by Darwin Payne (2004)
"Judge Sarah T. Hughes is perhaps best remembered as the woman who swore in Lyndon Johnson as president aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963, after President John F. Kenedy was assassinated in Dallas. But long before then, she had been making headlines as the foremost woman Democrat in Texas. In 1935, over the protests of a local senator who said she should be home washing dishes, Sarah T. Hughes was appointed the first woman district judge in Texas. She was nominated for vice president of the United States at the 1952 Domocratic National Convention, and in 1961 she was nominated by President John F. Kennedy as a federal district judge. A feminist who devoted her life to liberal causes, she presided over the three-judge panel and worte the opinion that overturned Texas's abortion laws in 1970 in Roe v. Wade, a decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a decision that has rocked American society and politics to this day."--BOOK JACKET.
J.P. Wearing
"This collection of nearly 250 letters between Shaw and Astor - as well as between Astor and Shaw's wife, Charlotte, and Shaw's secretary, Blanche Patch - illustrates the rewarding friendship the two shared and the numerous issues they debated." "More than half of the letters in this volume have never been published and many more appear in their entirety for the first time."--BOOK JACKET.
Susan Molinari with Elinor Burkett
The ups and downs of Susan Molinari's life form the heart of this narrative. Bright, hardworking, and energetic, she took on challenges when no one thought she could succeed and painstakingly built a career, eventually rising to the summit of her profession. She also met Congressman Bill Paxon, the man of her dreams, married him, and started a family. In Representative Mom, Susan Molinari relates the pressures, joys, and complications of being a powerful woman in a traditionally male-dominated environment, and discusses the difficulties of balancing family life with professional responsibilities.
Edward J. Perkins with Connie Cronley
""Apartheid South Africa was on fire around me." So begins the memoir of Career Foreign Service Officer Edward J. Perkins, the first black United States ambassador to South Africa. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave him the unparalleled assignment: dismantle apartheid without violence. As he fulfilled that assignment, Perkins was scourged by the American press, despised by the Afrikaner government, hissed at by white South African citizens, and initially boycotted by black South African revolutionaries, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His advice to President-elect George H.W. Bush helped modify American policy and hasten the release of Nelson Mandela and others from prison. To achieve this success, he drew on his expertise in conflict resolution, devotion to the U.S. Constitution, deep study of Asian philosophy, and training as a former U.S. marine." "Perkins's up-by-your-bootstraps life took him from a cotton farm in segregated Louisiana to the white elite Foreign Service, where he became the first black officer to ascend to the top position of director general. This is the story of how one man turned the page of history."--Jacket.
Matthew Arnold
General Grant by Matthew Arnold with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain presents conflicting essays and cultures. Matthew Arnold's 1886 essay on Grant praised the general and his posthumously published Memoirs, but to many Americans its tone seemed patronizing of their hero and country. Grant's friend and personal benefactor, Mark Twain, delivered a caustic rejoinder to the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut in April 1887. Thus Arnold became a pet prejudice of Twain's and may have served as an inspiration for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In this volume, Twain's rejoinder is published in a correct text for the first time since the Hartford Courant printed his speech.