Category Archives: Reviews

The Colonial Experience

Posted on June 5, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Americans: The Colonial Experience© 1967 Daniel Boorstin528 pages               Daniel Boorstin’s The Americans delivers a cultural history of the American colonies, beginning first with profiles on the disparate groups that settled on the eastern seaboard (Puritans, Quakers, and … Continue reading →

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Why Waco?

Posted on June 5, 2015 by smellincoffee

Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America © 1997 James Tabor 254 pages, including text of David Koresh’s manifesto on the “Seven Seals”     In February 1995, Federal forces arrived outside a large home owned … Continue reading →

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Rise of the Warrior Cop

Posted on May 30, 2015 by smellincoffee

Rise of the Warrior Cop: the Militarization of America’s Police Forces © 2013 Radney Balko 400 pages A man’s home is his castle…but now the cops have bettering rams.. Among the sins of George the III, according to the Declaration … Continue reading →

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Patriots

Posted on May 29, 2015 by smellincoffee

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse© 1995 James Wesley Rawles400 pages So…much…testosterone. Well, D.C. finally spent itself into oblivion. After decades of deficits and a series of bailouts that do nothing but inflate the problem, the financial … Continue reading →

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Harvest of Rage

Posted on May 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning© 1997 Joel Dyer307 pages In the spring of 1996, the peace of Oklahoma City was shattered when a truck bomb ignited outside a federal office.  Nearly two hundred people were … Continue reading →

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The Fiery Cross

Posted on May 26, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America© 1998 Wyn Craig Wade528 pages Living in the country as I did,  the bus ride to school always lasted over an hour, and in elementary school I remember being utterly petrified … Continue reading →

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The Wars of the Roses

Posted on May 25, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Wars of the Roses© 1996 Alison Weir496 pages The wars of the roses sounds like a gardening contest run amok, but no genteel horticulturists were involved.  The strange appellation refers to a series of dynastic crises in 15th century … Continue reading →

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Agincourt

Posted on May 25, 2015 by smellincoffee

Agincourt: Henry V and the  Battle that Made Englandbetter subtitled in the UK as The King — The Campaign — The Battle© 2006 Juliet Barker464 pages In the fourteenth century, nation-states as we know them did not exist. There was a … Continue reading →

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The South since the War

Posted on May 16, 2015 by smellincoffee

The South Since the War: As Shown by Fourteen Weeks of Travel and Observation in Georgia and the Carolinas© 1866 Sidney Andrews400 pages In the autumn of 1865, as the dust and ashes were still settling over the graves of … Continue reading →

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Hanging Curve

Posted on May 12, 2015 by smellincoffee

Hanging Curve © 1999 Troy Soos272 pages St. Louis, 1922. Babe Ruth reigns as the king of baseball. Mickey Rawlings is no king, not even a prince, but he is at least in the peerage: a utility infielder for the … Continue reading →

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