American Biography Books

THE AMERICAN FLAG BOOKPLATES (Sample available)
art from a photo. Condition: NEW package of 10 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. We can also personalize the bookplates if you like - email us the name you want on the bookplate. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get anywhere else. 3.75" H x 3.75" W. Content: This bookplate is a version of the American Flag - with plenty of room for a name of even an inscription. Any questions or for a sample, click here to email us.
$ 3.59 + $ 2.75 first class shipping.

ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE: Robert Stuart and the Discovery of the Oregon Trail
by Laton McCartney. B&W era photos, maps, and art section. Condition: NEW 2005 Sutton Trade Paperback, no printing given. Content: In the early 1800s Robert Stuart was a junior partner in Astor's Pacific Fur Company who set off to establish the first American trading colony on the Pacific Coast. A year later, Stuart led a seven-man party overland to obtain desperately needed supplies and support from Astor, who had forgotten them. Travelling from west to east, Stuart and his rag-tag expedition journeyed through uncharted country, enduring near starvation, illness, Indian attacks, blinding blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures. Nevertheless, all of the men made it safely back to St. Louis. This book, drawing on unpublished family letters and journals, tells the story of Stuart's 1812-13 expedition for the first time. His discovery of the Oregon Trail opened up the West. The Author is a direct descendant of Stuart. [1 copy available]
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AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: The Biography of Myra Bradwell
by Jane M. Friedman. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1993 Prometheu hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. PROBLEM: Something was written on the loose end page and has been "blacked" out. Interior clean & tight. Content: After she applied to practice law in 1869 in her home state of Illinois and was denied, Myra Bradwell (1831-1894) instead became a legal journalist, publishing and editing the influential Chicago Legal News. In this heavily footnoted and prodigiously researched study, Wayne State University law professor Friedman posits that Bradwell's achievements have been overlooked because her disagreements with feminist Susan B. Anthony led Anthony to exclude Bradwell from her definitive History of Woman Suffrage. Using her journal as a forum, Bradwell successfully agitated for judicial reform and women's rights, particularly the right of married women to enter the professions. She and her husband James, an attorney, obtained the release of Mary Todd Lincoln, who had been committed to an insane asylum by her son. Although Friedman celebrates Bradwell's legal skill and tenacity, she also acknowledges her frequent lapses into duplicity and anti-Semitism in this objective portrait. [1 copy available]
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LOUIS ARMSTRONG: The Offstage Story of Satchmo
by Michael Cogswell. B&W, color and sepia-tone photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read, IF AT ALL, 2003 Collector's Press large hard cover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Decorated end pages. Content: This is the "official book" of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, marking its October 15, 2003, grand opening as a national historic museum. That is to say, it is a souvenir book. But what a souvenir book! One culmination of Cogswell's 12-year labor of ordering and cataloging the great jazzman's belongings, it is loaded with some 300 previously unpublished photographs of the trumpeter and his associates; of the house, inside and out; and of letters, other writings, and the collages of photos and clippings that Armstrong created in his spare time. Cogswell presents these in chapters devoted to Armstrong's career, the house, the archives, and "Discoveries"--that is, things that record forgotten and underdocumented aspects of Armstrong's life. Sections within each chapter home in on particular topics, making for an exceptionally browsable book, for which Cogswell's plain writing is pretty much ideal. An invaluable, keenly lovable treasure-trove about a great American. [1 copy available]
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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X
as told to Alex Haley. Condition: Unread 1973 Ballantine PB 1st printing with light taning to page tips and tiny, tiny edgewear. Excellent copy. Content: This is the book Malcolm X told Haley that he would not live to see published - and he didn't. [1 copy available]
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BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP
by Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, Col., U.S. Marine Corps, Ret. B&W drawings illustrate - no artist credit given. Condition: UNREAD c. 1987 Bantam War Book paperback, 9th printing. Tiny edgewear with tanning to page edges. Content: Reviewer: "If you're a fan of "Black Sheep Squadron", a WWII: Pacific Theatre buff, or just like interesting stories, read this book. Lt. Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a multiple Marine Ace and Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, wrote this book about his experiences just prior to, during and just after WWII. His adventures and misadventures make a good read. Some of what he describes may have been embelished, but I defy anyone to tell me which parts are true and which parts aren't. His descriptions of aerial combat, being shotdown and captured, as well as his time as a POW are riveting." Definitely not the TV series Pappy. The great old TV series (AKA Black Sheep Squadron) was directed by various directors including Alex Beaton, Robert Conrad, and Dana Elcar. It starred Robert Conrad (Boyington), Steven Richmond, John Larroquette, Dana Elcar, Dirk Blocker, Simon Oakland, Charles Napier, and Larry Manetti (Magnum). Can't find it? Try Netflix. [1 copy available]
$ 2.50 + $ 2. 94 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

