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November
(Schedule Subject To Change)
1st |
The Complete Gettysburg Guide
Author: J. David Petruzzi
Savas Beatie LLC, P.O. Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
Some two million people visit the battlefield at Gettysburg each year. It is one of the most popular historical destinations in the United States. Most visitors tour the field by following the National Park Service's suggested auto tour. The standard tour, however, skips crucial monuments, markers, battle actions, town sites, hospital locations, and other hidden historical gems that should be experienced by everyone. These serious oversights are fully rectified in The Complete Gettysburg Guide, penned by noted Gettysburg historian J. David Petruzzi and illustrated with the full-color photography and maps of Civil War cartographer Steven Stanley.
J. David Petruzzi is the author of many magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours of cavalry sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular “Buford’s Boys” website. |
8th |
Encounters
Author: Paul Gottfried
ISI Books, P.O. Box 4431, Wilmington, DE 19807-0431
Paul Gottfried has spent a lifetime asking politically incorrect questions, untimely questions that have made him more unpopular among some timid "movement" conservatives than among critical theorists, Central European Marxists, and assorted other debating and dining partners. But in Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers, Gottfried puts past political battles aside in order to recount his varied associations and friendships with a host of fascinating figures, including his father, Herbert Marcuse, Paul Piccone, Christopher Lasch, Richard Nixon, and Patrick J. Buchanan.
Paul Gottfried is Professor of Humanities and holds the Raffensperger Chair in the Department of Political Science at Elizabethtown College. A distinguished historian and interpreter of the American conservative movement, he is the author of numerous books, including Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Towards a Secular Theocracy, and After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State. |
15th |
Braddock’s March
Author: Thomas Crocker
Westholme Publishing, Eight Harvey Avenue, Yardley, PA 19067
In 1775, Major General Edward Braddock was sent by Great Britain on a mission to drive France once and for all from the New World. Accompanied by the largest armed expeditionary force ever sent to North America, Braddock’s primary target was he Forks of the Ohio, where he planned to seize Fort Duquesne and then march north to the Canadian border. After landing in Alexandria, Virginia, Braddock organized his troops and supply chain, threatened to billet soldiers in private homes, and called the first congress of royal governors in America to discuss using local revenue to pay for the expedition- issues that were to drive the future split between the colonies and Britain. In May, the expedition began its nearly 250-mile trek, heroically cutting through the dense wilderness, fording rivers, and scaling mountain, while hauling heavy artillery and the first wheeled vehicles ever to cross the Appalachian Mountains. Braddock was joined on the expedition by a young Virginia colonel, George Washington, and others who would later play roles in the future revolution. Less than a day’s march from Fort Duquesne, Braddock’s exhausted column Braddock’s exhausted column was annihilated by a combined French and Indian force, some of whom fired rifles-probably the first effective use of this weapon in battle. Over two-thirds of Braddock’s British and colonial troops suffered casualties, and Braddock himself fell mortally wounded, while George Washington miraculously escaped harm despite four bullet holes through his clothing. With this battle, North America at once started and was drawn into a global war between Britain and France.
Thomas Crocker is a partner in a Washington, DC law firm. He lives in Alexandria Virginia with his family. |
22nd |
Sickles at Gettysburg
Author: James Hessler
Savas Beatie, 521 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1700, New York, NY 10175
No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. By 1863, Sickles was notorious as a disgraced former Congressman who murdered his wife's lover on the streets of Washington and used America's first temporary insanity defense to escape justice. With his political career in ruins, Sickles used his connections with President Lincoln to obtain a prominent command in the Army of the Potomac's Third Corps-despite having no military experience. At Gettysburg, he openly disobeyed orders in one of the most controversial decisions in military history. No single action dictated the battlefield strategies of George Meade and Robert E. Lee more than Sickles' unauthorized advance to the Peach Orchard, and the mythic defense of Little Round Top might have occurred quite differently were it not for General Sickles. Fighting heroically, Sickles lost his leg on the field and thereafter worked to remove General Meade from command of the army. Sickles spent the remainder of his checkered life declaring himself the true hero of Gettysburg.
James Hessler works in the financial services industry and is a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park. He has taught Sickles and Gettysburg-related courses for Harrisburg Area Community College and the Gettysburg Foundation. |
29th |
Fading Echoes
Author: Mike Sielski
Penguin Group, 375 Hueson St, New York, NY 10014-3658
Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was home to the greatest high school football rivalry in the state. There was Central Bucks West, captained by senior fullback/ linebacker Bryan Buckley. And there was Central Bucks East, led by senior lineman Colby Umbrell. Bryan and Colby met as opponents in a game played on a grass field, but their dreams and devotion to their country led each of them to the Middle East- Colby as an Army Ranger and Bryan as a Marine. Only one of them made it back to Doylestown.
Mike Sielski has won seven awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Newspaper Association of America named him one of the 20 best newspaper people in the nation under 40. He is the co-author of “How to Be Like Jackie Robinson: Life Lessons from Baseball’s Greatest Hero.” |
December
(Schedule Subject To Change)
6th |
World War II: In Their Own Words and World War II: Reflections
Author: Brian Lockman
Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
Based on interviews from Pennsylvania Cable Network’s award-winning television series, these illustrated companions present compelling firsthand accounts of World War II. This is a glimpse of the war as it happened, in the words of the soldiers, sailors, marines, nurses, paratroopers, and pilots who were there. “World War II: In Their Own Words” is also available as a 10-CD audio book version featuring 10 hours of the veterans’ stories recorded in their own voices.
