New Book Release: Black Firsts

Black Firsts: 500 Years of Trailblazing Achievements and Ground-Breaking Events by Jessie Carney Smith

A celebration of achievement, accomplishments, and pride!

The first African American president, U.S. senator, and the first black lawyer in the Department of Education. The first black chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first African American commissioned officer in the Marine Corps. The first black professors in a variety of fields. The first African American advertising agency. The first African American Olympian. The first black pilot for a scheduled commercial airline. The first recorded slave revolt in North America. The first African American cookbook writer.

Revel and rejoice in the renowned and lesser-known, barrier-breaking trailblazers in all fields―arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, education, government, invention, journalism, religion, science, sports, music, and more. Black Firsts: 500 Years of Trailblazing Achievements and Ground-Breaking Events, Fourth Edition bears witness to the long and complex history of African Americans!

Expanded, updated, and revised for the first time in over eight years, Black Firsts collects more than 500 all-new achievements and previously unearthed firsts. This massive tome proves that African American accomplishments are wide-ranging and ongoing, documenting thousands of personal victories and triumphs.

Who was the first black American depicted on a postage stamp? (1940 Booker Taliaferro Washington)

Who was the first African American bookseller? (1834 David Ruggles, New York City)

Where was the first black car dealership? (1941 Edward Davis, Detroit, Studebaker)

When was the first black-owned company listed on a major stock exchange? (1971 Johnson Products)

Who was the first black U.S. senator? (1870 Hiram Rhoades [Rhodes] Revels, Mississippi)

Who was the African American columnist who won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary? (1989 Clarence Page)

Who was the U.S. Supreme Court’s first black justice? (1967 Thurgood Marshall)

Who first broke the color barrier to become a flight attendant? (1958 Ruth Carol Taylor)

Who became the first black to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point? (1877 Henry Ossian Flipper)

Which model was the first black to grace Sports Illustrated cover? (1997 Tyra Banks)

Who became the American Medical Association’s first black president? (1995 Lonnie Bristow)

What is the oldest surviving black church in America? (The African Meeting House, built in 1806 and known as the Joy Street Baptist Church, in Boston)

Who became the first black pitcher to win a World Series game? (1952 Rookie of the Year, Joe Black, of the Brooklyn Dodgers)

Who was the first regularly recognized black physician in the United States? (1780s James Durham [Derham])

Who was the first black actress to receive an Emmy Award? (1969 Gail Fisher)

Who became the first black professional football player? (1904 Charles W. Follis)

What was first short story published by a black woman in the United States? (1859 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s “The Two Offers”)

Who was the black explorer who joined the Lewis and Clark expedition? (York)

Who was the first black lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court? (1880 Samuel R. Lowery)

Which two songs by black Americans were the first to be send out of the solar system? (1977 Chuck Berry’s song “Johnny B. Goode” and Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” on Voyager I)

What famous inventor and agronomist has a national monument named after him in Diamond, Missouri? (1960 George Washington Carver)

What movie featured the first black female lead in a Disney animated feature? (2009 “The Princess and the Frog” starred Anika Noni Rose)

Who was the first black American to win a gold medal in the women’s all-around final competition.? (2012 Gabrielle “Gabby” Christina Victoria Douglas)

Who were the Tuskegee Airmen and why are they so famous? (1941 The U.S. Congress established the first combat unit for blacks in the Army Air Corps with a training facility for black airmen, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, located at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama)

Who participated in the first armed encounter of the American Revolution and later became the first black to receive an honorary master's degree? (Lemuel Haynes)

Who was the author of a book of poetry that won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a black American? (1950 Gwendolyn Brooks for “Annie Allen”)

What was the first black record company? (Pace Phonograph Company established 1921 by Henry Pace)

Who was the black hero who sacrificed himself at the Boston Massacre, an event that would help inspire the American Revolution? (1770 Crispus Attucks)

Who was the first black entertainer to host his own talk show on national television? (1989 Arsenio Hall)

Who was the first African American to lead the NASA space program? (2009 Charles Frank Bolden Jr.)

