Podcasts by PA BOOKS on PCN

“The Italian Legacy in Philadelphia” with Judith Goode from 2022-03-28T13:37:38

Italian arts and culture have been a significant influence on Philadelphia dating back to Thomas Jefferson and colonial times. Throughout the ensuing decades, Italian art and architecture styles...

“The Dogs of War in Our Midst” with James McClure&Scott Mingus from 2022-03-14T16:09:42

Authors Jim McClure and Scott Mingus team up again to present more than two dozen perspectives and articles on the Civil War history of York County, Pennsylvania. That area was a key source of troo...

"Jane Jacobs's First City" with Glenna Lang from 2022-03-07T16:31:35

A thorough investigation of how Jane Jacobs’s ideas about the life and economy of great cities grew from her home city, Scranton

Jane Jacobs’s First City vividly reveals how this influen...

“Squirrel Hill” with Mark Oppenheimer from 2022-03-01T23:56:11

Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gu...

“The Horse at Gettysburg” with Chris Bagley from 2022-02-21T15:58:18

Horses are one of the many unsung heroes of the American Civil War. These majestic animals were impressed into service, trained, prepared for battle, and turned into expendable implements of war...

“Lafayette at Brandywine” with Bruce Mowday from 2022-02-07T15:05:58

America's first international hero, the Marquis Lafayette, risked his life and spent his fortune in the fight for American independence from England. Without Lafayette and the assistance of Fran...

“The Strangest Season” with Jim O’Brien from 2022-01-31T16:05:06

This was a time unlike any other in our lifetime. The Coronavirus pandemic hit hard and affected every aspect of our lives, from sports to politics and religion. This book contains all kinds of ...

"When I Was White" with Sarah Valentine from 2022-01-25T16:22:27

At the age of 27, Sarah Valentine discovered that she was not, in fact, the white girl she had always believed herself to be. She learned the truth of her paternity: that her father was a black ...

“George Washington” with David Stewart from 2022-01-24T17:07:22

George Washington’s rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-twenties, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks ...

“The Deviant Prison” with Ashley Rubin from 2021-12-13T17:45:55

Early nineteenth-century American prisons followed one of two dominant models: the Auburn system, in which prisoners performed factory-style labor by day and were placed in solitary confinement ...

“Back from Battle” with Jim Remsen from 2021-12-02T11:59:53

In the final year of the American Civil War, a special Union Army post was constructed just outside Philadelphia to handle a jumble of returning citizen-soldiers. Many soldiers bore bullet wound...

“Frederick Watts and the Founding of Penn State,” with Roger Williams from 2021-11-15T12:39:55

Frederick Watts came to prominence during the nineteenth century as a lawyer and a railroad company president, but his true interests lay in agricultural improvement and in raising the economic,...

“The Chiefs Now in This City” with Colin Calloway from 2021-11-15T12:39:07

During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities--Albany, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Quebec, New York, and New Orleans--pri...

“Sewn in Coal Country” with Robert Wolensky from 2021-11-08T14:33:59

By the mid-1930s, Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal industry was facing a steady decline. Mining areas such as the Wyoming Valley around the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Pittston were full of willing...

“John Marshall: The Final Founder” with Robert Strauss from 2021-11-01T18:27:05

Eighteenth- and 19th-century contemporaries believed Marshall to be, if not the equal of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, at least very close to that pantheon. "John Marshall: The Final ...

“Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public” with Bernadette Lear from 2021-10-11T14:01:16

"Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public" charts the history of public libraries and librarianship in Pennsylvania. Based on archival research at more than fifty libraries and historical societi...

"Harrisburg in World War II" with Rodney Ross from 2021-10-04T12:59:21

As the nation entered into the throes of World War II, Harrisburg was prepared to answer the call of service. Prideful as a “beehive of industry,” the city was a hub for wartime manufacturing, r...

“Biddle, Jackson, and a Nation in Turmoil” with Cordelia Biddle from 2021-10-04T12:58:28

The first half of the 19th century was an era of upheaval. The United States nearly lost the War of 1812. Partisanship became endemic during violent clashes regarding States’ Rights and the abol...

"Armistead and Hancock" with Tom McMillan from 2021-10-01T13:21:26

In a war of brother versus brother, theirs has become the most famous broken friendship: Union general Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate general Lewis Armistead. Michael Shaara’s The Killer...

“Unsung Hero of Gettysburg” with Edward Longacre from 2021-06-28T14:50:34

Gen. David McMurtrie Gregg (1833–1917) was one of the ablest and most successful commanders of cavalry in any Civil War army. Pennsylvania-born, West Point–educated, and deeply experienced in caval...

“Battle Tested!” with Jeffrey McCausland&Tom Vossler from 2021-06-21T16:42:22

In order to be a truly effective leader, it is necessary to learn as much as possible from the examples of history—the disasters as well as the triumphs. At Gettysburg, Union and Confederate com...

“Arlen Specter” with Evan Edward Laine from 2021-06-14T11:14:07

From his early work as a lawyer on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to his days as Philadelphia’s district attorney to his thirty-year career as...

“A History of Pittsburgh Jazz” with Richard Gazarik&Karen Anthony Cole from 2021-06-07T12:43:53

Pittsburgh’s contributions to the uniquely American art form of jazz are essential to its national narrative. Fleeing the Jim Crow South in the twentieth century, African American migration to t...

“Translingual Inheritance” with Elizabeth Kimball from 2021-06-01T13:27:39

"Translingual Inheritance: Language Diversity in Early National Philadelphia" tells a new story of the early days of democracy in the United States, when English had not yet become the only dominan...

“James Monroe: A Life” with Tim McGrath from 2021-05-24T11:17:28

James Monroe lived a life defined by revolutions. From the battlefields of the War for Independence, to his ambassadorship in Paris in the days of the guillotine, to his own role in the creation...

“Occupied America” with Donald Johnson from 2021-05-17T11:03:06

In "Occupied America," Donald F. Johnson chronicles the everyday experience of ordinary people living under military occupation during the American Revolution. Focusing on day-to-day life in por...

“Pittsburgh and the Urban League Movement” by Joe William Trotter from 2021-05-10T12:21:32

During the Great Migration, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became a mecca for African Americans seeking better job opportunities, wages, and living conditions. The city's thriving economy and vibrant...

“Germantown” with Michael Harris from 2021-05-03T11:03:32

General Sir William Howe launched his campaign to capture Philadelphia in late July 1777, with an army of 16,500 British and Hessian soldiers aboard a 265-ship armada sailing from New York. Six ...

“Smalltime” with Russell Shorto from 2021-04-19T11:18:08

"Smalltime" is a mob story straight out of central casting—but with a difference, for the small-town mob, which stretched from Schenectady to Fresno, is a mostly unknown world. The location is t...

“Spy Sites of Philadelphia” with Robert Wallace from 2021-04-16T14:20:03

Philadelphia became a battleground for spies as George Washington's Patriot army in nearby Valley Forge struggled to survive the winter of 1776-77. In the centuries that followed ? through the Civi...

“Blood Runs Coal” with Mark Bradley from 2021-04-05T10:41:40

In the early hours of New Year’s Eve 1969, in the small soft coal mining borough of Clarksville, Pennsylvania, longtime trade union insider Joseph “Jock” Yablonski and his wife and daughter were...

"True Murder Mysteries of Southwestern Pennsylvania" with A. Parker Burroughs from 2021-03-29T12:18:54

In the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, beyond the picturesque scenes of the Monongahela River Valley, there are long-forgotten mysteries of scandal and murder. Amid the hardship of life on the fr...

“Bullets and Bandages” with James Gindlesperger from 2021-03-22T13:45:07

At Gettysburg, PA, during three days of July 1863, 160,000 men fought one of the most fierce and storied battles of the US Civil War. Nearly one in three of those men ended up a casualty of that...

“Physician Soldier” with Michael Gabriel from 2021-03-15T10:43:04

Frederick R. Gabriel graduated from medical school in 1940, entered the US Army, and was assigned to the newly-created 39th Station Hospital. His letters from the Pacific theater—especially from...

“Beyond the Art Spirit” with Karl Kuerner from 2021-03-08T10:49:39

Much has been published about the artistically talented Wyeth family—-N. C., Andrew, Carolyn, Ann, Jamie, Nicky and Victoria—-but there has been scant insight into the deeply personal interface ...

“Salut!: France Meets Philadelphia” with Lynn Miller&Therese Dolan from 2021-03-01T09:07:28

One highly visible example of French influence on the city of Philadelphia is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, modeled on the Champs-Élysées. In "Salut!", Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan trace the f...

“Out in Central Pennsylvania” with William Burton with Barry Loveland from 2021-02-22T15:46:43

Outside of major metropolitan areas, the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights has had its own unique and rich history—one that is quite different from the national narrative ...

“Moravian Soundscapes” with Sarah Justina Eyerly from 2021-02-15T11:23:29

In "Moravian Soundscapes," Sarah Eyerly contends that the study of sound is integral to understanding the interactions between German Moravian missionaries and Native communities in early Pennsy...

“Hell with the Lid Off” with Ed Gruver and Jim Campbell from 2021-02-01T14:12:47

"Hell with the Lid Off" looks at the ferocious five-year war waged by Pittsburgh and Oakland for NFL supremacy during the turbulent seventies. The roots of their rivalry dated back to the 1972 p...

