John S.D. Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as "a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us." It is that, and more: a portrait of the greatest Allied military leader of the Second World War, by the man who knew Ike best. General Ike is a book that John Eisenhower always knew he had to write, a tribute from an affectionate and admiring son to a great father. John chose to write about the "military Ike," as opposed to...
Feb 09, 2016•1 hr
If the railroads won the Gilded Age, the coal industry lost it. Railroads epitomized modern management, high technology, and vast economies of scale. By comparison, the coal industry was embarrassingly primitive. Miners and operators dug coal, bought it, and sold it in 1900 in the same ways that they had for generations. In the popular imagination, coal miners epitomized anti-modern forces as the so-called "Molly Maguire" terrorists. Yet the sleekly modern railroads were utterly dependent upon t...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
William Hogeland is one of my all-time favorite guests on PA Books. In "Founding Finance" he tells how America's early economic system was established. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds. Hogeland writes about the little-remembered election of May 1776 in which Pennsylvanians elected a General Assembly that was anti-independence and how, between then an July 4, mobs in Philadelphia overthrew the elected government and installed a pro-independence assembly. Without that coup, Pennsylvania...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 have earned their rightful place among the pantheon of American heroes. Flight 93 provides a riveting narrative based on interviews, oral histories, transcripts, recordings, personal tours of the crash site, and voluminous trial evidence made public only in recent years. There also is plenty of chilling new detail for readers who think they know the story of the flight. Utilizing research tools that were not available in the years...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission today announced the publication of "First Pennsylvanians: The Archaeology of Native Americans in Pennsylvania." The first comprehensive review of Native American archaeology in Pennsylvania for a general audience, the book is based on recent findings and previously unpublished research. With more than 240 illustrations of lifestyles, sites and artifacts, "First Pennsylvanians" discusses developments in the cultures of Native Americans who lived i...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
The outbreak of World War One transformed life for the men, women, and children living in the communities of Central Pennsylvania. "Duty Calls at Home" is a collection of essays examining how the war impacted life on the home front, and the ways the war altered daily life for the people and communities of the region.
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
Although many books on Gettysburg have addressed the role played by Brig. Gen. John Buford and his First Cavalry Division troops, there is not a single book-length study devoted entirely to the critical delaying actions waged by Buford and his dismounted troopers and his horse artillerists on the morning of July 1, 1863. Award-winning Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg rectifies this glaring oversight with "The Devil's to Pay": John Buford at Gettysburg. A History and Walking Tour. This comp...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
An integral component of the transportation system that the D&H created to transport that coal to market was the Gravity Railroad that the company established between Carbondale and Honesdale. In order to meet market needs for anthracite coal, which increased dramatically in the course of the nineteenth century, the D&H established five different configurations of that Gravity Railroad between 1829 and 1899. Dr. S. Robert Powell, a retired college teacher of the humanities, was born and ...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
"The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company Gravity Railroad, Volumes 1-5"constitute the most detailed and comprehensive history of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's Gravity Railroad that has ever been published. S. Robert Powell is the President of the Carbondale Historical Society.
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
The Philadelphia Athletics dominated the first fourteen years of the American League, winning six pennants through 1914 under the leadership of their founder and manager, Connie Mack. But beginning in 1915, where volume 2 in Norman L. Macht's biography picks up the story, Mack's teams fell from pennant winners to last place and, in an unprecedented reversal of fortunes, stayed there for seven years. World War I robbed baseball of young players, and Mack's rebuilding efforts using green youngster...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
"The Complete Gettysburg Guide" Some two million people visit the battlefield at Gettysburg each year. It is one of the most popular historical destinations in the United States. Most visitors tour the field by following the National Park Service's suggested auto tour. The standard tour, however, skips crucial monuments, markers, battle actions, town sites, hospital locations, and other hidden historical gems that should be experienced by everyone. These serious oversights are fully rectified in...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
The early settlement of the region around Pittsburgh was characterized by a messy collision of personal, provincial, national, and imperial interests. Driven by the efforts of Europeans, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and Indians, almost everyone attempted to manipulate the clouded political jurisdiction of the region. A Colony Sprung from Hell traces this complex struggle. The events and episodes that make up the story highlight the difficulties of creating and consolidating authority along the fr...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
The Pennsylvania state leagues of the 1880s and 1890s rank among the most interesting minor leagues in the history of baseball. The rules were changing, the world around baseball, particularly the economy, was changing and things that would seem impossible in a later time were happening every year. These leagues had not only black players but also wholly black teams. They had great major leaguers--on their way up but also on the way back down. In fact, the greatest player of the age, surrounded ...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero. Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
"Civil War Voices from York County, PA" "Civil War Voices from York County, PA" mixes reminiscences from the inhabitants of York County, Pa., many handed down to descendants, with a strong focus on the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Authors Scott Mingus and James McClure have uncovered or received dozens of previously unpublished diaries, journals, Civil War letters from the field, and similar first-person accounts that provide glimpses into the hearts of the soldiers and citizens. We see the lonelin...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
"The Civil War in Pennsylvania" In partnership with Pennsylvania Civil War 150, the statewide initiative to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the History Center recently launched a new book, "The Civil War in Pennsylvania: A Photographic History." Written by Michael Kraus, David Neville, and Kenneth Turner, and edited by the History Center's Brian Butko, the book features a collection of 475 rare and unpublished images that highlight Pennsylvania's role on the battlefield and o...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
Despite being geographically cut off from large trade centers and important natural resources, Pittsburgh transformed itself into the most formidable steel-making center in the world. Beginning in the 1870s, under the engineering genius of magnates such as Andrew Carnegie, steel-makers capitalized on western Pennsylvania's rich supply of high-quality coal and powerful rivers to create an efficient industry unparalleled throughout history. In City of Steel, Ken Kobus explores the evolution of the...