Who was the first black American to win the Nobel Peace Prize? (1944 Ralph Johnson Bunche)

Who was the first black American athlete to win an Olympic gold medal? (1908 John Baxter “Doc” Taylor Jr. winner of the 4 X 400-meter relay in London)

Which inventor had the first patent granted an African American? (1872 Elijah McCoy)

Who was the first African American to win a Grammy Award? (1959 Count [William] Basie)

Who is thought to be the United States’ first black millionaire? (1890 Thomy Lafon, New Orleans real estate speculator and moneylender)

Who was the first black named Association of College and Research Librarian of the Year? (1985 Jessie Carney Smith)

Which black first sang a principal role with the Metropolitan Opera? (1955 Marian Anderson)

When was the first black judge appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals? (1966 Spottswood Robinson)

Which black artist was the first to be featured in a solo exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art? (1937 William Edmondson)

When was the first black mayor of Dallas elected? (1995 Ron Kirk)

Who was the first elected black chairman of Republican National Convention? (1884 John Roy Lynch)

Who was the first known black to graduate from an American college? (1823 Alexander Lucius Twilight received a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in Vermont)

With more than 350 photos and illustrations, this information-rich book also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness. This vital collection will appeal to anyone interested in America’s amazing history and resilient people.

New Book Release: Maimonides the Universalist

Maimonides the Universalist: The Ethical Horizons of the Mishneh Torah by Menachem Kellner and David Gillis

Maimonides ends each book of his legal code the Mishneh torah with a moral or philosophical reflection, in which he lifts his eyes, as it were, from purely halakhic concerns and surveys broader horizons. Menachem Kellner and David Gillis analyze these concluding paragraphs, examining their verbal and thematic echoes, their adaptation of rabbinic sources, and the way in which they coordinate with the Mishneh torah's underlying structures, in order to understand how they might influence our interpretation of the code as a whole - and indeed our view of Maimonides himself and his philosophy.

Taking this unusual cross-section of the work, Kellner and Gillis conclude that the Mishneh torah presents not only a system of law, but also a system of universal values. They show how Maimonides fashions Jewish law and ritual as a program for attaining ethical and intellectual ends that are accessible to all human beings, who are created equally in the image of God.

Many reject the presentation of Maimonides as a universalist. The Mishneh torah especially is widely seen as a particularist sanctuary. This study shows how profoundly that view must be revised.

New Book Release: Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses

Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses: From the Plague of Athens to Covid 19 by Heather E. Quinlan

It can come in waves―like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives.

Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts. Most, but not all, bacteria are good for us. Some are truly horrific, including those that caused the bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plagues. And viruses and bacteria are always morphing, evolving, and changing, making them hard to treat. Plagues, Pandemics, and Viruses: From the Plague of Athens to Covid 19 is an enlightening, and sometimes frightening, recounting of the destruction wrought by disease, but it also looks at what man has done and can do to overcome even the deadliest and bleakest of contagions.

More than two years in the making, author Heather E. Quinlan was deep into her research and writing when COVID hit. She quickly saw the similarities to plagues from the past. Plagues, Pandemics, and Viruses: From the Plague of Athens to Covid 19 not only covers the history, causes, medical treatments, human responses, and aftermath of the world’s biggest pandemics, but it also draws parallels to the present. It chronicles the diseases that have inflicted man throughout the millennia, including …

The differences (and similarities) between COVID-19 and other coronaviruses

The bubonic plague/black plague, which wiped out 30% to 60% of Europe’s population

The devastation to the indigenous population during the European colonization of the Americas

The 1918 Spanish Flu, which did not come from Spain

How disease “inspired” The Canterbury Tales, Wuthering Heights, the pop art of Keith Haring, and other art and literature

AIDS’ “patient zero”

How climate change will affect future pandemics

The aftermath of various pandemics

Several modern diseases making a comeback

… and much, much more.

Along with investigating some of history’s most notorious pandemics and diseases, Plagues, Pandemics, and Viruses takes a look at human resilience and what we’ve learned from the past. It looks at how science, the medical community, and governments have conquered or mitigated most epidemics even before they can turn into pandemics. It reviews the science of pandemics, preventative measures, and medical interventions and it includes an exclusive interview with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as other experts in the medical community. Richly illustrated, it also has a helpful bibliography and extensive index. This invaluable resource is designed to help you understand, and protect you from, plagues, pandemics, epidemics, viruses, and disease!

