Tag: #non-fiction

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Monster of the Midway

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The story of football’s fiercest competitor—the legendary Bronko Nagurski—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Junction Boys.
Monster of the Midway recounts Bronko Nagurski’s unparalleled triumphs during the 1930s and ’40s, when the Chicago Bears were the kings of professional football. From 1930, the Bronk’s first year, through 1943, his last, the Bears won five NFL titles and played in four other NFL Championship Games. Focusing on Nagurski’s 1943 comeback season, Jim Dent uncovers the stuff of legend: how Bronko miraculously led the Bears to their fourth NFL championship in spite of a battered frame, worn-out knees, multiple cracked ribs, and a broken bone in his lower back.

While chronicling the drama of the ’43 championship chase, Dent also tells of both the Bears’ colorful early years and Bronko’s improbable rise to fame from the backwoods of northern Minnesota. And laced through it all are stories of legend: Bronko rubbing shoulders with colorful characters like George Halas, Red Grange, Sid Luckman, and Sammy Baugh; Bronko running into (and breaking) the brick wall at Wrigley Field; Bronko winning All-American spots for two positions; Bronko knocking scores of opponents unconscious; and Bronko reaching the heights of football glory and, with rare grace, turning his back on the game after winning his last championship.

Rich in unforgettable stories and scenes, this is Jim Dent’s account of arguably the greatest football player who ever lived—and the roughest, toughest, rowdiest group of players ever to don leather helmets, the original Monsters of the Midway.

“A fascinating chapter in early pro football history.” —Booklist

Amazon

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The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters.

The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters – ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being.

Drawing on a vast range of original evidence – chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts – renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

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Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“Taps the fascinating history of a surprisingly understudied place—Dallas . . . to reorient our understanding of America’s Republican Right.” —Darren Dochuk, author of Anointed with Oil

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, “We’re heading into nut country today.” That day’s events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.


In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism—and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party’s divisive but effective “Southern Strategy,” the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.


Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller’s captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.

“Well-researched and briskly written . . . A timely, intelligent, and penetrating book.” —The New York Times Book Review

Continue reading “Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy” →
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Historic Charleston & the Lowcountry

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

In this elegant hardbound volume, photographers Steve Gross and Susan Daley take you on an intimate tour of some of the finest historic homes, gardens, churches, and plantations of the old city of Charleston and its surrounding Lowcountry. Their luminescent photographs reveal an insider’s look at the definitive architecture and landscape of the region, ranging from private gardens hidden behind wrought iron gates to some of America’s first landscaped garden vistas. From colonial-era French Quarter homes to Federal and Greek Revival townhouses and antebellum plantation houses, the selection featuring old family, private homes to museum showplaces make this an essential book for visitors, architects, preservationists or armchair travelers.

Editorial Reviews 

Review

“In their new photo book, Historic Charleston and the Lowcountry, Gross andDaley describe stumbling upon the Aiken-Rhett House, a Federal-style buildingoriginally designed in 1818. It was decaying, but the pair were intrigued bythe mansion, the remnants of its opulent past and, ultimately, its story.” 
Preservation Magazine 

“Photographers Steve Gross and Susan Daley write in their new, beautifully illustrated book, Historic Charleston & the Low Country (Gibbs Smith, 2016) that ” to walk into a three-hundred-year-old house and feel the resonance of past lives, to make photographs using the same geometry of sunlight coming through windows and doors as generations of inhabitants have experienced it, is to glimpse into history and to be provided with a way to read the past. “Their passion for Charleston’s past shines through in this comprehensive book that showcases in words and pictures over 22 historic homes, plantations and gardens. The authors have gained access to architectural gems of the Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival periods, many of them privately owned. Additional chapters instruct us on the histories of piazzas, wrought-iron work, hidden gardens and churches. This book is a loving tribute to Charleston and its surroundings-and the next best thing to making a visit.” Editor’s Picks, Charleston Style & Design Magazine.

About the Author

Photographers Steve Gross and Susan Daley specialize in photographing interiors and the architecture of the changing American landscape. They are the coauthors of ten previous books on the various styles of American homes and design, including Creole Houses, Old Florida, and most recently Farmhouse Revival. Their work has been published extensively in magazines around the world and is in private collections including the Smithsonian Institution.

Amazon

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Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The gunfight at the OK Corral lasted less than a minute—yet it became the basis for countless stories about the Wild West. At the time of the event, however, Wyatt Earp was not universally acclaimed as a hero. Among the people who knew him best in Tombstone, Arizona, many considered him a renegade and murderer.

This book tells the nearly unknown story of the prosecution of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holiday following the famous gunfight. To the prosecutors, the Earps and Holiday were wanton killers. According to the defense, the Earps were steadfast heroes—willing to risk their lives on the mean streets of Tombstone for the sake of order.

The case against the Earps, with its dueling narratives of brutality and justification, played out themes of betrayal, revenge, and even adultery. Attorney Thomas Fitch, one of the era’s finest advocates, ultimately managed, against considerable odds, to save Earp from the gallows. But the case could easily have ended in a conviction—and Wyatt Earp would have been hanged or imprisoned instead of celebrated as an American icon.

Continue reading “Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp” →