Half American

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Half American

Author : Matthew F. Delmont
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984880411
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Half American by : Matthew F. Delmont

Download or read book Half American written by Matthew F. Delmont and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, by award-winning historian and civil rights expert Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 A 2022 Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and more More than one million Black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units while waging a dual battle against inequality in the very country for which they were laying down their lives. The stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” And yet without their sacrifices, the United States could not have won the war. Half American is World War II history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black military heroes and civil rights icons such as Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the leader of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, who fought to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; and James G. Thompson, the twenty-six-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. An essential and meticulously researched retelling of the war, Half American honors the men and women who dared to fight not just for democracy abroad but for their dreams of a freer and more equal America.

Half American

Author : Matthew F. Delmont
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984880403
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Half American by : Matthew F. Delmont

Download or read book Half American written by Matthew F. Delmont and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • A Best Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Washington Independent Review of Books, and more! The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont “Matthew F. Delmont’s book is filled with compelling narratives that outline with nuance, rigor, and complexity how Black Americans fought for this country abroad while simultaneously fighting for their rights here in the United States. Half American belongs firmly within the canon of indispensable World War II books.” —Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” Half American is American history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.

Half American

Author : Matthew F. Delmont
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 198488039X
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Half American by : Matthew F. Delmont

The Half Has Never Been Told

Author : Edward E Baptist
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465097685
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The Half Has Never Been Told by : Edward E Baptist

Download or read book The Half Has Never Been Told written by Edward E Baptist and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2015 Avery O. Craven Prize from the Organization of American Historians Winner of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Prize A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution -- the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the span of a single lifetime, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations to a continental cotton empire, and the United States grew into a modern, industrial, and capitalist economy. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history.

When Half Is Whole

Author : Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804783950
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis When Half Is Whole by : Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu

Download or read book When Half Is Whole written by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I listen and gather people's stories. Then I write them down in a way that I hope will communicate something to others, so that seeing these stories will give readers something of value. I tell myself that this isn't going to be done unless I do it, just because of who I am. It's a way of making my mark, leaving something behind . . . not that I'm planning on going anywhere right now." So explains Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu in this touching, introspective, and insightful examination of mixed race Asian American experiences. The son of an Irish American father and Japanese mother, Murphy-Shigematsu uses his personal journey of identity exploration and discovery of his diverse roots to illuminate the journeys of others. Throughout the book, his reflections are interspersed among portraits of persons of biracial and mixed ethnicity and accounts of their efforts to answer a seemingly simple question: Who am I? Here we meet Norma, raised in postwar Japan, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American serviceman, who struggled to make sense of her ethnic heritage and national belonging. Wei Ming, born in Australia and raised in the San Francisco of the 1970s and 1980s, grapples as well with issues of identity, in her case both ethnic and sexual. We also encounter Rudy, a "Mexipino"; Marshall, a "Jewish, adopted Korean"; Mitzi, a "Blackinawan"; and other extraordinary people who find how connecting to all parts of themselves also connects them to others. With its attention on people who have been regarded as "half" this or "half" that throughout their lives, these stories make vivid the process of becoming whole.

America's Half-Century

Author : Thomas J. McCormick
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801850110
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis America's Half-Century by : Thomas J. McCormick

Download or read book America's Half-Century written by Thomas J. McCormick and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1995-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised andupdated through 1993, it describes how the end of the Cold War affected the United States's global role as well as suggesting what possibilities lie ahead for a restructured world-system.

Half in Shadow

Author : Shanna Greene Benjamin
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469661896
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Half in Shadow by : Shanna Greene Benjamin

Download or read book Half in Shadow written by Shanna Greene Benjamin and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nellie Y. McKay (1930–2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay’s private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.

Half American

Author : Matthew F. Delmont
Publisher : Viking
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (857 download)

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Book Synopsis Half American by : Matthew F. Delmont

Download or read book Half American written by Matthew F. Delmont and published by Viking. This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the "Good War" fought by the "Greatest Generation." Half American is American history as you've likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading"--

American Wasteland

Author : Jonathan Bloom
Publisher : Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN 13 : 0738215627
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (382 download)

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Book Synopsis American Wasteland by : Jonathan Bloom

Download or read book American Wasteland written by Jonathan Bloom and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Tom Vanderbilt did for traffic and Brian Wansink did for mindless eating, Jonathan Bloom does for food waste. The topic couldn't be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it's time to reexamine our culture of excess. Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.

The American Way of Poverty

Author : Sasha Abramsky
Publisher : Nation Books
ISBN 13 : 1568587260
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (685 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Way of Poverty by : Sasha Abramsky

Download or read book The American Way of Poverty written by Sasha Abramsky and published by Nation Books. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abramsky shows how poverty - a massive political scandal - is dramatically changing in the wake of the Great Recession.

The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies

Author : Josef Joffe
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0871404494
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (714 download)

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Book Synopsis The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies by : Josef Joffe

Download or read book The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies written by Josef Joffe and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a ... German commentator and Stanford University academic, [proposes] that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets ... Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe [posits that] 'economic miracles' that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking 'the end is near'"--Dust jacket flap.

