The Appalachian Volunteers formed in the early 1960s, determined to eliminate poverty through education and vocational training and improve schools and homes in the mountainous regions of the southeastern United States. In Reformers to Radicals: The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty, Thomas Kiffmeyer illustrates how the activists ultimately failed, mainly because they were indecisive about the fundamental nature of their mission. The AVs, many of them college students, were also distracted by causes not directly connected with the war on poverty, such as civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. Despite some progress, the organization finally lost the support of the national government, and more important, of the Appalachian people, setbacks from which it never recovered.

The 1876 United States Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was not only the United States' first important world's fair, it signaled significant changes in the very shape of knowledge. Quarrels between participants in the exhibition represented a greater conflict as the world transitioned between two different kinds of modernity--the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the High Modern period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.At the center of this movement was a shift in the perceived relationship between seeing and knowing and in the perception of what makes an object valuable--its usefulness as a subject of study and learning versus its ability to be bought and sold on the market. Arguments over design of the Centennial reflected these opposing viewpoints. Initial plans were rigidly structured, dividing the exhibits by country and type. But as some exhibitors became more interested in the preferences of their audience, they adopted a more modern stance. Objects traditionally displayed in isolated glass boxes were placed in fictive context -- the necklace draped over a mannequin, the vase set on a table in a model room. As a result, the audience could more easily perceive these items as commodities suitable for their own environments and the fair as a place to find ideas for a material lifestyle.Designing the Centennial is a vital first look at the design process and the nature of the display. Bruno Giberti uses official reports of the U.S. Centennial Commission and photographs of the Centennial Photographic Company, as well as the ephemera of the exhibition and literary accounts in books, magazines, and newspapers to illuminate how the 1876 fair revealed changes to come: in future world's fairs, museums, department stores, and in the nature of display itself.

In Kentucky, the slavery debate raged for thirty years before the Civil War began. While whites in the lower South argued that slavery was good for master and slave, many white Kentuckians maintained that because of racial prejudice, public safety, and property rights, slavery was necessary but undeniably evil. Harold D. Tallant shows how this view bespoke a real ambivalence about the desirability of continuing slavery in Kentucky and permitted an active abolitionist movement in the state to exist alongside contented slaveholders. Though many Kentuckians were increasingly willing to defend slavery against northern opposition, they did not always see this defense as their first political priority. Tallant explores the way in which the disparity between Kentuckians' ideals and their actions helped make Kentucky a quintessential border state.

In Kentucky Horse Country: Images of the Bluegrass, renowned photographer James Archambeault captures the natural beauty of Kentucky's Bluegrass region and the thoroughbred industry for which it is famous. Kentucky Horse Country contains 165 full-color images, from tender scenes of mares and foals grazing, to the excitement of race day at Keeneland, to gorgeous landscapes of white fences enclosing lush rolling hills. The book also includes rare photographs of some of the legendary horses that have made horse racing so exciting and popular: Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and others. The photographs in Kentucky Horse Country are accompanied by captions and narrative descriptions by Archambeault, as well as an informative introduction to the history of thoroughbreds in the Bluegrass by preeminent racing historian Edward L. Bowen. The book also includes a foreword by Kentucky native Steve Cauthen, the youngest jockey ever to win the Triple Crown. Archambeault's latest work is a Kentucky treasure, both for fans of horses and horse racing and for lovers of the beauty of the Bluegrass.

Published by the Kentucky Historical Society & Distributed by the University Press of KentuckyThis is the second part of a two-volume study which covers the entire spectrum of the black experience in Kentucky from earliest exploration and settlement to 1980. Mandated and partially funded by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1978, this pathbreaking work is the most comprehensive consideration of the subject ever undertaken. It fills a long-recognized void in Kentucky history. George C. Wright describes the struggle of blacks in the twentieth century to achieve the promise of political, social, and economic equality. From the rising tide of racism and violence at the turn of the century to the civil rights movement and school integration in later decades, Wright describes the accomplishments, frustrations, and defeats suffered by the race, concluding that even in 1980 only a few blacks had actually achieved the long-sought toal of equality.

