The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew it by John W. Dean

$25.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: near fine

Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after Nixon was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of his involvement in Watergate. In The N ixon Defense, former White House Counsel John W. Dean, one of the last major surviving figures of Watergate, draws on his own transcripts of almost a thousand conversations, as well as documents in the archives to uncover what exactly Nixon knew and when he knew it. ...Show more

Reclaiming History : The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy with CD (Audio) by Vincent Bugliosi

$30.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

The book that lays all questions to rest. Polls reveal that over 75 percent of Americans believe there was a conspiracy behind Lee Harvey Oswald; some even believe Oswald was entirely innocent. In this absorbing and historic book--the first ever to cover the entire case--Vincent Bugliosi shows how we h ave come to believe such lies about an event that changed the course of history. The brilliant prosecutor of Charles Manson and the man who forged an iron-clad case of circumstantial guilt around O. J. Simpson in his best-selling Outrage, Bugliosi is perhaps the only man in America capable of "prosecuting" Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy. His book is a narrative compendium of fact, forensic evidence, reexamination of key witnesses, and common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud upon the American public. Bugliosi's irresistible logic, command of the evidence, and ability to draw startling inferences shed fresh light on this American nightmare. At last we know what really happened. At last it all makes sense. 32 pages of illustrations. ...Show more

The Conquest of Mexico with a preliminary view of the ancient Mexican civilization and the life of the conqueror Hernando Cortes by William H. Prescott

$45.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

Reporting Always: Writings from The New Yorker by Lillian Ross

$20.00 NZD

Category: Media | Reading Level: very good

From the inimitable veteran "New Yorker "journalist Lillian Ross--a stunning collection of Ross's iconic "New Yorker "pieces. A staff writer for "The New Yorker" since 1945, Lillian Ross is one of the few journalists who worked for both the magazine's founding editor, Harold Ross, and its current editor , David Remnick. Ross invented the entertainment profile. She was the first person to write journalism in "scenes" as novelists do, and her profiles are full of humor and details that bring her subjects alive on the page. Her style has been studied and imitated by numerous writers. But there is only one Lillian Ross: spirited, funny, factual, and unforgettable. "Reporting Always" collects a wide range of Lillian Ross's "New Yorker "articles and "Talk of the Town" pieces spanning sixty years, bringing readers into Robin Williams's living room; Harry Winston's office; the afterschool hangouts of Manhattan private-school children; the hotel rooms of Ernest Hemingway, John Huston, and Charlie Chaplin; onto the tennis court with John McEnroe; and into the lives of many other famous and not-so-famous characters. Ross's portraits are filled with rich details that reveal her subjects in amusing and perceptive ways. A foreword by David Remnick discusses Ross's trademark style and her important place in the history of "The New Yorker." ...Show more

Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Will Bagley

$30.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Oscar Martinez

$12.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

El Salvador and Honduras have had the highest homicide rates in the world over the past ten years, with Guatemala close behind. Every day more than 1,000 people-men, women, and children-flee these three countries for North America. Oscar Martinez, author of The Beast, named one of the best books of the year by the Economist, Mother Jones, and the Financial Times, fleshes out these stark figures with true stories, producing a jarringly beautiful and immersive account of life in deadly locations. Martinez travels to Nicaraguan fishing towns, southern Mexican brothels where Central American women are trafficked, isolated Guatemalan jungle villages, and crime-ridden Salvadoran slums. With his precise and empathetic reporting, he explores the underbelly of these troubled places. He goes undercover to drink with narcos, accompanies police patrols, rides in trafficking boats and hides out with a gang informer. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a region of fear and a subtle analysis of the North American roots and reach of the crisis, helping to explain why this history of violence should matter to all of us. ...Show more

Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers by Nicholas Smith

$12.00 NZD

Category: Fashion | Reading Level: very good

Empire of Illusion. The End of Literacy and The Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges

$14.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

In this New York Times bestseller, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Chris Hedges has written a shattering meditation on American obsession with celebrity and the epidemic of illiteracy that threatens our cultural integrity. Reporting on such phenomena as professional wrestling, the pornographic film in dustry, and unchecked casino capitalism, Hedges exposes the mechanisms used to divert us from confronting the economic, political, and moral collapse around us. Empire of Illusion shows us how illiteracy and the embrace of fantasy have impoverished our working class, allowed for the continuance of destructive public policy, and ushered in cultural bankruptcy. ...Show more

Stride Toward Freedom - The Montgomery Story by Martin Luther King Jr

$15.00 NZD

Category: America | Series: King Legacy Ser. | Reading Level: very good

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s account of the first successful large-scale application of nonviolence resistance in America is comprehensive, revelatory, and intimate. King described his book as "the chronicle of fifty thousand Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.'' It traces the phenomenal journey of a community, and shows how the twenty-eight-year-old Dr. King, with his conviction for equality and nonviolence, helped transformed the nation-and the world. This book was published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped one of them at random. ...Show more

The Explorer King - Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax - Clarence King in the Old West by Robert Wilson

$15.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: very good

In the 1800s, the young Clarence King was an icon of the new America: a man of adventure and intellect, a flash-in-the-pan celebrity who combined science and exploration with romanticism and charm. Robert Wilson's biography, The Explorer King, vividly depicts King's daredevil feats including his journey to the highest peak of the Sierra Nevada, and uncovers the reasons for the shocking decline he suffered after his days on the American frontier. Through King's own rollicking tales, some true, some embroidered, of scaling previously unclimbed mountain peaks, of surviving a monster blizzard near Yosemite, of escaping ambush and capture by Indians, of being chased on horseback for two days by angry bandits, Robert Wilson offers a powerful combination of adventure, history, and nature writing, he also provides the bigger picture of the West at this time. Ultimately, King himself would come to symbolize the collision of science and business, one of the sources of his downfall. Fascinating and extensive, The Explorer King movingly portrays the America of the nineteenth century and the man who--for better or worse--typified the soul of the era. ...Show more

Jews and the Civil War - A Reader by Jonathan D. Sarna (Editor); Adam Mendelsohn (Editor)

$20.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: near fine

At least 8,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War. A few served together in Jewish companies while most fought alongside Christian comrades. Yet even as they stood "shoulder-to-shoulder" on the front lines, they encountered unique challenges.In Jews and the Civil W ar, Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn assemble for the first time the foremost scholarship on Jews and the Civil War, little known even to specialists in the field. These accessible and far-ranging essays from top scholars are grouped into seven thematic sections--Jews and Slavery, Jews and Abolition, Rabbis and the March to War, Jewish Soldiers during the Civil War, The Home Front, Jews as a Class, and Aftermath--each with an introduction by the editors. Together they reappraise the impact of the war on Jews in the North and the South, offering a rich and fascinating portrait of the experience of Jewish soldiers and civilians from the home front to the battle front. ...Show more

Undaunted Courage - Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose

$18.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark's exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson's. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century. High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel. ...Show more