Barry Press

Returning to the turbulent days of a nation divided, best-selling author and acclaimed historian James Robertson explores 70 fascinating figures who shaped America during Reconstruction and beyond. Relentless politicians, intrepid fighters, cunning innovators—the times called for bold moves, and this resilient generation would not disappoint. From William Tecumseh Sherman, a fierce leader who would revolutionize modern warfare, to Thomas Nast,...

When Charles S. Stratton was born in 1838, he seemed perfect in every way. But then he stopped growing. At age four, though a happy and mischievous child, he was just over two feet tall and weighed fifteen pounds-the exact size he had been as a seven-month-old baby. It was then that P. T. Barnum persuaded Charley's family to allow him to exhibit their son in his museum and tour him around the world as a curiosity. Tom Thumb, as Barnum dubbed him,...

Tom Fuller-a scrupulously honest fellow, a person of extraordinary physical strength, and owner of a savage horse, Rusty, that he alone was able to tame-is generally regarded as a half-wit. He has been summarily fired from every job he has ever had and even comes to regard himself as a failure. He makes one more try when he is hired on as a blacksmith's assistant by Boston Charlie. Finally here is a job that Tom can perform successfully, and his spirit...

A New York Times–bestselling author looks at mathematics education in America-when it's worthwhile, and when it's not. Why do we inflict a full menu of mathematics-algebra, geometry, trigonometry, even calculus-on all young Americans, regardless of their interests or aptitudes? While Andrew Hacker has been a professor of mathematics himself, and extols the glories of the subject, he also questions some widely held assumptions in this thought-provoking...

"Peter Dunstan is a big rancher who wants to control more land. When he buys Dr. Henry Morgan's ranchland that had been unsuccessfully converted to farming? it is Dunstan's intention to return it to open range. The only stipulation Morgan makes is that Dunstan must retain Sandy Sweyn? who has more or less been Dr. Morgan's ward? although the man is of age. Sweyn is generally considered to be a half-wit? even by the doctor. Yet Sandy has a fabulous...

John Straley brings his storytelling abilities to a new level in this completely original period crime story.It's 1935, and Slip Wilson, rattled by the gruesome accidental death of a coworker, has quit his job at a logging camp, hoping to make a clean start in Seattle. But along the way he rescues a woman and her young niece from their car in a ditch, and his life takes a hard turn. The woman, Ellie Hobbes, is an anarchist with big dreams-but first,...

Argues that American society has become increasingly self-absorbed, focused on self-gratification to the exclusion of higher values, and that the mass narcissism of the culture is based on fear.