The Epidemic tells the story of how a vain and reckless businessman became responsible for a typhoid epidemic in 1903 that devastated Cornell University and the surrounding town of Ithaca, New York. Eighty-two people died, including twenty-nine Cornell students. Protected by influential friends, William T. Morris faced no retribution for this outrage. His legacy was a corporation—first known as Associated Gas & Electric Co. and later as General Public Utilities Corp.—that bedeviled America for a century. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 was its most notorious historical event, but hardly its only offense against the public interest. The Ithaca epidemic came at a time when engineers knew how to prevent typhoid outbreaks but physicians could not yet cure the disease. Both professions were helpless when it came to stopping a corporate executive who placed profit over the public health. Government was a concerned but helpless bystander. In this emotionally gripping book, David DeKok, a former award-winning investigative reporter and the author of widely praised books on the mine fire that devastated Centralia, Pennsylvania, brings this tragedy home by taking us into the lives of many of those most deeply affected. For modern-day readers acutely aware of the risk of a devastating global pandemic and of the dangers of unrestrained corporate power, The Epidemic provides a riveting look back at a heretofore little-known, frightening episode in America’s past that seems all too familiar.Written in the tradition of The Devil in the White City, it is an utterly compelling, thoroughly researched work of narrative history with an edge.

Randall Davidson provides a comprehensive history of the innovative work of Wisconsin's educational radio stations. Beginning with the first broadcast by experimental station 9XM at the University of Wisconsin, followed by WHA, through the state-owned affiliate WLBL, to the network of stations that in the years following WWII formed the Wisconsin Public Radio network, Davidson describes how, with homemade equipment and ideas developed from scratch, public radio became a tangible example of the Wisconsin Idea, bringing the educational riches of the university to all the state's residents. Marking the centennial year of Wisconsin Public Radio, this paperback edition includes a new foreword by Bill Siemering, National Public Radio's founding director of programming.

“This book will become the definitive work on the political, social, and military climate of the Purchase region during the Civil War.” —Kentucky Libraries During the Civil War, the majority of Kentuckians supported the Union under the leadership of Henry Clay, but one part of the state presented a striking exception. The Jackson Purchase—bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east—fought hard for separation and secession, and produced eight times more Confederates than Union soldiers. Supporting states’ rights and slavery, these eight counties in the westernmost part of the commonwealth were so pro-Confederate that the Purchase was dubbed “the South Carolina of Kentucky.” The first dedicated study of this key region, Kentucky Confederates provides valuable insights into a misunderstood and understudied part of Civil War history. Author Berry Craig draws from an impressive array of primary documents, including newspapers, letters, and diaries, to reveal the regional and national impact this unique territory had on the nation’s greatest conflict. Offering an important new perspective on this rebellious borderland and its failed bid for secession, Kentucky Confederates will serve as the standard text on the subject for years to come. “A masterpiece. Long overdue, it chronicles the history of a region of Kentucky that has received little or no attention by historians heretofore. It is my considered opinion Craig’s book will be the definitive work on his subject for many years.” —Kent Masterson Brown, author of Meade at Gettysburg