The history and future of the unique partnership between the City of Columbia and the University of South CarolinaState universities are more than just places of higher learning, more indeed than just campuses or buildings, and more than just students scurrying from class to class. They are a symbol of the future of the nation and a statement about the commitment the sponsoring state has made to its people. In turn each city or town that hosts, develops, and nurtur...

"[A] vital investigation of Forsyth’s history, and of the process by which racial injustice is perpetuated in America." —U.S. Congressman John LewisForsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century, was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. But then in September of 1912, three young black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One ...

Winner of the 2005 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.From the author of Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America and the National Book Award finalist Elegy for a Broken Machine: Poems, here is the first collection from award-winning poet Patrick Phillips.A river runs through Patrick Phillips’s collection Chattahoochee, and through a family saga as powerful and poignant as the landscape in which it unfolds. Here are tales of a van...

From New York City subway encounters to memories of pickup basketball games on Fourth Street, a love letter to the past, and to all the relationships and memories our homeplaces hold, from the National Book Award finalist.“I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of...

Mountain Love‘Each day I continue to feel a certain oneness with you, this mountain. There is something similar in our nature.’In this book, Mountain Love, eternal revolutionary, writer and artist Patrick Phillips presents to you something of his relationship with his local mountain (Meall nan Tarmachan and today, Ben Ledi) as an intimate conversation between them. However, his thoughts and love letters are addressed not only to his beloved mountai...

The poet Patrick Phillips brings us a stunning third collection that is at its core a son’s lament for his father. This book of elegies takes us from the luminous world of childhood to the fluorescent glare of operating rooms and recovery wards, and into the twilight lives of those who must go on. In one poem Phillips watches his sons play “Mercy” just as he did with his brother: hands laced, the stronger pushing the other back until he grunts for mercy, “a game we played // so many times ...

Formerly known as the President's House, then the Executive Mansion, and now for a long time the White House, this famous structure has a fascinating architectural history of ongoing change. The white painted facade of James Hoban's original structure has been added to and strengthened for more than 200 years, and its interior is a repository of some of America's greatest treasures. Artists such as Benjamin Latrobe, Pierre-Antoine Bellange, the Herter Brothers, Louis Tiffany, Charles McKim...

A positive legacy of the troubled Nixon administration--and one virtually unknown to the American public--is the extensive acquisition of valuable art and antiques for the White House and the redecoration of the executive mansion by Pat Nixon. With the help of an aggressive curator, Clement Conger, and a talented interior designer, Edward Vason Jones, the First Lady quietly erased much of the historic decor of Jacqueline Kennedy's Camelot and introduced an academic look to the State Rooms ...

A young policeman’s first day on duty becomes a violent and highly charged initiation into law enforcement, as the rookie cop becomes involved in a case of suspected domestic violence. Through the use of stereotypical characters, realist vernacular, physical brutality and frequent profanity, Williamson investigates ‘ocker culture’ and the violence and sexism which lurked underneath the veneer of Australian society. In doing so, he made room for Australian voices in a new and shocking way. ...

A gripping tale of racial cleansing in Forsyth County, Georgia, and a harrowing testament to the deep roots of racial violence in America.Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. Many black residents were poor sharecroppers, but others owned their own farms and the land on which they’d founded the coun...

From New York City subway encounters to memories of pickup basketball games on Fourth Street, a love letter to the past, and to all the relationships and memories our homeplaces hold, from the National Book Award finalist.“I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of...

In a work rich in maritime lore and brimming with original historical detail, Eric Jay Dolin, the bestselling author of Leviathan, presents the most comprehensive history of American lighthouses ever written, telling the story of America through the prism of its beloved coastal sentinels. Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fo...