In the author's "love letter across the generations", essays capture America's melting pot, particularly Baltimore's, in all its rollicking, good-natured, and chaotic essence. 25 halftones.

This personal history of prominent Baltimoreans sheds light on the social transformations already taking place in the supposedly innocent 1950s. Front Stoops in the Fifties recounts the stories of some of Baltimore’s most famous personalities as they grew up during the “decade of conformity”—just before they entered the turbulent 1960s. Focusing on the period before JFK’s assassination, Olesker looks to individuals who would go on to influence the brewing cultural revolution. Such familiar names as Jerry Leiber, Nancy Pelosi, Thurgood Marshall, and Barry Levinson figure prominently in Michael Olesker’s fascinating account, which draws on personal interviews and journalistic research. Olesker tells the story of Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, daughter of the mayor, who grew up in a political home and eventually became the first woman Speaker of the House. Thurgood Marshall, schooled in a racially segregated classroom, went on to argue Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka before the U.S. Supreme Court and rewrite race-relations law. These and many other stories come to life in Front Stoops in the Fifties. “[A] fascinating read . . . The shocking part is just how relevant these stories remain today.” —Baltimore Post-Examiner “[A] crisp, insightful dispatch from a skilled writer who knows his city and its history.” —David Simon, executive producer of HBO’s The Wire

A nostalgic chronicle of 1958 recaptures the city of Baltimore's love affair with the the Baltimore Colts after the team defeated the New York Giants in a dramatic overtime game, bringing together a series of colorful anecdotes and reflections on notable figures and events of a time in a city on the eve of a cultural revolution.

In this collection of humorous and poignant newspaper columns written for the Baltimore Sun and The News American over the last two decades, Michael Olesker captures the essence of Baltimore—a big city with the heart of a small town. Here in the closing years of the 20th century is Baltimore, with all its unexpected triumphs, crushing troubles, idiosyncratic characters, and lively neighborhoods. Michael Olesker's Baltimore offers a front row seat at the daily skirmishes that mark the city's life. Olesker draws intimate portraits of major politicians and local celebrities, of big names like William Donald Schaefer and Kurt Schmoke, Barbara Mikulski and Bea Gaddy, Artie Donovan and Brooks Robinson, Barry Levinson and John Waters. He gives equal time to players along the fringes—Block denizens, professional gamblers, petty street hustlers—and to the generally unsung heroes who keep the city vibrant and kicking. With articles about the price neighborhoods pay over racial conflicts and about the small deals that are made to get communities through a given day, Michael Olesker's Baltimore deepens our understanding of the city's people and their resilience. Olesker is hard-edged and straightforward but also warmhearted in his portrayal of Baltimore's colorful characters and their settings. In a style that combines police-blotter with Sunday-feature writing, he tells brief stories that show why—to visitors and residents alike—Baltimore feels like home. "Baltimore is a city of tribal rituals, of neighbors sharing steamed crabs in the back yard, and downtown waitresses who call their customers Hon without worrying about any vast sociological implications, and worshipful football fans who believe the snatching of their beloved Colts was the worst kidnapping since the Lindbergh baby."—from Michael Olesker's Baltimore

In their seven years together, quarterback Johnny Unitas and coach Don Shula, kings of the fabled Baltimore Colts of the 1960s, created one of the most successful franchises in sports. Unitas and Shula had a higher winning percentage than Lombardi's Packers, but together they never won the championship. Baltimore lost the big game to the Browns in 1964 and to Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III--both in stunning upsets. The Colts' near misses in the Shula era were among the most confounding losses any sports franchise ever suffered. Rarely had a team in any league performed so well, over such an extended period, only to come up empty. The two men had a complex relationship stretching back to their time as young teammates competing for their professional lives. Their personal conflict mirrored their tumultuous times. As they elevated the brutal game of football, the world around them clashed about Vietnam, civil rights, and sex. Collision of Wills looks at the complicated relationship between Don Shula, the league's winningest coach of all time, and his star player Johnny Unitas, and how their secret animosity fueled the Colts in an era when their losses were as memorable as their victories.

A harrowing, action-packed account of the author's series of audacious escapes from the Nazis' Final Solution--"riveting...a fascinating and moving piece of history" (Library Journal). Young Leo Bretholz survived the Holocaust by escaping from the Nazis (and others) not once, but seven times during his almost seven-year ordeal crisscrossing war-torn Europe. He leaped from trains, outran police, and hid in attics, cellars, anywhere that offered a few more seconds of safety. First he swam the River Sauer at the German-Belgian border. Later he climbed the Alps on feet so battered they froze to his socks--only to be turned back at the Swiss border. He crawled out from under the barbed wire of a French holding camp, and hid in a village in the Pyrenees while gendarmes searched it. And in the dark hours of one November morning, he escaped from a train bound for Auschwitz. Leap into Darkness is the sweeping memoir of one Jewish boy's survival, and of the family and the world he left behind.

A lively account includes the grand themes and the state's major players in the civil rights movement and tells the story of the struggle for racial equality through the lives and contributions of such notables as Harriett Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, and Frederick Douglass, as well as some of Maryland's important but relatively unknown men and women.