Brian Lockman is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pennsylvania Cable Network. Since 1996 he has been the host of the weekly interview series “PA Books”, which features authors of books on Pennsylvania topics, and is a frequent host of the PCN Call-in program. He is author of four books, “PCN Tours” released in 2003, and “World War II: In Their Own Words” and “Pioneers of Cable Television” both released in 2005, and “World War II Reflections” published in 2009. |
13th |
The Test of Our Times
Author: Tom Ridge
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010-7848
When our nation called, Tom Ridge answered. Appointed by the President to head up domestic security, Ridge established the Department of Homeland Security. In this probing and surefooted memoir, Ridge discusses the challenges he and his new department faced, including Anthrax scares and reports (both real and false alarms) of new Al-Qaeda operations sprouting up in the United States. A “law and order” Republican who was on the shortlist to be John McCain’s running mate in 2008, Ridge writes with refreshing candor on both the successes and missteps of the DHS. He details the obstacles faced in his new post—often within the administration itself—as well as the failures of Congress to provide for critical homeland security needs, and the irresponsible use of terrorism by both parties to curry favors with voters.
Tom Ridge became the first secretary of Homeland Security in 2001. The former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania is the president and CEO of Ridge Global, which consults on security, diplomacy, international relations, economic development, and other key issues. Ridge is based on Washington, D.C. |
20th |
Pre-empted for PIAA State High School Football Championships |
27th |
Religion and Profit
Author: Katherine Carté Engel
University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4112
The Moravians, a Protestant sect founded in 1727 by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and based in Germany, were key players in the rise of international evangelicalism. In 1741, after planting communities on the frontiers of empires throughout the Atlantic world, they settled the communitarian enclave of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in order to spread the Gospel to thousands of nearby colonists and Native Americans. In time, the Moravians became some of early America's most successful missionaries. Such vast projects demanded vast sums. Bethlehem's Moravians supported their work through financial savvy and an efficient brand of communalism. Moravian commercial networks, stretching from the Pennsylvania backcountry to Europe's financial capitals, also facilitated their efforts. Missionary outreach and commerce went hand in hand for this group, making it impossible to understand the Moravians' religious work without appreciating their sophisticated economic practices as well. Of course, making money in a manner that be fitted a Christian organization required considerable effort, but it was a balancing act that Moravian leaders embraced with vigor.
Katherine Carté Engel teaches history at Texas A&M University. |
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October
(Schedule Subject To Change)
3rd |
Pre-empted for PCN Game of the Week |
10th |
Pre-empted for PCN Game of the Week |
17th |
Pre-empted for PCN Game of the Week |
24th |
Pre-empted for PCN Game of the Week |
31st |
Pre-empted for PCN Game of the Week |
November
(Schedule Subject To Change)
7th |
Gray Panthers
by Roger Sanjek
University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19104
In 1970, a sixty-five-year-old Philadelphian named Maggie Kuhn began vocally opposing the notion of mandatory retirement. Taking inspiration from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, Kuhn and her cohorts created an activist organization that quickly gained momentum as the Gray Panthers. After receiving national publicity for her efforts—she even appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson—she gained thousands of supporters, young and old. Their cause expanded to include universal health care, nursing home reform, affordable and accessible housing, defense of Social Security, and elimination of nuclear weapons. Gray Panthers traces the roots of Maggie Kuhn's social justice agenda to her years as a YWCA and Presbyterian Church staff member. It tells the nearly forty-year story of the intergenerational grassroots movement that Kuhn founded and its scores of local groups. During the 1980s, more than one hundred chapters were tackling local and national issues. By the 1990s the ranks of older members were thinning and most young members had departed, many to pursue careers in public service. But despite its challenges, including Kuhn's death in 1995, the movement continues today.
Roger Sanjek is Professor of Anthropology at Queens College, City University of New York. He is a J. I. Staley Prize winner, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, and the author of The Future of Us All: Race and Neighborhood Politics in New York City. |
14th |
Fading Echoes
Author: Mike Sielski
Penguin Group, 375 Hueson St, New York, NY 10014-3658
Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was home to the greatest high school football rivalry in the state. There was Central Bucks West, captained by senior fullback/ linebacker Bryan Buckley. And there was Central Bucks East, led by senior lineman Colby Umbrell. Bryan and Colby met as opponents in a game played on a grass field, but their dreams and devotion to their country led each of them to the Middle East- Colby as an Army Ranger and Bryan as a Marine. Only one of them made it back to Doylestown.
Mike Sielski has won seven awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Newspaper Association of America named him one of the 20 best newspaper people in the nation under 40. He is the co-author of “How to Be Like Jackie Robinson: Life Lessons from Baseball’s Greatest Hero.” |
21st |
Pre-empted for PIAA Girls Class AA Soccer Championship |
28th |
Pre-empted for the Gun Makers Fair |
December
(Schedule Subject To Change)
5th |
H.J. Heinz
Author: Quentin Skrabec
McFarland , Box 611, Jefferson , NC 28640
Though Heinz Ketchup is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world, few people know anything at all about H. J. Heinz. Industrial giants Rockefeller, Carnegie, Westinghouse, and Mellon became household names, and Heinz slipped into obscurity. Yet during a time of great transfers of wealth brought about in part by these famous robber barons, Heinz was well known for his humane treatment of his employees, customers, and suppliers. At the same time Heinz built a commercial empire by his use of industrialized food processing before Henry Ford. This book includes 45 photographs many of which are being published for the first time.
Quentin Skrabec is the author of more than 20 books. He lives in Maumee, Ohio. |
12th |
TBA |
19th |
TBA |
26th |
TBA |
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