A high-spirited history of the role bourbon has played in American life and culture, "documented and full of folklore" ( Kirkus Reviews).The distinctive beverage of the Western world, bourbon is Kentucky's illustrious gift to the nation. While much has been written about whiskey, the particular place of bourbon in the American cultural record has long awaited detailed and objective presentation. A fascinating and informative contribution to Americana, ...

Americans have traveled a far piece since Goody Randall climbed over the back of a Bay Colony pew in defense of her social position, or a frontier Congressman tried to eat the doilies at a White House dinner, or, more recently, since the adjustable Emily Post interpreted the social law on whether a lady’s maid could appear in bobbed hair. (She could not!) With unfailing scholarship, great good humor and occasional overtones of irony when snobbery raises its ugly nose, Gerald Carson here po...

American social history has many faces, and this in its frame of reference is a not unimportant one. For the old country store was the focus of much of the economic, political, commercial, and human activity over a hundred years and more of our history. The storekeeper, at the end of the War of Independence, faced disaster until the country's currency was stabilized. Barter was the rule and not the exception- and continued to reflect the pattern of progress, as commodities changed hands. T...

A smooth and engaging narrative of the development of our most ubiquitous levy and an entertaining exegesis of its scripture, the Internal Revenue Code. Starting with history's earliest recorded taxes, Carson recounts the political and social forces which produced the Sixteenth Amendment and how that single fateful sentence has shaped American life for two generations. With each successive war, he shows, the personal income tax has grown more prepotent. In discussing the tax today, Carson ...

Absolutely hilarious—this is the captivating account of the Cornflake Crusade—that nineteenth-century evangelical movement of food faddists which brought ready-to-eat breakfast foods into every American home and put Battle Creek, Michigan, on the world map. This s the authentic story of our fantastic and insatiable interest in “scientific eating,” and is the obly book in print that will explain why the American child eats breakfast, while buried behind a fascinating cereal box. Strangely e...

Crossbreeding folklore, myth and history, Carson, who has a flair for cultural oddities (The Polite Americans, 1966; The Social History of Bourbon, 1963), offers an arresting account of how men have treated their beasts from the Stone Age to the 20th century pet shop.

Personal intrigue and social history are combined in this fascinating account of an American dentist in nineteenth century Paris. Dr. Thomas W. Evans, a Philadelphia dentist of pioneering skill and great charm, moved in the highest circles of France's Second Empire. His expertise gave American dentistry a special distinction, while his discretion made him the confidant of Europe's reigning families. When they wished to communicate discreetly, they simply made an appointment with their dent...

Bourbon, pronounced “ber-bun” in Kentucky where they ought to know, is the distinctive spirit of the Western world, the fine champagne cognac of the United States. Its place in American culture has long waited for objective treatment. The saga is a lively one, intimately associated with valor and splendor and the grace of life; with villainy, too, and folly and man’s inhumanity to man. And it has dramatic events such as the Whiskey Rebellion, the notorious “whiskey forts” of the fur trade,...

At various times there arises some extraordinary popular sorcerer to exploit the people in one or all of such potentially profitable fields as religion, politics and, of course, medicine. Such a man was John R. Brinkley, of Kansas, Texas, and Arkansas, medical maverick and potent radio personality, a physician and surgeon with sketchy training, lone-wolf ethics, a sense of glittering destiny and a free-wheeling spirit of adventure, who missed winning the governorship of Kansas twice by a m...

Ouvrage de préparation au concours de l'Agrégation externe d'anglais.

Is this the end of Carson Reno? Has he finally reached the end of the road, his Dead End? Is this Carson's last adventure? While trying to protect a client for Jack Logan, Carson finds himself in the middle of a family feud; a deadly feud with skeletons And bodies hidden in all the family closets. Murder, blackmail, infidelity, counterfeit money and, of course, the Mafia send Carson in search of a client that doesn't want to be found. In fact, finding the client could turn out to be the wo...

It’s a New Year and it has gotten off to a very bad start for Carson.Several prominent citizens and business leaders from Humboldt are dying in some strange and bizarre accidents. Carson becomes involved when an insurance company hires him to investigate.What happens next is even more strange and bizarre for this little town in West Tennessee.The clues are everywhere, but none of them make any sense. It may be that the ‘last man standing’ is responsible for...