This myth-busting military biography reveals the true story of the legendary WWII German flying ace—and how his story was manipulated during the Cold War.Over the course of 1,404 wartime missions, Luftwaffe fighter pilot Erich Hartmann claimed a staggering 352 airborne kills. His storied career contains all the dramas you would expect: frostbitten fighter sweeps over the Eastern Front, drunken forays to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, a decade of imprisonment in the...

With over 1,404 wartime missions, Erich Hartmann claimed a staggering 352 airborne kills, and his career contains all the dramas you would expect. There were the frostbitten fighter sweeps over the Eastern Front, drunken forays to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, a decade of imprisonment in the wretched Soviet POW camps, and further military service during the Cold War that ended with conflict and angst.Hartmann was adopted by a network of writers and commentators personally invested in his ...

They don't have to be smarter than you.They only have to know what you're thirsty for.Belonging. Certainty. Purpose. Anger. Revenge. Someone to blame. Someone to follow.And then they hand you the glass.In THE KOOL-AID DRINKERS: BOTH SUGAR AND SUGAR FREE, Erik Von Schmidt takes a vicious look at the people who surrender their judgment to politicians, preachers, movements, influencers, racial ideologies, conspiracy merchants, and anyone else p...

A DEMOCRACY IS NOT OVERRUN. IT IS OUTNODDED.My Little Führers by Erik Von Schmidt is a chilling work of political fiction that examines how democracies fracture—not through sudden coups, but through language, fear, and quiet compliance. Drawing on documented historical patterns of authoritarian rise, the novel traces a near-future nation as power centralizes, dissent softens, and cruelty is gradually reframed as necessity.Through multiple perspectives—polit...

Three men are dead. An eighty-year-old Black man pulled the trigger. No one disputes what he did. The question that divides America is why.Elwood Dawkins only wanted to make a quick stop at a convenience store in Elloree, South Carolina.Then he walked outside.Three white supremacists drinking beside a pickup truck displaying a Confederate flag block his path. They laugh at the elderly man, tell him to shine their shoes, order him to pick cotton, and call him "boy."

Before history decides who was responsible, it must first decide what really happened.In late 2019, a mysterious virus emerged from Wuhan, China. Within months, the world had changed in ways few believed possible. Borders closed. Economies collapsed. Entire cities fell silent. Families were separated. Hospitals overflowed. Military units patrolled deserted streets. Millions would die as governments struggled to understand an invisible enemy that ignored politics, wealth, and nation...

When You Fail to Parentby Erik Von SchmidtA child does not become lost overnight.There are warnings first.The tantrum no one corrects. The lie no one confronts. The teacher no one believes. The victim no one protects. The police report everyone pretends is a misunderstanding. The cruelty excused as personality. The rage dismissed as a phase. The disrespect laughed off until it grows teeth.Then one day the phone rings....

What does a nation built on bondage do with the memory of bondage?For generations, the phrase forty acres and a mule has represented one of the most consequential promises in American history—a promise that briefly offered a path from emancipation to economic independence before being revoked.In 40 Acres & A Mule "Never!", Erik Von Schmidt examines the economic legacy of that decision and asks a question that remains as controversial today...

“They call it golf, because all the other four-letter words were taken.” - AnonymousWhen links journeyman Lee Douglas and his bumbling caddie Victor Danielson land an unlikely invitation to the world’s biggest tournament, it feels like a movie.Of course, not all movies have happy endings.Suddenly entangled with a host of meddling suits and a small-town population ranging from eccentric to evil—not to mention a slew of surreal developments--Douglas and Danie...

"A cornucopia of knowledge and insight on the biggest questions in the sociolegal tradition . . . an invaluable resource for researchers and teachers." —Michael McCann, Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship, University of WashingtonLaw and society scholars challenge the common belief that law is simply a neutral tool by which society sets standards and resolves disputes. Decades of research shows how much the nature of communities, organiz...

The Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice known as Dzogchen is a pragmatic method for getting in touch with the pure, clear awareness that is hidden under our constant flow of anxious thoughts. Dzogchen Essentials makes available the methods to meet and utilize this rich spiritual path.Marcia Binder Schmidt, a long time, close attendant to one of the foremost Dzogchen Masters of the last century, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, has put together the most comprehensive and accessible collectio...

Joshua Heter and David O’Hara have circled a diverse group of camper-philosophers around the fire in Camping and Philosophy: Big Ideas in the Great Outdoors to try to answer some unanswerable questions. There is an entire cosmos of reasons campers have been prone to spiritual experiences since humanity started sleeping under the stars (by choice) thousands of years ago. And these twenty-seven chapters offer their own answers to the questions asked by campers across the globe. What...