History Books

Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History, Anderson, Norman ISBN: 9780879725327

Presents the story of one of the engineering marvels of both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel, perhaps more than any other amusement ride, symbolizes all that is magic about amusement parks and county fairs. Towering above the carousel, hot dog stands, and kiddie rides, it lifts young and old alike.

Diamond Gods of the Morning Sun - The Vancouver Asahi Baseball Story, Hotchkiss, Ron ISBN: 9781460227244

This is the story of the Asahi, a Japanese Canadian baseball team that was formed in 1914 and competed in Vancouver's Caucasian leagues between 1918 and 1941. Using a strategy called "brain ball," the smaller Japanese defeated the larger white teams and won a number of championships. This describes what happened to some of these Asahi players after Pearl Harbor when British Columbia's Japanese were sent to internment camps in the province's interior. Here they played an important role in establishing baseball leagues. Following the war, many former Asahis came to eastern Canada where they continued to play an important role in baseball as they began new lives. There is a second story here as well. It is about a former Asahi fan who was determined that the Asahi legend would not die and how she insured that what they meant to the Japanese community before World War II would never be forgotten.

None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen in the War on Terrorism, Hirsh, Michael ISBN: 9780451212955

From award-winning journalist and combat veteran Michael Hirsh comes the thrilling inside story of the Air Force's pararescue operations in Afghanistan. The first journalist to be embedded with an Air Force combat unit in the War on Terrorism, Hirsh flew from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, with the 71st Rescue Squadron to their expeditionary headquarters at a secret location in Central Asia. Unparalleled access to the PJs, as well as to the courageous men and women who fly them where they have to go, often under enemy fire, allowed Hirsh to uncover incredible stories of courage.

Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-Mexico, Bennett, Herman L. ISBN: 9780253223319

Asking readers to imagine a history of Mexico narrated through the experiences of Africans and their descendants, this book offers a radical reconfiguration of Latin American history. Using ecclesiastical and inquisitorial records, Herman L. Bennett frames the history of Mexico around the private lives and liberty that Catholicism engendered among enslaved Africans and free blacks, who became majority populations soon after the Spanish conquest. The resulting history of 17th-century Mexico brings forth tantalizing personal and family dramas, body politics, and stories of lost virtue and sullen honor. By focusing on these phenomena among peoples of African descent, rather than the conventional history of Mexico with the narrative of slavery to freedom figured in, Colonial Blackness presents the colonial drama in all its untidy detail.