“Preserving the White Man’s Republic” with Joshua Lynn from 2021-01-25T11:17:52

In "Preserving the White Man’s Republic: Jacksonian Democracy, Race, and the Transformation of American Conservatism," historian Joshua Lynn reveals how in the years before the Civil War the nat...

"The Delaware River Story" with Lee Hartman from 2021-01-18T10:48:48

The Delaware River flows some 330 miles from its headwaters near Hancock, New York, to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. It is the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi and one of Amer...

“Geography, Geology and Genius” with Martha Capwell Fox from 2020-12-08T09:53:14

This is the first book that tells the story of how a small slice of eastern Pennsylvania became the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution. Pennsylvania was America’s powerhouse in the nin...

“Out of the Woods” with Ellen Williams from 2020-11-28T20:44:40

In the spring of 1861, as the nation balanced on the brink of the Civil War, a farmer from the Hudson Valley brought a pedigreed colt to his new home in the Cowanesque Valley of northern Pennsyl...

“Philadelphia Battlefields” with John Kromer from 2020-11-16T11:00:20

John Kromer’s "Philadelphia Battlefields" considers key local campaigns undertaken from 1951 to 2019 that were extraordinarily successful despite the opposition of the city’s political establish...

“Dead Letters” with Jessica Weible from 2020-11-02T10:15:16

On assignment for a small-town newspaper in rural Pennsylvania, rookie reporter, Jessica Weible, meets Joan Swigart, a creative fireball and “pioneer in print.” As the two women forge a relation...

“Iconic Pittsburgh” with Paul King from 2020-10-26T09:01:24

The Steel City has boasted some of the most famous figures, landmarks and innovations in the country's history. Pittsburgh's past is littered with dozens of fascinating stories behind the icons ...

“Tanking to the Top” with Yaron Weitzman from 2020-10-12T14:04:07

When a group of private equity bigwigs purchased the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011, the team was both bad and boring. Attendance was down. So were ratings. The Sixers had an aging coach, an antiquated...

“The Founding Fortunes” with Tom Shachtman from 2020-10-05T10:38:52

In "The Founding Fortunes," historian Tom Shachtman reveals the ways in which a dozen notable Revolutionaries deeply affected the finances and birth of the new country while making and losing th...

"Becoming Philadelphia" with Inga Saffron from 2020-09-28T09:48:59

Over the past two decades, Inga Saffron has served as the premier chronicler of the city’s physical transformation as it emerged from a half century of decline. Through her Pulitzer Prize-winnin...

“Playing Politics with Natural Disaster” with Timothy Kneeland from 2020-09-21T10:37:32

Hurricane Agnes struck the United States in June of 1972, just months before a pivotal election and at the dawn of the deindustrialization period across the Northeast. The response by local, sta...

"Saga of the Johnstown City Schools" with Clea Hollis from 2020-08-24T10:17:05

Offers a detailed chronology of the growth, decline, and attempted resurrection of one American public education system. This book illustrates academic milestones and contributions of Johnstown's A...

"Ruling Suburbia: John J. McClure and the Republican Machine in Delaware County, Pennsylvania" with John Morrison McLarnon from 2020-08-17T11:21:53

Ruling Suburbia chronicles the history of the Republican machine that has dominated the political life of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, since 1875, and of the career of John J. McClure, who contro...

“Bridges…Pittsburgh at the Point…A Journey Through History” with Thomas Leech and Linda Kaplan from 2020-07-27T11:16:45

“Bridges…Pittsburgh at the Point…A Journey Through History” tells the stories of the 34 bridges that crossed the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers in Pittsburgh from 1818 to today. Told th...

"The Houses of Louis Kahn" with George Marcus and William Whitaker from 2020-07-20T11:06:46

Louis Kahn (1901–1974), one of the most important architects of the postwar period, is widely admired for his great monumental works, including the Kimbell Art Museum, the Salk Institute, and th...

"Juniata, River of Sorrows" with Dennis McIlnay from 2020-07-13T15:20:04

A stirring documentary of Dennis McIlnay's trip on the 100- mile Juniata River in central Pennsylvania, and a moving portrait of some of the Juniata's earliest -- and bloodiest -- events.

"James Buchanan and the Political Crisis of the 1850s" with Michael Birkner from 2020-07-06T13:57:10

When Buchanan entered the White House in March 1857, he seemed well positioned to accomplish his main objectives. A canny and seasoned politician from Pennsylvania with a reputation for moderati...

"On the Front Lines of Pennsylvania Politics: Twenty-five Years of Keystone Reporting" with John Baer from 2020-06-29T14:13:31

Pennsylvania, first home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has a tradition of political progress. However, along with the good, the political playground of Pennsylvania has a...

"Lost Mount Penn" with Mike Madaio from 2020-06-22T10:19

German immigrants of the nineteenth century brought their traditions of winemaking and mouthwatering cuisine to the slopes of Mount Penn high above Reading. With a Santa Claus beard and a long-s...

"Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga" with Lee Francis IV, Weshoyot Alvitre and Will Fenton from 2020-06-15T09:48:03

During the Paxton massacres of 1763, a mob of white settlers, so-called “Paxton Boys” murdered 20 unarmed Conestoga People in a genocidal campaign that reshaped Pennsylvania settlement politics....

"The Lake Erie Campaign of 1813" with Walter Rybka from 2020-06-08T10:53:52

On September 10, 1813, the hot, still air that hung over Lake Erie was broken by the sounds of sharp conflict. Led by Oliver Hazard Perry, the American fleet met the British, and though they sustai...

"Historic Architecture of Pennsylvania" with Scott Butcher from 2020-06-01T14:17:03

Nestled among the rolling hills of South Central Pennsylvania, six counties – Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, and York – are home to more than three centuries of history and archite...

"Pittsburgh in World War I" with Elizabeth Williams from 2020-05-26T11:51:09

When the whole of Europe went to war in 1914, Pittsburgh watched the storm clouds gather at home. Yet Pittsburgh was a city of immigrants--the large Polish community urged leaders to join the si...

"Emotional Gettysburg" with Karl Kuerner and Bruce Mowday from 2020-05-18T09:50:15

In a series of historic vignettes combined with contemporary paintings renowned artist Karl J. Kuerner and award-winning writer Bruce E. Mowday explore the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in...

"Bandstandland" with Larry Lehmer from 2020-05-11T10:13:45

American Bandstand, one of the longest-running shows in television history, spotlighted well-scrubbed, properly dressed dancing teenagers on every show. They mirrored the show’s perpetually youthfu...

"By Great Rivers: Lives of the Appalachian Frontier" with Robert Swift from 2020-05-04T12:38:58

By Great Rivers: Lives on the Appalachian Frontier tells the story of people who shaped events during a period of rapid political and social change in the Appalachian region of the eastern Unite...

"Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays" with James Overmyer from 2020-04-27T12:37:06

Cumberland Posey began his career in 1911 playing outfield for the Homestead Grays, a local black team in his Pennsylvania hometown. He soon became the squad’s driving force as they dominated semi-...

“George Washington’s Nemesis” with Christian McBurney from 2020-04-20T10:13:04

General Charles Lee, second in command in the Continental Army led by George Washington, was captured by the British in December 1776. While a prisoner, he prepared and submitted to his captors ...

"The New Eagles Encyclopedia" with Ray Didinger from 2020-04-13T12:13:41

While much has changed in the decade since the original publication of The Eagles Encyclopedia, the passion of Eagles fans has only grown stronger. That's why author Ray Didinger revised, update...

“Tuskegee in Philadelphia” with Robert Kodosky from 2020-04-06T11:47:41

At the outbreak of World War II, Philadelphians heeded the call, including the valiant airmen and women of Tuskegee. Although trained in Alabama, the prestigious unit comprised dozens of Philadelph...

“Pennsylvania Patriots: Their Lives, Contributions, and Burial Sites” with Joe Farrell, Joe Farley and Lawrence Knorr from 2020-03-30T12:05:31

Joe Farrell, Joe Farley, and Lawrence Knorr have traveled across the eastern USA to the graves of over 200 founding fathers (and mothers) responsible for the birth of the United States of Americ...

“She Came To Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman" with Erica Armstrong Dunbar from 2020-03-23T13:29:28

Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. As a leading abolitionist, her bravery and selflessness has inspired generations in the continuing ...

“The Standard-Bearers of Equality” with Paul Polgar from 2020-03-16T11:26:51

Paul Polgar recovers the racially inclusive vision of America's first abolition movement. In showcasing the activities of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the New York Manumission Society, and t...

"Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern" with Edward Muller and Joel Tarr from 2020-03-09T21:07:01

Pittsburgh’s explosive industrial and population growth between the mid-nineteenth century and the Great Depression required constant attention to city-building. Private, profit-oriented firms, ...

“Horne’s”&“Kaufmann’s” with Letitia Stuart Savage from 2020-03-02T09:20:01

The Joseph Horne Company, popularly known as Horne's, was a beloved and integral part of Pittsburghers' lives for generations. It was the first department store in the Steel City, staking its gr...

"Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" with Walter Isaacson from 2020-02-24T09:12:05

In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our ...

"The Life and Loves of Thaddeus Stevens" with Mark Singel from 2020-02-17T14:13:48

"The Life and Loves of Thaddeus Stevens" is an insightful look at one of the most misunderstood figures of the 19th Century. Stevens, the driving force behind landmark civil rights laws, educati...

"Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player" with Jeremy Beer from 2020-02-10T09:29:15

Among experts, Oscar Charleston is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime he became a legend in Cuba and one of black America’s most popular figures. Yet even amo...

"A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten" with Julie Winch from 2020-02-03T12:12:35

Winch has written the first full-length biography of James Forten, a hero of African American history and one of the most remarkable men in 19th-century America.

Born into a free black f...

“Pittsburgh and the Great Steel Strike of 1919” with Ryan Brown from 2020-01-27T11:55:08

In 1919, the steel industry of Pittsburgh was on the brink of war. Years of labor strife broke out into open conflict as steel workers launched the biggest strike to date in the United States, p...

"Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America's Dad" with Nicole Weisensee Egan from 2020-01-21T15:35:19

Bill Cosby's decades-long career as a sweater-wearing, wholesome TV dad came to a swift and stunning end on April 26, 2018, when he was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Const...

"Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped Into Slavery and Their Astonishing Journey Home" with Richard Bell from 2020-01-20T09:21:13

“Stolen" tells the story of five young, free black boys who fall into the clutches of a fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in Philadelphia in 1825. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of ...

"The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin" with H.W. Brands from 2020-01-03T09:11:17

Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, invento...

"Crucible of War" with Fred Anderson from 2019-12-30T16:01:46

In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years’ War–long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution–takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it deve...

"Marley&Me" with John Grogan from 2019-12-30T15:45:07

John Grogan, a metropolitan columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and his wife, Jenny, were newlyweds when they brought home an irresistible yellow Labrador retriever puppy and named him after...

"Stealing Wyeth" with Bruce Mowday from 2019-12-09T09:31:41

Andrew Wyeth was one of the best known American artists in the world in the 20th century with his works being sought after by serious art collectors worldwide. A gang of thieves decided to steal an...

“Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg” with Richard Schaus from 2019-12-02T09:01:17

"Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken" focuses on the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg and addresses how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in r...

"Little Italy in the Great War" with Richard Juliani from 2019-11-25T09:10:42

The Great War challenged all who were touched by it. Italian immigrants, torn between their country of origin and country of relocation, confronted political allegiances that forced them to cons...

"Betsy Ross and the Making of America" with Marla Miller from 2019-11-21T12:34:06

Beyond the legend of the creation of the American flag, we know very little about the facts of Betsy Ross’ life. Perhaps with one snip of her scissors she convinced the nation’s future first pre...

"Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King" with Thomas Balcerski from 2019-11-11T09:15

In "Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King," Thomas J. Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collabo...

“George Marshall: Defender of the Republic” with David Roll from 2019-11-04T12:49:21

Even as a young officer George Marshall was heralded as a genius, a reputation that grew when in WWI he planned and executed a nighttime movement of more than a half million troops from one batt...

"Targeted Tracks" with Scott Mingus and Cooper Wingert from 2019-10-28T14:42:24

The Civil War was the first conflict in which railroads played a major role. The Cumberland Valley Railroad, for example, played an important strategic role by connecting Hagerstown, Maryland to Ha...

"Franz Kline in Coal Country" with Rebecca and Joel Finsel from 2019-10-21T10:26:25

"Franz Kline in Coal Country" is the first biography to examine Kline's formative years in Lehighton, Philadelphia, Boston, and London, before he became a founding member of the New York School,...

“Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard” with James Hessler and Britt Isenberg from 2019-10-14T12:00:20

On July 2, 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered skeptical subordinate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet to launch a massive assault against the Union left flank. The offensive was intended to se...

“Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution” with Jeff Broadwater from 2019-10-07T08:59:38

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," were two of the most important Founders of the United States as well as the closest ...

"Too Much for Human Endurance: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg" with Ronald Kirkwood from 2019-09-30T11:36:11

The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospital at the George ...

"The Disaffected" with Aaron Sullivan from 2019-09-23T14:21:06

Elizabeth and Henry Drinker of Philadelphia were no friends of the American Revolution. Yet neither were they its enemies. The Drinkers were a merchant family who, being Quakers and pacifists, s...

“Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier” with Mark Kram from 2019-09-16T15:46:11

Sports writer Mark Kram gives a full-bodied accounting of Joe Frazier’s life, a journey that began as the youngest of thirteen children packed in small farm house, encountering the bigotry and opp...

"Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism" with Char Miller from 2019-09-03T09:09:07

Gifford Pinchot is known primarily for his work as first chief of the U. S. Forest Service and for his argument that resources should be used to provide the "greatest good for the greatest number o...

"Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures" with Robert Wittman from 2019-08-26T09:41:15

The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend.” The London Times dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world.”

In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the ...

"Going Home To Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969" with David Eisenhower from 2019-08-19T09:47:33

When President Dwight Eisenhower left Washington, D.C., at the end of his second term, he retired to a farm in historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that he had bought a decade earlier. Living on t...

"Remembering Pittsburgh: An "Eyewitness" History of the Steel City" with Len Barcousky from 2019-08-13T09:51:06

The doomed Whiskey Rebellion, the Great Fire that destroyed a third of the city in 1845 and Lincoln's speech urging residents to shun talk of secession--all have made the pages of the Pittsburgh...

"Stan Musial: An American Life" with George Vecsey from 2019-08-06T09:55:13

Veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the biographical treatment he deserves. Stan Musial is the definitive portrait of one of...

"I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had" with Tony Danza from 2019-07-29T09:34:14

I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had is television, screen and stage star Tony Danza’s absorbing account of a year spent teaching tenth-grade English at Northeast High -- Philadelph...

"Marian Anderson: A Singer's Journey" with Allan Keiler from 2019-07-22T10:11:10

A definitive biography of one of America's greatest singers and a seminal figure in the American civil rights movement uncovers the life of the first African American soloist at the Met and the ...

"Mario Lanza: Tenor in Exile" with Roland Bessette from 2019-07-15T09:17:46

More than 40 years after his premature death, the mystique of Mario Lanza continues. He remains a legendary figure, a crossover icon embraced and remembered by an entire generation for bridging ...

"Joseph Leidy" with Leonard Warren from 2019-07-08T15:59:25

Contemporaries of the modest and unassuming scientist Joseph Leidy (1823–91) revered him as the supreme consultant in questions relating to human anatomy, paleontology, protozoology, parasitolog...

"Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent" with William Hogeland from 2019-07-01T10:07:37

This is the rambunctious story of how America came to declare independence in Philadelphia in 1776. As late as that May, the Continental Congress had no plans to break away from England. Troops ...

"Disciples of Liberty: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Age of Imperialism, 1884-1916" with Lawrence Little from 2019-06-24T10:34:45

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the African Methodist Episcopal Church provided an ideological foundation for the African American community that was truly world-embracing....

"The Knox Mine Disaster" with Robert and Kenneth Wolensky from 2019-06-17T12:20:38

The Knox Mine Disaster is much more than a history of an accident—or an industry, for that matter. Because the book draws on the recollections of miners and their families, industry officials, a...

"The Foreman's Boys: The Story of Civilian Conservation Corps, Company 1333, Camp S-63, Poe Valley" with William Marcum from 2019-06-10T11:34:47

Employment prospects for many were bleak at the height of the Great Depression. For unmarried recent high school graduates, the prospect of getting a job was mostly non-existent. President Roose...

“Blue-Blooded Cavalryman: Captain William Brooke Rawle in the Army of the Potomac, May 1863–August 1865” with J. Gregory Acken from 2019-06-03T10:36:42

In May 1863, eighteen-year-old William Brooke Rawle graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and traded a genteel, cultured life of privilege for service as a cavalry officer. Traveling fro...

“Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent's Fort” with Jason Cherry from 2019-05-28T13:45:13

As 1753 came to a close, European empires were set on a collision course for a triangular piece of land known as the Forks of the Ohio at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. ...

“Longstreet at Gettysburg, A Critical Reassessment” with Cory Pfarr from 2019-05-13T11:51:49

This is the first book-length, critical analysis of Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s actions at the Battle of Gettysburg. The author argues that Longstreet’s record has been discredited unf...

"Battle of Paoli" with Thomas McGuire from 2019-05-06T10:37:32

In the years since the Revolutionary War, legend has obscured the story of the Battle of Paoli, better known in history as the Paoli Massacre. For this first-ever full-length treatment of the ba...

"Good War, Great Men: The detailed accounts of a machine gun battalion during World War I" with Andrew Capets from 2019-04-29T11:21

"Good War, Great Men" provides first-hand accounts of more than a dozen soldiers who served together during the Great War. Their stories have been rediscovered by compiling unpublished letters a...

"American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns; The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It" with Richard Rosenfeld from 2019-04-15T10:44:48

200 Years ago a Philadelphia newspaper claimed George Washington wasn't the "father of his country." It claimed John Adams really wanted to be king. Its editors were arrested by the federal gove...

"Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania, Volume 2, 1710-1756: A Biographical Dictionary" with Craig Horle and Joseph Foster from 2019-04-08T12:06:30

This superb biographical dictionary of Pennsylvania legislators provides elaborate accounts of each Pennsylvania lawmaker who served during the period covered by the volume, with detailed schola...

“Smiling Banjo: A Half Century of Love and Music at the Philadelphia Folk Festival” with Eric Ring, John Lupton and Jayne Toohey from 2019-04-01T09:00:13

Attended by tens of thousands of people each August, the Philadelphia Folk Festival is the longest continually running folk festival in America. These pages capture 55 years of its beloved, creativ...

"Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father" with Stephen Fried from 2019-03-25T10:23:28

In the summer of 1776, fifty-six men put their quills to a dangerous document they called the Declaration of Independence. Among them was a thirty-year-old doctor named Benjamin Rush. One of the...

“They Were Immigrants: The Lasting Legacy of My Syrian Grandparents" with Samuel Davis from 2019-03-18T08:41:46

"They Were Immigrants" tells the story of Samuel Davis' grandparents who immigrated to Pennsylvania from Syria in the early 20th century and the lives they created in their new home. They started f...

"The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields" with Donald Miller and Richard Sharpless from 2019-03-11T12:03:20

Considered by scholars and history buffs alike to be the best survey history of the rise and fall of the anthracite mining industry in Pennsylvania, this volume chronicles the discovery of anthr...

"Abolitionists of Sounth Central Pennsylvania" with Cooper Wingert from 2019-03-04T12:02:56

Close to the Mason-Dixon line, South Central Pennsylvania was a magnet for slave catchers and abolitionists alike. Influenced by religion and empathy, local abolitionists risked their reputation...

“Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country" with Paul Shackel from 2019-02-18T12:24:36

On September 10, 1897, a group of 400 striking coal miners--workers of Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian descent or origin--marched on Lattimer, Pennsylvania. There, law enforcement officers fired ...

“Insight Philadelphia: Historical Essays Illustrated” with Kenneth Finkel from 2019-02-11T09:14:13

Each of the nearly 100 essays in Insight Philadelphia tells a succinct, compelling, and little-known tale of the city’s past. Some stories are quirky, like how early gas stations were designed t...

"The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson’s Sketches of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia" with Julie Winch from 2019-02-04T12:32:22

Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in Philadelphia, first published in 1841, was written by Joseph Willson, a southern black man who had moved to Philadelphia. He wrote this book ...

“Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and Populist Politics” with Timothy Lombardo from 2019-01-28T10:38:44

The postwar United States has experienced many forms of populist politics, none more consequential than that of the blue-collar white ethnics who brought figures like Ronald Reagan and Donald Tr...

“Archaeology at the Site of the Museum of the American Revolution” with Rebecca Yamin from 2019-01-21T09:29:19

When the Museum of the American Revolution acquired the land at Third and Chestnut streets in Olde City, Philadelphia, it came with the condition that an archaeological investigation be conducte...

"The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin" with Joseph Eckhardt from 2019-01-07T10:13:44

In addition to detailing the life and career of Siegmund Lubin of Philadelphia, this work explores the complex character of America's first Jewish movie mogul and separates his accomplishments a...

"Doo-dah!" with Ken Emerson from 2018-12-31T12:49:18

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was America’s first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as “Oh! Susanna,” “Jea...

"The Goodfella Tapes" with George Anastasia from 2018-12-24T12:18:17

Goodfella Tapes by George Anastasia is the true story of how the FBI recorded a mob war and brought down a mafia don. A riveting, eye-opening true crime masterwork in the vein of “Wiseguy”, “Underb...

“The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America" with Ben Bradlee Jr. from 2018-12-17T09:42:19

In "The Forgotten," Ben Bradlee Jr. reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land – marginalized by flat or fa...

“Radiation Nation: Three Mile Island and the Political Transformation of the 1970s ” with Natasha Zaretsky from 2018-12-03T09:09:08

On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear reactor accident in U.S. history occurred at the Three Mile Island power plant in Central Pennsylvania. Radiation Nation tells the story of what happened tha...

“A Community Keystone: The Official History of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette” with Bernie Oravec and Lee Janssen from 2018-11-12T11:21:30

"A Community Keystone" is a detailed history of the first 217 years of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette and the community that grew up around it from 1801-2018. The Sun-Gazette is the 12th oldest co...

“Mr. All-Around: The Life of Tom Gola” with David Grzybowski from 2018-11-05T17:50:43

Tom Gola is a Philadelphia Big Five basketball icon. He led La Salle to the NIT championship in 1952 and the NCAA championship in 1954, and holds the NCAA record for most rebounds in a career. G...

“For the Love of Beer: Pennsylvania’s Breweries” with Alison Feeney from 2018-10-29T09:01:21

"For the Love of Beer: Pennsylvania's Breweries" examines Pennsylvania's brewing history, geography, and cultural richness while highlighting over 100 of the states thriving craft breweries. It ...

“Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776” with Patrick Spero from 2018-10-22T09:10:40

Frontier Rebels tells story of the “Black Boys,” a rebellion on the American frontier in 1765. In 1763, the Seven Years’ War ended in a spectacular victory for the British. The French army agree...

"Idlewild" with Jennifer Sopko from 2018-09-24T17:16:26

Idlewild was developed by Pittsburgh's Mellon family as a picnic grove to boost traffic on the Ligonier Valley Rail Road. When C.C. Macdonald took the helm in 1931, rides, entertainment and othe...

“Frank Furness: Architecture in the Age of the Great Machines” with George Thomas from 2018-09-17T08:45

Frank Furness (1839-1912) has remained a curiosity to architectural historians and critics, somewhere between an icon and an enigma, whose importance and impact have yet to be properly evaluated...

“The Scots Irish of Early Pennsylvania” with Judith Ridner from 2018-09-10T08:58:28

The Scots Irish were one of early Pennsylvania’s largest non-English immigrant groups. They were stereotyped as frontier ruffians and Indian haters. In The Scots Irish of Early Pennsylvania, his...

"The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases" with Michael Capuzzo from 2018-08-27T09:26:15

Three of the greatest detectives in the world--a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as "the living Sherlock Holme...

"High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly" with Donald Spoto from 2018-08-20T11:45:36

In just seven years–from 1950 through 1956–Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking...

"African Americans in Pennsylvania: Above Ground and Underground" with Charles Blockson from 2018-08-13T09:37:23

Charles L. Blockson, one of the leading authorities on African American history, has compiled one of the nation's largest private collections of black history artifacts, photographs, maps, and book...

"ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer" with Scott McCartney from 2018-08-07T09:40:18

John Mauchly and Presper Eckert designed and built the first digital, electronic computer. Mauchly and Eckert met by chance in 1941 at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering. ...

"Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg" with Christopher Ogden from 2018-07-30T08:26:34

The father fled East Prussia to escape the 1880s pogroms and, as a penniless immigrant boy, hawked newspapers on the streets of Chicago. The son, who lives on Philadelphia's Main Line and on a pala...

"Gettysburg Eddie: The Story of Eddie Plank" with Lawrence Knorr from 2018-07-23T09:15:04

Born in Gettysburg, PA only a dozen years after the bloody Civil War battle, Eddie Plank grew up on a farm and was a late-bloomer. By his early twenties, he was a local star on the town ball tea...

"N.C. Wyeth: A Biography" with David Michaelis from 2018-07-17T11:40:11

His name summons up our earliest images of the beloved books we read as children. His illustrations for Scribner's Illustrated Classics (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Last of the Mohicans, The...

"I Am Regina and Moon of Two Dark Horses" with Sally Keehn from 2018-07-09T10:52:32

The cabin door crashes open-and in a few minutes Regina’s life changes forever. Allegheny Indians murder her father and brother, burn their Pennsylvania home to the ground, and take Regina captive....

"The Indian World of George Washington" with Colin Calloway from 2018-06-25T14:25

In this new biography, Colin Calloway uses the prism of George Washington's life to bring focus to the great Native leaders of his time--Shingas, Tanaghrisson, Bloody Fellow, Joseph Brant, Red J...

"Road to Rust" with Dale Richard Perelman from 2018-06-19T11:59:42

As the twentieth century dawned on western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, the region's steel industry faced a struggle for unionism. Unionists like Philip Murray, John L. Lewis, Samuel Gompers a...

"The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin's House" with Daniel Mark Epstein from 2018-06-11T11:53:02

In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin’s biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his...

“Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right” with Michael Smerconish from 2018-06-04T11:26:37

Talk show host and columnist Michael Smerconish has been chronicling local, state, and national events for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer for more than 15 years. He ha...

"Powwowing in Pennsylvania: Healing Rituals of the Dutch Country" with Patrick Donmoyer from 2018-05-22T15:48:19

This cultural exploration offers an unparalleled presentation of Pennsylvania’s ritual healing traditions known as powwowing or Braucherei in Pennsylvania Dutch, through original primary source ...

“Maine Roads to Gettysburg” with Tom Huntington from 2018-05-14T10:49:03

Everyone knows about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Regiment, but there’s much more to the story of Maine at the Battle of Gettysburg. Soldiers from Maine made their presence fel...

“Hinsonville’s Heroes: Black Civil War Soldiers in Chester County, PA” with Cheryl Renée Gooch from 2018-04-30T10:50:48

The free black community of Hinsonville sent its sons to serve the Union when called on. As members of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, brothers Wesley, William and George Jay survived...

“Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA, the WNBA to the NCAA” with Jim O'Brien from 2018-04-23T10:36:27

In April 2003, Jim O’Brien was the first Pittsburgher inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame. This book is a celebration of 60th anniversary of a career as a professional sports ...

“Prohibition Pittsburgh” with Richard Gazarik from 2018-04-16T12:03:55

When Prohibition hit the Steel City, it created a level of violence and corruption residents had never witnessed. Illegal producers ran stills in kitchens, basements, bathroom tubs, warehouses a...

