The dramatic journeys of the 19th century Gold Rush come to life in this geologist’s tour of the American West and the events that shaped the land. In 1848, news of the discovery of gold in California triggered an enormous wave of emigration toward the Pacific. The dramatic terrain these settlers crossed is so familiar to us now that it is hard to imagine how frightening—even godforsaken—its sheer rock faces and barren deserts once seemed to them. Hard Road West brings their perspective vividly to life, weaving together the epic overland journey of the covered wagon trains and the compelling story of the landscape they encountered. Taking readers along the 2,000-mile California Trail, Keith Meldahl uses settler’s diaries and letters—as well as his own experiences on the trail—to reveal how the geology and geography of the West shaped our nation’s westward expansion. He guides us through a landscape of sawtooth mountains, following the meager streams that served as lifelines through an arid land, all the way to California itself, where colliding tectonic plates created breathtaking scenery and planted the gold that lured travelers west in the first place. “Alternates seamlessly between vivid accounts of the 19th-century journey and lucid explanations of the geological events that shaped the landscape traveled.”—Library Journal

The Civil War is over. Soldiers have returned home, and families have begun to piece their lives back together. But for Union Army veteran Solomon Dykes, there is no kin waiting; his Connecticut home holds no promise. He hopes to make a fresh start in Virginia, where he can farm a piece of land and start a family.But the contentious times don't favor such ambition.Dykes settles near Jeb Mosby, a Virginia native farming his family's land near the town of Middleburg. Under different circumstances, the pair might have been fast friends.But the community is still reeling from the stinging defeat of the war and view all Northerners with suspicion--Dykes is no exception.Mosby finds himself torn between his faith in humanity and an allegiance to his small town, while Dykes begins to doubt his future as a farmer and finds himself drawn to the cause of the newly freed slaves.The battlefields may have cooled, but passions still run hot in this turbulent era of societal change. Both Dykes and Mosby learn even the smallest actions can carry far-reaching consequences, sending each on a collision course with tragedy.

The founding father of Canadian bikers shares the story of his fascinating life. You could call Bernie Guindon the Sonny Barger of Canadian bikers (but not to his face). The founder of Satan's Choice, Guindon led what was in the 1960s the second-largest biker club in the world (after the Hells Angels, which Bernie would join briefly in the early 2000s) to national prominence and international infamy. His life wasn't all bikes and crime. He was also a medalist in boxing for Canada at the Pan Am Games. That tension between the very rough life he was born into and the possibility for success in the straight world (and how aspirations in each fed his success in the other) layer Guindon's story, one of the great untold stories in biker history. Friends from the biker world and Guindon's family have given extensive interviews for Hard Road, including his son, Harley, whose own depictions of prison time are some of the most searing you'll ever read.

Legendary national bestselling Western authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone return with a blistering second installment in the new Stoneface Finnegan series. JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. WHERE PEACE COMES FROM THE BARREL OF A GUN. Whether serving justice as a Pinkerton agent or serving drinks as a saloonkeeper, Stoneface Finnegan always lines up his shots to kill . . . GONE TO DEADWOOD The Pinkertons believe Rollie “Stoneface” Finnegan was the best agent to ever wear the badge. So does dewy-eyed Pinkerton hopeful and sleuth-in-training Tish Gray, who’s just arrived in Boar Gulch. As co-owner of Boar Gulch’s Last Drop Saloon, Stoneface is content slinging booze into guts instead of bullets. But when his partner Jubal “Pops” Tennyson needs help to rescue his daughter, Stoneface saddles up to take a hard ride into hell. Their destination is Deadwood, Dakota Territory, the notorious mining town and outlaw haven where folks can dig up a gold fortune or dig their own grave. Pops’ daughter is being held captive by the infamous Al Swearengen, owner of the Gem Theater, supplying whiskey, wagering, and women to the desperate, the destitute, and the dangerous.As naïve, young Tish goes undercover at the Gem to find Pops’ daughter, Stoneface and his partner are pinned down in the Black Hills by every trigger-happy gunslinger looking to collect the dead-or-alive bounty on Stoneface’s head . . . Live Free. Read Hard.

Taking the Hard Road is an engaging history of growing up in working-class families in France and Germany during the Industrial Revolution. Based on a reading of ninety autobiographical accounts of childhood and adolescence, the book explores the far-reaching historical transformations associated with the emergence of modern industrial capitalism. According to Mary Jo Maynes, the aspects of private life revealed in these accounts played an important role in historical development by actively shaping the authors' social, political, and class identities. The stories told in these memoirs revolve around details of everyday life: schooling, parent-child relations, adolescent sexuality, early experiences in the workforce, and religious observances. Maynes uses demographics, family history, and literary analysis to place these details within the context of historical change. She also draws comparisons between French and German texts, men's and women's accounts, and narratives of social mobility and political militancy.

Since Hard Road to Freedom was released, it has garnered universal acclaim. Rutgers University Press is pleased to announce the availability of this book in two separate volumes for courses in African American history that span two semesters. Volume I includes the following chapters: -Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade -The Evolution of Slavery in British North America -Slavery and Freedom in the Age of Revolution -The Early Republic and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom -Slavery and the Slave Community -Free People of Color and the Fight against Slavery -From Militancy to Civil War Features of Volume I include: -Timelines for each chapter -Sidebars, highlighting significant African Americans (some well known, some lesser known) -Transcriptions of significant historical documents, ranging from autobiographies, legal decrees, speeches, and military orders

"Count your blessings," his mother told him, "Think of everything good in your life." Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin has done it again. Building from his acclaimed first memoir, From Our House, which recounts the farming accident that cost his father both his hands, Gone the Hard Road is the story of Beulah Martin's endurance and sacrifice as a mother, and the gift of imagination she offered her son. Martin unfolds the world she created for him within their unsettled family life, from the first time she read to him in a doctor's office waiting room, to enrolling him in a children's book club, to the books she bought him in high school. Gone the Hard Road portrays Beulah's selflessness as the family moved around the Midwest, sometimes in the face of her husband's opposition, to show her son a different way of being. Rather than concentrate on the life his father threatened to destroy, as Martin's previous memoirs do, Gone the Hard Road offers the counternarrative of a loving mother and the creative life she made possible, in spite of the eventual cost to herself. A poignant, honest, and moving read, Gone the Hard Road will stay with anyone who has ever struggled to find their place in the world.

Analyzes political, economic, and social developments since the defeat of ZANU-PF in the 2008 parliamentary election, the formation of the GNU, and the end of one-party rule in Zimbabwe.

"This is one of Mr. Steele's best books, an engrossing, realistic story of a Tennessee mountain boy who, during the Civil War, comes to realize that war is terrible no matter where one's sympathies lie."--"Publishers Weekly."

The second volume of the three-volume history described by RandR Book News under the ISBN for Volume 1 (006-6). Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR