In January 1950, shortly after leaving Norfolk, Virginia, the USS Missouri ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay. The mishap captured the curiosity of Americans from coast to coast, and as the nation looked on an embarrassed Navy frantically tried to refloat the warship - for two weeks. The eventual recovery set lasting records in the history of organized marine salvage. This book provides a minute-by-minute account of the grounding, the root cause of which has never before been made public.

Hard-Pressed in the Heartland tells the heartbreaking but empowering story of a spirited local union trying to resist management's drive for concessions--while fending off a conservative national union leadership unwilling to support its own members. Going beyond academic history, it offers useful perspectives for rebuilding a democratic, militant, community-based unionism that can succeed where today's bureaucratic unionism cannot.

Masters, a member of 3 Troop, 10 Commando--a small British Army Commando unit comprised almost entirely of Jewish refugees--discusses how the unit formed, how members had to change their names and conceal their identities, the elaborate and grueling training sessions which prepared them for their part in the D-day invasion, and numerous battles and reconnaissance missions, offering glimpses into battlefronts in France, Italy and Holland. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

“How 1,000 Latina workers in Watsonville, California won an 18-month long strike . . . an inspiring tale” (Mae M. Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects and The Lucky Ones) On September 9, 1985, a predominately Mexican group of one thousand women workers in Watsonville, California, the “frozen food capital of the world,” were forced out on strike in response to an attempt by Watsonville Canning owner Mort Console to break their union. They returned to work eighteen months later. Not one had crossed the picket line. A moribund union has been revitalized, and Watsonville’s Latino majority emerged as a major force in local politics. At a time when organized labor was in headlong retreat, the Watsonville Canning strike was a dramatic show of the power of women workers, whose struggle became a rallying point for the Chicano movement. Apart from its sheer drama, the strikers’ story illuminates the challenges facing a group of ordinary working people who waged a protracted and ultimately successful struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Peter Kirsanow delivers a gripping, high-stakes thriller in which special operator Mike Garin faces off against a lethal Russian assassin--and a devious plot to wreak chaos in America. Within mere weeks of thwarting a cataclysmic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the United States, Michael Garin, former leader of the elite Omega special operations unit, discovers that Russia has triggered an ingenious and catastrophic backup plan. Garin's efforts to warn the administration of the new attack, however, fall on deaf ears. No one believes the Russians would initiate another strike of such magnitude so soon. Without government support, Garin turns to three people for help: Congo Knox, a former Delta Force sniper; Dan Dwyer, the head of a sprawling military contracting firm; and Olivia Perry, an aide to the national security advisor. Yet Garin and his ad hoc team are checked at every turn by the formidable Russian assassin, Taras Bor, who is directed by an individual seemingly able to manipulate the highest reaches of the US government. As evidence mounts that the Russian plot has been set in motion and that Bor is pivotal to its success, it's up to Garin and his team to thwart an attack that will cause the death of millions and establish a new world order.

Bold is a radical how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions. A follow-up to the authors' Abundance (2012).

The Chicago Teachers Union strike was the most important domestic labor struggle so far this century—and perhaps for the last forty years—and the strongest challenge to the conservative agenda for restructuring education, which advocates for more charter schools and tying teacher salaries to standardized testing, among other changes. In 2012, Chicago teachers built a grassroots movement through education and engagement of an entire union membership, taking militant action in the face of enormous structural barriers and a hostile Democratic Party leadership. The teachers won massive concessions from the city and have become a new model for school reform led by teachers themselves, rather than by billionaires. Strike for America is the story of this movement, and how it has become the defining struggle for the labor movement today.