Travel writer Christine des Garennes has lived in her adopted home of Illinois for over a decade, and in Moon Illinois she shares her insider knowledge on the best ways to explore the heart of America. Beyond Chicago and the tourist-friendly Wrigley Field and Lincoln Park Zoo, des Garennes takes travelers into agricultural country, where local farmer's markets reign in the central region of Illinois known as the Grand Prairie. She also provides unique trip strategies for a variety of travelers, including Day-Tripping Around Chicago and Outdoor Adventure in Southern Illinois. From touring the Frank Lloyd Wright homes of Oak Park to hiking along the Little Grand Canyon Scenic Trail, Moon Illinois gives travelers the tools they need to create a more personal and memorable experience.

For a brief time following the end of the U.S. Civil War, American political leaders had an opportunity—slim, to be sure, but not beyond the realm of possibility—to remake society so that black Americans and other persons of color could enjoy equal opportunity in civil and political life. It was not to be. With each passing year after the war—and especially after Reconstruction ended during the 1870s—American society witnessed the evolution of a new white republic as national leaders abandoned the promise of Reconstruction and justified their racial biases based on political, economic, social, and religious values that supplanted the old North-South/slavery-abolitionist schism of the antebellum era. A Long Dark Night provides a sweeping history of this too often overlooked period of African American history that followed the collapse of Reconstruction—from the beginnings of legal segregation through the end of World War II. Michael J. Martinez argues that the 1880s ushered in the dark night of the American Negro—a night so dark and so long that the better part of a century would elapse before sunlight broke through. Combining both a “top down” perspective on crucial political issues and public policy decisions as well as a “bottom up” discussion of the lives of black and white Americans between the 1880s and the 1940s, A Long Dark Night will be of interest to all readers seeking to better understand this crucial era that continues to resonate throughout American life today.

In Sea of Fire Patrick Featherstone, a former JSOC sniper is pressed back into service to find CIA agent Tyler Kang who has apparently defected to North Korea with sensitive missile technology. Patrick has been practicing Buddhism in Japan, but finally agrees to find, and if necessary, kill, Tyler Kang despite his Buddhist vow of non-violence. However, Patrick has a hidden agenda --- to rescue the love of his life from a North Korean prison. Before leaving, he learns of a possible coup at the highest level of the North Korean power structure, a coup which could easily spill over into an invasion of South Korea and a retaliatory nuclear response. In the end only Patrick is positioned to avert a nuclear disaster of cataclysmic proportions. With breathtaking plot twists, complex characters, heart-felt romance, and revealing insights into the most mysterious country on the planet, Sea of Fire sweeps from the gulags of North Korea to the corridors of power in Washington.

Includes maps of the U.S. Congressional districts.