BANDIDO: Oscar "Zeta" Acosta and the Chicano Experience
by Ilan Stavans. Condition: NEW 1995 IconEditions hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: Don't know Oscar Acosta? He's an American icon. Read this book! The inspiration for Hunter S. Thompson's notorious "Samoan" attorney in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a quixotic campaigner for Los Angeles sheriff, the hard-living Chicano activist Acosta (b. 1936) remains shrouded in myth, thanks to his mysterious disappearance (drugs? U.S. agents?) in 1974. In this brief but probing biographical essay, Stavans observes that the legacy of Acosta, who wrote The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, is more ideological than artistic. Indeed, Acosta symbolized the hopes and anxieties of his people; he adopted the appellation "Zeta," or Z, a reference to such forebears as Zorro and Zapata, as a sign of his hyphenated self. Combining interviews and analysis, Stavans reconstructs Acosta's struggles with obesity, his tangled affections for white women, his mental instability and his emergence as a writer who wanted attention for his people as Chicanos - or Brown Buffaloes (indigenous but nearly extinct) - rather than as rainbow "minorities." As the author notes, Acosta's concerns about identity and ethnicity presaged their emergence as mainstream national concerns. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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BEYOND THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD; A Navajo Woman's Journey
by Emily Benedek [The Wind Won't Know Me]. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1995 Borzoi hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition. This is an EX-LIBRARY book never checked out, but does have library markings. Content: This biographical portrait of a Navajo woman and her family holds important lessons for those seeking to restore bonds of family and community. College-educated Ella Bedonie, born on a northern Arizona reservation in 1952, and her husband, Dennis, an elementary school counselor, navigate two worlds - Native American and white, sacred and secular. At the age of six, Ella was forced to attend a government boarding school, where she endured beatings and was punished for speaking Navajo. Then she spent 10 years with a protective Mormon foster family in California, after which she returned to the reservation to confront a longstanding Navajo-Hopi land dispute, which jeopardized her parents' ranch and camp: Ella's future inheritance. In 1989, she and Dennis moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, and built a house, but their teenage son, Kimo, joined a gang and dropped out of school. Diagnosed with breast cancer, Ella moved her family back to the reservation; Kimo straightened out and her cancer went into remission. Benedek evokes Navajo society, customs and a cosmos in which the gods are nearby and life is imbued with purpose. Through Ella's eyes, Benedek presents a vivid portrait of Navajo culture, describing the need for the Navajo people to re-create their beliefs and traditions in order to survive alongside white society. In the book's most striking section, Ella and her family return to the reservation when she is stricken with cancer. There she participates in the traditional ceremonies in an effort to counteract her illness, and she rekindles her faith in Navajo beliefs, which serve as a source of strength and ultimately allow her to live successfully in both worlds. [1 copy available]
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BLUE HIGHWAYS: A Journey Into America
by William Least Heat Moon (William Trogdon). B&W photos by the Author. Condition: UNREAD 1982 Little, Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), 13th printing. Content: William Least Heat-Moon's account of his journey along the back roads of the United States (marked with the color blue on old highway maps) has become something of a classic. His journey began with little more than the need to put home behind him. At a turning point in his life, he packed up a van he called Ghost Dancing and escaped out of himself and into the country. The people and places he discovered on his roundabout 13,000-mile trip down back roads and through small, forgotten towns are unexpected, sometimes mysterious, and full of the spark and wonder of ordinary life. Robert Penn Warren said, "He has a genius for finding people who have not even found themselves." The power of Heat-Moon's writing and his delight in the overlooked and the unexamined capture a sense of our national destiny, the true American experience. [1 copy available]
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BRAVE BLACK WOMEN: From Slavery to the Space Shuttle
by Phillip Drotning. Condition: Very Good+. UNREAD 1997 University of Texas Press first edition hardcover & DJ (fine in mylar jacket). Book has had some shelfwear handling.. B&W photo section. Interior clean. break at page 83. B&W photo section. Content: Biographies of favulous Texas ladies for children - Emily Morgan (the Yellow Rose of Texas); Bessie Coleman (aviation pioneer); Mae Jemison (astronaut); Phylicia Rashad & Debbie Allen (entertainment); and the great Barbara Jordan. Great book for homeschooling. [1 copy available]
$ 5.39 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

A BRIGHT SHINING LIE: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (Pulitzer Prize)
by Neil Sheehan. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1990 Vintage soft cover (861 pages), first printing. Shelf wear to back cover panel with light edge wear. Interior clean & tight. Content: Killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1972, controversial Lt. Col. John Paul Vann was perhaps the most outspoken army field adviser to criticize the way the war was being waged. Appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight and their random slaughter of civilians, he flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic (and, as it turned out, accurate) assessments to the U.S. press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, a reporter for UPI and later the New York Times (for whom he obtained the Pentagon Papers). Sixteen years in the making, writing and research, this compelling 861-page biography is an extraordinary feat of reportage: an eloquent, disturbing portrait of a man who in many ways personified the U.S. war effort. Blunt, idealistic, patronizing to the Vietnamese, Vann firmly believed the U.S. could win; he was ultimately caught up in his own illusions. The author weaves into one unified chronicle an account of the Korean War (in which Vann also fought), the story of U.S. support for French colonialism, descriptions of military battles, a critique of our foreign policy and a history of this all-American boy's secret personal lie - he was illegitimate, his mother a "white trash" prostitute, that led him to recklessly gamble away his career. The 1998 made-for-TV movie was directed by Terry George and starred Bill Paxton, Amy Madigan, Vivian Wu, the great Eric Bogosian, Kurtwood Smith, and James Rebhorn. Worth seeing and reading! [1 copy available]
$ 6.89 + $ 3.59 media shipping.

CITIZEN COHN: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn
by Nicholas von Hoffman. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: Gently pre-read, IF al all, 1988 Doubleday hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), third printing. Content: If you think Dick Cheney or Karl Rove are divisive figures, they don't hold a candle to Roy Cohn! Roy Cohn was not so much a lawyer as an operator. All his life, he preferred manipulating connections with the rich and powerful to playing by the rules diligently. von Hoffman's biography is a fuller and more damning account than Sidney Zion's, but it is fair; the extensive testimony from friends and foes alike make this almost an oral history. The chapter on Cohn's Washington years as counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy seems curiously out of focus, but the narrative quickly picks up steam as it details the indictments by Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department, the glory years as New York power broker, and finally disbarment and death from AIDS. This fascinating story of a figure at once brilliant and outrageous. A horrible man! The 1992 HBO movie is excellent - directed by Frank Pierson and starring the fabulous James Woods, Joe Don Baker, Joseph Bologna, Ed Flanders, Lee Grant, Frederic Forrest, and Pat Hingle. Don't miss it. [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