“The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist” with Marcus Rediker from 2018-04-09T21:05:41

In The Fearless Benjamin Lay, renowned historian Marcus Rediker chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular man—a Quaker dwarf who demanded the total, unconditional emancipation of...

“Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance” with Mark Whitaker from 2018-04-02T09:23:57

The other great renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place—Pittsburgh, PA—from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh ...

“The Senate Will Come To Order!” with Sen. Robert Jubelirer from 2018-03-26T16:46:44

Sen. Robert Jubelirer was first elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 1974. Watergate was a deep wound on voter psyche, and Jubelirer was the lone Republican freshman Senator elected. Until his ...

"Fire on the Mountain: An American Odyssey" with Walt Koken from 2018-03-12T12:07:07

Walt Koken, the founding member of the Highwoods Stringband, reminisces about traveling and playing old time music in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the people he met while barnstorming, before and dur...

“Lair of the Lion: A History of Beaver Stadium” with Lee Stout and Harry H. West from 2018-02-26T09:24:51

Historian Lee Stout and engineering professor Harry H. West show how Penn State's Beaver Stadium came to be, including a look at its predecessors, “Old” Beaver Field, built in 1893 on a site cen...

“Calder: The Conquest of Time” with Jed Perl from 2018-02-19T09:16:46

Alexander Calder is one of the most beloved and widely admired artists of the twentieth century. Anybody who has ever set foot in a museum knows him as the inventor of the mobile, America’s uniq...

“Calder: The Conquest of Time” with Jed Perl from 2018-02-19T09:16:46

Alexander Calder is one of the most beloved and widely admired artists of the twentieth century. Anybody who has ever set foot in a museum knows him as the inventor of the mobile, America’s unique ...

“Pennsylvania Scrapple” with Amy Strauss from 2018-01-29T13:49:01

An essential food in Mid-Atlantic kitchens for hundreds of years, scrapple is the often-overlooked king of breakfast meats. Developed by German settlers of Pennsylvania, the slow food byproduct ...

"How The French Saved America" with Tom Shachtman from 2018-01-16T08:47:55

To the rebelling colonies, French assistance made the difference between looming defeat and eventual triumph. Even before the Declaration of Independence was issued, King Louis XVI and French fo...

“Death of an Assassin” with Ann Marie Ackermann from 2017-12-18T09:20:14

The first volunteer killed defending Robert E. Lee’s position in battle was really a German assassin. After fleeing to the United States to escape prosecution for murder, the assassin enlisted i...

“Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form” with Kirsten Jensen and Shawn Waldron from 2017-11-27T09:16:04

Philadelphia native Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) is recognized as one of the founding figures of American modernism. Initially trained in impressionist landscape painting, he experimented early i...

“Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father” with Thomas Kidd from 2017-11-13T10:29:01

Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by ...

“George Washington: A Life in Books” with Kevin Hayes from 2017-11-07T13:24:28

Based on a comprehensive amount of research at the Library of Congress, the collections at Mount Vernon, and rare book archives scattered across the country, Kevin Hayes reconstructs in vivid de...

“Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect” with Audrey Lewis and Christine Podmaniczky from 2017-10-30T09:21:14

This major retrospective catalogue explores the impact of time and place on the work of beloved American painter Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009). While previous publications have mainly analyzed Wyeth’...

“The LaPorte Inheritance: An Historical Novel of French Azilum” with Deborah deBilly dit Courville from 2017-10-23T10:56:04

A mostly forgotten episode of US history is brought to life in fascinating detail by historian and author Deborah deBilly dit Courville. Working from primary sources such as letters and househol...

“Therese Rocco: Pittsburgh’s First Female Assistant Police Chief” with Therese Rocco from 2017-10-16T13:24:32

Therese Rocco is known to her colleagues as “The Rock.” At the age of nineteen, she began her career in law enforcement as a clerk in a small, all-female missing persons unit of the Pittsburgh Poli...

“Gettysburg Rebels” with Tom McMillan from 2017-10-09T11:34:45

“Gettysburg Rebels” is the gripping true story of five young men who grew up in Gettysburg, moved south to Virginia in the 1850s, joined the Confederate army – and returned “home” as foreign inv...

“John W. Garrett and the Baltimore&Ohio Railroad” with Kathleen Waters Sander from 2017-10-02T12:22:20

Historian Kathleen Waters Sander tells the story of B&O Railroad President John W. Garrett and the B&O’s plan to build a rail line from Baltimore over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River. ...

“Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West” with William Hogeland from 2017-09-18T10:42:55

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the newly independent United States savored its victory and hoped for a great future. And yet the republic soon found itself losing an escalating milita...

“Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge” with Erica Wagner from 2017-09-12T19:19:36

“Chief Engineer” tells the story of Washington Roebling, the engineer known for building one of the most iconic American structures, the Brooklyn Bridge. “Chief Engineer” reveals that his father...

“The Slide: Leyland, Bonds,&The Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates” with Richard Peterson and Stephen Peterson from 2017-07-24T09:03:58

In the deciding game of the 1992 National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates suffered the most dramatic and devastating loss in team history when forme...

"Pennsylvania: A Military History" with Barbara Gannon and Christian Keller from 2017-07-17T08:40:55

Founded in 1682 by a society that had no military, eschewed violence as a means of solving conflicts, and tolerated a wide variety of religions, Pennsylvania began as a “peaceable kingdom”—but w...

"Pittsburgh Drinks: A History of Cocktails, Nightlife&Bartending Tradition" with Cody McDevitt and Sean Enright from 2017-06-19T11:44:33

Pittsburgh’s drinking culture is a story of its people: vibrant, hardworking and innovative. During Prohibition, the Hill District became a center of jazz, speakeasies and creative cocktails. In...

"Silk Stockings and Socialism" with Sharon McConnell-Sidorick from 2017-06-12T10:33:45

The 1920s Jazz Age is remembered for flappers and speakeasies, not for the success of a declining labor movement. A more complex story was unfolding among the young women and men in the hosiery ...

"Keystone Fly Fishing" with Henry Ramsay, Dave Rothrock and Len Lichvar from 2017-06-05T10:54:12

The definitive, up-to-date guide to Pennsylvania's best fly fishing by regional experts and guides. Includes over 200 rivers and streams across the state as well as information on where to fish ...

“Sesqui!: Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926” with Thomas Keels from 2017-06-05T10:53:32

In 1916, department store magnate and Grand Old Philadelphian John Wanamaker launched plans for a Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition in his hometown in 1926. It would be a magnificent wo...

"Embattled Freedom: Chronicle of a Fugitive-Slave Haven in the Wary North" with Jim Remsen from 2017-06-05T10:52:14

Rural Northeastern Pennsylvania was a bucolic farming region in the 1800s—but political tensions churned below the surface. When a group of fugitive slaves dared to settle in the Underground Rai...

"The Life of Louis Kahn: You Say to Brick" with Wendy Lesser from 2017-05-30T13:14:20

Wendy Lesser’s "You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn" is a major exploration of the architect’s life and work. Born in Estonia 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew...

"Africans in New Sweden: The Untold Story" with Abdullah Muhammad from 2017-05-15T09:00:12

Historian Abdullah R. Muhammad examines a previously little-known and virtually untold aspect of Delaware’s history—the hidden role of Africans in the often brutal mercantile expansionism by Europe...

"The Schenley Experiment: A Social History of Pittsburgh's First Public High School" with Jake Oresick from 2017-05-08T10:27:15

"The Schenley Experiment" is the story of Pittsburgh’s first public high school, a social incubator in a largely segregated city that was highly—even improbably—successful throughout its 156-year e...

"Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale" with Larry McShane and Dan Pearson from 2017-04-17T22:52:17

As the last Don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state’s evidence, provides an insider’s perspective on the mafia. Natale’s reign atop the Philadelphia and New...

"Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family" with Jennifer Lin from 2017-04-10T22:30:59

Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to Philadelphia and to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today’s China. The Lin family—and ...

"Frontier Country" with Patrick Spero from 2017-04-04T00:05:07

In “Frontier Country,” Patrick Spero addresses one of the most important and controversial subjects in American history: the frontier. Countering the modern conception of the American frontier as a...

"French and Indian War: War in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Kittanning Raid of 1756" with Brady Crytzer from 2017-03-27T14:46:09

On the morning of September 8, 1756, a band of about three hundred volunteers of a newly created Pennsylvania militia led by Lt. Col. John Armstrong crept slowly through the western Pennsylvania br...

“The Martin Guitar Archives” with Dick Boak from 2017-03-20T15:18:06

The Martin Archives is a unique inside look into C.F. Martin & Co.'s reign as America's oldest and most revered guitarmaker – viewed through a selection of images, correspondence, documents, and...

“Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky and the Crisis in Penn State Athletics: Wounded Lions” with Ronald A. Smith from 2017-03-13T18:44:56

In Wounded Lions, acclaimed sport historian and longtime Penn State professor Ronald A. Smith heavily draws from university archives to answer the How? and Why? at the heart of the scandal. The San...

“A Civil War Captain and His Lady” with Gene Barr from 2017-03-08T00:12:51

More than 150 years ago, 27-year-old Irish immigrant Josiah Moore met 19-year-old Jennie Lindsay, a member of one of Peoria, Illinois's most prominent families. The Civil War had just begun, Josiah...

“The Life&Songs of Stephen Foster” with JoAnne O’Connell from 2017-02-28T01:00:58

The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster offers an engaging reassessment of the life, politics, and legacy of the misunderstood father of American music. Once revered the world over, Foster’s planta...

“Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge” with Erica Armstrong Dunbar from 2017-02-23T17:08:35

When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital, after a brief stay in New ...

“The Politics of Black Citizenship” with Andrew Diemer from 2017-02-13T11:45:07

Considering Baltimore and Philadelphia as part of a larger, Mid-Atlantic borderland, “The Politics of Black Citizenship” shows that the antebellum effort to secure the rights of American citizen...

“Playing Through the Whistle” with S.L. Price from 2017-01-30T11:30:11

In “Playing Through the Whistle,” celebrated sportswriter S. L. Price tells the story of a remarkable place, its people, its players, and, through it, a wider story of American history from the ...

"Mission: Jimmy Stewart&the Fight for Europe" with Robert Matzen from 2017-01-19T10:43:06

On a Saturday in March 1941, Jimmy Stewart, America's boy-next-door actor, left Hollywood behind and took the oath of service in the United States Army Air Corps. Once in the service, Stewart du...

"The Framers' Coup" with Michael J. Klarman from 2016-12-20T13:08:46

The Framers' Coup narrates how the Framers' clashing interests shaped the Constitution--and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of...

"Running The Rails" with James Wolfinger from 2016-12-12T11:03:53

In “Running the Rails,” James Wolfinger uses the history of Philadelphia’s sprawling public transportation system to explore how labor relations shifted from the 1880s to the 1960s. As transit work...

"Slavery&The Underground Railroad in South Central PA" with Cooper H. Wingert from 2016-12-12T10:29:13

Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsylvania struggled with slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, although it was virtually extinct everywhere else...

"Labor Unrest in Scranton" with Margo L. Azzarelli&Marne Azzarelli from 2016-11-28T15:41:08

On an August morning in 1877, a dispute over wages exploded between miners and coal company owners. A furious mob rushed down Lackawanna Avenue only to be met by a deadly hail of bullets. With i...

"The Carnival Campaign" with Ronald Shafer from 2016-11-01T09:37:29

Pulitzer Prize–nominated former Wall Street Journal reporter Ronald G. Shafer tells the colorful story of the election battle between sitting president Martin Van Buren, a professional Democrati...

"Rust Belt Boy" with Paul Hertneky from 2016-10-26T08:28:51

Paul Hertneky is one of millions of baby boomers who fled the industrial north upon fulfilling his parents’ dreams of a college education. He returns to his roots in Ambridge, Pennsylvania in th...

"Teen Idol on the Rocks" with Bobby Rydell from 2016-10-12T18:39:24

Bobby Rydell writes of his encounters with such giants of 20th century show business as Frank Sinatra, Ann-Margret, The Beatles, Red Skelton, Jack Benny and Dick Clark, whose Philly-based American ...

"The Devil Himself" with Andrew Porwancher from 2016-10-04T08:35:25

Nicholas Dukes and Captain Adam Nutt were two men with much in common. Both were prominent members of Pennsylvanian society in the 1880s, both had studied law under the same mentor, and both sha...

"Benjamin Franklin in London" with George Goodwin from 2016-09-19T11:08:59

For more than one-fifth of his life, Benjamin Franklin lived in London. He dined with prime ministers, members of parliament, even kings, as well as with Britain’s most esteemed intellectuals—in...

"Amiable Scoundrel: Simon Cameron, Lincoln's Scandalous Secretary of War" with Paul Kahan from 2016-09-06T10:00:02

From abject poverty to undisputed political boss of Pennsylvania, Lincoln’s secretary of war, senator, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a founder of the Republican Party, Sim...

"The Second Day at Gettysburg" with David Shultz&Scott Mingus from 2016-07-19T16:00:51

Based upon a faulty early-morning reconnaissance, General Robert E. Lee decided to attack up the Emmitsburg Road in an effort to collapse the left flank of General George Meade's Army of the Pot...

"The First Congress" with Fergus Bordewich from 2016-06-28T08:34:19

The First Congress tells the dramatic story of the two remarkable years when George Washington, James Madison, and their dedicated colleagues struggled to successfully create our government, an ...

"Hidden History of Pittsburgh" with Len Barcousky from 2016-06-24T13:27:39

When Mark Twain visited in 1884, he claimed to spy a little bit of hell in Pittsburgh’s smoky appearance. Twain’s observations are among the many riveting firsthand accounts and anecdotes to be fou...

"Tom Paine's Iron Brigade" with Edward G. Gray from 2016-06-13T17:10:21

When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as America’s largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the...

"The Devil's Diary" with David Kinney from 2016-06-08T10:17:45

A groundbreaking World War II narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story, The Devil’s Diary investigates the disappearance of a private diary penned by one of Adolf Hitler’s top aides—Alfred R...

"Pennsylvania Dutch" with Mark L. Louden from 2016-05-18T09:16:54

In this probing study, Mark L. Louden, himself a fluent speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch, provides readers with a close look at the place of the language in the life and culture of two major subgroups...

"God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen" with Mitchell Nathanson from 2016-05-10T15:18:34

Carrying to the plate baseball's heaviest and loudest bat as well as the burden of being the club's first African American superstar, Allen found both hits and controversy with ease and regularity ...

"Serious Nonsense" with William W. Donner from 2016-04-27T15:24:02

Serious Nonsense introduces readers to Pennsylvania German cultural practices that tourists rarely see and that outsiders, including most scholars, rarely learn about. The book explores the origins...

"From Steel to Slots" with Chloe E. Taft from 2016-04-18T12:17:20

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once synonymous with steel. But after the factories closed, the city bet its future on a new industry: casino gambling. On the site of the former Bethlehem Steel plant,...

"Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso" with Kali Nicole Gross from 2016-04-12T07:59:47

Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class, black woman, and George...

"Lazaretto: A Novel" with Diane McKinney-Whetstone from 2016-04-04T17:03:37

Isolated on an island where two rivers meet, the Lazaretto quarantine hospital is the first stop for immigrants who wish to begin new lives in Philadelphia. The Lazaretto’s black live-in staff forg...

"The Bank War" with Phil Kahan from 2016-04-01T16:49:31

In The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance, historian Paul Kahan explores one of the most important and dramatic events in American political and economic ...

"The Parker Sisters" with Lucy Maddox from 2016-02-24T08:46:16

In 1851, Elizabeth Parker, a free black child in Chester County, Pennsylvania, was bound and gagged, snatched from a local farm, and hurried off to a Baltimore slave pen. Two weeks later, her teena...

"Beyond Rust" with Allen Dieterich-Ward from 2016-02-17T09:37:59

Beyond Rust chronicles the rise, fall, and rebirth of metropolitan Pittsburgh, an industrial region that once formed the heart of the world's steel production and is now touted as a model for reviv...

"Tough Cop" with Mike Chitwood and Harold Gullan from 2016-02-10T09:33:02

Their intensive drug raid had the pusher cornered, barricaded behind the other side of a locked door. Mike Chitwood called on him to surrender. Suddenly a shot exploded through the door, hitting Ch...

"Their Life's Work" with Gary Pomerantz from 2016-02-10T09:32:41

They were the best to ever play the game: the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s. Three decades later their names echo in popular memory—Mean Joe, Bradshaw, Webster, Lambert, Ham, Blount, Franco, Swa...

"Stopping Pickett: The History of the Philadelphia Brigade" with Brad Gottfried from 2016-02-10T08:32:19

“Stopping Pickett: The History of the Philadelphia Brigade”

As Pickett's men made their final charge toward the clump of trees in the center of the Union line at Gettysburg, they smashed ...

"Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine" with Thomas Desjardin from 2016-02-10T08:32:05

“Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine”

With a new preface and updated maps and illustrations, Stand Firm Ye Boys of Maine offers a compelling account of one of the most crucial small engagements ...

"Stabbed in the Heart" with Lynn Shiner, Nancy Chavez and Nancy Eshelman from 2016-02-10T08:31:26

For months they made news: Two suburban mothers whose only children were violently snatched away. Lynn Shiner’s family dominated the news beginning on Christmas day in 1994 when her ex-husband mu...

"Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign" with Thomas Ryan from 2016-02-10T08:31:15

Despite the thousands of books and articles written about Gettysburg, Tom Ryan's groundbreaking Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted...

"Speaking Pittsburghese" with Barbara Johnstone from 2016-02-10T08:31:04

This book explores the history of Pittsburghese, the language of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area as it is imagined and used by Pittsburghers. Pittburghese is linked to local identity so strongly ...

"The Sons Of Molly Maguire" with Mark Bulik from 2016-02-10T08:30:51

Sensational tales of true-life crime, the devastation of the Irish potato famine, the upheaval of the Civil War, and the turbulent emergence of the American labor movement are connected in a captiv...

"Sickles at Gettysburg" with James Hessler from 2016-02-10T08:30:28

Sickles at Gettysburg”
No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. By 1863, Sickles was notorio...

"Shop Pomeroy's First" with Michael Lisicky from 2016-02-10T08:30:16

For over one hundred years, Pomeroy’s was a beloved household name for the shoppers of central and eastern Pennsylvania. Founded in 1876, the store began under another name in Reading and soon e...

"Semisweet" with Johnny O' Brien from 2016-02-10T08:29:20

The Milton Hershey School is the richest and wealthiest K-12 residential school in the world. Its $12 billion trust fund, financed by sales of the iconic Hershey candy, eclipse that of Cornell, ...

