A Clay Holt Thriller
by Gerald Meunier
Washington, DC—FBI agent, Clay Holt, thinks he has a normal life—a loving wife, two beautiful children, a great career, and a nice home—until the night his wife wakes him up with fear in her eyes. She worries that terrorists will cross the Mexico border to attack DC and insists that they move elsewhere for their children’s safety. The next day, she is killed by an illegal. Blaming politicians for her death, Clay tells his partner that he can no longer “live a lie” working for the government.
Joy and Focus for Everyone
by Terry Orlick, Ph.D.
Positive Living Skills: Joy and Focus for Everyone is a comprehensive guide to experiencing increased joy every day. The author has developed growth techniques from a deep commitment to meet the real and urgent needs of children, youth, adults, parents, teachers, performers, and millions of people around the world who are living through very challenging times.
by David S. Heidler
Yet another hulking biography of an early American political giant, this one, unnecessarily clogged with detail, is still a fitting, up-to-date, and highly readable account of Henry Clay’s life (1777–1852) and achievements. In vigorous prose, the Heidlers (coauthors, The War of 1812), experienced scholars of pre–Civil War America, relate the emergence of the Kentuckian who served in the House (as Speaker) and Senate, as secretary of state, and as repeatedly failed presidential candidate. A man of enormous gifts—the beloved mirror of his country and its aspirations—Clay bestrode Washington and the Senate as member of the Great Triumvirate with John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster and did his best as the Great Compromiser to hold the nation together as it splintered over slavery. That he failed, as the authors show, was not his fault: even great congressional leadership couldn’t save the Union. The authors bring verve and clarity to Clay’s struggles, even if they add little to what’s known. They also make one yearn for more statesmen and stateswomen, who, like Clay, could say, I had rather be right than be president. 32 pages of b&w photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
by T. H. Breen
Breen presents a provocative reinterpretation of the American Revolution as more of a grassroots movement of ordinary persons than is often presented. Beginning roughly two years before the 1776 Declaration of Independence, thousands of colonists—mostly farm families living in small communities—elected committees to channel their mounting fear, fury, and resentment into organized resistence. Fed up with the British Empire’s incessant demands for ever greater loyalty, obedience, and taxes—and, Breen emphasizes, motivated by their evangelical faith—they had resolved to fight well before their famous leaders made it official, according to Breen. Their tipping point was the Battle of Lexington and Concord of April 19, 1775, news of which spread effectively throughout the 13 colonies, thanks to established communications systems. Northwestern history professor Breen (The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence) writes compellingly, but, contrary to his repeated claims, his is hardly the first account to focus on grassroots rural rebels. Even Mel Gibson’s shlock movie The Patriot made the same basic point. Still, this is a valuable book by a distinguished scholar. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
by Timothy J. Henderson
This perceptive history paints Mexico’s 1810–1821 struggle for independence as a dark, dejected affair, tainted by massacres, famine and crippling contradictions. Auburn University historian Henderson (A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States) explores the difficulties facing successive Mexican insurrections against Spain’s heavy-handed, parasitic rule, including ill-equipped and untrained armies and a fractious, brutal, often incompetent leadership. But the main problem, he contends, was the social chasm between the white Creole elite who led the rebellion and the harshly exploited Indian and mixed-race masses who manned their armies. Revolutionaries envisioned a new liberal order, Henderson argues, but feared to stir up the social resentments of their troops, whose attachment to king and church trumped nationalist sentiment. The result was an incoherent revolution torn between progressive and reactionary impulses that bequeathed a tendency toward unstable or authoritarian government. Henderson’s concise, lucid narrative skillfully guides readers through these confused political currents while sketching vivid portraits of leaders like the rebel priests Hidalgo and Morelos. Henderson illuminates the fault lines in the Mexican nation through this trenchant study of its founding. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
