In Extravagant Expectations Paul Hollander investigates how Americans now pursue romantic partners and enduring relationships. Analyzing printed advertisements (personals), dating sites, and the advice offered by self-help and "relationship" books, he weighs the advantages and shortcomings of these methods against a background of popular culture, advertising, and pop psychology.

Do Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms? Or is this power vested solely in government? Recent years have seen a sea change in scholarship on the Second Amendment. Beginning in the 1960s, a revisionist view emerged that individuals had a "right" to bear arms only in militia service—a limited, collective right. But in the late 1980s a handful of scholars began producing an altogether persuasive analysis that changed thinking on the matter, so that today, even in canonical textbooks, bearing arms is acknowledged as an individual right. Stephen Halbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment is the first book-length account of the origins of the Second Amendment, based on the Founders' own statements as found in newspapers, correspondence, debates, and resolutions.

In 1914 and 1915 the newly formed Federal League struggled for profits and Major League status, the established leagues battled to stop them, and the players organized baseball's first real union. The consequences of this battle would shape the business of baseball and American professional sports in general for many years to come.

This little book will teach you all you need to know about the most frustrating yet entertaining pitch in baseball: the knuckleball. "Clark masterfully breaks down the pitch, the mindset, and could save the pitch from extinction with this important work."—Will Carroll.

With tuition rising at four times the rate of inflation, colleges and universities have focused on ever more superficial measures of quality—from expertly manicured lawns to organic food offerings in the cafeteria. Riley cuts through the piles of glossy college catalogs and popular rankings such as U.S. News and World Report to bring families the real story behind the higher education industry.

From Prairie to Corn Belt, first published in 1967, examines the development of farming in the prairie states. Bogue focuses on the individual farmer and the problems and developments that have forced changes in the family farm business.

With health reform enacted by the Congress and signed by the President, the subject matter of The Treatment Trap is a compelling component in the national debate. Taking advantage of Rosemary Gibson's knowledge gleaned from extended experience in the field of medical care and Janardan Singh's similar knowledge but from a financial perspective, the authors explore the most neglected issue in American medicine today: the overuse of medical care, including needless surgery and other invasive procedures, out-of-control x-ray imaging, profligate testing, and other wasteful practices that have become routine among too many American doctors. Their combined reporting and analysis concentrates on the human aspects of this disturbing trend in health care, with personal experiences that reflect poorly on hospitals as well as physicians. They show how money spent for questionable and even useless care is diverting major funds that could be better used to treat patients who are genuinely sick and sometimes cannot afford the extravagant charges of the American health-care system. Their suggestions for reforming the delivery of health care, and their cautions to individual consumers about how to deal with situations they may encounter, make The Treatment Trap essential reading for medical care consumers, health-care professionals, and policymakers alike.

One Hundred Percent American is a new, comprehensive history of the 1920s Invisible Empire that recognizes the diversity of the Klan movement while charting the patterns that determined the organization's rise and fall. Enlivened by sharp detail, it situates the Klan within mainstream developments in American postwar life but also explains why the Klan failed to achieve mainstream status and influence in the 1920s. The 1920s struggle to define American identity restrictively or expansively remains relevant today.

Ireland's Easter Rising of 1916 is one of the handful of modern historical events that instantly created its own mythology and changed millions of lives forever. Charles Townshend's remarkable new book vividly re-creates this extraordinary time when a powerful narrative was born and Ireland was launched into a new world.

John Ernest offers a comprehensive survey of the broad-ranging and influential African American organizations and networks formed in the North in the late eighteenth century through the end of the Civil War. He examines fraternal organizations, churches, conventions, mutual aid benefit and literary societies, educational organizations, newspapers, and magazines. Ernest argues these organizations demonstrate how African Americans self-definition was not solely determined by slavery as they tried to create organizations in the hope of creating a community.