“King, there is only one thing left for you to do....Take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”Dr. Martin Luther King received this demand in an anonymous letter in 1964. He believed that the letter was telling him to commit suicide. Who wrote this anonymous letter? Most likely William Sullivan, an assistant director of the FBI.Who was Sullivan trying to impress in his campaign against King? J. Edgar Hoover. In this unsparing exploration of one of the most powerful Americans of the twentieth century, accomplished historian Marc Aronson unmasks the man behind the Bureau—his tangled family history and personal relationships; his own need for secrecy, deceit, and control; and the broad trends in American society that shaped his world. Hoover may have given America the security it wanted, but the secrets he knew gave him—and the Bureau—all the power he wanted. Master of Deceit challenges readers to explore Hoover and his secrets by offering dossiers of photos from his files, as well as FBI memoranda, movie posters, magazine covers, and cartoons from the era. Was Hoover a protector of America or a betrayer of its principles? What is the price of security? Here is a book about the twentieth century that blazes with questions and insights about our choices in the twenty-first.

Presents a collection of exciting trivia for boys, including information on supercars, pizza statistics, and nature's deadliest poisons, and provides tips on such subjects as fighting sharks, creating codes, and escaping.

The short life of Robert F. Kennedy is discussed with information about his childhood in immense wealth and privilege, his political career, his role as mentor to the poor and powerless, and his charisma. Reprint.

Clear, fast-paced prose explores Western civilization throughout history, highlighting along the way not only the different forms that racial prejudice has taken, but the way in which it has manifested itself in the politics, philosophies, and beliefs of each group of people. 15,000 first printing.

With the help of text based on primary sources, full-color artwork, custom maps, and time lines, a detailed account of the charting of the New World outlines the causes and consequences of this defining age of exploration.

An extensively researched and groundbreaking account centers on events in the mid-eighteenth century that enabled Americans to give up their loyalty to England and form their own nation, shedding new light on familiar aspects of American history.

Sifting through the facts, myths, and half-truths surrounding the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, a historian draws on primary sources to explore the events of that time.

Sifting through the facts, myths, half-truths, misinterpretations, and theories around the 1692 trials in Salem, Massachusetts, that claimed twenty-five lives, an acclaimed historian lets readers come to their own conclusions about what really happened during those terrifying months of accusations, trials, and executions. Reprint.

Looks at the political battles between the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, and the Lord Protector of the Puritan Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell, as their different positions put them at great odds during their reigns in the seventeenth century, enhanced with Internet resources, a timeline, and an index.

Presents essays that discuss the various reasons for how, what, and why teenagers read, and some issues involved in why they do not. (view table of contents)

A fascinating biography of one of the most illustrious figures of the Elizabethan era details the many antics of Sir Walter Ralegh, from laying his coat over a puddle so that Queen Elizabeth I could walk across it to his infamous pursuit of the mythological golden city of El Dorado. (view table of contents)

Discusses the arts, life styles, politics, and fashions while tracing the story of bohemians, radicals, hipsters, and hippies from Paris in the nineteenth century to contemporary America (view table of contents)

Discusses events in politics, economics, culture, and recreation

A monthly and daily chronology of the 1970s notes key events in the areas of world affairs, science and technology, culture and life styles, and U.S. politics, social issues, foreign policy, defence, and economy