A Swift and Deadly Maelstrom The Great Norwich Flood of 1963 A Survivors Story by Thomas R. Moody Jr. The winter of 1962-63 in Norwich Connecticut had been unbearable. Snow, ice and sub-freezing temperatures added to an already gloomy and drawn out New England winter, one which had seen its onset begin virtually at the end of the summer of 1962. Spaulding Pond in Mohegan Park, a large wooded enclave in the northern section of town, was abundantly full again this Wednesday, March 6th. So full in fact that it once again posed a challenge to the 110 year old dam by which it was held in place and where a small leak, another in an ever growing line of recent seepages, was now discovered this afternoon by park workers and reported up to the Public Works Director, himself a witness to these myriad other leaks, and who would summarily dismiss it this day as understood leakage. And so it was on this Wednesday March 6th, 1963 that Norwich Public Works foreman Monroe Cilley first noticed leakage coming from the southeast side of the dam. After a day of digging ditches in and around the park and checking catch basins throughout the area, Cilley, along with fellow employee Clarence Vantour, returned to the dam at around 4:00 p.m. to check the spillway for trees, debris or other obstructions following the days saturating rains. In the immediate downstream area of the dam, there was a small, gravel based, square duck pond which now, upon closer observation was also immensely flooded over. The two men initially attributed this to the recent torrential rains as indeed it was sprinkling even now, but observing the dam up close, Cilley now noticed that water was clearly trickling through it on the eastern end at a point above the southern retaining wall and down the south face and into the small pond. Somewhat alarmed, he now suggested that he and Vantour get out of their truck and perform an inspection at closer range. This time, unfortunately, this minor leakage episode would be different. A Swift and Deadly Maelstrom is the true, fully documented story of a horrible tragedy borne out of ignorance and complacency. As he (Norwich Public Works Director Harold Walz) entered the park on Mohegan Park Rd., driving past the skating pond and travelling north to the immediate east of the dam, he suddenly heard a sound that gave him pause. Slowing his car and opening his window, he heard the unmistakable and unnerving sound of rushing water. Clearly concerned, he quickly maneuvered his headlights onto the south face of the dam and there he now saw water gushing out of a fist sized hole above the base rock wall. This breach was in a different location from where hed observed the earlier seepage; it was lower and more easterly and thus presented a whole new and dangerous development in the dams integrity. Instantly understanding that he had a catastrophic problem on his hands, one with enormous consequences, Walz, again in his personal car and with no radio, raced into action, turning his car around and dashing down to the Public Works garage on Brook St. Arriving there, he rushed in and spoke with night foreman Angelo Yeitz, immediately ordering him to send a worker back up to the dam. I just came down from the dam and we might lose it. he exclaimed. It is also the story, alternately, of life saving heroics, of the efforts of two young men, suddenly trapped in the ensuing floodwaters, to rescue three very young children, those that would tragically lose their mother in this disaster. With a manic survival instinct now taking hold, the adults, while struggling, managed to somehow re-orient themselves while upside down. The doors to the car had sprung open in the crash and while the onrushing flow cascaded through the overturned car, Ronnie, Honey and Tony all managed to locate the children and physically grasp them before the unthinkable could occur. Noticing their proximity to the, for now, dr

When we think of the key figures of early American history, we think of explorers, or pilgrims, or Native Americans--not cattle, or goats, or swine. But as Virginia DeJohn Anderson reveals in this brilliantly original account of colonists in New England and the Chesapeake region, livestock played a vitally important role in the settling of the New World. Livestock, Anderson writes, were a central factor in the cultural clash between colonists and Indians as well as a driving force in the expansion west. By bringing livestock across the Atlantic, colonists believed that they provided the means to realize America's potential. It was thought that if the Native Americans learned to keep livestock as well, they would be that much closer to assimilating the colonists' culture, especially their Christian faith. But colonists failed to anticipate the problems that would arise as Indians began encountering free-ranging livestock at almost every turn, often trespassing in their cornfields. Moreover, when growing populations and an expansive style of husbandry required far more space than they had expected, colonists could see no alternative but to appropriate Indian land. This created tensions that reached the boiling point with King Philip's War and Bacon's Rebellion. And it established a pattern that would repeat time and again over the next two centuries. A stunning account that presents our history in a truly new light, Creatures of Empire restores a vital element of our past, illuminating one of the great forces of colonization and the expansion westward.