Feb 09, 2016•1 hr
This is the first book ever devoted exclusively to Chuck Noll and it is long overdue. You will learn much about this man who was rated the No.5 coach of all time in a poll taken in 2013. Jim O'Brien has interviewed Noll many times through the years and, most recently, he has interviewed some of the great players from those teams of the ‘70s and ‘80s who shed some interesting light on their coach. You also catch up on what's become of those great players from the Steelers when they were the Team ...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
A hugely successful businessman and entrepreneur, American candy magnate Milton Hershey and his wife Catherine were unable to have children of their own, so the couple set up a trust in 1909 and created the Hershey Industrial School for fatherless, healthy, Caucasian boys. Ever since its creation, the huge legal trust has poured profits from the candy business into this charitable venture, and is legally stipulated to do so in perpetuity. Since the inception of what is now known as the Milton He...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
Every city in America is unique. Each has its own instructive tale of success and failure. What makes Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's story most valuable lies not in its life but in its death - and in the actions of those who killed it. In late 2011, Harrisburg became the first - and only - capital city in American history to file for bankruptcy. For four years, investigative reporter Chris Papst provided award-winning coverage of this unprecedented financial collapse. Now, he has authored a book sha...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
In 2003, Benny Martinez became a Confidential Informant for a member of the Philadelphia Police Department's narcotics squad, helping arrest nearly 200 drug and gun dealers over seven years. But that success masked a dark and dangerous reality: the cops were as corrupt as the criminals they targeted. In addition to fabricating busts, the squad systematically looted mom-and-pop stores, terrorizing hardworking immigrant owners. One squad member also sexually assaulted three women during raids. Fri...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
From the start, Chambersburg, a quiet farming community near the Maryland border, was truly the crossroads of destiny. In 1859, John Brown set the stage for conflict when he planned his raid on Harpers Ferry while he was staying in Chambersburg. This raid was the final spark that set off the Civil War. Then, for four long years, Chambersburg residents endured an influx of both Union and Confederate troops, often outnumbering them in their own community. As a staging area for the Union Army, thou...
Feb 09, 2016•57 min
MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents: a mother who led the new nation's dance company and a father who would soon become a revered pioneer in black studies. But things fell apart, and a decade later MK was in America, a teenager lost in a fog of drugs, sex, and violence on the streets of North Philadelphia. Now he was alone—his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother locked up in a prison on the other side of the country—and forced to find his own way to sur...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
When visitors travel to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, they are encouraged to consume the local culture by way of "regional specialties" such as cream-filled whoopie pies and deep-fried fritters of every variety. Yet many of the dishes and confections visitors have come to expect from the region did not emerge from Pennsylvania Dutch culture but from expectations fabricated by local-color novels or the tourist industry. At the same time, other less celebrated (and rather more delicious) dishes, suc...
Feb 09, 2016•1 hr
Although hard coal's labor history has received greater consideration in recent years, many untold stories remain. "Anthracite Labor Wars" tells the story of a thirty year labor war (from approximately 1905-1935) and its long-term consequences (up to 1960) for the workers and the industry. It was an evolving conflict not only between labor and management, but also between labor and labor, and labor and organized crime. Much of the fighting occurred between and among employees of the Pennsylvania...
Feb 09, 2016•56 min
In this lively guide to the Gettysburg battlefield, Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler invite readers to participate in a tour of this hallowed ground. Ideal for carrying on trips through the park as well as for the armchair historian, this book includes comprehensive maps and deft descriptions of the action that situate visitors in time and place. Crisp narratives introduce key figures and events, and eye-opening vignettes help readers more fully comprehend the import of what happened and why. A wid...
Feb 09, 2016•57 min
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles—both in Europe and in the United States—Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany i...
Feb 09, 2016•58 min
In 1776, acclaimed historian David McCullough tells the intensely human story of the Revolutionary War during the nation's tumultuous beginning, and the ragtag army on whose shoulders the fate of the war and the revolution rested. It is a story of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear. It is also a story of phenomenal courage, bedrock devotion, unparalleled sacrifice, and perseverance on th...
Feb 09, 2016•51 min