COCHISE: Chiricahua Apache Chief (Winner Southwest Book Award)
by Edwin R. Sweeney. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read through the Introduction (with highlighting) and then abandoned - 1990 University of Oklahoma Press Trade Paperback, third printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: The very name of Cochise, an extremely capable military leader of the Chiricahua Apache, evoked fear in the hearts of southwesterners and Mexicans during the 19th century. In this meticulously documented account, the author traces this noted Indian's rise to leadership of his Apache band, his daring and imaginative skirmishes with the military and others in both the United States and Mexico, and his successful negotiations for a reservation in the homeland of his peoples. The discussion centers around Cochise's career as a military leader and the impact of Chiricahua raids on settlers in New Mexico and Arizona. This is the first comprehensive treatment of Cochise's important role in southwestern history. [1 copy available]
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A DANCE AGAINST TIME: The Brief, Brilliant Life of a Joffrey Dancer
by Diane Solway. B&W photos throughout. Condition: NEW 1995 Penguin very large soft cover, first printing. Content: "When we lose an artist, we're really losing two people: the person and the artist," writes journalist Solway, who skillfully demonstrates the significance of the double loss in this biography of Edward Stierle, a gifted Joffrey Ballet dancer and promising choreographer who died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 23. The book is no elegy but a gripping, unsentimental story of the impact of AIDS on an artist, his family and the dance community. Solway is in full command of the details of Stierle's short life, from his upbringing in Florida by conservative, loving parents to his dance training, sexual experimentation and ongoing quest for fulfillment in a demanding profession. She lets us see the pattern of Stierle's life clearly as a cruelly interrupted upward trajectory. This is also a portrait of a ballet company, with its rivalries, friendships and creative struggles, that offers candid glimpses of company founder Robert Joffrey and his collaborator, choreographer Gerald Arpino. The book would help readers understand not just the troubles of one dancer but the crises-medical, financial, artistic-that afflict a generation of dancers. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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DANGEROUS DAN TUCKER: New Mexico's Deadly Lawman
by Bob Alexander. And, wow! Intro by Leon Metz. B&W era photo section. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 2001 High-Lonesome Trade Paperback, first printing. Name on loose end page with a note on the back inside cover. Bought the book; never read it. Content: Deputy Sheriff, Town Marshall, Deputy U.S. Marshall, Train Agent, Livestock Inspector, Dan Tucker was the quintessential lawman during the violent frontier period of southwest New Mexico. By his own deadpan account, he was "obliged to kill eight men" in Grant County alone -- not counting four other outlaws he personally dropped from the scaffold. Disinclined by nature to back down from anyone, Tucker was involved in some one dozen shooting scrapes, was shot four times, and he arrested Russian Bill and Sandy King. Yet "Dangerous Dan Tucker" is more than a gunman's story. Author Bob Alexander skillfully weaves in Tucker's nervy confrontations with criminals, with the quirky, everyday details of an underpaid lawman living on the edge. Prodigiously researched and documented, Alexander presents a significant Western character heretofore lost to history. His Dan Tucker is no Hollywood hero, but he is extremely competent and supremely dangerous -- if you're an outlaw. Heavily documented. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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DEAREST FRIEND: A Life of Abigail Adams
by Lynne Withey. B&W photo section. Condition: Good+, 2002 Touchstone Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Although the book appears new, the first chapter has some highlighting and 5 pages toward the end of the book also. I just missed it when I bought the book. DUH! Content: Abigail Adams is on of our most iportant, and interesting, First Ladies - she was the Eleanor Roosevelt or Hillary Clinton of her day - intimately involved in the political life and decisions of her husband, John Adams. Until the recent Presidential elections, she also held the distinction of being the only First Lady who was also the mother of a President - a distinction now shared with Barbara Bush. This is an excellent look into her life, times, and politics. [1 copy available]
$ 1.79 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

