In 1932 laundry-store tycoon George Preston Marshall became part owner of the Boston Braves franchise in the National Football League. To separate his franchise from the baseball team, he renamed it the Redskins in 1933 and then in 1937 moved his team to Washington DC, where the team won two NFL championships over the next decade. But it was off the field that Marshall made his lasting impact. An innovator, he achieved many "firsts" in professional football. His team was the first to telecast all its games, have its own fight song and a halftime show, and assemble its own marching band and cheerleading squad. He viewed football as an entertainment business and accordingly made changes to increase scoring and improve the fan experience. But along with innovation, there was controversy. Marshall was a proud son of the South, and as the fifties came to a close, his team remained the only franchise in the three major league sports to not have a single black player. Marshall came under pressure from Congress and the NFL and its president, Pete Rozelle, as league expansion and new television contract possibilities forced the issue on the reluctant owner. Outside forces finally pushed Marshall to trade for Bobby Mitchell, the team's first black player, in 1962. With the story of Marshall's holdout as the backdrop, Fight for Old DC chronicles these pivotal years when the NFL began its ascent to the top of the nation's sporting interest.

In 1932 laundry-store tycoon George Preston Marshall became part owner of the Boston Braves franchise in the National Football League. To separate his franchise from the baseball team, he renamed it the Redskins in 1933 and then in 1937 moved his team to Washington DC, where the team won two NFL championships over the next decade. But it was off the field that Marshall made his lasting impact. An innovator, he achieved many “firsts” in professional football. His team was the first to telecast all its games, have its own fight song and a halftime show, and assemble its own marching band and cheerleading squad. He viewed football as an entertainment business and accordingly made changes to increase scoring and improve the fan experience. But along with innovation, there was controversy. Marshall was a proud son of the South, and as the fifties came to a close, his team remained the only franchise in the three major league sports to not have a single black player. Marshall came under pressure from Congress and the NFL and its president, Pete Rozelle, as league expansion and new television contract possibilities forced the issue on the reluctant owner. Outside forces finally pushed Marshall to trade for Bobby Mitchell, the team’s first black player, in 1962. With the story of Marshall’s holdout as the backdrop, Fight for Old DC chronicles these pivotal years when the NFL began its ascent to the top of the nation’s sporting interest.

Age Level: 4 to 8 | Grade Level: K to 4 What's a knight's greatest power? Stories, of course! From the beloved author/illustrator team behind The Snatchabook comes the ultimate storytime book about castles, knights, dragons, and the power of stories! Even dragons love a good story... Leo was a gentle knight in thought and word and deed. While other knights liked fighting, Leo liked to sit and read... When Leo's mom and dad pack him off to fight a dragon, he takes a shield, a sword—and a pile of his favorite books. But can a story be as mighty as a sword? This delightful rhyming story about books and the joy of reading is also perfect for kids who love dragon books, adventures, brave knights, and books about castles! An Autumn 2016 Kids Indie Next Pick A 2017-2018 SSYRA Jr. List Title Praise for The Snatchabook: #1 Indie Next Pick "I dare you to try to read The Snatch-a-book silently to yourself. You can't do it. The book is so wonderful it demands to be read out loud. And besides, if you didn't read the book out loud, how would the Snatch-a-book hear it?"—Caldecott Medalist Brian Selznick "This ever-so-sweet story begs to be read out loud." —Booklist " The gorgeous illustrations are a perfect match for the lively text. This book is a fabulous fit for both storytime and one-on-one reading. Children will be begging for this book to be read to them every night–clever ones will claim they want to keep the Snatchabook happy." —School Library Journal "The husband-and-wife team of the Dochertys have a winner in this heartwarming tribute to the essential role of bedtime reading in the lives of families." —Publishers Weekly "The story is sweet and the illustrations darling." —Kirkus "This whodunit with an uplifting ending will appeal to fans of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! . . . [it] celebrates bedtime reading as a ritual to be revered, and features a thief who merely wants to share in the fun." —Shelf Awareness Pro

On a cold day in early January 1864, Robert E. Lee wrote to Confederate president Jefferson Davis "The time is at hand when, if an attempt can be made to capture the enemy's forces at New Berne, it should be done." Over the next few months, Lee's dispatch would precipitate a momentous series of events as the Confederates, threatened by a supply crisis and an emerging peace movement, sought to seize Federal bases in eastern North Carolina. This book tells the story of these operations—the late war Confederate resurgence in the Old North State. Using rail lines to rapidly consolidate their forces, the Confederates would attack the main Federal position at New Bern in February, raid the northeastern counties in March, hit the Union garrisons at Plymouth and Washington in late April, and conclude with another attempt at New Bern in early May. The expeditions would involve joint-service operations, as the Confederates looked to support their attacks with powerful, homegrown ironclad gunboats. These offensives in early 1864 would witness the failures and successes of southern commanders including George Pickett, James Cooke, and a young, aggressive North Carolinian named Robert Hoke. Likewise they would challenge the leadership of Union army and naval officers such as Benjamin Butler, John Peck, and Charles Flusser. Newsome does not neglect the broader context, revealing how these military events related to a contested gubernatorial election; the social transformations in the state brought on by the war; the execution of Union prisoners at Kinston; and the activities of North Carolina Unionists. Lee's January proposal triggered one of the last successful Confederate offensives. The Fight for the Old North State captures the full scope, as well as the dramatic details of this struggle for North Carolina.

Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I’d Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep bonds between country music and politics, from the nineteenth-century rise of fiddler-politicians to more recent figures like Pappy O’Daniel, Roy Acuff, and Rob Quist. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed, and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world. La Chapelle vividly shows how country music campaigners have profoundly influenced the American political landscape.

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 underage youths, some as young as ten, signed up to fight in Canada's armed forces in the First World War. They served in the trenches alongside their elders, and fought in all the major battles: Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge, and the rest. Many were injured or suffered psychological wounds. Many died. This is the first book to tell their story. Some boys joined up to escape unhappy homes and workplaces. Others went with their parents' blessing, carrying letters from fathers and mothers asking the recruiters to take their eager sons. The romantic notion of a short, victorious campaign was wiped out the second these boys arrived on the Western Front. The authors, who narrate the fighting with both military professionalism and humanity, portray many boys who, in the heat of battle, made a seamless transition from follower to leader to hero. Authors Dan Black and John Boileau combed the archives and collections to bring these stories to life. Passages from letters the boy soldiers wrote home reveal the range of emotions and experiences they underwent, from the humorous to the unspeakably horrible. Their parents' letters touch us with their concern, love, uncertainty, and often, grief. Meticulously researched and abundantly illustrated with photographs, paintings, and a collection of specially commissioned maps, Old Enough to Fight is Canadian military and social history at its most fascinating.

Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books offers insights into the cultural and historical transmission and practices of martial arts, based on the corpus of the Fight Books (Fechtbücher) in 14th- to 17th-century Europe. The first part of the book deals with methodological and specific issues for the studies of this emerging interdisciplinary field of research. The second section offers an overview of the corpus based on geographical areas. The final part offers some relevant case studies. This is the first book proposing a comprehensive state of research and an overview of Historical European Martial Arts Studies. One of its major strengths lies in its association of interdisciplinary scholars with practitioners of martial arts. Contributors are Sydney Anglo, Matthias Johannes Bauer, Eric Burkart, Marco Cavina, Franck Cinato, John Clements, Timothy Dawson, Olivier Dupuis, Bert Gevaert, Dierk Hagedorn, Daniel Jaquet, Rachel E. Kellet, Jens Peter Kleinau, Ken Mondschein, Reinier van Noort, B. Ann Tlusty, Manuel Valle Ortiz, Karin Verelst, and Paul Wagner.

The phrase “martial arts studies” is increasingly circulating as a term to describe a new field of interest. But many academic fields including history, philosophy, anthropology, and Area studies already engage with martial arts in their own particular way. Therefore, is there really such a thing as a unique field of martial arts studies? Martial Arts Studies is the first book to engage directly with these questions. It assesses the multiplicity and heterogeneity of possible approaches to martial arts studies, exploring orientations and limitations of existing approaches. It makes a case for constructing the field of martial arts studies in terms of key coordinates from post-structuralism, cultural studies, media studies, and post-colonialism. By using these anti-disciplinary approaches to disrupt the approaches of other disciplines, Martial Arts Studies proposes a field that both emerges out of and differs from its many disciplinary locations.

Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his fathers farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Later after he received his wings and flew P-39s, he was chosen as one of the original flight leaders of the new 357th Fighter Group. Equipped with the new and deadly P-51 Mustang, the group shot down five enemy aircraft for each one it lost while escorting bombers to targets deep inside Germany. But the price was high. Half of its pilots were killed or imprisoned, including some of Buds closest friends. In February 1944, Bud Anderson, entered the uncertain, exhilarating, and deadly world of aerial combat. He flew two tours of combat against the Luftwaffe in less than a year. In battles sometimes involving hundreds of airplanes, he ranked among the groups leading aces with 16 aerial victories. He flew 116 missions in his old crow without ever being hit by enemy aircraft or turning back for any reason, despite one life or death confrontation after another. His friend Chuck Yeager, who flew with Anderson in the 357th, says, In an airplane, the guy was a mongoosethe best fighter pilot I ever saw. Buds years as a test pilot were at least as risky. In one bizarre experiment, he repeatedly linked up in midair with a B-29 bomber, wingtip to wingtip. In other tests, he flew a jet fighter that was launched and retrieved from a giant B-36 bomber. As in combat, he lost many friends flying tests such as these. Bud commanded a squadron of F-86 jet fighters in postwar Korea, and a wing of F-105s on Okinawa during the mid-1960s. In 1970 at age 48, he flew combat strikes as a wing commander against communist supply lines. To Fly and Fight is about flying, plain and simple: the joys and dangers and the very special skills it demands. Touching, thoughtful, and dead honest, it is the story of a boy who grew up living his dream.