Washington Bullets

Engaging stories in the form of Marxist journalism about US imperialism Washington Bullets is written in the best traditions of Marxist journalism and history-writing. It is a book of fluent and readable stories, full of detail about US imperialism, but never letting the minutiae obscure the larger political point. It is a book that could easily have been a song of despair—a lament of lost causes; it is, after all, a roll call of butchers and assassins; of plots against people’s movements and governments; of the assassinations of socialists, Marxists, communists all over the Third World by the country where liberty is a statue. Despite all this, Washington Bullets is a book about possibilities, about hope, about genuine heroes. One such is Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso—also assassinated—who said: ‘You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.’ Washington Bullets is a book infused with this madness, the madness that dares to invent the future.

This book chronicles the Washington, DC area's history of professional basketball, from the sport's origins up through the present day. It captures the high and low times of the Bullets, the Wizards, and all the other basketball teams in Washington's history. The authors meticulously researched newspaper and magazine articles, as well as archival material from the Basketball Hall of Fame, to give a complete and comprehensive history of the DC teams. Their findings illuminate the owners, players, and rivalries, while also providing insight into the events, trades, and most significant games that occurred throughout the history of professional basketball in the DC area.

John C. Tramazzo highlights the relationship between bourbon and military service to show the rich and dramatic connection in American history.

Did you know that fatal gun mishaps have been so common in America that for centuries, newspapers carried regular columns reporting on “melancholy accidents”? It came as a surprising discovery when, while conducting research that involved reading colonial-era newspapers, acclaimed writer Peter Manseau stumbled upon one report after another of “melancholy accidents”—instances of local people accidentally discharging firearms to disastrous results. Usually, they were brief items, with the concision of dark poetry—hunting accidents, neighbor shooting neighbor, father shooting son. Dark as they were, they were also often bizarre and fascinating—such as the case of one farmer who, trying out his new musket, shot it at his barn, hitting a door hinge that split the musket ball in two, with each half ricochetting off to hit a different, distant person, each of whom was a doctor. In Melancholy Accidents, Manseau collects and annotates a wide-ranging assortment of these woebegone and oddly intimate reports, with numerous illustrations, photos, and visuals from original period newspapers. It makes for a wholly unique contribution to the ongoing consideration of—and the recent heated discussion about—the historic place of firearms in American society.

"A young black boy, legally blind in one eye, from a hard-working family in the poorest section of Washington, D.C., leaps to the pinnacle of his sport: the NBA Hall of Fame. A rookie bank teller rises to become one of the nation's most celebrated black business leaders. A once-reluctant political neophyte answers the call to become mayor of America's most troubled city, and he establishes a mentoring program for African-American boys that serves as a model for the nation. All of these stories belong to Dave Bing. In Attacking the Rim, Bing shares this multifaceted personal saga with rare combination of modesty, moxie and powerful self-belief. Reflecting on his playing days with the Detroit Pistons, Washington Bullets, and Boston Celtics, Bing takes readers inside the exciting world of pro basketball at the moment when sensational athletes were turning a low-budget game into a high-powered, multi-million dollar entertainment spectacle. From inside the Detroit mayor's office, he offers a first-hand look at the city's plight, including intractable debt and corruption, massive unemployment, woeful city services and infrastructure, and the daily choices between the lesser of evils"--

Two-time All-Star and thirteen-year NBA veteran Caron Butler has an impressive basketball record. He was Big East Co-Player of the Year at UConn, the 10th overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft and a key player for the Dallas Mavericks in their championship-winning season in 2011. But before Butler had a chance to prove himself on the court, he spent his time trying to prove himself on the streets, as a gang member and drug dealer in his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin. He saw friends gunned down in the bloody street wars near his home, was arrested nearly 15 times and wound up behind bars and in solitary confinement before his 15th birthday. Tuff Juice shares Caron Butler’s extraordinary journey from his delinquent youth in the streets of Racine to his role as an accomplished pro basketball player, dedicated husband and father, active philanthropist and burgeoning businessman. Along the way, the book explores the incredible impact his single mother’s unconditional love and his college coach’s unwavering support had on him, and what drives him to be so successful in basketball and in life. Like The Blind Side, it’s a gripping narrative filled with hubris, dangerous obstacles and heartwarming moments that transcend sports and speak to perseverance, hope and the triumph of the human spirit.

The social and intellectual history of Iraq told through the academic, political and social experiences of Iraqi academics in exile.