CECIL B. DeMILLE: A Life in Art
by Simon Louvish. B&W movie stills & photos throughout (58 of them, I believe). Condition: NEW 2008 St. Martin's hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first thus, first printing. Content: Cecil B. DeMille is Hollywood’s most enduring legend, remembered, and often reviled, for his grandiose biblical sagas, such as Samson and Delilah and his 1956 version of The Ten Commandments, with its cast of tens of thousands before computer graphics made the modern epic mundane. Many judged DeMille a dinosaur both for his movies and his ultraconservative politics. But in his vision of the Bible as an American frontier narrative he recast this old trend in American culture as a cinematic precursor of the “neoconservatism” of our own times. The paradox of DeMille goes deeper, as despite his fame, most of his seventy films, of which fifty were silent pictures, remain unknown even to avid film fans, though his first 1923 version of The Ten Commandments and his 1927 tale of Jesus Christ, King of Kings, linger in the imagination. A founder-pioneer of Hollywood as an industry, DeMille was an unsung auteur, a master of increasingly bizarre narratives, with tales of adultery and divorce, hedonism and sin, in an age in which modernity, the consumer society, and the pursuit of money made America a battlefield of clashing values and temptations. Simon Louvish tells the tale of Cecil B. DeMille through his work: a major reexamination of Hollywood’s most monumental founder. Savant or sinner, artist or hack, defender of freedom or a hypocritical opportunist who embraced the golden calf of sheer commercialism, DeMille is a pervasive puzzle---a mirror of the larger puzzle and contradictions of America itself. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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DIAMOND JIM BRADY: Prince of the Gilded Age
by H. Paul Jeffers. B&W era photos throughout. . Condition: NEW 2001 John Wley hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: The story of an industrial giant of the Gilded Age who looms tall over the colorless tycoons of today, H. Paul Jeffers's rollicking account of the life and times of "Diamond" Jim Brady is one of the most entertaining historical business narratives in recent memory. Born in 1856 into an Irish immigrant family who ran a saloon on the Lower East Side, Jim Brady had an early hunger for just about everything and the wherewithal to get it. At age 11, he went to work as a bellhop at the St. James Hotel, where the "genial, roly-poly, blue-eyed Irish youth" quickly ingratiated himself with the hotel's visitors and promptly spent his ample tips on food. A frequent guest, John Toucey, who worked for Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad empire, hired Brady at age 15; soon Brady worked his way up to railroad equipment salesman, encountering precious few who could not be won over by his twinkle-eyed merriment, awesome generosity and gargantuan appetite for food. At a time when America was bursting at the seams with industrial expansion and newfound wealth, his expense reports were the stuff of legend; he celebrated each big sale by buying himself the best and gaudiest clothes and jewelry. But for all his larger-than-life boorishness, the man who emerges here is surprisingly cultured. For more than three decades, he never missed a Broadway opening; theater producers could tell where plays needed work simply by watching Jim's reactions in the front row. While Jeffers sometimes skimps on detailing how Jim amassed his fortunes it isn't until late in the book that we get a good accounting of his sales practices the story of this symbol of America's Gilded Age is filled with such gusto and vigor that even hardcore business readers will be swept away. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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W. E. B. Du BOIS: the Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963
by David Levering Lewis. Condition: NEW 2001 John Macrae (Henry Holt) huge Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This is the second volume of Lewis's magisterial biography of Du Bois. It examines the second part of his long life, including his break with and later reconciliation with the NAACP, the development of his socialist views, his role in American political life, and his fluctuating reputation and influence. It covers the years of the Harlem Renaissance through the Cold War to his death in the '60s. Although this is Volume 2, it is also a stand-alone biography. [1 copy available]
$ 8.79 + $ 3.49 media shipping.

DUKE, WE'RE GLAD WE KNEW YOU: John Wayne's Friends and Colleagues Remember His Remarkable Life
by Herb Fagen. Foreword by Ronald Reagan. Loaded with B&W personal and movie stills photos. Condition: NEW 1998 Citadel Trade Paperback, 3rd printing. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: Drawing on hundreds of sources, this oral biography of John Wayne combines anecdotes and observations by those who knew, loved, and worked with him throughout his career, and reveals Duke at his noblest and most vulnerable. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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GLENN ELLIOTT: A Ranger's Ranger (Texas Ranger)
by Glenn Elliott with Robert Nieman. B&W photo section. Condition: Good+ to very good 1999 Texian Press (Waco) Trade Paperback, third edition. Edgewear with hinge crease adn very short tear top front cover at spine. Interior clean & tight. Content: Glenn Elliott was a Texas Ranger from 1961-1987. He was descripted by world-renowned author and radio personality, Paul Harvey, on his radio program on August 26, 1987 (The day Glenn retired): "I don't know what you know about the Texas Rangers, but they are an elite corp of lawmen. Repected at all levels of law enforcement and revered in their home state. And if you had to pick one to represent the best of the best, that one would be Ranger Glenn Elliott." 272 pages. Questions encouraged. [1 copy available]
$ 31.19 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: A Life
by Roxana Robinson. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: UNREAD 1990 HarperPerennial large soft cover, first printing. Light tanning to page edges. Tiny edge wear. Content: This biography, the first to draw on sources unavailable during O'Keeffe's lifetime--and the first to be granted her family's cooperation--offers a persuasive feminist analysis of the life and work of an iconic figure in American art. "A resourceful, imaginatively rendered portrait of a dauntingly difficult subject." [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

