The Monongahela is one of three rivers that meet in Pittsburgh, where Parker was Executive Vice President of the Waterways Association from 1971 to 1993. He recounts the river's history from a route for early expansion west to its current commercial and leisure use. Among the highlights are the beginning of shipbuilding in the 1790s, the growth of other industries and subsequent need for coal, Carnegie's first steel mill in 1872, the bloody Homestead strike in 1892, the rusting of the steel belt in the 1980s, and attempts to revive.

Pittsburgh's Monongahela River is named after the Lenape Indian word Menaonkihela, meaning "where banks cave and erode." The name is fitting: for over a century, these riverbanks were lined with steel plants and railroads that have now "caved and eroded" away. By the 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the world's largest manufacturer of iron, steel rails, and coke. However, in the 1970s, cheap foreign steel flooded the market. Following the 1981-1982 recession, the plants laid off 153,000 workers. The year 1985 saw the beginning of demolition; by 1990, seven of nine major steel plants had shut down. Duquesne, Homestead, Jones & Laughlin, and Eliza Furnace are gone; only the Edgar Thomson plant remains as a producer of steel. The industry could be said to have built and nearly destroyed the region both economically and environmentally. While these steel plants are lost today, the legacy of their workers is not forgotten.

On July 9, 1755, British and colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock suffered a crushing defeat to French and Native American enemy forces in Ohio Country. Known as the Battle of the Monongahela, the loss altered the trajectory of the Seven Years' War in America, escalating the fighting and shifting the balance of power. An unprecedented rout of a modern and powerful British army by a predominantly Indian force, Monongahela shocked the colonial world--and also planted the first seeds of an independent American consciousness. The culmination of a failed attempt to capture Fort Duquesne from the French, Braddock's Defeat was a pivotal moment in American and world history. While the defeat is often blamed on blundering and arrogance on the part of General Braddock--who was wounded in battle and died the next day--David Preston's gripping new work argues that such a claim diminishes the victory that Indian and French forces won by their superior discipline and leadership. In fact, the French Canadian officer Captain Beaujeu had greater tactical skill, reconnaissance, and execution, and his Indian allies were the most effective and disciplined troops on the field. Preston also explores the long shadow cast by Braddock's Defeat over the 18th century and the American Revolution two decades later. The campaign had been an awakening to empire for many British Americans, spawning ideas of American identity and anticipating many of the political and social divisions that would erupt with the outbreak of the Revolution. Braddock's Defeat was the defining generational experience for many British and American officers, including Thomas Gage, Horatio Gates, and perhaps most significantly, George Washington. A rich battle history driven by a gripping narrative and an abundance of new evidence,Braddock's Defeat presents the fullest account yet of this defining moment in early American history.

Hoerr's first novel but fourth book paints a vivid portrait of labor relations in industrial McKeesport.

In the ancient hills and misty hollows of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, generations of locals have passed down stories of a woman with mysterious magical powers. People came from near and far to seek healing and protection through her strange rituals. Some even believed she could fly. Named Moll Derry and nicknamed the Witch of the Monongahela, her legend has been documented by writers and folklorists for more than two hundred years. She is intertwined in many regional tales, such as the Lost Children of the Alleghenies and Polly Williams and the White Rocks. Author Thomas White separates fact from fiction in the many versions of Moll Derry and recounts Western Pennsylvania's folk magic history along the way.