New Book Release: Living a Purposeful Life

Living a Purposeful Life: Searching for Meaning in All the Wrong Places by Kalman J. Kaplan

While meaning and purpose are often seen as synonymous, this book argues that they sometimes are in opposition, the search for meaning at times suicidal, and living with purpose life-enhancing and invigorating.

No people seemed to search for meaning in their lives more than did the ancient and classical Greeks. They were not content with living simple lives but oftentimes took on gargantuan tasks which resulted in a great deal of upheaval and unpleasantness in their everyday lives, and oftentimes to disaster, indeed suicide. The biblical human being, in contrast, is not driven to search for meaning in this way. One's purpose is inherent in daily life. He does not need to search for it. The God of the Hebrew Bible makes the human being, man and woman, in His own image. He then breathes life into man. Life has an inherent purpose. Man must be a steward of God's creation.

New Book Release: The New Witch

The New Witch: Your Guide to Modern Witchcraft, Wicca, Spells, Potions, Magic, and More by Marie Jones

Good energy. Sacred spaces. Healing, harmony and balance. Honoring Earth and nature. Developing your sixth sense. Tapping into your natural talents and creativity. Unlocking your potential. Being your best self. Connecting your soul to life, nature, and all living creatures. Harnessing the power of natural magic, The New Witch: Your Guide to Modern Witchcraft, Wicca, Spells, Potions, Magic, and More bridges the ancient pagan ways of our ancestors and today’s digital world to help you live a happy life to its fullest.

Embracing the past and honoring the future, The New Witch focuses on the harmony between the “new way” of technology and the “old way” of living. It brings together the brave new world of gadgets and social networks with the wise nature-based traditions of our ancestors by offering ideas on how to combine the old with the new for a more successful, fulfilling practice. Discover and learn about …

Finding tools and items for spells and rituals

Amplifying the good and dispelling the bad

“High Magic” versus “Low Magic”

Getting grounded, alert, and aware for spell casting

Finding substitutions for items you might not have available

Learning the astrological correspondences of candle colors

Recharging your own energy

Building your intuitive muscles

Adding love in your life

Calming anxiety

Lifting your vibration

Improving sleep

Learning the connection between the Moon’s phases and Moon magic

Understanding the benefits (and detriments) of technology

And much more!

New Release: Handy Western Philosophy

The Handy Western Philosophy Answer Book: The Ancient Greek Influence on Modern Understanding by Ed D'Angelo

Difficult philosophy made easy. The universe and our place in it, the meaning of life, the nature of justice and the good society, and the powers of reason. All these topics explored, questioned, and explained.

Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Stoicism, Skepticism, Cynicism, Continental philosophy, ethics, government and governing, virtue, love, life, and death. Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Bertrand Russell, and Michel Foucault…. From famous figures in the history of philosophy to the deepest questions of religion to the relationship between knowledge and power, The Handy Western Philosophy Answer Book: The Ancient Greek Influence on Modern Understanding makes esoteric ideas and the jumble of names easy to understand, enriching readers’ lives and answering the question, What does philosophy have to teach us about life and society?

Today many people experience a loss of trust in government and organized religion. There's increased social isolation and a rise in insult politics. Seeking an alternative, some have experimented with new forms of politics, social organization, and spirituality. All these developments have led to a great deal of confusion and puzzlement. Who and what can we believe, and how can we know it is correct? From its beginning, philosophy was conceived as a conversation or dialogue, and The Handy Western Philosophy Answer Book raises and offers answers to questions like these …

What is philosophy?

What is metaphysics?

What is logic?

How is ethics different than morality?

How did Pre-Socratic philosophy get started?

What is the arrow paradox?

Who was Pythagoras?

How did Stoicism inspire modern cognitive psychotherapy?

Who was the founder of Western philosophy?

What is a harmonic sequence in music?

What are the four cardinal virtues?