How the Other Half Laughs

Author : Jean Lee Cole
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 149682654X
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (968 download)

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Book Synopsis How the Other Half Laughs by : Jean Lee Cole

Download or read book How the Other Half Laughs written by Jean Lee Cole and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2020-01-27 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention Recipient for the Charles Hatfield Book Prize Taking up the role of laughter in society, How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in American Culture, 1895–1920 examines an era in which the US population was becoming increasingly multiethnic and multiracial. Comic artists and writers, hoping to create works that would appeal to a diverse audience, had to formulate a method for making the “other half” laugh. In magazine fiction, vaudeville, and the comic strip, the oppressive conditions of the poor and the marginalized were portrayed unflinchingly, yet with a distinctly comic sensibility that grew out of caricature and ethnic humor. Author Jean Lee Cole analyzes Progressive Era popular culture, providing a critical angle to approach visual and literary humor about ethnicity—how avenues of comedy serve as expressions of solidarity, commiseration, and empowerment. Cole’s argument centers on the comic sensibility, which she defines as a performative act that fosters feelings of solidarity and community among the marginalized. Cole stresses the connections between the worlds of art, journalism, and literature and the people who produced them—including George Herriman, R. F. Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, Jimmy Swinnerton, George Luks, and William Glackens—and traces the form’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal-American and how it influenced popular fiction, illustration, and art. How the Other Half Laughs restores the newspaper comic strip to its rightful place as a transformative element of American culture at the turn into the twentieth century.

No Easy Victories

Author : William Minter
Publisher : William Minter
ISBN 13 : 1592215750
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (922 download)

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Book Synopsis No Easy Victories by : William Minter

Download or read book No Easy Victories written by William Minter and published by William Minter. This book was released on 2008 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African news making headlines today is dominated by disaster: wars, famine, HIV. Those who respond - from stars to ordinary citizens - are learning that real solutions require more than charity. This book provides a comprehensive, panoramic view of US activism in Africa from 1950 to 2000, activism grounded in a common struggle for justice. It portrays organisations, activists and networks that contributed to African liberation and, in turn, shows how African struggles informed US activism, including the civil rights and black power movements.

The Vanishing Half

Author : Brit Bennett
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525536965
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis The Vanishing Half by : Brit Bennett

Download or read book The Vanishing Half written by Brit Bennett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE* VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR 2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST “Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal “A story of absolute, universal timelessness …For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

Lessons from the Heartland

Author : Barbara J. Miner
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1595588647
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (955 download)

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Book Synopsis Lessons from the Heartland by : Barbara J. Miner

Download or read book Lessons from the Heartland written by Barbara J. Miner and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Miner’s story of Milwaukee is filled with memorable characters . . . explores with consummate skill the dynamics of race, politics, and schools in our time.” —Mike Rose, author of The Mind at Work Weaving together the racially fraught history of public education in Milwaukee and the broader story of hypersegregation in the rust belt, Lessons from the Heartland tells of a city’s fall from grace—and its chance for redemption in the twenty-first century. A symbol of middle American working-class values, Wisconsin—and in particular urban Milwaukee—has been at the forefront of a half century of public education experiments, from desegregation and “school choice” to vouchers and charter schools. This book offers a sweeping narrative portrait of an all-American city at the epicenter of public education reform, and an exploration of larger issues of race and class in our democracy. The author, a former Milwaukee Journal reporter whose daughters went through the public school system, explores the intricate ways that jobs, housing, and schools intersect, underscoring the intrinsic link between the future of public schools and the dreams and hopes of democracy in a multicultural society. “A social history with the pulse and pace of a carefully crafted novel and a Dickensian cast of unforgettable characters. With the eye of an ethnographer, the instincts of a beat reporter, and the heart of a devoted mother and citizen activist, Miner has created a compelling portrait of a city, a time, and a people on the edge. This is essential reading.” —Bill Ayers, author of Teaching Toward Freedom “Eloquently captures the narratives of schoolchildren, parents, and teachers.” —Library Journal

Beyond College For All

Author : James E. Rosenbaum
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610444760
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond College For All by : James E. Rosenbaum

Download or read book Beyond College For All written by James E. Rosenbaum and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2001-11-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a society where everyone is supposed to go to college, the problems facing high school graduates who do not continue their education are often forgotten. Many cannot find jobs, and those who do are often stuck in low-wage, dead-end positions. Meanwhile employers complain that high school graduates lack the necessary skills for today's workplace. Beyond College for All focuses on this crisis in the American labor market. Around the world, author James E. Rosenbaum finds, employers view high school graduates as valuable workers. Why not here? Rosenbaum reports on new studies of the interaction between employers and high schools in the United States. He concludes that each fails to communicate its needs to the other, leading to a predictable array of problems for young people in the years after graduation. High schools caught up in the college-for-all myth, provide little job advice or preparation, leading students to make unrealistic plans and hampering both students who do not go to college and those who start college but do not finish. Employers say they care about academic skills, but then do not consider grades when deciding whom to hire. Faced with few incentives to achieve, many students lapse into precisely the kinds of habits employers deplore, doing as little as possible in high school and developing poor attitudes. Rosenbaum contrasts the situation in the United States with that of two other industrialized nations-Japan and Germany-which have formal systems for aiding young people who are looking for employment. Virtually all Japanese high school graduates obtain work, and in Germany, eighteen-year-olds routinely hold responsible jobs. While the American system lacks such formal linkages, Rosenbaum uncovers an encouraging hidden system that helps many high school graduates find work. He shows that some American teachers, particularly vocational teachers, create informal networks with employers to guide students into the labor market. Enterprising employers have figures out how to use these networks to meet their labor needs, while students themselves can take steps to increase their ability to land desirable jobs. Beyond College for All suggests new policies based on such practices. Rosenbaum presents a compelling case that the problems faced by American high school graduates and employers can be solved if young people, employers, and high schools build upon existing informal networks to create formal paths for students to enter the world of work. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology

Hell's Half-Acre

Author : Susan Jonusas
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984879855
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Hell's Half-Acre by : Susan Jonusas

Download or read book Hell's Half-Acre written by Susan Jonusas and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of NPR's "Books We Love" New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022" "Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war. In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.