" Published by the Kentucky Historical Society and Distributed by the University Press of Kentucky This period of Kentucky's history began with the unsettled society following the close of the Civil War, included bloody feuds, and closed with the tragic Goebel assassination. This book is the most thorough and most ambitious study yet made of that significant time, and the authors recapture the drama and color of these exciting, violent, partisan, and important years.Dr. Tapp and

On small-town ballfields and county fairgrounds, the sideshow performers set up their tents and trailers in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. There they amazed us with daring feats such as fire eating and sword swallowing, intrigued us with exhibitions of human oddities and various "anatomical wonders," and yes, deceived us with illusions such as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" and even outright fakes. These bizarre spectacles engaged the mind as well as the eye. Was the human blockhead act, in which the performer pounded a large nail or ice pick into his nostril, real or fake? Was the so-called alligator boy genuine or a "gaffed" oddity, painted with glue to produce a scaly simulation of reptilian skin? While the sideshows have now all but vanished from the American landscape, they leave a fascinating legacy of romance and mystery. Many of their secrets remain, only grudgingly given up, if at all, by aging showmen and "bally talkers." Joe Nickell -- once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, a private detective, and an investigative writer -- has pursued sideshow secrets for years. He has interviewed the showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched the published literature, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails while a cinderblock was broken on his chest. Secrets of the Sideshows reveals the specific methods and tricks behind the performances, the showmen's tactics for recruiting performers and attracting crowds, and more. Nickell also examines the behind-the-scenes secrets of sideshow life, including details of the remarkable personal lives of those men and women billed as "freaks."

The war diary of General Courtney Hicks Hodges begins on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the U.S. First Army prepare for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France. Hodges' aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., recorded daily entries, which Hodges reviewed and approved. The diary chronicles Hodges's ascent to Commanding General in August 1944, as well as his viewpoints on strategy and the enemy, and follows Hodges and the First Army through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. Edited and extensively annotated by John T. Greenwood, Normandy to Victory makes a classic military document widely available to the general public for the first time.

Considered one of most influential U. S. military officers of the twentieth century, William E. DePuy (1919--1992) developed the education and training program that regenerated the U.S. Army after the Vietnam War. Henry G. Gole draws from sources such as transcripts and letters in DePuy's personal papers, interviews with those who knew him best, and secondary literature to trace DePuy's life from child to decorated officer to commander of Training and Doctrine Command. General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War is the first book-length biography of the important figure who revolutionized military training and created a modern program for doctrine, education, and combat development that is still used today.

"The year 1816 found America on the cusp of political, social,cultural, and economic modernity. Celebrating its fortieth year of independence, the country's sense of self was maturing. Americans, who had emerged from the War of 1812 with their political systemsintact, embraced new opportunities. For the first time, citizens viewed themselves not as members of a loose coalition of states but as part of a larger union. This optimism was colored, however, by bizarre weather. Periods of extreme cold and severe drought swept the northern states and the upper south throughout 1816, which was sometimes referred to as "The Year Without a Summer." Faced with thirty-degree summer temperatures, many farmers migrated west in search of better weather and more fertile farmlands. In 1816, historian C. Edward Skeen illuminates this unique year of national transition. Politically, the "era of good feelings" allowed Congress to devise programs that fostered prosperity. Social reform movements flourished. This election year found the Federalist party in its death throes, seeking cooperation with the nationalistic forces of the Republican party. Movement west, maturation of political parties, and increasingly contentious debates over such issues as slavery characterized this pivotal year. 1816 marked a watershed in American history. This provocative new book vividly highlights the stresses that threatened to pull the nation apart and the bonds that ultimately held it together.

At the beginning of World War II, Heinz August Lüning, posing as a Jewish refugee, was sent to Cuba to spy for the Third Reich. Lüning's assignment was to collect information about the United States and its allies and report back to Abwehr, the German foreign intelligence agency. The Caribbean waters Lüning monitored were important to the Allies both for shipping and for deploying ships between the various fronts. Despite some early setbacks, Lüning provided information on naval activities to the Germans. Ultimately, however, Lüning was arrested and became the only Nazi spy executed in Latin America during World War II. For at least five months after Lüning's arrest, U.S. and Cuban leaders -- J. Edgar Hoover, Fulgencio Batista, Nelson Rockefeller, General Manuel Benítez, Ambassador Spruille Braden, and others -- treated Lüning as the dangerous, key spy for a Nazi espionage network in the Gulf-Caribbean.British counterintelligence agent Graham Greene, who oversaw one group supervising Nazi communications areas, picked up Lüning's story and made it into a seminal spy novel. In Hitler's Man in Havana, Thomas Schoonover investigates the true story of the life, career, and death of Heinz August Lüning. In the sixty years since Lüning worked in the Caribbean, very little has been written about Nazi espionage in Latin America because the U.S. government kept much of the material secret. Schoonover draws from extensive research to recreate Lüning's story and explore the significance of his life and capture.

