The First
Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge,
Murder, and the Birth of the American
Mafia
by Mike
Dash
Before the notorious Five Families who
dominated U.S. organized crime for a
bloody half century, there was the
one-fingered criminal genius Giuseppe
Morello -- known as "The Clutch Hand" --
and his lethal coterie of associates. In
The First Family, historian, journalist,
and New York Times bestselling
author Mike Dash brings to life this
little-known story, following the rise of
the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the
1920s, from the lawless villages of Sicily
to the streets of Little Italy. Using an
impressive array of primary sources --
hitherto untapped Secret Service archives,
prison records, trial transcripts, and
interviews with surviving family members
-- this is the first Mafia history that
applies scholarly rigor to the story of
the Morello syndicate and the birth of
organized crime on these shores.
An Intimate
Understanding of America's Teenagers:
Shaking Hands With
Aliens
by Bruce J.
Gevirtzman
Alicia is so obsessed with being
popular, she does things that would shock
her parents, if they knew. Hector is aware
the gang that wants him to join may be the
death of him, but he will not decline. Sam
was a baseball star, but can't play the
sport he loves anymore because he is
wracked from football injuries, a sport
his father will not let him quit. These
are just a few of the teenagers readers
will "meet," in this candid book authored
by a 34-year veteran high school
teacher.
Voted Teacher of the Year and Coach of
the Year, Bruce Gevirtzman shares with us
the results of his years spent talking
with teenagers about topics from life and
lust to depression and death. Revealing
honest, poignant words shared in
conversations, classroom talk, interviews,
surveys, and journals, Gevirtzman takes us
inside the minds of today's youths, and
also contrasts them with teenagers of
decades past.
Topics include teen thinking and
secrets on issues from sex, drinking, and
drugs to peer pressure, self-imposed
standards, and beliefs about what is
important, and painful, in life. Including
interviews with fellow teachers,
Gevirtzman's book is threaded with one
recurring truth: "Sadly, instead of
parents and teachers and lawmakers and the
public looking out for our kids, today's
kids are largely left to fend for
themselves," he concludes. Not only will
general readers and educators find great
insight in this work, it will be of
interest to students and scholars of
adolescent psychology, clinical
psychology, and social work.
Distracted:
The Erosion of Attention and the Coming
Dark Age
by Maggie
Jackson
Journey with Maggie Jackson as she
explores the many ways in which we are
eroding our capacity for deep, sustained
attention-the building block of intimacy,
wisdom, and cultural progress. In her
sweeping quest to unravel the nature of
attention and detail its erosion, she
introduces us to scientists,
cartographers, marketers, educators, wired
teens, virtual lovers from the telegraph
age, and roboticists building smart
machines to comfort and care for us. She
takes us from the nineteenth-century roots
of our mobile, virtual multitasking ways
into a darkening future of snippets,
glimpses, skimming, McThinking, and
mistrust.
A Slave No
More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom,
Including Their Own Narratives of
Emancipation
by David W.
Blight
Slave narratives, some of the most
powerful records of our past, are
extremely rare, with only fifty-five
post&endash;Civil War narratives
surviving. A mere handful are first-person
accounts by slaves who ran away and freed
themselves. Now two newly uncovered
narratives, and the biographies of the men
who wrote them, join that exclusive group
with the publication of A Slave No
More, a major new addition to the
canon of American history. Handed down
through family and friends, these
narratives tell gripping stories of
escape: Through a combination of
intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the
men reached the protection of the
occupying Union troops. David W. Blight
magnifies the drama and significance by
prefacing the narratives with each man's
life history. Using a wealth of
genealogical information, Blight has
reconstructed their childhoods as sons of
white slaveholders, their service as cooks
and camp hands during the Civil War, and
their climb to black working-class
stability in the north, where they
reunited their families.
Teach Like
Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and
Madness Inside Room 56
by Rafe
Esquith
From the man whom The New York
Times calls "a genius and a saint"
comes a revelatory program for educating
today's youth. In Teach Like Your
Hair's on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals
the techniques that have made him one of
the most acclaimed educators of our time.
The two mottoes in Esquith's classroom are
"Be Nice, Work Hard," and "There Are No
Shortcuts." His students voluntarily come
to school at 6:30 in the morning and work
until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to
handle money responsibly, tackle algebra,
and travel the country to study history.
They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and
read the American classics. Teach Like
Your Hair's on Fire! is a brilliant and
inspiring road map for parents, teachers,
and anyone who cares about the future
success of our nation's children.
In The Greatest Generation, his
landmark bestseller, Tom Brokaw eloquently
evoked for America what it meant to come
of age during the Great Depression and the
Second World War. Now, in Boom!,
one of America's premier journalists gives
us an epic portrait of another defining
era in America as he brings to life the
tumultuous Sixties, a fault line in
American history. The voices and stories
of both famous people and ordinary
citizens come together as Brokaw takes us
on a memorable journey through a
remarkable time, exploring how individual
lives and the national mindset were
affected by a controversial era and
showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties
continue to resound in our lives today. In
the reflections of a generation, Brokaw
also discovers lessons that might guide us
in the years ahead.