GERONIMO: The Man, His Time, His Place (Volume 142 in "The Civilization of the American Indian Series")
Winner SLA Book Award, Western Heritage WRangler Award for Nonfiction
by Angie Debo. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD c. 1991-3 University of Oklahoma Press large Trade Paperback (480 pages) 7th printing. Lilght edge wear. Bookstore embossed stamp title page. Content: Reviewer: "This biography truly reveals the man behind the myth. Geronimo has had a reputation as either a bloodthirsty, pitiless scalp hunter (the conservative view), or as a divinely-guided leader trying desperately to save his people from destruction (the romantic view). Both of these are partially correct, but neither gives any indication of Geronimo as a human being, and that's what Debo does ably in this book. Debo compiles all the information available to give an impressively detailed portrait of the man's life, and uncovers many aspects of his personality, both good and bad. So we get the predicted praise for his bravery and honesty; but the author is not afraid to criticize his ill temper, vindictiveness, and lack of eloquence. While the focus remains on Geronimo himself, this book also serves as an informative history of the final days of Apache independence. Many interesting characters are covered in a good amount of detail when Geronimo is absent from the narrative, like Victorio, Loco, Chihuahua, Kaywaykla, Naiche (my personal favorite) and even the white generals Crook and Howard. There is ample coverage of the tribe's post-glory days when they were imprisoned on various disagreeable reservations, and the depressing consequences of the loss of their culture and the deaths of many tribe members from disease." [1 copy available]
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GERONIMO'S STORY OF HIS LIFE (The West As It Was series)
taken down & edited by S. M. Barrett. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1994 National Historical Society hardcover (no DJ issued). Facsimilie of the 1906 edition. Content: Reviewer: As the American Indian did not have a written language (excepting the Cherokee, late in their history) it is nigh on impossible to observe the situation between the White man and the Indian from the Indian's perspective. Thus it is almost like manna from heaven that one prescient being, in the form of S.M. Barrett, prevailed upon Geronimo to recount anything at all about his life story. This book is disappointingly short because Barrett approached Geronimo toward the end of his life, and because the Indian chief deigned to tell his story on his own terms, in his own way, and only once each time that he began to speak. Still, what little information Geronimo was willing to impart is vital and spell-binding and utterly fascinating. Interspersed amongst Geronimo's bits and snippets of incidents in his life and descriptions of Apache cosmography and social structure is background information from the author and editor which help to place the story in the context of the White man's historical account of the Apache wars. Obviously, such a short and unstructured narrative is wholly inadequate to illuminate a great man's life, but it still allows one to begin to form an opinion about a man who has by now become a legendary chapter in the story of the conquest of the American West. An especially nice aspect of this book is the dozen or so photographs of Geronimo and members of his extended family. [1 copy available]
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GHOSTS IN OUR BLOOD: WITH MALCOLM X IN AFRICA, ENGLAND, AND THE CARIBBEAN
by Jan Carew. Condition: Gently pre-read 1994 Lawrence Hill Trade Paperback, first printing. Light edge wear and very slight roll. It appears that some of the pages had pencil underlining, but it has been erased. Content: Carew, an activist, scholar, and journalist, met Malcolm X during his last trip abroad only a few weeks before he was killed in 1965. It made such an impression on Carew that he felt compelled to search out Malcolm's family and friends in order to flesh out the family history. He interviewed Wilfred (Malcolm's older brother) and a Grenadian friend of Malcolm's mother named Tanta Bess. Comparing his family's experiences with that of Malcolm X, he gives the most complete picture yet of Malcolm's mother. Carew also offers a tantalizing glimpse of Malcolm X's transforming himself into El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, a man less blinded by his own racial prejudices yet as committed to the betterment of his race as ever. Just before his death, Malcolm X became convinced that a U.S. agency was involved with those trying to kill him, and Carew here reveals the evidence Malcolm X gave him to support these beliefs. The mystery of Malcolm's death remains unresolved, and we are once again filled with regret that he was cut down before he could fulfill the promise of his later days. [1 copy available]
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IN THE SHADOW OF WOUNDED KNEE: The Untold Final Story of the Indian Wars
by Roger L. Di Silvestro. B&W era photos throughout. Condition: NEW 2006 Walker hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Tiny edge wear top DJ edges. Content: On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Seventh Cavalry killed more than 150 Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, S.Dak. Was it a battle or a massacre? That became the key point of dispute when a Brulé Lakota warrior named Plenty Horses was brought to trial for the murder of Lt. Edward Casey, whom he had killed a week after the slaughter. If the U.S. was not at war with the Lakota, reasoning went, then the Lakota were murdered; but if a state of war did exist, then Plenty Horses's "fatal bullet through the back of Casey's skull" was also an act of war, not murder. Complicating the juridical conundrum was a simpler case: shortly after Casey's death, the "infamous" Culbertson brothers attacked a peaceful Indian encampment. Would an Indian hang for killing a white officer? Could two white men be convicted for killing a settlement of Indians? Reviewer: "Understanding just what was going on in the Dakotas during these troubled times would be extremely difficult without an understanding of the history of relations between the U.S. government and the Indian nations. In the first four chapters of "In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee" Roger DiSilvestro does a superb job of getting the reader up to speed on this checkered history. And so when these two unfortunate killings occur in January 1891 the reader is abundantly aware of the context in which this violence took place. At the same time you will be much more likely to understand the highly charged climate that surrounded each of these trials. If you are an avid reader of history like I am then "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" will give you another little piece of the puzzle that will help you to understand just what was going on in the Plains as hostilities between the U.S. Army and the Indian nations were beginning to wind down. Clearly most Indian leaders could see the handwriting on the wall. "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" is extremely well researched and very well written. My kudos to Roger DiSilvestro for a job well done. Highly Recommended." Questions welcome. [1 copy available.]
$ 10.00 + $ 3.29 shipping.

LAKOTA WOMAN
by Mary Crow Dog with Richard Erdoes. B&W photos illustrate. Condition: NEW 1991 HarperPerennial Trade PB first thus, 36th printing. Tiny edgewear. Content: This is one of the best books available to people interested in contemporary Native Americans. Mary Brave Bird's life story sheds light on traditions of her Lakota (Sioux) people from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota. She shows, in a very clear way, their tortured history with the missionaries, state bureaucracy, the courts, the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). We see to what extent the government has succeeded in destroying the old life and how small groups of the Sioux managed to preserve traditional ways and ceremonies. Reissued at the time of the TNT movie which, if you have not seen it, run to your local video store! [2 copies available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

THE LAST COMANCHE CHIEF: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker
by Bill Neeley. Great B&W era photo section. Condition: NEW 2007CastleBookS hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), assumed first printing. Content: Quanah Parker (1850-1911) was among the last of the free-ranging Comanche warriors who once terrorized the high plains. Parker ascended to the rank of war chief through brave acts in almost constant warfare (Comanche is a Ute word that means "wants to fight me all the time") with Anglos and other Indian nations alike. But Parker was more than a warrior, Neeley observes. A great political leader, he negotiated a peace treaty with the United States that spared his people the indignities heaped on other nations that fought back. Parker and others among Neeley's cast of characters will be familiar to fans of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Among them are such important figures as legendary rancher Charles Goodnight and Texas Ranger Sul Ross, once Parker's enemies, later his good friends. Excellent! Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 10.19 + $ 3.29 media shipping. International shipping available.

