Excerpt from Iberia Won: But we weak minstrels of a laggard day, Skilled but to imitate an elder page, Timid and raptureless, can we repay The debt thou claim’st in this exhausted age? Thou giv’st our lyres a theme, that might engage Those that could send thy name o’er sea and land, While sea and land shall last; for Homer’s rage A theme; a theme for Milton’s mighty hand— How much unmeet for us, a faint degenerate band!

With Volume 2 of Legacies of the Turf II Edward Bowen focuses on the men whose horses have dominated racing in the last half of the 20th century and into the 21st. He has woven together a rich tapestry of horse racing lore.

Western powers are addicted to stealing and warmongeringand their days at the top of civilization are numbered. To prove this point, Rocky M. Mirza, Ph.D., traces the rise of the Western powers from the Greek and Roman empires through the Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, German, Italian, and American empires. He argues that the West has: promoted private property over communal property, which has created huge inequalities of wealth. encouraged the production and consumption of goods instead of preserving our planet. exploited Third World workers to satisfy obese citizens addicted to super-size portions. From the time Portugal found a sea route to India and Spain rediscovered the New World, the West has sought to steal and kill. At first, Muslims in the Middle East and powerful countries in Asia thwarted Western ambitions, but the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century changed the landscape. Instead of building mutually beneficial relationships, Western empiresfrom the Portuguese to the Americanhave sought to solely look out for their own interests. Find out how the balance is shifting in How the West was Won and Lost.

“Massive, beautiful . . . unquestionably some of the best writing on Spain [and] the best that Mr. Michener has ever done on any subject.”—The Wall Street Journal Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history. Wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful, this is Spain as experienced by a master writer.

Lisbon and the Pyrenees form the basis of this lively collection of firsthand accounts of travel within Portugal and Spain in the early nineteenth century.

The Crowley Millers were the talk of minor league baseball in the 1950s, with crowds totaling nearly 10 times Crowley’s population and earning Crowley the nickname of “The Best Little Baseball Town in the World.” The Best Little Baseball Town in the World: The Crowley Millers and Minor League Baseball in the 1950s tells the fun, quirky story of Crowley, Louisiana, in the fifties, a story that reads more like fiction than nonfiction. The Crowley Millers’ biggest star was Conklyn Meriwether, a slugger who became infamous after he retired when he killed his in-laws with an axe. Their former manager turned out to be a con man, dying in jail while awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. The 1951 team was torn to pieces after their young centerfielder was struck and killed by lightning during a game. But aside from the tragedy and turmoil, the Crowley Millers also played some great baseball and were the springboard to stardom for George Brunet and Dan Pfister, two Crowley pitchers who made it to the majors. Interviews with players from the team bring to light never-before-heard stories and inside perspectives on minor league baseball in the fifties, including insight into the social and racial climate of the era, and the inability of baseball in the fifties to help players deal with off-the-field problems. Written by respected minor-league baseball historian Gaylon H. White, The Best Little Baseball Town in the World is a fascinating tale for baseball fans and historians alike.