Author David Stealth's journey began more than forty years ago on the day he was sworn in as a Detroit, Michigan, law enforcement officer, a dream he had held since childhood. Stealth was proud to become one of "Detroits finest."In Force Divided, he shares stories of what life was like on the streets of Detroit as a police officer. In this memoir, he pays particular attention to the racial divide between white and black officers that occurred throughout his many years of service. S...

For over a century the Warren family has earned a hard and dangerous living, fishing out of Eden on the south coast of New South Wales. From the family's first fisherman, Old Ike, plying the coast in an open sailing boat in the late nineteenth century, to the Warrens today, using satellites and computers; from handlining to the brutal efficiency of purse seining, we witness a century of profound change that has forever altered the nature of our oceans. As the seasons unfold, and generation...

This is the story of Ivan Bender, growing up in a new resources rich country - Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), during one of the most violent periods of African history from 1948 to 1980. After a threatening encounter with a crocodile, an Ndebele warrior is assigned the job of being Ivan's guardian. A strong friendship develops between the warrior and the boy.Ivan's father is stricken by malaria and the family is forced to move to the city. There, two black waifs are taken into t...

In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it...

"Wanna stand in the face of a charging elephant, get hit by a motorcycle, eat giant water bugs, blowtorch your mouth on some of the hottest chili peppers on earth, then go watch a sex change operation? Of course you don't, but, happily, Jerry Hopkins has done all that and more—lots more—in this darkly humorous, deeply affectionate, clear-eyed but never patronizing portrait of Thailand, his adopted home. Highly recommended." —Tim Cahill, author of Lost in My Own Backyard, Hold t...

A frank and entertaining memoir, from the daughter of Edward Said, about growing up second-generation Arab American and struggling with that identity.The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted about her cultural background and identity. Said knew that her parents identified deeply with their homelands, but growing up in a Manhattan world that was defined largely by...

In this historically momentous memoir, the segregationist senator's mixed-race daughter speaks out about her life in the shadows.Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington–Williams comes forward with the dramatic story of her life. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, had been the nation's leading proponent of racial segregation. He famously undertook a twenty-four–hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, a desperate attempt to save ...

In this revealing social history, one remarkable White House dinner becomes a lens through which to examine race, politics, and the lives and legacies of two of America’s most iconic figures.In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a black man—and former slave—sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped buil...

An intimate yet frank biography of Gore Vidal, one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century. The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's biography probes behind the glittering surface of Vidal's colourful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual Who's Who of the American ...

With the help of his son, Danny, Herman Rittman narrates his experience of the Holocaust. His story begins in Romania, where his happy childhood was interrupted when Hungarian officials sent the Jews to the Oradea ghetto, then to Auschwitz. Here the fourteen-year-old experienced unimaginablecruelty and countless deaths. He is sent to a gas chamber, only to have his life spared by Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, in exchange for his participation in medical experiments.Hermans mov...

A riveting cautionary tale about the ecstasy and dangers of loving Marvin Gaye, a performer passionately pursued by all—and a searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye.After her seventeenth birthday in 1973, Janis Hunter met Marvin Gaye—the soulful prince of Motown with the seductive liquid voice whose chart-topping, socially conscious album What’s Going On made him a superstar two years earlier. Despite a seventeen-year-age d...