THE LAST DAYS OF JACKSON
by Ralph Happel. 3-tone maps and drawings plus B&W era photos. Condition: UNREAD 1992 reprint (very new - probably a 2000+ reprint) US Park Service Trade paperback, no printing given. Very pale tag removal mark. Content: This is a well-written, short (63 pages) biogrpahy of the great Stonewall Jackson and his military career. Published by the National Park Service for sale at the Stonewall Jackson shrine. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.59 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

LAZY B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest
by Sandra Day O'Connor and H. Alan Day. B&W photos throughout. Condition: NEW 2002 Random House hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), third printing. Content: This memoir-cum-natural history evinces a clear picture of the American Southwest during the early to mid 20th century. Though O'Connor's name initially conjures images of austere black robes and the halls of justice, a very different person emerges from the childhood recalled here. A collaboration between O'Connor and her brother, the book recounts the lives of their parents "MO" and "DA" (pronounced "M.O." and "D.A.") and the colorful characters who helped run the Lazy B ranch. Growing up on the Gila River flowing from New Mexico to Arizona during the 1930s and '40s, the children quickly learned about the desert's abundant and dangerous creatures and plants. And no experience of Western ranch life is complete without the constant struggle for water leading to disputes over grazing rights. Though life was often harsh, MO kept her children educated and imbued with a sense of dignity. The authors' keen sense of loyalty to their childhood home endures: "Life at the ranch involved all of these components association with our old-time, long-suffering, good-natured cowboys; living in isolation with just one another and with few luxuries; ... seeing the plant, animal, insect, and bird life of the Southwest close at hand; and enjoying the love and companionship of MO and DA." O'Connor attended Stanford University, realizing the dreams of her grandfather and father; there, she took a class from a law school professor and started down the path leading to the U.S. Supreme Court. Day ran the Lazy B until its sale in 1986. The authors' delight in Lazy B enhances this quiet account of a bygone era. [1 copy available]
$ 4.00 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

TIMOTHY LEARY: A Biography
by Robert Greenfield. B&W photos throughout. Condition: NEW 2006 Harcourt hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition, first printing. 689 pages. Content: Greenfield paints another '60s portrait in this scathing account of counterculture hero and LSD guru Timothy Leary (1920–1996). Largely based on interviews with Leary's friends and acquaintances, this book offers a highly detailed and decidedly ugly portrayal of a pathologically selfish, narcissistic yet complex man who lacked basic qualities such as empathy and compassion. Worse, Leary, the cynosure of the psychedelic movement, who preached the power of LSD and other drugs to expand human consciousness and foster change, fails to exhibit the capacity for inner growth. Greenfield's gaze alights as much on the quotidian (who cooked what for dinner when) as on the sensational (drugs, sex, Black Panthers, parades of famous figures like Allen Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman). Despite the visceral dislike for Leary that readers are likely to develop, many will be intrigued by the unlikely course of his life, which took him from a prestigious position as a Harvard lecturer to the California penal system, and later to work as a government informer in an Algerian compound with Eldridge Cleaver . Leary ends up a dissipated, broken man, who remains self-promoting enough to suggest, in 1996, that he would kill himself while logged on to yet another new phenomenon, the Internet. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 6.50 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

LEE THE AMERICAN (General Robert E. Lee: A Portrayal of His Soul)
by Gamaliel Bradford. B&W era photos. Condition: UNREAD1998 Blue/Gray Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: A psychography of General Robert E. Lee, this book offers a look into the personality and soul of the man who came to represent the genteel South. [Note: This is a fascinating study, IMHO.] [1 copy available]
$ 4.50 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

LITTLE MAN: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life
by Robert Lacey (The Kingdom). Four B&W photo sections. Condition: Gently pre-read, if at all, 1992 Little, Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. No problems! Content: This biography of the notorious hoodlum by the author of The Kingdom succeeds in deglamorizing a gangland figure around whom all sorts of mythology was created, both during his lifetime and after. A product of the ghetto on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Lansky (1902?-1983) spent his adolescence developing the conviction that, if there were an honest and a dishonest way of achieving a goal, the dishonest way was preferable. Like many members of organized crime in his era, he became a specialist, working with casinos. He was rigidly honest about not cheating the public and paying his partners their due. His family life was a horror: Lansky's first wife became semi-psychotic and their three children had miserable lives; his second marriage was somewhat better. The media-generated image of a financial eminence grise worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the gangland chairman of the board, was largely fictional. A major contribution to the history of organized crime in the U.S. [1 copy available]
$ 10.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

MALCOLM X: By Any Means Necessary
by Walter Dean Myers. B&W photos from childhood to death. Condition: UNREAD 1993 Scholastic Trade Paperback, third printing. Tiny edgewear with a small scuff mark bottom front cover. Content: Myers organizes Malcolm X's life into four stages: his childhood; his adolescence; his period of working under Elijah Mohammad; and his life after breaking with the Nation of Islam. Throughout, his experiences and actions are presented in a broader social context, from the beliefs of Marcus Garvey, who exerted such an influence upon Malcolm's parents, to the culture of adolescent black males in the 1930s and 1940s, to the contrasts between the Nation of Islam's views and those of Martin Luther King, Jr, with all the shadings in between. The author discusses the evolution in Malcolm's character, as his belief in Islam gradually taught him that not all whites were the enemies of African-Americans. He strikes a good balance between his subject's personal life and broader social issues and movements. Myers does not judge whether or not Malcolm X's views were better than those of King, but rather shows how both appealed to specific audiences and contributed to the struggles of the 1960s. Grades 5 +. [1 copy available]
$ 7.10 + $ 3.19 media shipping Priority & International shipping available.