Was pederasty condoned in ancient Greece?

How, according to Plato, is philosophy like making love?

What are the three parts of the soul?

How does democracy degenerate into tyranny?

What is the history of Alexander the Great’s military campaigns?

How did Alexander the Great change the course of the history of philosophy?

What did Aristotle say about the social nature of human beings?

What is Aristotle’s conception of the soul?

What is the soul of a plant?

What is virtue?

What is an emotion?

Why do we need friends?

Why did Aristotle believe that the state has a responsibility to educate its citizens?

What did Aristotle think about money?

What is the meaning and origin of the Serenity Prayer?

What impact did the Epicureans have on the modern world?

What was the museum of Alexandria?

How did Stoicism inspire modern cognitive psychotherapy?

What is the problem with the sentence “The present king of France is bald”?

What is the postmodern condition?

Philosophy is the pursuit of answers to big questions about the purpose of life, death, and existence. Philosophy is about how to reason and find the answers for yourself. Philosophy is a puzzle. You collect clues. You make connections. The Handy Western Philosophy Answer Book is a perfect companion for anyone seeking wider truths and happiness. It is an informative, accessible, easy-to-understand guide to the big questions about living. With more than 120 photos and graphics, it is richly illustrated. Plus, its helpful bibliography, glossary of terms, and extensive index add to its usefulness.

New Release: Handy History

 

The Handy History Answer Book: From the Stone Age to the Digital Age (4th ed.) by Stephen A. Werner

From the Origin of Humans to Today … All in One Volume!

Highlights. Low lights. The twists and turns of social, political, and cultural history gathered in one fun and fascinating title! The Handy History Answer Book: From the Stone Age to the Digital Age takes a riveting walk through the ages, looking at the most important events of the past 5,000 years, including wars, disasters, pandemics, births, lives, and more. It supplies context to the past with a wealth of information on invention, philosophy, science, politics, culture, sports, business, law, media, and religion.

A concise guide to all things historical, this feast of facts and compelling stories recounts the revolutionary ideas, acts, and inventions that changed the world. It surveys significant people, times, and events worldwide, with a special focus on U.S. history from its beginnings to the present. Fully revised and updated, this new edition of The Handy History Answer Book answers over 1,600 of the most frequently asked, most interesting, and unusual history questions, including …

What was the Stone Age?

Why was Julius Caesar murdered?

What are the origins of the religion of Islam?

Why is the COVID-19 pandemic so significant?

Why is the shamrock the symbol of St. Patrick?

What is the legacy of the Crusades today?

What are England’s royal “houses”?

Did Marie Antoinette really say, “Let them eat cake”?

When did people first migrate to North America?

Who are the Cajuns?

What is the Hubble Space Telescope?

What were the first political parties in the United States?

Who was Black Elk?

When did chain stores first appear?

Were the Nazi’s socialists?

How long have hurricanes been given names?

Who was Typhoid Mary?

What happened at Pearl Harbor?

What was the Bataan Death March?

What is NATO?

What is habeas corpus?

Who was Emmett Till?

Who was Genghis Khan?

What was the triangular trade?

Who is called the “Father of the Interstate System”?

Who is Bernie Madoff?

Who were the Wobblies?

What was the Beat movement?

Who is Ralph Nader??

What is the Occupy movement?

What is the strongest earthquake ever measured?

What happened on Apollo 13?

What is Gray’s Anatomy?

What is origin of Listerine®?

What is the problem with antibiotics today?

Who developed the first MRI machine? How does it work?

What are the Ivy League colleges?

Who were the Brothers Grimm?

Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean?

What was the Motion Picture Production Code?

Which entertainers were in the Rat Pack?

Who wrote the first computer program?

What is unique about the Trump presidency?

If “History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes” (as Mark Twain is reputed to have said) then The Handy History Answer Book is a lyrical and poetic treat. Clear, concise, and straightforward, this informative primer is a resource for brushing up on the events, terms, and history-makers many of us remember from school but can’t completely recall. Wide-ranging and comprehensive with nearly 250 illustrations, this information-rich tome also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness. A perfect companion for history buffs of all ages.