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The Philadelphia Athletics dominated the first fourteen years of the American League, winning six pennants through 1914 under the leadership of their founder and manager, Connie Mack. But beginning in 1915, where volume 2 in Norman L. Macht’s biography picks up the story, Mack’s teams fell from pennant winners to last place and, in an unprecedented reversal of fortunes, stayed there for seven years. World War I robbed baseball of young players, and Mack’s rebuilding efforts using green youngsters of limited ability made his teams the objects of public ridicule. At the age of fifty-nine and in the face of widespread skepticism and seemingly insurmountable odds, Connie Mack reasserted his genius, remade the A’s, and rose again to the top, even surpassing his earlier success. Baseball biographer and historian Macht recreates what may be the most remarkable chapter in this larger-than-life story. He shows us the man and his time and the game of baseball in all its nitty-gritty glory of the 1920s, and how Connie

“The Complete Gettysburg Guide” Some two million people visit the battlefield at Gettysburg each year. It is one of the most popular historical destinations in the United States. Most visitors tour the field by following the National Park Service's suggested auto tour. The standard tour, however, skips crucial monuments, markers, battle actions, town sites, hospital locations, and other hidden historical gems that should be experienced by everyone. These serious oversights are fully rectified in The Complete Gettysburg Guide, penned by noted Gettysburg historian J. David Petruzzi and illustrated with the full-color photography and maps of Civil War cartographer Steven Stanley. J. David Petruzzi is the author of many magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours of cavalry sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular “Buford’s Boys” website.

The early settlement of the region around Pittsburgh was characterized by a messy collision of personal, provincial, national, and imperial interests. Driven by the efforts of Europeans, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and Indians, almost everyone attempted to manipulate the clouded political jurisdiction of the region. A Colony Sprung from Hell traces this complex struggle. The events and episodes that make up the story highlight the difficulties of creating and consolidating authority along the frontier, where the local population’s acceptance or denial of authority determined the extent to which any government could impose its will. Ultimately, what was at stake was the nature of authority itself. Daniel Barr is professor of early American history at Robert Morris University in suburban Pittsburgh. His previous books include Unconquered: The Iroquois League at War in Colonial America and The Boundaries between Us: Natives and Newcomers along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750–1850.

The Pennsylvania state leagues of the 1880s and 1890s rank among the most interesting minor leagues in the history of baseball. The rules were changing, the world around baseball, particularly the economy, was changing and things that would seem impossible in a later time were happening every year.

These leagues had not only black players but also wholly black teams. They had great major leaguers--on their way up but also on the way back down. In fact, the greatest player of the age, surrounded by what would have been a major league all-star team only a few years before, played in a Pennsylvania minor league for almost a full season. The play was exciting, the players were exciting and the owners, managers and league politics were often more interesting than the games. Paul Browne is executive director of the Carbondale Technology Transfer Center. A member of SABR since the mid-1990s, he has contributed to the SABR BioProject site, SABR’s Nineteenth and Minor Leagues Committee newsletters and local newspap

On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero. Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths. David Maraniss is

“Civil War Voices from York County, PA” “Civil War Voices from York County, PA” mixes reminiscences from the inhabitants of York County, Pa., many handed down to descendants, with a strong focus on the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Authors Scott Mingus and James McClure have uncovered or received dozens of previously unpublished diaries, journals, Civil War letters from the field, and similar first-person accounts that provide glimpses into the hearts of the soldiers and citizens.  We see the loneliness of a Yorker serving as a guard at Fort Monroe, Va., whose mundane routine is broken by a visit from U.S. Grant and President Lincoln. We see the fear and uncertainty expressed by a worried housewife as rumors of the impending Confederate invasion reach northwestern York County. We hear the defiance in the voice of a former soldier who is willing to pick up the musket again in defense of his country. We hear the voice of a young York man who helps in the gruesome field hospitals at Gettysburg, an experience that

“The Civil War in Pennsylvania” In partnership with Pennsylvania Civil War 150, the statewide initiative to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the History Center recently launched a new book, “The Civil War in Pennsylvania: A Photographic History.” Written by Michael Kraus, David Neville, and Kenneth Turner, and edited by the History Center’s Brian Butko, the book features a collection of 475 rare and unpublished images that highlight Pennsylvania’s role on the battlefield and on the home front.

Despite being geographically cut off from large trade centers and important natural resources, Pittsburgh transformed itself into the most formidable steel-making center in the world. Beginning in the 1870s, under the engineering genius of magnates such as Andrew Carnegie, steel-makers capitalized on western Pennsylvania’s rich supply of high-quality coal and powerful rivers to create an efficient industry unparalleled throughout history. In City of Steel, Ken Kobus explores the evolution of the steel industry to celebrate the innovation and technology that created and sustained Pittsburgh’s steel boom. Focusing on the Carnegie Steel Company’s success as leader of the region’s steel-makers, Kobus goes inside the science of steel-making to investigate the technological advancements that fueled the industry’s success. City of Steel showcases how through ingenuity and determination Pittsburgh’s steel-makers transformed western Pennsylvania and forever changed the face of American industry and business.

This is the first book ever devoted exclusively to Chuck Noll and it is long overdue.  You will learn much about this man who was rated the No.5 coach of all time in a poll taken in 2013. Jim O’Brien has interviewed Noll many times through the years and, most recently, he has interviewed some of the great players from those teams of the ‘70s and ‘80s who shed some interesting light on their coach.  You also catch up on what’s become of those great players from the Steelers when they were the Team of the Decade.  Jim O’Brien is proud to be the only Pittsburgher ever named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame. He was honored at the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament in New Orleans in April of 2003. O’Brien has also won the Bob Prince Award for his contributions to journalism, the Vectors’ David L. Lawrence Award for promoting Pittsburgh through his books, and was inducted into the Western Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. He was honored as a “Legend” by the Pittsburgh Chapter of the

A hugely successful businessman and entrepreneur, American candy magnate Milton Hershey and his wife Catherine were unable to have children of their own, so the couple set up a trust in 1909 and created the Hershey Industrial School for fatherless, healthy, Caucasian boys. Ever since its creation, the huge legal trust has poured profits from the candy business into this charitable venture, and is legally stipulated to do so in perpetuity. Since the inception of what is now known as the Milton Hershey School, the institution has become the nation s richest residential facility for impoverished youth and the richest private school. As Bob Fernandez reveals in The Chocolate Trust: Deception, Indenture and Secrets at the $12 Billion Milton Hershey School, the school was established to help poor children in need. In fact, Milton Hershey forced widows to sign indentures, or contracts, for their boys so that they could benefit from his charity. The boys themselves lived and worked on the dozens of dairy farms integ

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.