Edgecombe County, North Carolina, has a long and intriguing history stretching back to the 1730s, when the first permanent European residents began settling the banks of the Tar River, and beyond, when Tuscaroras roamed the woodlands of this fertile region. Edgecombe County was recognized as a county in 1741; just over a century later it led the nation in cotton production and was well known as a forward-thinking and prosperous county of exceptional natural beauty. The tremendous changes ushered in by the Civil War and Reconstruction coincided with the development of photography. Photographers like S.R. Alley in Tarboro, who captured life in Edgecombe County on film in the crucial era covered here, were unknowingly recording history in a way that future generations will be forever grateful for.

Edgecombe County is a unique combination of beautiful pastoral scenery and strong, interesting people. Communities like Pinetops, Whitakers, Speed, Leggett, and Conetoe provide an excellent insight into the struggles and triumphs of traditional American small towns. In this highly anticipated second volume, you will explore the social identity of Edgecombe County by taking visual tours of several historic neighborhoods, schools, and churches. As with any successful region, Edgecombe Countys greatest resource is its people, for the area has provided a wealth of talented citizens to the political arena, military battlefronts, the playing fields of professional sports, and the artistic community. This collection of images also honors the countless men and women who persevered through the countys periods of war, depression, and natural disaster and continued to support one another in times of need and adversity.

"Between these pages the reader will learn that North Carolina citizens did not idly stand by as their soldiers marched off to war. The women worked themselves into patriotic exhaustion through Aid Societies. Civilians with different means of support from the lower class to the plantation mistress wrote the governor complaining of hoarding, speculation, the tithe, bushwhackers, unionism, conscription, and exemptions. Never before had so many died due to guerilla warfare. Unknown before starving women with weapons stormed the merchant or warehouses in search for food. Others turned to smuggling, spying, or natures oldest profession. Information from period newspapers, as well as mostly unpublished letters, tell their stories."

Had People magazine been around during the Civil War and after, Kate Chase would have made its “Most Beautiful” and “Most Intriguing” lists every year. Kate Chase, the charismatic daughter of Abraham Lincoln's treasury secretary, enjoyed unprecedented political power for a woman. As her widowed father's hostess, she set up a rival “court” against Mary Lincoln in hopes of making her father president and herself his First Lady. To facilitate that goal, she married one of the richest men in the country, the handsome “boy governor” of Rhode Island, in the social event of the Civil War. But when William Sprague turned out to be less of a prince as a husband, she found comfort in the arms of a powerful married senator. The ensuing scandal ended her virtual royalty, leaving her a social outcast who died in poverty. Yet in her final years she would find both greater authenticity and the inner peace that had always eluded her. Set against the seductive allure of the Civil War and Gilded Age, Kate Chase Sprague's dramatic story is one of ambition and tragedy involving some of the most famous personalities in American history. In this beautifully written and meticulously researched biography, drawing on much unpublished material, John Oller captures the tumultuous and passionate life of a woman who was a century ahead of her time.

The definitive biography of the basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, from the highly respected, career sportswriter and author of Michael Jordan: The Life. Magic Johnson is one of the most beloved, and at times controversial, athletes in history. His iconic smile lifted the dowdy sport of American professional basketball from a second-tier sport with low ratings into the global spotlight—a transformation driven by Magic’s ability to eviscerate opponents with a playing style that featured his grand sense of fun. He was a master entertainer who directed the Los Angeles “Showtime” Lakers to the heights of both glory and epic excess, all of it driven by his mind-blowing no-look passes and personal charm. Then, in 1991, at the height of his charismatic power, Johnson shocked the world with a startling cautionary tale about sexually transmitted disease that pushed public awareness of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Then out came his confession of unprotected sex with hundreds of women each year, followed by his retirement, an attempted return, and a proper farewell on the iconic 1992 Olympic Dream Team. Longtime biographer Roland Lazenby spent years tracking the unlikely ascension of Johnson—an immensely popular public figure who was instantly scandalized but who then turned to his legendary will to rise again as a successful entrepreneur with another level of hard-won success. In Lazenby’s portrayal, Johnson’s tale becomes bigger than that of one man. It is a generational saga spanning parts of three centuries that reveals a great deal, not just about his unique basketball journey but about America itself. Through hundreds of interviews with Johnson’s coaches, representatives past and present, teammates, opponents, friends, and loved ones, as well as key conversations with Johnson himself over the years, Lazenby has produced the first truly definitive study, both dark and light, of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Jr.—the revolutionary player, the icon, the man.