Franklin Pierce was one of the least known, least liked, and least successful presidents in American history. In this new study of his administration, historian Larry Gara makes no attempt to revive Pierce's reputation. Instead he provides a clear analysis of Pierce's shortcomings as well as his few successes. Franklin Pierce's administration (1853-1857) spanned a turbulent period in the life of the nation: North-South polarization reached new extremes due, in part, to Pierce's failure to understand the depth of Free Soil sentiment in the North; the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its aftermath...
Franklin Pierce was one of the least known, least liked, and least successful presidents in American history. In this new study of his administration,...
" The underground railroad -- with its mysterious signals, secret depots, abolitionist heroes, and slave-hunting villains -- has become part of American mythology. But legend has distorted much of this history. Larry Gara shows how pre-Civil War partisan propanda, postwar remininscences by fame-hungry abolitionists, and oral tradition helped foster the popular belief that a powerful secret organization spirited floods of slaves away from the South. In contrast to much popular belief, however, the slaves themselves had active roles in their own escape. They carried out their runs, receiving...
" The underground railroad -- with its mysterious signals, secret depots, abolitionist heroes, and slave-hunting villains -- has become part of Ame...
Little is known about those who openly refused to enter military service in World War II because of their convictions against killing. While many of those men accepted alternative civilian service, more than 6,000 were incarcerated with sentences ranging from a few months to five years. Some were tried, convicted, and reimprisoned for essentially the same offense--resisting induction into the armed forces--after their initial release.
In A Few Small Candles, ten men tell why they resisted, what happened to them, and how they feel about that experience today. Their stories...
Little is known about those who openly refused to enter military service in World War II because of their convictions against killing. While many o...