MALCOLM X: Militant Black Leader
by Jack Rummel. Condition: Very good. UNREAD but does have diagonal crease back cover with small edgewear. Interior perfect. Beautiful Santos portrait of Malcolm X cover art. Content: A Young Adult biography of the great African-American leader. [1 copy available]
$ 4.10 + $ 2.94 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

MALCOLM X TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE: Speeches in the U.S., Britain & Africa
by Steve Clark (editor). B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1991 Pathfinder Trade Paperback, first pritning. Content: Speeches by Malcolm X given in the U.S., Britain, & Africa. It also includes Jack Barnes Tribute to Malcolm X. [1 copy available]
$ 5.10 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

MAVERICKS - Ten Uncorralled Westerners
by Dale L. Walker. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1989 Golden West Trade Paperback, no printing given. Light edgewear with 2 small foxing dots on the fore edges. Interior clean & tight. Content: Neat 5-10+ page biographies of important Westerners: John Doyle Lee; James Harden-Hickey; William Cowper Brann; "Pecos Bill" Shafter; John Reed; Ambrose Bierce; Tracy Richardson; Frank Luke; Robert E. Howard; and Max Brand. [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.09 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

McCARTHY: The Answer to "Tail Gunner Joe"
by Roy Cohn: The Man Who Knew Him Best. B&W photo section. Condition: Good +, 1977 Manor Books paperback, first printing. Light tanning to white cover edges with spine crease and light tanning to page edges. Content: In 1977 NBC aired their documentary on Senator Joe McCarthy and his Communist witch hunt from his position in the US Senate. It was one of the most shameful periods (1950s) in American history. Roy Cohn was McCarthy's chief counsel for the Committee on Un-American Activities. Cohn, still one of the most controversial figures in America, was evil, IMHO. He was eventually disbarred for fraud and died of AIDS - after persecuting gay men via the "Committee." At any rate, this book is his answer to the NBC Documentary, which he and many others thought to be a total lie about McCarthy & his activities. This is a book about two of the worst people ever to be involved in American politics. BUT it is essential to understanding the McCarthy Era. [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 2.94 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

ARTHUR MILLER: His Life and Work
by Martin Gottfried. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: NEW 2003 Da Capo Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. 484 pages. Content: Former New York Post drama critic Gottfried shares an illuminating and profound picture of playwright Miller. Outraged at the shameful critical disrespect heaped in recent years on the author of Death of a Salesman and All My Sons, Gottfried carefully analyzes all Miller's plays to rebut the adverse comments. An indifferent student, son of a father barely literate yet successful as a women's clothing manufacturer, Miller (b. 1915) blossomed in college and produced promising works: Final Curtain, Honors at Dawn and They Too Arise. The Jewish Miller married Catholic Mary Grace Slattery, the daughter of anti-Semitic parents, and persevered despite the failure of his first production, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944). After this rejection, Miller consciously aimed to create a commercial hit, accomplished with All My Sons. Gottfried leads readers through the playwright's meticulous work regimen-his attention to potential titles, dialogue and scene descriptions, pointing out that it took five years, six drafts and 700 pages before Miller was satisfied with his first hit. Material about Marilyn Monroe is incorporated seamlessly throughout the text, and Gottfried refuses to unbalance his overall literary study with sensationalism. He compellingly presents the Miller/Elia Kazan artistic collaborations and doesn't avoid unflattering details (e.g., his subject's tendency toward pomposity and his tight-fisted financial attitude) but also expresses admiration for Miller's willingness to offer informer Lee J. Cobb a starring role in A View from the Bridge. (Miller discussed his plays with Gottfried, but not his life.) Only Inge Morath, Miller's third wife, remains shadowy. Fortunately, personal stories are refreshingly secondary in one of the rare books that makes the playwriting process comprehensible and consistently involving. [1 copy available]
$ 4.79 + $ 3.49 media shipping.

PLANTING DREAMS: A Swedish Immigrant's Journey to America (Planting Dreams Series, Book 1) (SIGNED COPY)
by Linda K. Hubalek. Condition: SIGNED by author half-title page. NEW 1998 Butterfield Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This is the first book in the Planting Dreams series detailing the marriage of Charlotta Johnson and the decision of the new couple to immigrate to the Great Plains of America. This is not a great historical epoch, but an intimate story of one woman's family and the hardships and pleasures of homesteading in Kansas. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.59 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

PRISON WRITINGS: My Life Is My Sun Dance
by Leonard Peltier, US Prisoner # 89637-132. Edited by Harvey Arden. One B&W photo of Peltier. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 2000 St. Martin's Trade paperback, 5th printing. Remainder mark bottom edges. First 3 pages are "clipped" - no text involved and no idea why. Content: Part manifesto, part memoir, a standout collection by the celebrated, long-imprisoned American Indian Movement co-founder and activist. Peltier, a Sioux Indian, has been in federal prison since 1977, convicted of killing two FBI agents during the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, S.D. Peltier asserts that he did not commit these murders, writing simply, Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over, I didnt do it. Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies. (In his preface, former attorney general Ramsey Clark makes a compelling argument for why we should believe Peltier, a case also made by Peter Matthiessen in his much-litigated book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse). In this anthology, Peltier charts the course of his activism, describing his evolution from a young man on a South Dakota reservation who wanted what other young men in his circumstances wanteda car, a jobto a political organizer keenly aware of the injustices visited past and present on Americas indigenous peoples. Although he too easily falls into sloganeering (We are the voices of the earth. We speak for those who are not yet born. When you exclude us, you exclude your own conscience. We are your conscience!), Peltier has much to say about American Indian politics, a dauntingly complex set of issues; among other things, he insists that the US government follow a Canadian model in offering reparations for historical wrongs. He also advances the plausible view that the siege at Wounded Knee was a sideshow meant to disguise a deal through which a uranium-rich portion of the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation was ceded to the federal government. Writing more personally, Peltier recounts the intricacies of living behind bars. As a houseguest in hell, he writes, you learn that the devil has many mansions, and you keep shuttling between them for no known reason. An important contribution to Native American letters, sure to stir both controversy and renewed attention for Peltiers ongoing quest for freedom. [1 copy available]
$ 9.00 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

