NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY New York Times Critics • Wall Street Journal • Kirkus Reviews Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize The deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City, forging a life between two worlds In 2014, in a snow-covered house in Flushing, Queens, a village revolutionary from Southern China considered his options. Zhuang Liehong was the son of a fisherman, the former owner of a small tea shop, and the spark that had sent his village into an uproar—pitting residents against a corrupt local government. Under the alias Patriot Number One, he had stoked a series of pro-democracy protests, hoping to change his home for the better. Instead, sensing an impending crackdown, Zhuang and his wife, Little Yan, left their infant son with relatives and traveled to America. With few contacts and only a shaky grasp of English, they had to start from scratch. In Patriot Number One, Hilgers follows this dauntless family through a world hidden in plain sight: a byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground asylum brokers and illegal dormitories that Flushing’s Chinese community relies on for survival. As the irrepressibly opinionated Zhuang and the more pragmatic Little Yan pursue legal status and struggle to reunite with their son, we also meet others piecing together a new life in Flushing. Tang, a democracy activist who was caught up in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is still dedicated to his cause after more than a decade in exile. Karen, a college graduate whose mother imagined a bold American life for her, works part-time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school, and refuses to look backward. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY New York Times Critics • Wall Street Journal • Kirkus Reviews Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize The deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City, forging a life between two worlds In 2014, in a snow-covered house in Flushing, Queens, a village revolutionary from Southern China considered his options. Zhuang Liehong was the son of a fisherman, the former owner of a small tea shop, and the spark that had sent his village into an uproar—pitting residents against a corrupt local government. Under the alias Patriot Number One, he had stoked a series of pro-democracy protests, hoping to change his home for the better. Instead, sensing an impending crackdown, Zhuang and his wife, Little Yan, left their infant son with relatives and traveled to America. With few contacts and only a shaky grasp of English, they had to start from scratch. In Patriot Number One, Hilgers follows this dauntless family through a world hidden in plain sight: a byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground asylum brokers and illegal dormitories that Flushing’s Chinese community relies on for survival. As the irrepressibly opinionated Zhuang and the more pragmatic Little Yan pursue legal status and struggle to reunite with their son, we also meet others piecing together a new life in Flushing. Tang, a democracy activist who was caught up in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is still dedicated to his cause after more than a decade in exile. Karen, a college graduate whose mother imagined a bold American life for her, works part-time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school, and refuses to look backward. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.

Japan and China are thrown close to the brink of war when a Japanese warship is attacked. Meanwhile top Covert-One operative Jon Smith is sent to recover mysterious material from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactor. Smith vanishes, and CIA agent Randi Russell goes on an unsanctioned mission to find him. She discovers that the missing samples may be evidence that Japan, led by Chief of Staff Masao Takahashi, has been developing next-generation weapons systems in preparation for a conflict with China. The Covert-One team must prevent Takahashi from sparking a war, or the world will be dragged into a battle certain to kill tens of millions of people and leave much of the planet uninhabitable.

In the summer of 1776, Joseph Plumb Martin was a fifteen-year-old Connecticut farm boy who considered himself as warm a patriot as the best of them. He enlisted that July and stayed in the revolutionary army until hostilities ended in 1783. Martin fought under Washington, Lafayette, and Steuben. He took part in major battles in New York, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He wintered at Valley Forge and then at Morristown, considered even more severe. He wrote of his war years in a memoir that brings the American Revolution alive with telling details, drama, and a country boy's humor. Jim Murphy lets Joseph Plumb Martin speak for himself throughout the text, weaving in historical backfround details wherever necessary, giving voice to a teenager who was an eyewitness to the fight that set America free from the British Empire.

In the mid 1990s self-styled Patriot John Pitner gathered around him a ragtag band of discontents, all eager to avenge themselves against America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic. Fervently believing that a New World Order threatened their liberty and way of life, Pitner and his recruits prepared for confrontation until an FBI sting led to their arrests on conspiracy charges in 1997. In Lone Patriot, acclaimed New Yorker correspondent Jane Kramer delivers an intimate look into the life and mind of a militia leader and his followers, exploring the volatile mix of personalities and politics that shapes their extreme worldview. Through a series of exclusive interviews with them both before and after, Kramer paints an incredible portrait of a rural America that is rarely glimpsed but strikingly relevant.

Collects Iron Patriot #1-5.