In his extraordinary debut, veteran Atlanta Falcons defensive end and first-round draft pick Tim Green captures the violence and tension of a season in professional football.

The Ruffians are a legendary canine neighborhood watch group. They patrol the streets at night and keep the neighborhood safe from unsavory characters. There’s something fishy going on by the duck pond in the park. The squirrels are eating all their nuts plus all the nuts stored up for the winter’s supply. Mystified by this discovery, The Ruffians realize that unless they can solve this unusual development by the time winter arrives, there won’t be any squirrels left at the park with nuts. The Ruffians investigation into the matter is stymied by the unexpected invasion of Russian terrorists in the neighborhood. Forced into an uneasy alliance with their arch-nemesis, The Godfather, and his career criminal counterparts, The Fang Mafia, Butch, Jim, Dandy, Empty, and Mixer are in for the battle of their lives. Betrayal and deceit abound as a sinister force plots the complete and total destruction of the very existence of The Ruffians. The Ruffians are drawn into a final and epic confrontation that will forever shape the animal kingdom. However, there’s Butch. Don’t ever forget about Butch. That would be nuts!

"A colorful story...Ruffian was nothing if not a heartbreaker. Her story, dramatically recounted by Jane Scwartz, epitomizes both the adrenaline-pumping glory and gut-wrenching ruthlessness inherent in the sport of horse racing." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD Here is the story f the exceptional filly, a horse so dominating, she was likened to legend. Beginning with her earliest days in Kentucky, the book follows Ruffian at every stage of her career and through the agony of her final hours--venturing behind the scenes of the racing world, and exploring the politics and personalities that came together to shape this exroardiinary filly's life.

Violence and democracy may seem fundamentally incompatible, but the two have often been intimately and inextricably linked. In Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists, Eiko Maruko Siniawer argues that violence has been embedded in the practice of modern Japanese politics from the very inception of the country's experiment with democracy. As soon as the parliament opened its doors in 1890, brawls, fistfights, vandalism, threats, and intimidation quickly became a fixture in Japanese politics, from campaigns and elections to legislative debates. Most of this physical force was wielded by what Siniawer calls "violence specialists": ruffians and yakuza. Their systemic and enduring political violence-in the streets, in the halls of parliament, during popular protests, and amid labor strife-ultimately compromised party politics in Japan and contributed to the rise of militarism in the 1930s. For the post-World War II years, Siniawer illustrates how the Japanese developed a preference for money over violence as a political tool of choice. This change in tactics signaled a political shift, but not necessarily an evolution, as corruption and bribery were in some ways more insidious, exclusionary, and undemocratic than violence. Siniawer demonstrates that the practice of politics in Japan has been dangerous, chaotic, and far more violent than previously thought. Additionally, crime has been more political. Throughout the book, Siniawer makes clear that certain yakuza groups were ideological in nature, contrary to the common understanding of organized crime as nonideological. Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists is essential reading for anyone wanting to comprehend the role of violence in the formation of modern nation-states and its place in both democratic and fascist movements.

"A strange, wild story it is too, and perhaps worth the telling, if only for the reason that the stage on which it was enacted has so completely changed that the scenes in which the adventurer took his part, and the life he led in the far West and South, can never recur as long as the world endures. Civilisation, railways, and the advancing tide of population have swept them into the linbo of forgotten things so completely that it is hard to realise that such a state of society could ever really have existed only forty or fifty years ago." ~ from the introduction.

Authentic accounts of outlaws and desperadoes of the western frontier, based on newspaper accounts and interviews with pioneers who knew them.

Ruffian's tragic story still has a powerful hold over horse racing enthusiasts. The big, almost-black filly so dominated her peers that none could get near her on the racetrack. Then came the fateful match against Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure--the race in which she lost her life.