Showing results by narrator "Rick Adamson" in All Categories

From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons - a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced. Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more-than-human. 

The Electoral College that governs America has been with us since 1804, when Thomas Jefferson's supporters redesigned it for his re-election. The Jeffersonians were motivated by the principle of majority rule. Gone were the days when a president would be elected by acclamation, as George Washington had been. Instead, given the emergence of intense two-party competition, the Jeffersonians wanted to make sure that the Electoral College awarded the presidency to the candidate of the majority, rather than minority, party. 

Russia and China are both believed to have a "grand strategy" - a detailed set of goals backed by expansive ambitions. In the United States, policy makers have tried to articulate similar plans but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia's resurgence, China's great rise, North Korea's nuclear machinations, and Middle-East turmoil, Michael O'Hanlon presents a well-researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy.

Efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States face formidable political and constitutional barriers. Legislation that would ban or broadly restrict firearms runs afoul of the Supreme Court's current interpretation of the Second Amendment. And gun rights advocates have joined a politically savvy firearm industry in a powerful coalition that stymies reform. Ian Ayres and Fredrick Vars suggest a new way forward. We can decrease the number of gun deaths, they argue, by empowering individual citizens to choose common-sense gun reforms for themselves. 

Throughout the 20th century, "free enterprise" has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism.

From celebrated public intellectual, New York Times bestselling author, and “America’s most famous professor” (BookPage) comes an urgent and sharply observed look at freedom of speech and the First Amendment offering a “nonpartisan take on what it does and doesn’t protect and what kind...

As our workloads expand, attention has never been more valuable. Or more difficult to keep. In Can I Have your Attention?, Curt Steinhorst shows business leaders how to cut through the noise and get their employees back to work. Curt has spent years helping Fortune 500 companies overcome distraction and achieve focus. With technology creating endless opportunities to "improve productivity", people spend so much time responding to the interruptions that they've lost the ability to focus and do their jobs.

The surprising, rich life of tree swallows in nesting season—with Heinrich’s beautiful illustrations and photographs—by the acclaimed naturalist. Heinrich is sparked one early spring day by a question: Why does a pair of swallows in a nest-box close to his Maine cabin show an unvarying...

"You're the most famous railroad detective that nobody ever heard of," says railroad tycoon Henry Plant when in May of 1887 he hires Jimmy Lee "Choctaw" Parker to investigate the murder of his head surveyor and geologist Leon Skarvo. In a story that ranges from Tampa to Ybor City and along the Florida Southern Railroad line to Arcadia, Choctaw Parker and his colleagues battle deceitful politicians, bolita gamblers, and ruthless cracker cowboys to uncover the truth in this fast-paced mystery set in Florida during the Gilded Age.

The founder of Microsoft presents his vision for the future, in which he sees the digital technologies of the coming years changing the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate...

Kids Are Americans Too! And that means you have rights just like everybody else. But it's not enough to just say you have them. You have to know what those rights are...and are not! Luckily for you, Bill O'Reilly is back opining for kids on that very subject—your legal rights. O'Reilly and his...

Sixty years after the publication of his first novel, Cat Man, Edward Hogland is publishing his 25th book at the age of 83. This capstone novel, set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, introduces Press, a stockbroker going blind. Press has lost his job and his wife and is trying to figure out his next move, holed up in his Vermont cabin surrounded by a hippy commune, drug runners, farmers-gone-bust, blood-thirsty auctioneers, and general ne'er-do-wells.

Los Angeles is once again gripped by fear as a brutal predator stalks the streets. It's up to FBI Agents Constantine "Con" Striker and Alex Frost to stop them. But the case takes a darker turn when the crimes don't cease, even after an arrest is made. As Con battles his own demons and the unresolved fate of his sister Valerie, he must navigate a treacherous path filled with false leads and hidden dangers. The suspect's claims of innocence force Con and Alex to question everything they know about the case—and each other.

FBI Agent Constantine Striker has lost everything—his job, his partner, his family—and he's no closer to solving the decade-long mystery of his sister's disappearance. Alex Frost's career is in free fall. Branded a pariah after teaming up with Con, she's one mistake away from being fired. The last thing they need is to work together again. But with Con closing in on his sister's fate and Alex searching for her missing friends after a trip to Mexico, they have no choice but to join forces.

An anything-but-dry history textbook, Washington's History is a fascinating walk through the sweeping story of a place and its people. For centuries, the natural beauty and riches of the Northwest have excited the human imagination, from its first peoples to seafaring explorers, to westward-thinking pioneers, to technological thinkers and giants. A Washington resident himself, author Harry Ritter offers fifty-five vignettes that comprise an entertaining and informative picture of life in the Far Northwest.

Osamah Khalil argues that the militarization of US domestic and foreign affairs was the product of America's failure in Vietnam. Unsettled by their inability to prevail in Southeast Asia, US leaders increasingly came to see a host of problems as immune to political solutions. Rather, crime, drugs, and terrorism were enemies spawned in "badlands"—whether the Middle East or stateside inner cities. Characterized as sites of endemic violence, badlands lay beyond the pale of civilization, their ostensibly racially and culturally alien inhabitants best handled by force.

During Burning Man, the annual event of debauchery and independent self-reliance, a woman is found dead in a high-end RV, suspected to have overdosed on drugs. Former sheriff Keenan Fitzpatrick is hired by the woman's boyfriend to discover the true nature of her death. But there are complicating factors. First of all, the boyfriend is an actor who is starring in a detective series filming in the Reno, Nevada, area. Second, the actor is a conspiracy enthusiast who sees a government plot in everything from Bigfoot to Area 51.

Unfurling a tapestry of surprising and historically overlooked figures spanning forty centuries and six continents, historian Matthew Lockwood narrates lives filled with imagination and wonder, curiosity, connection, and exchange. Adventurers from every corner of the globe search for the unknown and try to understand it, remaking the world and themselves in the process. Exploration is for everyone who sets off into the unknown. It is the inheritance of all.

When former Reno, Nevada, sheriff Keenan Fitzpatrick wins a free moose hunting trip to Newfoundland, Canada, he is happy to get away from his current job as a casino security officer. Shortly after arriving at the isolated hunting lodge forty miles from the nearest road, a man is shot to death. The other guests and guides immediately recruit Fitz to solve the murder. But without any technology to run background on all of the characters at the lodge, Fitz must rely only on his personal skills to uncover the killer.

In this third Keenan Fitzpatrick Mystery, Fitz is called in to investigate a double homicide in the sleepy outback of Nevada. The county commission has illegally suspended the duly-elected sheriff and installed a young deputy with no tangible investigative experience. When Fitz gets to this former stagecoach stop by the old Pony Express, he immediately clashes with the locals. Soon, Fitz is butting heads with the federal government and established families that want this case to just go away.