Describes the fire that destroyed Atlanta's Winecoff Hotel, resulting in considerable loss of life

Perkins was being groomed to replace the late James Dean as a romantic leading man in Hollywood. But his landmark performance as Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho destroyed his chance and off-screen life equally as secretive, conflicted, and fractured. Compelling and surprising, here is the first in-depth look at the double life of one of the world's most recognisable film stars. Insightfully documents the life of Anthony Perkins, who was forced to act the part of ladies' man while struggling with his own homosexuality. 27/10/2005

A blow-by-blow account of the deadliest fire in American history retraces the final days of the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, a supposedly indestructible building that burned killing more than six hundred people.

Atlanta and Environs is, in every way, an exhaustive history of the Atlanta Area from the time of its settlement in the 1820s through the 1970s. Volumes I and II, together more than two thousand pages in length, represent a quarter century of research by their author, Franklin M. Garrett—a man called “a walking encyclopedia on Atlanta history” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. With the publication of Volume III, by Harold H. Martin, this chronicle of the South's most vibrant city incorporates the spectacular growth and enterprise that have characterized Atlanta in recent decades. The work is arranged chronologically, with a section devoted to each decade, a chapter to each year. Volume I covers the history of Atlanta and its people up to 1880—ranging from the city's founding as “Terminus” through its Civil War destruction and subsequent phoenixlike rebirth. Volume II details Atlanta's development from 1880 through the 1930s—including occurrences of such diversity as the development of the Coca-Cola Company and the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind. Taking up the city's fortunes in the 1940s, Volume III spans the years of Atlanta's greatest growth. Tracing the rise of new building on the downtown skyline and the construction of Hartsfield International Airport on the city's perimeter, covering the politics at City Hall and the box scores of Atlanta's new baseball team, recounting the changing terms of race relations and the city's growing support of the arts, the last volume of Atlanta and Environs documents the maturation of the South's preeminent city.

The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, was the preeminent nightclub of the lower Midwest for decades. After struggling financially into the1960s, the club was purchased by new owners in 1969. Over the next several years, the new owners completed numerous improvements, renovations, and additions, creating what they hoped would be the "showplace of the nation." On the evening of May 28, 1977, the lavish club burned to the ground, killing 165 people in the second worst nightclub fire in United States history. Robert Lawson's meticulous study makes clear that the tragedy flowed from the fact that the building had become over time a true firetrap. The renovations and additions completed since 1969 were dominated by multiple fire code violations and very significant design failures for a building that was destined to be occupied by huge crowds of people. Undoubtedly, a more complete compliance with state laws on fire safety would have averted the disaster. No single individual was responsible for the building's shortcomings.The firetrap in the nightclub, which ultimately resulted in the tragic death of 165 people, was clearly created by a combination of personal, professional, and legal failures by owners of the facility, local and state fire officials and inspectors, and others. Looking back, which is always easier than looking forward, it is clear that the real tragedy at Beverly Hills is that very little additional care and caution was needed to prevent some if not all of the deaths that occurred there. Beverly Hills: Anatomy of a Nightclub Fire was intended by the author to be an accurate historical account of the whole tragedy and not a sensational description of the event nor a polemic indictment of responsibility. It lays out in careful and complete detail every incremental step in the creation of the firetrap, describes the start and spread of the fire and evacuation efforts, and concludes with a description of the important legal proceedings that followed the fire.

A gripping narrative nonfiction account of the forgotten life and legacy of Henry Harris, the first black athlete at Auburn University during the final days of the civil rights movement. A former newspaper reporter, Sam Heys traces Harris's odyssey from living in a converted store in rural Alabama to his suicide six years later.

The acclaimed author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedy and heroism—the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. It was a midsummer afternoon, halfway through a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus performance, when the big top caught fire. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline; in seconds it was burning out of control. More than 8,000 people were trapped inside, and the ensuing disaster would eventually take 167 lives. Steward O'Nan brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, O'Nan skillfully re-creates the horrific events and illuminates the psychological oddities of human behavior under stress: the mad scramble for the exits; the perilous effort to maneuver animals out of danger; the hero who tossed dozens of children to safety before being trampled to death. Brilliantly constructed and exceptionally moving, The Circus Fire is history at its most compelling.

The Iroquois Theater in Chicago, boasting every modern convenience, advertised itself proudly as “absolutely fireproof” when it opened in November, 1903. Mr. Bluebeard, a fairy tale musical imported from the Drury Lane Theatre in London was the opening production. And leading the troupe of nearly 400 was one of the most popular comedians of the time, Eddie Foy. None of the many socialites and journalists who flocked to the shows were aware that city building inspectors and others had been bribed to certify that the theater was in good shape. In fact, the building was without a sprinkler system or even basic fire fighting equipment; there was no backstage telephone, fire alarm box, exit signs, a real asbestos curtain or ushers trained for emergencies. A month later, at a Christmas week matinee, the theater was illegally overcrowded with a standing room only crowd of mostly women and children. During the second act, a short circuit exploded a back stage spotlight touching off a small fire which spread in minutes throughout the theater. Panic set in as people clawed at each other to get out, but they could not find the exits, which were draped. The doorways, locked against gate-crashers, were designed to open in instead of out, creating almost impossible egress. The tragedy, which claimed more than 600 lives, became a massive scandal and it remains the worst theater fire in the history of the country.

Can crime make our world safer? Crimes are the worst of humanity’s wrongs but, oddly, they sometimes “trigger” improvement in our lives. Crimes That Changed Our World explores some of the most important trigger cases of the past century, revealing much about how change comes to our modern world. The exact nature of the crime-outrage-reform dynamic can take many forms, and Paul and Sarah Robinson explore those differences in the cases they present. Each case is in some ways unique but there are repeating patterns that can offer important insights about what produces change and how in the future we might best manage it. Sometimes reform comes as a society wrestles with a new and intolerable problem. Sometimes it comes because an old problem from which we have long suffered suddenly has an apparent solution provided by technology or some other social or economic advance. Or, sometimes the engine of reform kicks into gear simply because we decide as a society that we are no longer willing to tolerate a long-standing problem and are now willing to do something about it. As the amazing and often touching stories that the Robinsons present make clear, the path of progress is not just a long series of course corrections; sometimes it is a quick turn or an unexpected lurch. In a flash we can suddenly feel different about present circumstances, seeing a need for change and can often, just as suddenly, do something about it. Every trigger crime that appears in Crimes That Changed Our World highlights a societal problem that America has chosen to deal with, each in a unique way. But what these extraordinary, and sometime unexpected, cases have in common is that all of them describe crimes that changed our world.