What do you know about America’s vice presidents? An “altogether amusing” history filled with oft-forgotten names and fascinating anecdotes (AV Club). How many vice presidents went on to become president? How many vice presidents shot men while in office? Who was the better shot? Who was the first vice president to assume power when a president died? Why did he return official letters without reading them? What vice president was almost torn limb from limb in Venezuela? Which former VP was tried for treason for trying to start his own empire in the Southwest? How many vice presidents were assassinated? In the next presidential election, should you worry about the candidates for vice president? The vice presidency isn’t worth “a bucket of warm spit.” That’s the prudish version of what John Nance Garner had to say about the office—several years after serving as VP under FDR. Was he right? The vice presidency is one of America’s most historically complicated and underappreciated public offices. And Jeremy Lott’s sweeping, hilarious, and insightful history introduces the unusual, colorful, and sometimes shadowy cast of characters that have occupied it—their bitter rivalries and rank ambitions, glorious victories and tragic setbacks, revealed through hundreds of historical vignettes and drawn from extensive research and interviews. “Full of rich veep history.” —Baltimore Sun

Collects anecdotes about notable American vice-presidents, including Aaron Burr, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Dick Cheney.

Contains a collection of articles that discuss trends in the study of sound and electromagnetic waves, covering the natural world, human constructions, and various applications of different waves that transport energy away from its source.

Christian Encounters, a series of biographies from Thomas Nelson Publishers, highlights important lives from all ages and areas of the Church. Some are familiar faces. Others are unexpected guests. But all, through their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires, uniquely illuminate our shared experience. William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) was a voice to millions, hosting the long-running “Firing Line” TV show, writing more than 50 books, and launching National Review magazine in 1955 to “fix the newly cast conservative cannons on the enemies of collectivism, liberalism, and Communism.” Jeremy Lott makes a nuanced case for the profound influence of Buckley’s faith—he was a Catholic with Irish-Protestant roots—on his emergence as a modern-day Jonah, warning of “the doom to come if America didn’t change course, quickly.” Buckley viewed the challenges of his era as ultimately religious in nature. Like the other members of his colorful family, he believed that God, family, and country—in that order—“demanded our unswerving loyalty.” Lott traces the thread of faith that ran through Buckley’s public life, from his call for a return to orthodoxy at Yale University to his doomed but entertaining run for mayor of New York, from his jaw-dropping verbal joust with Gore Vidal to his surprisingly fresh final thoughts on the end of the Cold War.

The founders of the Constitution created the office of the President to be the Chief Executive of the United States, as well as an important figure the nation could turn to. This book covers the role and duties of the executive in the office of President, describing how those duties have changed and evolved throughout the history of the United States. There is also plenty of helpful information detailing the complicated election process, from the caucus to the Electoral College, helping to educate a new generation of voters about their impact on electing the next executive officer.

Today understanding of religion is essential to understanding many major news stories. This book examines how the media frequently miss or misunderstand these stories because they do not take religion seriously, and how they misunderstand religion when they do take it seriously. To the extent that journalists do not grasp events' religious dimensions, both global and local, the authors argue, they are hindered from, and sometimes incapable of, describing what is happening. However, on the national level the press is one of the most secular institutions in American society -- not necessarily contemptuous of serious religion, just uncomprehending. The essays in this book examine nine specific news stories that were inadequately or incorrectly reported by major news sources because their religious dimension was ignored, overlooked, or misrepresented. These stories range from the 2004 U.S. presidential elections to Iran, Iraq, and the papal succession. In each case the author demonstrates how the story might have been more effectively reported and concludes with specific suggestions for journalist. The authors include both scholars and experienced news analysts. Although it will be of particular interest to people of faith, the book offers all readers an interesting and balanced analysis of the news media's uneasy relationship with religion and religious issues.

The Congress of the United States operates in the shadow of the American presidency, which can make the legislative branch appear less important than the executive in our constitutional system of government. And yet Congress is a co-equal branch of government, deriving its powers from Article I of the United States Constitution. Love it or hate it, the institution is a source of incredible power. It behooves all Americans to learn more about Congress. Although a single slender volume cannot provide information on all there is to know about Congress, it can begin the journey. In Congressional Giants, political scientist J. Michael Martinez explores the careers and achievements of 14 influential leaders of Congress—men who either held formal positions within the chambers of Congress, such as speaker of the House of Representatives or Senate majority leader, or who served on important committees--to determine how they shaped the course of American history.