Yosemite initially called a "public park," evolved to inspire the national park idea and ranks today among the ten most visited national parks, while standing alone for the length of its history. John Muir, eloquently setting the stage, described Yosemite as "a great life-long landscape fortune," sadly to add, as its wilderness dwindled: "Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded." The struggle of 150 years continues, now fully updated in this timeless book. Book jacket.

During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.

The Civil War was just days old when the first enslaved men, women, and children began fleeing their plantations to seek refuge inside the lines of the Union army as it moved deep into the heart of the Confederacy. In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands more followed in a mass exodus from slavery that would destroy the system once and for all. Drawing on an extraordinary survey of slave refugee camps throughout the country, Embattled Freedom reveals as never before the everyday experiences of these refugees from slavery as they made their way through the vast landscape of army-supervised camps that emerged during the war. Amy Murrell Taylor vividly reconstructs the human world of wartime emancipation, taking readers inside military-issued tents and makeshift towns, through commissary warehouses and active combat, and into the realities of individuals and families struggling to survive physically as well as spiritually. Narrating their journeys in and out of the confines of the camps, Taylor shows in often gripping detail how the most basic necessities of life were elemental to a former slave's quest for freedom and full citizenship. The stories of individuals--storekeepers, a laundress, and a minister among them--anchor this ambitious and wide-ranging history and demonstrate with new clarity how contingent the slaves' pursuit of freedom was on the rhythms and culture of military life. Taylor brings new insight into the enormous risks taken by formerly enslaved people to find freedom in the midst of the nation's most destructive war.

A brilliant and surprising account of the coming of the American Civil War, showing the crucial role of slaves who escaped to Mexico. The Underground Railroad to the North promised salvation to many American slaves before the Civil War. But thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1837. In South to Freedom, historianAlice L. Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery's future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. This is a revelatory and essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War.

The overseas basing of troops has been a central pillar of American military strategy since World War II--and a controversial one. Are these bases truly essential to protecting the United States at home and securing its interests abroad--for example in the Middle East-or do they needlessly provoke anti-Americanism and entangle us in the domestic woes of host countries? Embattled Garrisons takes up this question and examines the strategic, political, and social forces that will determine the future of American overseas basing in key regions around the world. Kent Calder traces the history of overseas bases from their beginnings in World War II through the cold war to the present day, comparing the different challenges the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union have confronted. Providing the broad historical and comparative context needed to understand what is at stake in overseas basing, Calder gives detailed case studies of American bases in Japan, Italy, Turkey, the Philippines, Spain, South Korea, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He highlights the vulnerability of American bases to political shifts in their host nations--in emerging democracies especially--but finds that an American presence can generally be tolerated when identified with political liberation rather than imperial succession. Embattled Garrisons shows how the origins of basing relationships crucially shape long-term prospects for success, and it offers a means to assess America's prospects for a sustained global presence in the future.

A bracing corrective to predictions of the European Union’s decline, by a leading historian of modern Europe Is the European Union in decline? Recent history, from the debt and migration crises to Brexit, has led many observers to argue that the EU’s best days are behind it. Over the past decade, right-wing populists have come to power in Poland, Hungary, and beyond—many of them winning elections using strident anti-EU rhetoric. At the same time, Russia poses a continuing military threat, and the rise of Asia has challenged the EU's economic power. But in Embattled Europe, renowned European historian Konrad Jarausch counters the prevailing pessimistic narrative of European obsolescence with a rousing yet realistic defense of the continent—one grounded in a fresh account of its post–1989 history and an intimate understanding of its twentieth-century horrors. An engaging narrative and probing analysis, Embattled Europe tells the story of how the EU emerged as a model of democratic governance and balanced economic growth, adapting to changing times while retaining its value system. The book describes the EU’s admirable approach to the environment, social welfare, immigration, and global competitiveness. And it presents underappreciated European success stories—including Denmark’s transition to a green economy, Sweden’s restructuring of its welfare state, and Poland’s economic miracle. Embattled Europe makes a powerful case that Europe—with its peaceful foreign policy, social welfare solidarity, and environmental protection—offers the best progressive alternative to the military adventurism and rampant inequality of plutocratic capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism.

It’s not like he can take out a personal ad—Lonely Billionaire Wants Loving Artist To Fix His Miserable Life After completion of her contract to supply original art for the revamped Clarion headquarters in New York, young artist Sarah Tyler receives a summons to the stunning home of her enigmatic, and oh, so out of reach employer, Clayton Gallagher. When Clayton offers her a new commission to paint a portrait of his young niece, Sarah senses that the fascination she’s had with the handsome Mr. Gallagher might not be just one sided. She’d thought he was avoiding her, all those missed meetings and opportunities to meet that never quite happened… Clayton Gallagher knows that he shouldn’t spend any more time feeding his fascination with the charming, outgoing and delightfully beautiful artist - eighteen months of pining is enough! But he can’t resist her company any more than he can deny his desire for the kind of life and affection he sees portrayed in her art. Emotionally isolated in a cold and unloving family, and trapped in a dreary world of duty and responsibility, what will happen to Clayton when Sarah begins to color his world with life, kindness, warmth … love?

Aiden Willingham has lived a hard life. A former Navy SEAL, he’s gotten involved in a covert government testing program run by a private company called the Silverstone Collaborative. The program is brutal and they are prisoners in the truest sense of the word, but they are experiencing results. If these results are offered on the black market, thousands of people will die. Aiden and three other soldiers break out of the camp and are now on a mission to expose the company funding the testing. When the Collaborative threatens his only living relative, Aiden has to find the assassin, as well as whoever is pulling the man’s strings. Angela Holloway knew the military man with sadness in his eyes was trouble as soon as she saw him hanging around the site of a murder. Uncooperative, he stonewalls her investigation but draws her in when the badge comes off. Aiden has scars, both internal and external, that make her heart ache. It’s a serious no-no getting involved with a suspect… too bad her heart isn’t listening.

The Dogs of War have rescued American servicemen from research camps run by the Silverstone Collaborative. Now it’s time for the company, and its owner Damon Wilkes, to pay for what they’ve done. Wulfe Terberger is the man to bring them to justice. With the cooperation of the CIA and a covert informant, they begin taking down the conspirators, but Damon has disappeared, and kidnapped his own son to hold as protection. Elizabeth Wilkes has stayed in her sham of a marriage only for the sake of her son, but when her soon-to-be ex bastard kidnaps her child, all bets are off. She’s been working behind the scenes for years to secure her company and her son’s future, but it’s time for her to come out of the shadows to take control. That also means reconnecting with Wulfe. They were an item years ago and now she needs his help if she is to get her son back. As they chase Damon down, Wulfe and Elizabeth have to fight the attraction they feel for each other…