John Jakes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical novels as North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles compiled in one volume a century's worth of his favorite American Western fiction. To illustrate the evolution of the genre, Jakes has included such legendary authors as Owen Wister, Louis L'Amour, and Zane Grey along side their more contemporary peers such as Loren Estleman and Elmer Kelton. While the stories have changed over the years, certain timeless themes of Western fiction remain constant. At the heart of the stories are ideas that have become synonymous with the American dream--the frontier spirit, individual freedoms, and man's relationship with the land. A Century of Great Western Stories is essentially a retrospective of western writing over the past century, but Jakes also sets out to give readers a glimpse of what the future might hold for western fiction. While trends in publishing might not always be promising, the current crop of contemporary Western authors show that the old west will always have a place in the world of fiction. Like the American dream which it celebrates, Western fiction will persevere. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A collection of twenty-eight tales of the Old West includes stories by such classic Western writers as Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Alan LeMay

From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America, here is Louis L'Amour's memoir of his lifelong love affair with learning—from books, from yondering, and from some remarkable men and women—that shaped him as a storyteller and as a man. Like classic L'Amour fiction, Education of a Wandering Man mixes authentic frontier drama--such as the author's desperate efforts to survive a sudden two-day trek across the blazing Mojave desert--with true-life characters like Shanghai waterfront toughs, desert prospectors, and cowboys whom Louis L'Amour met while traveling the globe. At last, in his own words, this is a story of a one-of-a-kind life lived to the fullest . . . a life that inspired the books that will forever enable us to relive our glorious frontier heritage.

What does it mean to “believe” in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations? Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right. Gelernter argues that what we have come to call “Americanism” is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment. Gelernter traces the development of the American religion from its roots in the Puritan Zionism of seventeenth-century New England to the idealistic fighting faith it has become, a militant creed dedicated to spreading freedom around the world. The central figures in this process were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the secularization of the American Zionist idea into the form we now know as Americanism. If America is a religion, it is a religion without a god, and it is a global religion. People who believe in America live all over the world. Its adherents have included oppressed and freedom-loving peoples everywhere—from the patriots of the Greek and Hungarian revolutions to the martyred Chinese dissidents of Tiananmen Square. Gelernter also shows that anti-Americanism, particularly the virulent kind that is found today in Europe, is a reaction against this religious conception of America on the part of those who adhere to a rival religion of pacifism and appeasement. A startlingly original argument about the religious meaning of America and why it is loved—and hated—with so much passion at home and abroad.

John Jakes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical novels as North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles has long been both a fan and a distinguished author of novels and stories of the American West. Now, with the turning of the millennium, he has compiled in one volume a century's worth of his favorite Western fiction. To illustrate the evolution of the genre, Jakes has included such legendary authors as Owen Wister, Louis L'Amour, and Zane Grey along side their more contemporary peers such as Loren Estleman and Elmer Kelton. While the stories have changed over the years, certain timeless themes of Western fiction remain constant. At the heart of the stories are ideas that have become synonymous with the American dream---the frontier spirit, individual freedoms, and man's relationship with the land. A Century of Great Western Stories is essentially a retrospective of western writing over the past century, but Jakes also sets out to give readers a glimpse of what the future might hold for western fiction. While trends in publishing might not always be promising, the current crop of contemporary Western authors show that the old west will always have a place in the world of fiction. Like the American dream which it celebrates, Western fiction will perservere. Featuring classc stories by: John Jakes, Mantiow and Ironhand John M. Cunningham, The Tin Star, which became the classic Western film, High Noon Jack London, All Gold Canyon Louis L'Amour, The Gift of Cochise Thomas Thompson, Gun Job Elmer Kelton, The Burial of Letty Strayhorn Loren D. Estleman, Hell on the Draw Jack Schaffer, author of Shane, Sergerant Houck

The many roles played by guns in the old West with personal accounts by many early settlers and hundreds of photos.

CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS... A son of both the Sioux and white worlds, Joshua Strongheart has two prized possessions—his father's bowie knife and his stepfather's Colt .45 Peacemaker—entrusted to him by his dying mother, who made Joshua promise to use them with honor and respect. ...WITH NOTHING BUT HIS WORD. In the Colorado Rockies, Joshua falls prey to the cold­blooded McMahon brothers. When they take his pistol and knife, they have no idea what's hidden inside the money belt—crucial War Department documents, signed by the president, ordering a fair trial for Captain Jack, captured chief of the Modoc tribe. Now Joshua must re­cover both his birthrights and the secret papers—before violence erupts across the West...