Heyday brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in modern history. Over the course of the 1850s, the world was reshaped by technology, trade, mass migration and war. The global economy expanded fivefold, millions of families emigrated to the ends of the earth to carve out new lives, technology revolutionized how people communicated, and a steamships and railways cut across vast continents and oceans, shrinking the world and creating the first global age. It was a decade of breathtaking and remorseless transformation, fueled by the promise of exponential progress. In Heyday, the acclaimed historian Ben Wilson recreates this time of explosive energy and dizzying change, a rollercoaster ride of booms and busts. The 1850s were witness to the laying of the first undersea cable in 1851, the rush for gold from California to Australia, and fleets of pirate vessels docked in Hong Kong harbor, eager to take advantage of booming trade. The West's insatiable hunger for land, natural resources, and new markets encouraged free trade, bold exploration, and colonization like never before. Buoyed by supreme self-confidence -- as well as new technologies of war -- nations clashed across the globe, and indigenous peoples fell victim to an assurgent West. Reckless economic expansion led to lasting ecological damage, and to the demise of local cultures which could not keep pace with the blistering pace of capitalism and free trade. In Heyday we encounter Muslim guerrilla fighters in the Caucasus Mountains and freelance empire-builders in the jungles of Nicaragua, British free trade zealots preying on China and samurai warriors resisting Western incursions in Japan. A dazzling history of a tumultuous decade, Heyday traces the origins of our globalized world order.

During World War I, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) rose to prominence as an effective, militant union and then was destroyed by a devastating campaign of repression launched by the federal government. This book documents the rise and fall of this important industrial labor organization. The Industrial Workers of the World—or "Wobblies," as they were known—included legendary figures from U.S. labor history. Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn have become a part of American popular folklore. In this book, author Eric T. Chester shows just how dynamic a force the IWW was during its heyday during World War I, and how determined the federal government was to crush this union—a campaign of repression that remains unique in U.S. history. This work utilizes a wide array of archival sources, many of them never used before, thereby giving readers a clearer view and better understanding of what actually happened. The book leads with an examination of the three key events in the history of the IWW: the Wheatfield, CA, confrontation; the Bisbee, AZ, deportation; and the strike of copper miners in Butte, MT. The second part of the book deconstructs the IWW's responses to World War I, the coordinated attack by the federal government upon the union, and how the union unraveled under this attack.

First published in 1961, this book examines a number of works popular in the Romantic period, during the heyday of Sir Walter Scott in the early part of the nineteenth century. Encompassing works by the likes of Alexander Pushkin, Sir Walter Scott, Adam Mickiewicz and James Fenimore Cooper, this is also a meditation on the nature of Romanticism and its enduring value, as expressed in the novel form. Donald Davie also considers the meaning and importance of ‘plot’ and of ‘realism’.

The Independent's Best Sports Book of the Year, 2015 Christmas Day 1959 and legions of schoolboys up and down the country feverishly unwrapped the very first Topical Times Football Book. On the cover Bobby Charlton smacked a leather ball out of a pillar-box red background and, although this wasn't the first yearbook, it heralded the golden age of the Christmas football annual. As the sixties progressed, the shelves in Woolworth's and the local newsagent began to bulge with titles reflecting the expanding, exciting world of football - Charles Buchan's Soccer Gift Book nestled next to the International Football Book and the Midlands Soccer Annual. These annuals were educational and insightful, taking the reader into the changing rooms, the supporters' club lounges, and the manager's mind ahead of a tough season. Beautifully illustrated, they helped shape the football consciousness of a generation. In The Heyday of The Football Annual Ian Preece and Doug Cheeseman bottle the essence of these publications. They travel back in time to a world where Forfar Athletic and Doncaster Rovers had equal billing with Manchester United and Arsenal, where debate raged over the use of goal average, and Huddersfield v Carlisle was the main game on Match of the Day. Along the way, leading football writers Richard Williams, Jonathan Wilson, Patrick Collins and Derek Hammond, among others, share their memories - not only of 'soccer' annuals but of an era when the unveiling of Dundee's new stand was deemed worthy of a two-page spread, and Scunthorpe's pre-season tour to Ibiza merited a lengthy feature. This was a world where footballers grew chrysanthemums for a hobby, drank tea down the local café to pass the time, and Coventry City were the go-ahead club of the future. For better, and (certainly) for worse, it's a world long gone.

Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards is an exhilarating collection, as brash as it is wise, by Robert Boswell one of our great storytellers Set mainly in small, gritty American cities, each of these stories is a world unto itself. A man's obsessive visits to a fortuneteller leave him nearly homeless. Time collapses as two marriages slowly dissolve. And in the searing title story, a young man recounts the summer he spent in a mountain town, squatting in a borrowed house with a loose band of slackers, abstaining from all drugs (other than mushrooms)—and ultimately asking just what kind of harm we can do to one another.

A nostalgic collection of illustrations that capture the golden era of pleasure steamers on the Thames.

Annotation A retired research librarian chronicles the mercurial career of Canadian-born Rankin (1844-1914), an innovator of the early US theater. Rankin was a leading actor, playwright, and creator of a school of acting in New York and a notable repertory theater in San Francisco. Period photographs show Rankin in his heyday, as well as other actorse.g., the Barrymoreswith whom he was associated. Appendices list his progeny and plays. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The UAW engaged in these struggles in an attempt to build a cross-class, multiracial reform coalition that would push American politics beyond liberalism and toward social democracy. The effort was in vain; forced to work within political structures - particularly the postwar Democratic party - that militated against change, the union was unable to fashion the alliance it sought. The UAW's political activism nevertheless suggests a new understanding of labor's place in postwar American politics and of the complex forces that defined liberalism in that period. The book also supplies the first detailed discussion of the impact of the Vietnam War on a major American union and shatters the popular image of organized labor as being hawkish on the war.