PUPPETMASTER: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
by Richard Hack. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2004 New Millennium hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition, first printing. Content: Hack brings a novelist's flair for drama and a journalist's nose for truth to the life this controversial figure. With unsourced renditions of Hoover's and others' internal monologues, Hack creates some transparency for the legendary FBI chief's tantalizingly opaque psyche. His most controversial conclusion about Hoover's private life is that, despite his weird intimacy with sidekick Clyde Tolson and his household collections of male nudes and Chinese ceramics, Hoover was not gay. Rather, he was dependent for sexual excitement on furtive perusal of smut from the FBI's Obscene Files and was enamored of certain Hollywood stars, named here. Hack's account of Hoover's public life, meanwhile, zings. He covers Hoover's career from his initial exploits tracking down dissidents through his headline-grabbing pursuit of Depression-era outlaws to his postwar crusade against left-wing subversion, one increasingly out of step with the country during his Vietnam-era decline. Hack's balanced but quite critical treatment details the brilliant self-promotion, which made Hoover a national hero, as well as the paranoid anticommunism, the secret files on presidents and pinkos alike, the illegal surveillance and wiretaps and the racist antagonism to the Civil Rights movement that later made him a villain in many eyes. [1 copy available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

THE QUEEN OF THE RING: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend (Mildred Burke)
by Jeff Leen. B&W era photo section. Condition: NEW 2009 Atlantic Monthly Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: OK, so it's not the WWE, but it's fascinating history! In this intriguing biography, Leen (Kings of Cocaine) chronicles the life of the queen of the mat, Mildred Burke, women's wrestling champion and pioneer of the sport. Burke (1915–1989), along with her husband and manager, Billy Wolfe, are credited with having invented professional women's wrestling and bringing it to prominence: Her muscles and his mind had made the industry of women's professional wrestling in America. Their rise, fall and resurrection is a story as bizarre and titillating as wrestling's own carnival roots. The king and queen of lady rassling broke barriers despite a ban on women's wrestling in many states. Leen, managing editor for the Washington Post's investigations unit, deftly guides the reader through well-documented and researched accounts, which are culled from Burke's unpublished autobiography, interviews and numerous newspaper records. Leen writes: Her speed and skill made her wrestling a thing of beauty in the ring, full of careful shifts of balance and swift and surprising combinations that turned the straining of muscle and limb into a ballet of grace and power. Flavored with authentic speech and dedicated to accuracy, this biography is the tale of an underdog who triumphed. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.89 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

SOUL ON ICE
by Eldridge Cleaver Condition: Very Good. 1974 Dell PB 13th printing. Appears unread but has a pale shelfwear hinge crease with tiny edgewear. Interior perfect. Content: One reviewer said ". . .not to be confused with Leave It to Beaver Cleaver." How right he was. "A collection of essays straight out of Dante's Inferno. The hell is there, and its name is America...as with Malcolm X, Cleaver's book is a spiritual autobiography. An odyssey of a soul in search of itself, groping toward a personal humanism which will give meaning to life...the book is important... the book is extraordinary." [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 2.94 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

HOWARD THURMAN, HIS ENDURING DREAM
by George K. Makechnie. Condition: Very Good. UNREAD 1988 Trade PB from the Howard Thurman Center, Boston University. Small edgewear with tag-removal marks both covers. Interior perfect. Content: An important American life in sociology and civil rights. [1 copy available]
$ 8.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

THE UNDISCOVERED PAUL ROBESON: An Artist's Journey, 1898 - 1939
by Paul Robeson, Jr. Wonderful selection of B&W era photos in 2 sections and on chapter pages. Condition: NEW 2001 John Wiley hard cover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Tiny tiny edge wear to top DJ edge. Content: The long-awaited, untold, inside story of the rise of the legendary actor, singer, scholar, and activist. The first volume of this major biography breaks new ground. The greatest scholar-athlete-performing artist in U.S. history, Paul Robeson was one of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century. Now his son, Paul Robeson Jr., traces the dramatic arc of his rise to fame, painting a definitive picture of Paul Robeson's formative years. His father was an escaped slave; his mother, a descendent of freedmen; and his wife, the brilliant and ambitious Eslanda Cardozo Goode. With a law degree from Columbia University; a professional football career; title roles in Eugene O'Neill's plays and in Shakespeare's Othello; and a concert career in America and Europe, Robeson dominated his era. This unprecedented biography reveals the depth of Robeson's cultural scholarship, explores the contradictions he bridged in his personal and political life, and describes his emergence as a symbol of the anticolonial and antifascist struggles. Filled with previously unpublished photographs and source materials from the private diaries and letters of Paul and Eslanda Robeson, this is the epic story of a forerunner who now stands as one of America's greatest heroes. [1 copy available]
$ 21.50 + $ 3.29 media shipping. International shipping available - please use the drop-down menu.

WARRIORS DON'T CRY: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
by Melba Pattillo Beals. B&W photo section. Norman Rockwell cover art. Condition: NEW 1994 Washington Square Trade Paperback, 7th printing. 40th Anniversary Edition. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: The author forcefully recalls how, at age 15, she and several other black teenagers were chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High following the passage of Brown v. Board of Education. Beals, one of the nine black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957, tells an incredible story of faith, family love, friendships, and strong personal commitment. Drawing from the diaries she kept, the author easily puts readers in her saddle oxfords as she struggles against those people in both the white and black communities who would have segregation continue. Her prose does not play on the sympathy of readers; it simply tells it like it happened. She shares the physical, mental, and emotional torture and abuse she suffered at the hands of teenagers and adults. She also shares the support, the encouragement, and the help she received from both whites and blacks. While the book's length may discourage younger readers, those who begin it will find the reading easy and fast. Should be required reading! Grade 7 and up. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.59 + $ 3.09 media shipping.