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The American mountain man, with his myriad of practical skills, could endure isolation in a way most could not. He lived in constant peril from the extremes of nature and from the hostilities of cultures unlike his own. Given the illiteracy rates of the day, few tangible accounts of such journeys have survived, but one glaring exception is that of James Pierson Beckwourth, the only known African American mountain man to leave behind a detailed, if somewhat sensationalistic, account of his travels.

Banks explores the complexities of political life in the Caribbean.

In one of Mark Twain's most biting social satires, the allegedly pious town of Hadleyburg has its moral character put to the test. When a sack purportedly loaded with gold is offered to one citizen in return for a good deed done long ago, the upright citizens of Hadleyburg learn a lesson in humility as, one by one, their greed bubbles to the surface.

The narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among these groups, one of the most famous is the Mohawk, who refer to themselves as Kanien'kehá:ka ("People of the Place of Flint"), but pop culture has a very different image in mind when it comes to the Mohawk. Those unfamiliar with the group associate them with the conspicuous Mohawk haircut, and images of a warlike people who scalp their enemies are still evoked.

World War II had the Dirty Dozen. The war in space has The Lucky 13th. The 13th Spaceborne is the elite fighting force of the Accord of Free Worlds. Their do-or-die mission is to stop two enemy empires from poaching free worlds. As usual, they're on their own....

Shuttled among orphanages and foster homes since he was 11, Wesley Benfield - newly converted - is trying to turn over a new leaf. But two things are keeping him from a straight-and-narrow kind of existence: lust for Phoebe, and a National Steel Dobro bottleneck guitar. There’s more than one way for an ungainly white boy to find a little soul, and Wesley strikes out on his own path of redemption.

Are you interested in Caribbean history? More specifically, in the Arawakan people? One of the indigenous tribes of the Caribbean, the Arawakans are a fascinating study in how culture and social order can be disrupted and wiped out by one historical event - the colonizers’ arrival. This account explores the Arawakan people and their culture in detail, together with an exploration of the events surrounding Christopher Columbus’s arrival and what followed - the Arawakans were forced to change their social institutions and forget. Explore their culture and social institutions:

Andre Norman’s early life put him on a path to prison. Raised in poverty and surrounded by dysfunction, Andre gravitated to his neighborhood gang. His choices there led to time in juvenile detention, and eventually a maximum-security prison, with sentences totaling over 100 years. During that time, Andre became one of the most dangerous gang leaders in the Massachusetts prison system. Then came the epiphany. Just before Andre was to be crowned “King of the Prison,” he had a realization—that he was about to become the “King of Nowhere.”

The unforgettable novelistic recreation of the night before Christmas when General Washington and a rag-tag army slipped across the Delaware to surprise the Hessians and forge a nation.

Eddie Bielawski was born in the town of Wegrow in Poland in mid-1938. Not a propitious time and place for a Jewish child to be born. As a young child, he sees the Nazi army marching toward Russia. Day and night they marched - soldiers, trucks, tanks, and more soldiers, in a never-ending line - an invincible force. One night, his father had a dream. In this dream, he saw what he had to do: where to build the bunker, how to build it, and even its dimensions. This would be their Noah's Ark, saving them from the initial deluge.

Thorbardin remains closed against the world as two violent factions of dwarves clash in a brutal civil war. Neither side can prevail, and violence threatens destruction of the entire kingdom. Brandon Bluestone returns home to Kayolin to find himself a wanted fugitive. His nation has changed drastically since his departure. Bolstered by the courage of a beautiful dwarf priestess, he battles an ancient enemy, struggles to right a great wrong, and tries to take the only step that allows for a peaceful and prosperous future for all the dwarves of Krynn.

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century. The Greeks and Romans continue to fascinate the West today. But of all the world's civilizations, none have intrigued people more than the Mayans, whose culture, astronomy, language, and mysterious disappearance all continue to captivate people.

The Shamanic Journey: A Beginner's Guide to Journeying is written for the beginner or those relatively new to the shamanic journey practice. It is drawn from the wisdom gained through my own experiences with the journey, plus more than a decade of teaching individuals and groups, and in workshops. It contains answers to the most common questions asked, as well as suggestions and insights gained over the years.

During the Civil War, the eyes of the nation usually stayed fixed to the Eastern theater, but one of the bright spots in the West for the Confederacy was Irish immigrant Patrick Cleburne, whose successes earned him the nickname "Stonewall of the West". Where so many Confederates were failing, Cleburne's strategic tactics and bold defensive fighting earned him fame and recognition throughout the South, even leading Lee to call him "a meteor shining from a clouded sky."

Along the fertile banks of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans, planter Camille Zeringue transformed a mediocre colonial plantation into a thriving gem of antebellum sugar production, complete with a columned mansion known as Seven Oaks. Under the moss-strewn oaks, the privileged master nurtured his own family but enslaved many others.

What's one of the leading causes of premature death in the Western world? Loneliness. And whom does loneliness kill? Who does it not? For every citizen in every one of the world's technologically advanced nations--from homemakers to businesspeople, from college students to school dropouts, from the elderly to the young--loneliness is an unrecognized, unguarded-against stalker.

Fort Worth has been called The City Where the West Begins, Cowtown, and the silent partner in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. None of these descriptions quite tells the story of this city and its people. Since its founding in the mid nineteenth-century as a military outpost, Fort Worth has gone through many phases - cattle, oil, aviation, and tourist. The little village on the Trinity has grown up to become a global city that is a melting pot of economic forces and diverse cultures.

Includes excerpts from the journals of two of the Mayflower's passengers.

"By God's providence, upon the ninth of November following, by break of the day we espied land which was deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. And the appearance of it much comforted us, especially seeing so goodly a land, and wooded to the brink of the sea. It caused us to rejoice together, and praise God that had given us once again to see land." — Edward Winslow

Published in the February 1916 issue of her magazine, Mother Earth, Goldman states that it is only by totally rejecting the idea of God that mankind can break away from the crutch of religion and achieve true freedom. Goldman argued that religion is irrational, destructive, and harmful.

How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give listeners a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts.