Fathers

Joshua Longman

America Through the Eyes of Its People

Kristin Hannah

The Four Winds

Erik Larson

Dead Wake (Signed)

Nigel Cawthorne

Tesla vs Edison

Various

Americana Kids Collection

Osborne Russell

Journal of a Trapper

Buzz Bissinger

The Mosquito Bowl

Eric Foner

Voices of Freedom

Tracey Enerson Wood

The Engineer's Wife

Fred Anderson

The War That Made America

Time-Life Books

The Indians

Time-Life Books

The Great Chiefs

Time-Life Books

The Women

Time-Life Books

The Gunfighters

Time-Life Books

The Cowboys

Frank James; Dick Liddil; Clarence B. Hite

The Trial of Frank James for Murder, with Confessions of Dick Liddil and Clarence Hite, and History of the "James Gang"

James H. Merrell; Jerald Podair; Andrew Kersten

American Conversations