Full AspenCat Catalog

This is the little-known story of how a newly independent nation was challenged by four Muslim powers and what happened when America's third president decided to stand up to intimidation. When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America faced a crisis. The new nation was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly, but its merchant ships were under attack. Pirates from North Africa's Barbary coast routinely captured American sailors...

The gripping story of an epic prairie snowstorm that killed hundreds of newly arrived settlers and cast a shadow on the promise of the American frontier. January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next...

"From the National Book Award-winning and best-selling author Timothy Egan comes the epic story of one of the most fascinating and colorful Irishman in nineteenth-century America. The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against...

On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family's land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who's not afraid to be different; and Claire, who...

"The year is 1773; the scene is Boston. Johnny Tremain is fourteen and apprenticed to a silversmith. He is gifted and clever and lords his talent over the other apprentices - until tragedy srtikes. A crucible of molten silver breaks and the silver spills over Johnny's right hand. The hand is so badly burned, it's useless - and now, so is Johnny. Since he is no longer able to become a silversmith, Johnny's life takes a new path, one that will bring...

530 illustrations in text Best Books for Young Teen Readers. A history of the game, published in conjunction with a PBS documentary, with essays, facts, & over 500 photos. This is an incredible book for the baseball fan & for anyone interested in the social history of America as reflected in a sport. It is filled with wonderful photographs. Students will want to browse through the memorabilia of baseball & read about the evolution of the game. For...

In this fascinating book, Davis gives readers everything they "need to know" about the Civil War - and not just the battles. With his deft wit and unconventional style, Davis sorts out the players, the politics, and the key events - Harpers Ferry, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Emancipation, Reconstruction. Drawing on the moving eyewitness accounts of the people who lived through the war, he brings the reader into the world of the ordinary men and women who...

"An acclaimed historian explodes the myth about the 'special relationship' between Americans and their guns, revealing that savvy 19th century businessmen--not gun lovers--created American gun culture"--

Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly, and deadly, pursuit. Keith...

"Songs of America explores the music of important times in our history--the stirring pro- and anti-war music of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War; the folk songs and popular music of the Great Depression, the fight for women's rights, and the Civil Rights movement; and the music of both beloved and lesser-known poets, musicians, and songwriters from Colonial times to the twenty-first century. Pulitzer Prize-winning...