Bøger om District of Columbia

The New York Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of 2022Named one of Vanity Fair's "Best Books of 2022""Not since Robert Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history."-George StephanopoulosWashington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick's Secret City.For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" held enormous, terrifying power.Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of "the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States," James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century. Cultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War II-era gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a "homosexual ring" controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory.Magisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.

"Perhaps no other single day in US history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington, DC. It is a unique moment in American history that might have significantly altered the nation's path forward, but the event and the reasons why it happened are little remembered by most Americans. The British conquest of Washington, DC during the War of 1812 happened because of inept American leadership, a poorly trained and equipped military, and a lack of foresight. The burning of federal building, including the White House and Capitol, reversed a decade and a half of work to build the capital city. The humiliation of a foreign army eating dinner at the president's table and the flight of the federal government reopened old questions about the survival of the United States, what kind of government it would have, and where its capital should be located. Yet the British invasion was repulsed over the coming weeks and months, and from the ashes of the capital city, the United States ultimately emerged stronger. Robert P. Watson tells this almost forgotten history and probes questions about the American calamity, British motives, and what it all meant for the United States"--

School, mysteries, crime-solving - just an ordinary day for Ali Cross!Ali has helped to solve two big cases and he knows he has what it takes to follow in the footsteps of his famous father, Alex Cross.Eager to keep solving crimes, Ali and his friends hack into police calls and secretly check out crime scenes to crack the cases themselves.But when Ali witnesses something terrible, he must grapple with some tough questions about what it means to be a detective, and a detective's son.Will Ali be the one in danger this time?____________________________Praise for the Ali Cross series'The prolific king of the beach read is back with an intergenrational mystery for the 9-to-12-year-old set' Kirkus'This is a fresh look at the world of James Patterson's most famous protagonist' School Library Journal'This one will fly off the shelves' Booklist

'Affecting and engaging' COLM TÓIBÍN'A wistful, witty meditation on a gay man's twilight years and the twilight of America' GuardianOut in the drought-struck backwaters of rural Florida, The Kingdom of Sand's nameless narrator lives a life of semi-solitude, enjoying the odd, fleeting sexual encounter and the friendship of a few.His world is ageing, and the memories of another time flash, then fade - visions of parties filled with handsome young men, the parents whom he chose to spend his life besides, the generation he once knew, struck down by AIDS. But, when forced to watch the slow demise of a close neighbour, he is drawn back to the here and now, and his own borrowed time in this kingdom of sand.'Bracingly honest and wise' The Times, Books of the Year'Both melancholy and hilarious' New York Times

A lush tour of 15 private gardens in the Washington, DC metro area illuminating the sophisticated yet inviting landscape style of the region.

"A history of the uprisings and protests in Washington, D.C., following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968"--

"Make bird-watching in Maryland and Delaware even more enjoyable. With Stan Tekiela's famous bird guide, field identification is simple and informative. There's no need to look through dozens of photos of birds that don't live in your area. This handy book features 148 species of Maryland and Delaware birds-including Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake Bay-organized by color for ease of use. Full-page photographs present the species as you'll see them in nature, and a "compare" feature helps you to decide between look-alikes"--