Pa Books On Pcn

Every city in America is unique. Each has its own instructive tale of success and failure. What makes Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's story most valuable lies not in its life but in its death - and in the actions of those who killed it. In late 2011, Harrisburg became the first - and only - capital city in American history to file for bankruptcy. For four years, investigative reporter Chris Papst provided award-winning coverage of this unprecedented financial collapse. Now, he has authored a book sharing his experiences while detailing what went wrong. Chris Papst is a multiple Emmy-award winning investigative reporter whose work has initiated changes in law and sparked criminal investigations. He currently works at ABC 7/WJLA in Washington, DC.

In 2003, Benny Martinez became a Confidential Informant for a member of the Philadelphia Police Department's narcotics squad, helping arrest nearly 200 drug and gun dealers over seven years. But that success masked a dark and dangerous reality: the cops were as corrupt as the criminals they targeted. In addition to fabricating busts, the squad systematically looted mom-and-pop stores, terrorizing hardworking immigrant owners. One squad member also sexually assaulted three women during raids. Frightened for his life, Martinez turned to Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker. Busted chronicles how these two journalists—both middle-class working mothers—formed an unlikely bond with a convicted street dealer to uncover the secrets of ruthless kingpins and dirty cops. Professionals in an industry shrinking from severe financial cutbacks, Ruderman and Laker had few resources—besides their own grit and tenacity—to break a dangerous, complex story that would expose the rotten underbell

From the start, Chambersburg, a quiet farming community near the Maryland border, was truly the crossroads of destiny. In 1859, John Brown set the stage for conflict when he planned his raid on Harpers Ferry while he was staying in Chambersburg. This raid was the final spark that set off the Civil War. Then, for four long years, Chambersburg residents endured an influx of both Union and Confederate troops, often outnumbering them in their own community. As a staging area for the Union Army, thousands of soldiers prepared for war there. Its geographic proximity to the Confederacy brought such Confederate leaders as Generals JEB Stuart and Robert E. Lee to Chambersburg. All told, more than 150,000 soldiers- blue and gray- trod the streets of Chambersburg and camped in its environs. Ted Alexander, Park Historian at Antietam National Battlefield, is the author of more than a hundred articles and book reviews, and the author or co-author of several books on the Civil War.

MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents: a mother who led the new nation’s dance company and a father who would soon become a revered pioneer in black studies. But things fell apart, and a decade later MK was in America, a teenager lost in a fog of drugs, sex, and violence on the streets of North Philadelphia. Now he was alone—his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother locked up in a prison on the other side of the country—and forced to find his own way to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually, by any means necessary.
 
 MK Asante is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, hip-hop artist, and professor of creative writing and film at Morgan State University.

When visitors travel to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, they are encouraged to consume the local culture by way of "regional specialties" such as cream-filled whoopie pies and deep-fried fritters of every variety. Yet many of the dishes and confections visitors have come to expect from the region did not emerge from Pennsylvania Dutch culture but from expectations fabricated by local-color novels or the tourist industry. At the same time, other less celebrated (and rather more delicious) dishes, such as sauerkraut and stuffed pork stomach, have been enjoyed in Pennsylvania Dutch homes across various localities and economic strata for decades. Celebrated food historian and cookbook writer William Woys Weaver delves deeply into the history of Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine to sort fact from fiction in the foodlore of this culture. Through interviews with contemporary Pennsylvania Dutch cooks and extensive research into cookbooks and archives, As American as Shoofly Pie offers a comprehensive and counterintuitive cultur

Although hard coal’s labor history has received greater consideration in recent years, many untold stories remain. “Anthracite Labor Wars” tells the story of a thirty year labor war (from approximately 1905-1935) and its long-term consequences (up to 1960) for the workers and the industry. It was an evolving conflict not only between labor and management, but also between labor and labor, and labor and organized crime. Much of the fighting occurred between and among employees of the Pennsylvania Coal Company and the Hillside Coal & Iron Company- both owned by the Erie Railroad and, therefore, called the Erie Coal Companies- in the northern anthracite field around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. The book details the determined efforts by workers to organize against various workplace grievances, especially two forms of tenancy- the subcontracting system and the leasing system- initiated by management to achieve greater workplace control, productivity, and ultimately profits.

In this lively guide to the Gettysburg battlefield, Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler invite readers to participate in a tour of this hallowed ground. Ideal for carrying on trips through the park as well as for the armchair historian, this book includes comprehensive maps and deft descriptions of the action that situate visitors in time and place. Crisp narratives introduce key figures and events, and eye-opening vignettes help readers more fully comprehend the import of what happened and why. A wide variety of contemporary and postwar source materials offer colorful stories and present interesting interpretations that have shaped--or reshaped--our understanding of Gettysburg today. Carol Reardon is George Winfree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University and author of four books, including With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North. She has taught at West Point and the U.S. Army War College, and she leads staff rides and tours of

In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles—both in Europe and in the United States—Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children. Fewer than 1,200 unaccompanied children were allowed into the United States throughout the entire Holocaust, in which 1.5 million children perished. The fifty children saved by the Krauses turned out to be the single largest group of unaccompanied children brought to America. Steven Pressman was a magazine and newspaper journalist for more than thirty years. He is the author of Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile, and the writer,

In 1776, acclaimed historian David McCullough tells the intensely human story of the Revolutionary War during the nation’s tumultuous beginning, and the ragtag army on whose shoulders the fate of the war and the revolution rested. It is a story of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear. It is also a story of phenomenal courage, bedrock devotion, unparalleled sacrifice, and perseverance on the brink of disaster. David McCullough has twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Truman and John Adams, and twice received the National Book Award, for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback.