At a time when many baseball fans wish for the game to return to a purer past, G. Edward White shows how seemingly irrational business decisions, inspired in part by the self-interest of the owners but also by their nostalgia for the game, transformed baseball into the national pastime. Not simply a professional sport, baseball has been treated as a focus of childhood rituals and an emblem of American individuality and fair play throughout much of the twentieth century. It started out, however, as a marginal urban sport associated with drinking and gambling. White describes its progression to an almost mythic status as an idyllic game, popular among people of all ages and classes. He then recounts the owner's efforts, often supported by the legal system, to preserve this image. Baseball grew up in the midst of urban industrialization during the Progressive Era, and the emerging steel and concrete baseball parks encapsulated feelings of neighborliness and associations with the rural leisure of bygone times. According to White, these nostalgic themes, together with personal financial concerns, guided owners toward practices that in retrospect appear unfair to players and detrimental to the progress of the game. Reserve clauses, blacklisting, and limiting franchise territories, for example, were meant to keep a consistent roster of players on a team, build fan loyalty, and maintain the game's local flavor. These practices also violated anti-trust laws and significantly restricted the economic power of the players. Owners vigorously fought against innovations, ranging from the night games and radio broadcasts to the inclusion of African-American players. Nonetheless, the image of baseball as a spirited civic endeavor persisted, even in the face of outright corruption, as witnessed in the courts' leniency toward the participants in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. White's story of baseball is intertwined with changes in technology and business in America and with changing attitudes toward race and ethnicity. The time is fast approaching, he concludes, when we must consider whether baseball is still regarded as the national pastime and whether protecting its image is worth the effort.

Dr. Tom Gorham is a professor at Central States University located on the Mississippi River below St. Louis. One of his assignments is to secure funding for research projects in the College of Science and Engineering. Dr. John “Raj” Jhangi, a Professor of Physics, tries an experiment with an experimental powerful electromagnet with results that open a new realm in Physics. Tom’s job is to coordinate the efforts to solve the dilemma of the experiment. The Navy Department lends an old escort destroyer to the University to supply added D.C. power to expand the experiment while the Pentagon tries to obtain control over the experiment as a defense project. One of their observers, an officious naval captain, interferes with the experiment and causes the experiment to blow up, sending a portion of the University back in time. Efforts to return only puts the group further into the past and the people and a portion of the university winds up in the year 1003 A.D. One of the primary problems facing the colony is the need for more people and children so the colony will not die out and the knowledge lost. Since women far outnumber men, much debate occurs as to how they can have more children when there are not enough males. This is solved by a sharing arrangement where a woman asks permission of a wife to share her husband for purposes of insemination, after which the man must have nothing more to do with the woman. This arrangement makes many women unhappy and requires modification. The colony meets the Cahokian Indians and establish a common ground of support for each other when the colonists defeat a warring Indian tribe who attack the Cahokians. Further complications arise when the Indians desire to become “one people” which requires the council members to take an Indian “princess” and some women to marry an Indian “prince.” This is done to make “One People” and thus seal the pact. The people struggle to survive; scrounging seeds, food and clothing from various sources and changing cars and trucks into fanning and mining equipment. By the end of the second year the colony is in good enough shape to search for and find oil, gold, coal and iron ore. The third year they are able to send the destroyer to Europe for supplies and more people and children. The book details the efforts for the colony to survive and grow and to reshape the direction of the world by having as their primary goal education of the people. The conditions of the various countries and the living conditions in the world in 1005 A.D. are described and the history of many of the plants and foods used by Americans today.

During the Civil War, Americans from homefront to battlefront played baseball as never before. While soldiers slaughtered each other over the country's fate, players and fans struggled over the form of the national pastime. George Kirsch gives us a color commentary of the growth and transformation of baseball during the Civil War. He shows that the game was a vital part of the lives of many a soldier and civilian--and that baseball's popularity had everything to do with surging American nationalism. By 1860, baseball was poised to emerge as the American sport. Clubs in northeastern and a few southern cities played various forms of the game. Newspapers published statistics, and governing bodies set rules. But the Civil War years proved crucial in securing the game's place in the American heart. Soldiers with bats in their rucksacks spread baseball to training camps, war prisons, and even front lines. As nationalist fervor heightened, baseball became patriotic. Fans honored it with the title of national pastime. War metaphors were commonplace in sports reporting, and charity games were scheduled. Decades later, Union general Abner Doubleday would be credited (wrongly) with baseball's invention. The Civil War period also saw key developments in the sport itself, including the spread of the New York-style of play, the advent of revised pitching rules, and the growth of commercialism. Kirsch recounts vivid stories of great players and describes soldiers playing ball to relieve boredom. He introduces entrepreneurs who preached the gospel of baseball, boosted female attendance, and found new ways to make money. We witness bitterly contested championships that enthralled whole cities. We watch African Americans embracing baseball despite official exclusion. And we see legends spring from the pens of early sportswriters. Rich with anecdotes and surprising facts, this narrative of baseball's coming-of-age reveals the remarkable extent to which America's national pastime is bound up with the country's defining event.

Me 'n' Mine is a term course comprising 15 books for grades 1 to 5, 3 books per grade, spread over 3 terms. The core subjects covered are English, Maths, EVS/Science and Social Studies. The contents are broadly derived from the guidelines provided in NCF 2022 and NEP 2020. The books focus on providing quality education while reducing the extra burden on students. They embed the principles and practices of hands-on, and responsive teaching and learning while focusing on the common goal of improving education. Its myriad innovative, creative and interactive features make teaching and learning participative and interesting.