"Seeking the Greatest Good" with Char Miller from 2016-02-10T08:29:06

Char Miller chronicles the history of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies and describes its iconic national historic site, Grey Towers, offered by Pinchot’s family as a lasting gift t...

"Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in PA" with Andrew M. Wilson, Daniel W. Brauning and Robert S. Mulvihill from 2016-02-10T08:28:54

“Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in PA”
Twenty years after the first Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania was published, the Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania brings our kno...

"Saint Katharine" with Cordelia Frances Biddle from 2016-02-10T08:28:42

When Katharine Drexel was born in 1858, her grandfather, financier Francis Martin Drexel, had a fortune so vast he was able to provide a loan of sixty million dollars to the Union’s cause during...

"Roads to Gettysburg" with Brad Gottfried from 2016-02-10T08:28:11

“Roads to Gettysburg”

The men of the Union and Confederate armies experienced a mix of emotions during Robert E. Lee's first phase of the Gettysburg campaign. Lee's veterans experienced ...

"The Return of George Washington" with Edward Larson from 2016-02-10T08:27:53

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson recovers a crucially important—yet almost always overlooked—chapter of George Washington’s life, revealing how Washington saved the United State...

"Retreat from Gettysburg" with Kent Masterson Brown from 2016-02-10T08:27:37

“Retreat from Gettysburg”
Kent Masterson Brown’s “Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign” offers the first comprehensive history of General Robert E. Lee’s ...

"The Quiet Don" with Matt Birkbeck from 2016-02-10T08:27:21

Secretive—even reclusive—Russell Bufalino quietly built his organized crime empire in the decades between Prohibition and the Carter presidency. His reach extended far beyond the coal country of...

"The Quartet" with Joseph Ellis from 2016-02-10T08:27:09

We all know the famous opening phrase of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this Continent a new Nation.” The truth is different. In 1776,...

"The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia, Second Edition" with David Finoli&Bill Ranier from 2016-02-10T08:25:08

The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of the most storied histories in the annals of baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia captures these fabulous times through the stories of the individuals ...

"Pickett's Charge in History and Memory" with Carol Reardon from 2016-02-10T08:24:58

“Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory”

If, as many have argued, the Civil War is the most crucial moment in our national life and Gettysburg its turning point, then the climax of the c...

"The Philadelphia Nativist Riots" with Kenneth Milano from 2016-02-10T08:24:27

The outskirts of Philadelphia seethed with tension in the spring of 1844. By May 6, the situation between the newly arrived Irish Catholics and members of the anti-immigrant Nativist Party took ...

"Philadelphia Freedoms" with Michael Awkward from 2016-02-10T08:23:53

Michael Awkward’s Philadelphia Freedoms captures the disputes over the meanings of racial politics and black identity during the post-King era in the City of Brotherly Love. Looking closely at f...

"Philadelphia: A Railroad History" with Edward Duffy from 2016-02-10T08:23:42

Philadelphia: A Railroad History describes the remarkable development of the railroad industry in Philadelphia and the intense competition that pitted the Pennsylvania Railroad against the Readi...

"The Pennsylvania Reserves in the Civil War" with Uzal Ent from 2016-02-10T08:23:12

Until its soldiers mustered out of service in mid–1864, the Pennsylvania Reserve Division was one of only a few one-state divisions in the Union army. Known as the Pennsylvania Reserves, or simp...

"Paterno Legacy: Enduring Lessons from the Life and Death of My Father" with Jay Paterno from 2016-02-10T08:22:46

This biography of Joe Paterno by his son Jay is an honest and touching look at the life and legacy of a beloved coaching legend. Jay Paterno paints a full picture of his father's life and career...

"On the Edge of Freedom" with David Smith from 2016-02-10T08:22:35

“On the Edge of Freedom”
In “On the Edge of Freedom,” David Smith breaks new ground by illuminating the unique development of antislavery sentiment in south central Pennsylvania—a border r...

"Native Americans in the Susquehanna River Valley, Past and Present" with David Minderhout from 2016-02-10T08:21:40

This first volume in the new Stories of the Susquehanna Valley series describes the Native American presence in the Susquehanna River Valley, a key crossroads of the old Eastern Woodlands betwee...

"Murder in the Stacks" with David DeKok from 2016-02-10T08:21:29

On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the university’s main campus in State College.  ...

"Mr. President" with Harlow Giles Unger from 2016-02-10T08:21:16

Although the framers gave the president little authority, Washington knew whatever he did would set precedents for generations of his successors. To ensure their ability to defend the nation, he...

“Mob Files” with George Anastasia from 2016-02-10T08:20:50

For more than 25 years as a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer George Anastasia has made tracking the American Mafia his regular beat, writing investigates pieces, profiles and slices of un...

"The Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes" with Walt Koken&Clare Milliner from 2016-02-10T08:20:25

“Old-Time" music could be loosely described as that body of music containing fiddle tunes, banjo tunes, ballads, and ensemble pieces in various instrumental combinations including the guitar, ma...

"Making Good Neighbors" with Abigail Perkiss from 2016-02-10T08:18:43

In the 1950s and 1960s, as the white residents, real estate agents, and municipal officials of many American cities fought to keep African Americans out of traditionally white neighborhoods, Phi...

"Making Ideas Matter" with Dwight Evans from 2016-02-10T08:18:31

Making Ideas Matter is a primer on mobilizing political power to achieve enlightened goals in a democracy. This is a book about how good politicians can compromise without abandoning moral princ...

"Louis I. Kahn" with Charles Dagit from 2016-02-10T08:12:21

Few people in the history of art and architecture have planted a seed of inspiration that grew to become a towering oak of lasting influence. There are those, particularly colleagues and student...

"Lost Triumph" with Tom Carhart from 2016-02-10T08:12:01

“Lost Triumph: Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg and Why It Failed”
Conventional wisdom holds that General Robert E. Lee risked everything at Gettysburg. Victory would have virtually ensured ...

"Liberty's First Crisis" with Charles Slack from 2016-02-09T16:46:09

When the United States government passed the Bill of Rights in 1791, its uncompromising protection of speech and of the press were unlike anything the world had ever seen before. But by 1798, th...

"Lenape Country" with Jean Soderlund from 2016-02-09T16:45:53

Lenape Country is a sweeping narrative history of the multiethnic society of the Delaware Valley in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. After Swanendael, the Natives, Swedes, and Fin...

"The Last to Fall" with Richard Fulton&James Rada from 2016-02-09T16:45:24

There’s more than one way to fight the Civil War The 1863 Battle of Gettysburg resulted in horrific slaughter that ultimately ended the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. But after the Allied vi...

"La Citadelle" with Leanard Bethel from 2016-02-09T16:44:53

Layle Lane was an educator, a social activist, and a political leader. She was a key organizer of the first march on Washington, D.C., which led to the creation of the Fair Employment Practices ...

"The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928" with John M. Craig from 2016-02-09T16:43:44

This study examines Ku Klux Klan activities in Pennsylvania’s twenty-five western-most counties, where the state organization enjoyed greatest numerical strength. The work covers the period betw...

"Keystone Corruption" with Brad Bumsted from 2016-02-09T16:41:53

Keystone Corruption: A Pennsylvania Insider s View of a State Gone Wrong traces the cyclical nature of misconduct in Pennsylvania government over the course of the last hundred years. Most of th...

"Just Tell Me I Can't" with Jamie Moyer from 2016-02-09T16:41:40

Long-time fans of the National Pastime have known Moyer's name for more than 25 years. That's because he's been pitching in the bigs for all those years. With his trademark three pitches - slow,...

"James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War" with John Quist and Michael Birkner from 2016-02-09T16:41:19

“James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War”
As James Buchanan took office in 1857, the United States found itself at a crossroads. Dissolution of the Union had been averted and the De...

“I Walked With Giants” with Jimmy Heath from 2016-02-09T16:40:50

Composer of more than 100 jazz pieces, three-time Grammy nominee, and performer on more than 125 albums, saxophonist Jimmy Heath has earned a place of honor in the history of jazz. Over his long...

"Ike's Bluff" with Evan Thomas from 2016-02-09T16:40:37

“Ike’s Bluff”
Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower came to be seen by many as a doddering lightweight. Yet behind the bland smile and apparent simplemindedness was a bri...

"Homestead Strike" with Paul Kahan from 2016-02-09T16:38:41

On July 6, 1892, three hundred armed Pinkerton agents arrived in Homestead, Pennsylvania to retake the Carnegie Steelworks from the company's striking workers. As the agents tried to leave their...

"The Hour of Peril" with Daniel Stashower from 2016-02-09T16:38:15

“The Hour of Peril”
In February of 1861, just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a “clear and fully-matured” threat of assassination as he traveled by train from ...

"Home Free" with Michael Rothan and Tony Strubel from 2016-02-09T16:38:01

We did much of what we wanted to do, and those things we were prevented from doing, weren’t really that important to us. We were limited only by the boundaries of imagination and yet there were no ...

"Here and There" with Bill Conlogue from 2016-02-09T16:37:27

The global economy threatens the uniqueness of places, people, and experiences. In Here and There, Bill Conlogue tests the assumption that literature and local places matter less and less in a worl...

"Guyasuta and the Fall of Indian America" with Brady Crytzer from 2016-02-09T16:36:47

Nearly a century before the United States declared the end of the Indian Wars, the fate of Native Americans was revealed in the battle of Fallen Timbers. In 1794, General Anthony Wayne led the f...