The History of Science Fiction traces the origin and development of science fiction from Ancient Greece up to the present day. The author is both an academic literary critic and acclaimed creative writer of the genre. Written in lively, accessible prose it is specifically designed to bridge the worlds of academic criticism and SF fandom.

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill," John Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans at New England's founding in 1630. More than three centuries later, Ronald Reagan remade that passage into a timeless celebration of American promise. How were Winthrop's long-forgotten words reinvented as a central statement of American identity and exceptionalism? In As a City on a Hill, leading American intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers tells the surprising story of one of the most celebrated documents in the canon of the American idea. In doing so, he brings to life the ideas Winthrop's text carried in its own time and the sharply different yearnings that have been attributed to it since. As a City on a Hill shows how much more malleable, more saturated with vulnerability, and less distinctly American Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity" was than the document that twentieth-century Americans invented. Across almost four centuries, Rodgers traces striking shifts in the meaning of Winthrop's words--from Winthrop's own anxious reckoning with the scrutiny of the world, through Abraham Lincoln's haunting reference to this "almost chosen people," to the "city on a hill" that African Americans hoped to construct in Liberia, to the era of Donald Trump. As a City on a Hill reveals the circuitous, unexpected ways Winthrop's words came to lodge in American consciousness. At the same time, the book offers a probing reflection on how nationalism encourages the invention of "timeless" texts to straighten out the crooked realities of the past.

This open access book marks the first historical overview of the autism rights branch of the neurodiversity movement, describing the activities and rationales of key leaders in their own words since it organized into a unique community in 1992. Sandwiched by editorial chapters that include critical analysis, the book contains 19 chapters by 21 authors about the forming of the autistic community and neurodiversity movement, progress in their influence on the broader autism community and field, and their possible threshold of the advocacy establishment. The actions covered are legendary in the autistic community, including manifestos such as “Don’t Mourn for Us”, mailing lists, websites or webpages, conferences, issue campaigns, academic project and journal, a book, and advisory roles. These actions have shifted the landscape toward viewing autism in social terms of human rights and identity to accept, rather than as a medical collection of deficits and symptoms to cure.

Throughout history, societies have had to decide whom to 'sacrifice' and whom to help in times of disaster. This volume examines how elite groups attempt to maintain power through the use of particular economic, political, and ideological instruments and how both ruling elites and common people endeavor to create meaningful traditions while enduring hardship.The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters demonstrates how vulnerability is economically constructed, primary producers adapt their production regimes, how traders and merchants adapt their practices, and how political economic objectives play out in recovery efforts.

Acclaim for The Great Fire of London "Popular narrative history at its best, well researched, imaginatively and dramatically written. . . . The author marshals his story and his mass of contemporary quotations with great skill." —Times Literary Supplement "The brilliance of its narrative chapters . . . a marvelous eye for evocative detail. Hanson’s prose is animated by the ferocious energy of the fire and seems to be guided by its inexorable movement. He creates the literary equivalent of the special effects in a disaster movie. . . . A rich mixture of imagination and research." —The Daily Telegraph (London) "He writes with knowledge and verve. As if making a television documentary on a natural disaster, he includes a gripping technical chapter on the mechanism and chemistry of combustion. This works brilliantly. . . . The book gains immeasurably from the author's eye for detail and from his understanding of the beliefs and prejudices of the day. . . . Informative and lively account." —The Sunday Times (London) "The best depiction of the Great Fire seen to date. . . . He manages to describe not only the atmosphere of the event itself, but also the experience of living in seventeenth-century Britain." —Soho Independent "A riveting book for those who like their history with a bit of mystery." —The Brisbane News "A rollicking good yarn." —The Age (Melbourne) "Blends high-class original research with a narrative style that mimics fiction. . . . Horrific subjects have served this man well and he has a knack for plugging into the dark themes that run like molten rivers beneath our social veneer." —New Zealand Herald "Neil Hanson’s descriptions of the inferno are like CNN reports from Kosovo." —Camden New Journal "It's not the technical data which makes the book so riveting though. It's the flair with which Hanson invests his account with qualities usually reserved for novels–narrative drive, persuasive character sketches, vivid scene stealing." —Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.