Each year more than a half-million people from around the world visit Monticello, but few realize that Thomas Jefferson's house was also home to the family of U.S. Navy Captain Uriah P. Levy and his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, a United States Congressman. Even fewer realize that without the Levy family's stewardship, there might not be a Monticello to visit. Although the Levys literally saved Monticello from ruin--not once, but twice--in the nineteenth century, and actually owned the property longer than Jefferson, the family's vital contributions to preserving Thomas Jefferson's home have been largely ignored or minimized. In a story filled with drama, irony, political wrangling, and legal battles, Professor Melvin I. Urofsky corrects the misconception that a "century of ruin and neglect" marked Monticello between Jefferson's death and the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the private, nonprofit organization that today owns and operates Monticello. The story of the Levys and Monticello is a story of the blending of cultures and personalities, of Yankees and Virginians, of Jews and Christians, of city folk and rural people. It is the story of the power of a symbol, and how in America such symbols cut across lines of religion and class and ethnicity. And behind all of this is the towering presence of Thomas Jefferson.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published February 25th 2002 by University of North Carolina Press
USED BOOK NEAR FINE CONDITION
The United States Postal Service is a wondrous American creation. Seven days a week, its army of 300,000 letter carriers delivers 513 million pieces of mail, forty percent of the world’s volume. It is far more efficient than any other mail service—more than twice as efficient as the Japanese and easily outpacing the Germans and British. And the USPS has a storied history. Founded by Benjamin Franklin, it was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, fostered a common culture, and helped American business to prosper. A first class stamp remains one of the greatest bargains of all time, and yet, the USPS is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing.
In Neither Snow Nor Rain, journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over seventy percent of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology, from mobile post offices on railroads and air mail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers.
Neither Snow Nor Rain is a rich, multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPS’s monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system—and the country—to a halt in the 1970s. An exciting and engrossing read, Neither Snow Nor Rain is the first major history of the USPS in over fifty years.
Hardcover, 316 pages
Published May 3rd 2016 by Grove Press
USED BOOK VERY GOOD CONDITION
With Guerrilla Prince, syndicated journalist Georgie Anne Geyer calls on her twenty-five years of experience covering Latin America to create an extraordinary biography that finally reveals the untold story of Fidel Castro. Based on hundreds of interviews with unique sources - including four extensive personal interviews with Castro - Guerrilla Prince is an intimate and revealing portrait, charged with all the electricity of the charismatic man himself. In this edition, Geyer adds a preface and an extensive epilogue to her 1991 hardcover text, addressing the changes since that time - the collapse of the Soviet Union, the internal unrest, and the growing anticipation of a post-Castro Cuba.
Format
445 pages, Hardcover
Published
February 25, 1991 by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN
9780316308939 (ISBN10: 0316308935)
Language
English
LIBRARY BOOK
USED BOOK IN VERY GOOD CONDITION