"Growing Up Amish" with Richard Stevick from 2016-02-09T16:36:32

On the surface, it appears that little has changed for Amish youth in the past decade: children learn to work hard early in life, they complete school by age fourteen or fifteen, and a year or t...

"The Great Divide" with Thomas Fleming from 2016-02-09T16:36:13

In the months after her husband's death, Martha Washington told several friends that the two worst days of her life were the day George died—and the day Thomas Jefferson came to Mount Vernon to ...

"The Good Nurse" with Charles Graeber from 2016-02-09T16:35:48

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed “The Angel of Death” by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favori...

"Golden Arms: Six Hall of Fame Quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania" with Jim O' Brien from 2016-02-09T16:34:27

Of the 23 "modern era" quarterbacks honored in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, six of them hail from Western Pennsylvania, within a 60-mile radius of Pittsburgh. How did that happen? Who are the six...

"Give Me a Fast Ship" with Tim McGrath from 2016-02-09T16:34:16

America in 1775 was on the verge of revolution—or, more likely, disastrous defeat. After the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, England’s King George sent hundreds of ships westward to bottle u...

"Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" with Allen Guelzo from 2016-02-09T16:34:03

Of the half-dozen full-length histories of the battle of Gettysburg written over the last century, none dives down so closely to the experience of the individual soldier, or looks so closely at ...

"The Gettysburg Gospel" with Gabor Boritt from 2016-02-09T16:33:20

The words Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg comprise perhaps the most famous speech in history. It has been quoted by popes, presidents, pr...

“Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions” with Eric Wittenberg from 2016-02-09T16:33:09

Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions examines in detail three of the campaign’s central cavalry episodes. The first is the heroic but doomed legendary charge of Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth’s...

"Gettysburg: Day Three" with Jeffrey Wert from 2016-02-09T16:32:57

“Gettysburg: Day Three”

Jeffry D. Wert re-creates the last day of the bloody Battle of Gettysburg in astonishing detail, taking readers from Meade's council of war to the seven-hour stru...

"The Gettysburg Cyclorama" with Chris Brenneman, Sue Boardman and Bill Dowling from 2016-02-09T16:32:17

Thousands of books and articles have been written about the Battle of Gettysburg. Almost every topic has been thoroughly scrutinized except one: Paul Philippoteaux’s massive cyclorama painting T...

"General Ike" with John Eisenhower from 2016-02-09T16:32:06

John S.D. Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as "a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us." It is that, and mor...

"Fueling The Gilded Age" with Andrew Arnold from 2016-02-09T16:31:52

If the railroads won the Gilded Age, the coal industry lost it. Railroads epitomized modern management, high technology, and vast economies of scale. By comparison, the coal industry was embarra...

“Founding Finance” with William Hogeland from 2016-02-09T16:31:39

William Hogeland is one of my all-time favorite guests on PA Books. In “Founding Finance” he tells how America’s early economic system was established. It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds...

“Fort Pitt: A Frontier History” with Brady Crytzer from 2016-02-09T16:26:54

For nearly half a century, Fort Pitt stood formidable at the forks of the great Ohio River. A keystone to British domination in the territory during the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebel...

"Fool's Mate" with John Whiteside from 2016-02-09T16:26:42

Every man has his price. For disgruntled US soldier Robert Stephan Lipka, all it took to betray his country was an offer of four hundred dollars. Few Americans know of Lipka, but in September ...

"Flight 93: The Story, the Aftermath, and the Legacy of American Courage on 9/11" with Tom McMillan from 2016-02-09T16:20:05

The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 have earned their rightful place among the pantheon of American heroes. Flight 93 provides a riveting narrative based on intervi...

"First Pennsylvanians" with Kurt W. Carr&Roger Moeller from 2016-02-09T16:19:54

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission today announced the publication of “First Pennsylvanians: The Archaeology of Native Americans in Pennsylvania.” The first comprehensive review o...

"Duty Calls at Home" from 2016-02-09T16:19:43

The outbreak of World War One transformed life for the men, women, and children living in the communities of Central Pennsylvania. “Duty Calls at Home” is a collection of essays examining how the ...

"The Devil's To Pay: John Buford at Gettysburg" with Eric J Wittenberg from 2016-02-09T16:19:12

Although many books on Gettysburg have addressed the role played by Brig. Gen. John Buford and his First Cavalry Division troops, there is not a single book-length study devoted entirely to the ...

"The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company" with Dr. S. Robert Powell from 2016-02-09T16:18:55

An integral component of the transportation system that the D&H created to transport that coal to market was the Gravity Railroad that the company established between Carbondale and Honesdale. I...

"The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company Gravity Railroad, Vol. 1-5" with S. Robert Powell from 2016-02-09T16:18:36

“The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company Gravity Railroad, Volumes 1-5”constitute the most detailed and comprehensive history of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's Gravity Railroad that has e...

"Connie Mack: The Turbulent&Triumphant Years, 1915-1931" with Norman Macht from 2016-02-09T16:18:06

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 beginn...

“Confederate Approach On Harrisburg” with Cooper Wingert from 2016-02-09T16:17:54

In June 1863, Harrisburg braced for an invasion. The Confederate troops of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell steadily moved toward the Pennsylvania capital. Capturing Carlisle en route, Ewell sen...

"The Complete Gettysburg Guide" with J. David Petruzzi from 2016-02-09T16:17:25

“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 visi...

"A Colony Spring From Hell" with Daniel Barr from 2016-02-09T16:16:55

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, Pennsyl...

"The Coal Barons Played Cuban Giants" with Paul Browne from 2016-02-09T16:15:31

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 t...

“Clemente” with David Maraniss from 2016-02-09T16:15:12

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 sup...

"Civil War Voices from York County, PA" with Scott Mingus&James McClure from 2016-02-09T16:15

“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...

"The Civil War in Pennsylvania" with Michael Kraus, David Neville, and Kenneth Turner from 2016-02-09T16:14:44

“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 ...

"City of Steel" with Ken Kobus from 2016-02-09T16:14:28

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 ...

"Chuck Noll: A Winning Way" with Jim O' Brien from 2016-02-09T16:13:30

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...

"Chocolate Trust" with Bob Hernandez from 2016-02-09T16:13:16

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...

"Capital Murder" with Chris Papst from 2016-02-09T16:12:02

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 i...

"Camp William Penn" with Donald Scott from 2016-02-09T16:11:48

Camp William Penn was the largest and first Civil War facility to exclusively train Northern-based federal black soldiers during the war. It was located in Chelten Hills just outside of Philadel...

"Busted" with Wendy Ruderman&Barbara Laker from 2016-02-09T16:11:19

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...

"Burning of Chambersburg and McCausland's Raid" with Ted Alexander from 2016-02-09T16:11:06

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...

"Buck: A Memoir" with MK Asante from 2016-02-09T16:10:53

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, ...

"Buchanan Dying" with John Updike from 2016-02-09T16:10:40

“Buchanan Dying” is a work of historical fiction. To the list of John Updike’s well-intentioned protagonists—Rabbit Angstrom, Richard Maple, Henry Bech—add James Buchanan, the harried fifteenth...

"Brandywine" with Michael C. Harris from 2016-02-09T16:09:30

Brandywine Creek calmly meanders through the Pennsylvania countryside today, but on September 11, 1777, it served as the scenic backdrop for the largest battle of the American Revolution, one th...

"Braddock's Defeat" with David Preston from 2016-02-09T16:09:15

On July 9, 1755, British regulars and American colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock, commander in chief of the British Army in North America, were attacked by French and ...

"Black Citymakers" with Marcus Anthony Hunter from 2016-02-09T16:07:41

Black Citymakers revisits the Black Seventh Ward, documenting a century of banking and tenement collapses, housing activism, black-led anti-urban renewal mobilization, and post-Civil Rights poli...

“Biggest Brother” with Larry Alexander from 2016-02-09T16:07:24

In every band of brothers, there is always one who looks out for the rest. For the Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Army Airborne, the legendary fighting unit of World War II, the one man ev...

"As American as Shoofly Pie" with William Woys Weaver from 2016-02-09T16:07:11

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...

"Anthracite Labor Wars" with Robert Wolensky and William Hastie from 2016-02-09T16:06:50

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 approxim...

"And Then I Danced" with Mark Segal from 2016-02-09T16:06:39

On December 11, 1973, Mark Segal disrupted a live broadcast of the CBS Evening News when he sat on the desk directly between the camera and news anchor Walter Cronkite, yelling, “Gays protest CB...

"The Amish" with Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt from 2016-02-09T16:05:56

The Amish have always struggled with the modern world. Known for their simple clothing, plain lifestyle, and horse-and-buggy mode of transportation, Amish communities continually face outside pr...

"A Man&His Ship" with Steven Ujifusa from 2016-02-09T16:05:43

At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America’s best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time...

"A Lenape Among the Quakers" with Dawn Marsh from 2016-02-09T16:05:30

On July 28, 1797, an elderly Lenape woman stood before the newly appointed almsman of Pennsylvania’s Chester County and delivered a brief account of her life. In a sad irony, Hannah Freeman was ...

"A Field Guide to Gettysburg" with Carol Reardon&Tom Vossler from 2016-02-09T14:57:32

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...

"50 Children" with Steven Pressman from 2016-02-09T14:55:52

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 threaten...

"1776" with David McCullough from 2016-02-09T14:54:58

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 o...