Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Salkoff" in All Categories

For more than 200 years, a small office has operated on the state floor of the White House executive residence. Known as the Usher's Office, whose mission is to accommodate the personal needs of the first family, and to make the White House feel like a home. The Usher's Office is the managing office of the executive residence and its staff of 90-plus. The staff consists of butlers, carpenters, grounds personnel, electricians, painters, plumbers, florists, maids, housemen, cooks, chefs, storekeepers, curators, calligraphers, doormen, and administrative support.

On January 25, 1787, in Springfield, Massachusetts, militia Major General William Shepard ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot at a peaceful demonstration of 1,200 farmers approaching the federal arsenal. The shots killed four and wounded 20, marking the climax of five months of civil disobedience in Massachusetts, where farmers challenged the state’s authority to seize their farms for flagrantly unjust taxes. But this widely accepted narrative is just a legend: the “rebellion” was almost entirely nonviolent, and retired war hero Daniel Shays was only one of many leaders.

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to 21st-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law.

When America entered World War I in April 1917, state National Guard units had never planned to mobilize for this kind of war, and the men who made up the hometown companies of each regiment never imagined that they would be asked to fight in what was then the most savage war in human history - they were “innocents” being thrown into a horrendous European conflagration. Made up of companies from 10 Ohio towns, the 166th Infantry Regiment became part of the famous 42nd Division, known as the “Rainbow Division”.

In a world rife with conflict and tension, how does a great power prosecute an irregular war at a great distance within the context of a regional struggle, all within a global competitive environment? The question, so pertinent today, was confronted by the British nearly 250 years ago during the American War for Independence. And the answer, as this book makes plain, is: not the way the British, under Lieutenant General Charles, Earl Cornwallis, went about it in the American South. Southern Gambit presents a closely observed, comprehensive account of this failed strategy.

Are you excited about planning your next trip? Do you want to try something new? Would you like some guidance from a local? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this Greater Than a Tourist book is for you.

As a boy growing up in New York City, Kevin P. Gilheany had two dreams: To join the Coast Guard, and to play the bagpipes. But by the time he finished high school he was overweight, had a drinking problem, and couldn’t swim. Undeterred by the doubts of the folks at home, he decided to enlist in the Coast Guard anyway. With great determination, and some divine intervention, he passed the swim test and graduated from boot camp, thus beginning an eventful and diverse 20-year career in the 1980s and 1990s Coast Guard.

Eat Like a Local - Washington DC by Mikaela Bloom offers the inside scoop on Washington DC’s best food and dining experiences. Culinary tourism is an import aspect of any travel experience. Food has the ability to tell you a story of a destination, its landscapes, and culture on a single plate. Most food guides tell you how to eat like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Eat Like a Local series, this book will give you a food guide from someone who has lived at your next culinary destination.

A ship comes to life when her crew boards her, lights off her boilers, turns on her generators and her electronics, and then pretties her up and takes her to sea. This story follows the amphibious flagship USS Eldorado AGC-11, aging veteran of Iwo Jima and Inchon in 1967 as she faces a new kind of war in Vietnam. The book tells of life on a US Navy ship through the eyes of her crew.

From the Stono Rebellion in 1739 to the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, slave insurrections have been understood as emblematic rejections of enslavement, the most powerful and, perhaps, the only way for slaves to successfully challenge the brutal system they endured. In The World That Fear Made, Jason T. Sharples orients the mirror to those in power who were preoccupied with their exposure to insurrection.