They're impossible to miss at grocery stores and newsstands in America: colorful, heavily illustrated tabloid newspapers with headlines promising shocking, unlikely, and sometimes impossible stories within. Although ubiquitous now, the supermarket tabloid's origin can be traced to one man: Generoso Pope Jr. (1921--1988), an eccentric, domineering chain-smoker who died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-one. In The Godfather of Tabloid, Jack Vitek explores the life and career of Pope and the founding of the mother of all tabloids, the National Enquirer. Upon graduating from MIT, Pope worked briefly for the CIA until he purchased the New York Enquirer with dubious financial help from mob boss Frank Costello. Working with American journalists and Brits from Fleet Street, Pope changed the name, format, and content of the modest newspaper until it resembled nothing America had seen before. Grounded in interviews with Pope and his detractors and associates, The Godfather of Tabloid is the first comprehensive look at the life of a man who created a newspaper genre and changed the world of publishing forever.

Agriculture is the most fundamental of all human activities. Today, those who till the soil or tend livestock feed a world population of approximately 6.5 billion. Fifty years ago, the planet could not have sustained such a large population, and according to present projections, farmers will have to feed nine billion people by 2050. The greatest agricultural revolution in history has occurred in the last fifty years, with farmers in the United States leading the way. America's declining number of farms, however, comes as a surprise to many and may have dramatic implications. Paul K. Conkin's A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 charts the profound changes in farming that have occurred during his lifetime. Conkin's personal experience growing up on a small Tennessee farm complements compelling statistical data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Using economic and historical analysis, Conkin assesses the skills, new technologies, and government policies that helped transform American farming. He clarifies the present status of a subsidized, large-scale, mechanized, and chemically supported agriculture, evaluates its environmental and human costs, and surveys alternatives to a troubled, widely challenged system.

Americans are turning to popular culture to make sense of the American political system, a trend that explains the success of television shows such as The Simpsons, The West Wing, The Daily Show, and Chapelle's Show and films such as Election, Bulworth, and Wag the Dog. In Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture, Joseph J. Foy has assembled a multidisciplinary team of scholars with backgrounds in political science, philosophy, law, cultural studies, and music. The essays tackle common assumptions about government and explain fundamental concepts such as civil rights, democracy, and ethics. Homer Simpson Goes to Washington will appeal to students of American politics and to readers with an interest in current events or popular culture.

"Listening to the Beat of the Bomb" UPK author Charles Wolfe discusses his work and his new book Country Music Goes to War in the NEW YORK TIMES. While Toby Keith suggests that Americans should unite in support of the president, the Dixie Chicks assert their right to criticize the current administration and its military pursuits. Country songs about war are nearly as old as the genre itself, and the first gold record in country music went to the 1942 war song "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" by Elton Britt. The essays in Country Music Goes to War demonstrate that country musicians' engagement with significant political and military issues is not strictly a twenty-first-century phenomenon. The contributors examine the output of country musicians responding to America's large-scale confrontation in recent history: World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the cold war, September 11, and both conflicts in the Persian Gulf. They address the ways in which country songs and artists have energized public discourse, captured hearts, and inspired millions of minds. Charles K. Wolfe, professor of English and folklore at Middle Tennessee State University, is the author of numerous books and articles on music. James E. Akenson, professor of curriculum and instruction at Tennessee Technological University, is the founder of the International Country Music Conference. Together they have edited the collections The Women of Country Music, Country Music Annual 2000, Country Music Annual 2001, and Country Music Annual 2002.

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park is home to the world's longest cave system, boasting over 365 miles of explored and mapped passageways. Geologists estimate that there could be as many as 600 miles of this vast subterranean world that remain unexplored. In addition to the renowned Mammoth Cave, the park also includes over 50,000 acres of untouched hills, streams, and forests. Almost 70 miles of scenic trails cross the area, and the Green River winds through the landscape. Nearly two million visitors from all over the world come to the park each year to explore and enjoy nature. In 2003, nature photographer Raymond Klass was awarded an artist-in-residence position at the park and was granted special access to the cave and the surrounding wilderness. For nearly three months he lived in the park, taking thousands of photographs of famous cave formations such as Frozen Niagara and the Drapery Room as well as scenery and vistas not often accessible to the general public. Mammoth Cave National Park: Reflections is Klass's unique visual exploration of both the above- and belowground ecosystems within the park. With over 100 dramatic full-color photographs accompanied by Klass's commentary and extracts from his journal entries he kept while living and working in the park, the book is a celebration of this distinctive environment and of the extraordinary diversity of one of our most popular national parks.