Most Popular Books by JACK E. DAVIS

Winner • Pulitzer Prize for History Winner • Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist • National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, NPR, Library Journal, and gCaptain Booklist Editors’ Choice (History) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence In this “cri de coeur about the Gulf’s environmental ruin” (New York Times), “Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea” (front page, New York Times Book Review). Hailed as a “nonfiction epic . . . in the tradition of Jared Diamond’s best-seller Collapse, and Simon Winchester’s Atlantic” (Dallas Morning News), Jack E. Davis’s The Gulf is “by turns informative, lyrical, inspiring and chilling for anyone who cares about the future of ‘America’s Sea’ ” (Wall Street Journal). Illuminating America’s political and economic relationship with the environment from the age of the conquistadors to the present, Davis demonstrates how the Gulf’s fruitful ecosystems and exceptional beauty empowered a growing nation. Filled with vivid, untold stories from the sportfish that launched Gulfside vacationing to Hollywood’s role in the country’s first offshore oil wells, this “vast and welltold story shows how we made the Gulf . . . [into] a ‘national sacrifice zone’ ” (Bill McKibben). The first and only study of its kind, The Gulf offers “a unique and illuminating history of the American Southern coast and sea as it should be written” (Edward O. Wilson).

While many studies of race relations have focused on the black experience, Race against Time strives to unravel the emotional and cultural foundations of race in the white mind. Jack E. Davis combed primary documents in Natchez, Mississippi, and absorbed the town''s oral history to understand white racial attitudes there over the past seven decades, a period rich in social change, strife, and reconciliation. What he found in this community that cultivates for profit a romantic view of the Old South challenges conventional assumptions about racial prejudice. Davis engagingly and effortlessly weaves between nineteenth and twentieth centuries, white observations and black, to describe patterns of social interaction in Natchez in the workplace, education, politics, religion, and daily life. It was not, he discovers, false notions of biological differences reinforced by class and economic conflict that lay at the heart of the town''s racial divide but rather the perception of a black/white cultural divergence -- in values in education, work, and family. White culture was deemed superior, a presumption manifested through a hierarchy of old-family elite and other white citizens. Since 1930, Natchez has developed a major tourist industry, downsized sharecropping, expanded its manufacturing sector, and participated in the struggles for civil rights, school desegregation, and black political empowerment. Yet the collective white perception of a mythic past has continued, reinforced through the sum of Natchez''s public history -- social memory, school textbooks, breathtaking antebellum mansions, and world-famous Pilgrimage. In Race against Time, Davis sensitively lays bare the need for shared control of the town''s history and the acknowledgment of intercultural dependence to effect true racial equality. Building upon the 1941 classic Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, Davis brings tremendous passion and insight to the demanding issue of race as he fathoms the contours of Natchez''s distinctive racial dynamics in recent decades.

Best Books of the Month: Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America. The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation’s founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers, and the lives of bald eagles themselves—monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world’s finest parents—The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale.

Profiles the suffragist, feminist, and environmentalist who fought for the preservation and protection of the Everglades and won the battle that turned it into a national wilderness area.

After listening to a brutal murder on her phone''s voicemail, schoolteacher Samantha Harris sets out to discover who''s responsible for the crime. Unfortunately, while trying to solve one murder, she inadvertently uncovers another. Now, pulled into the center of her normally quiet town''s latest murder, Samantha begins to see her enigmatic friends as cold-blooded murderers. Armed with only a 15lbs dachshund by her side, Samantha is determined to uncover the truth. But when a new mysterious stranger blows into town, they bring up a few skeletons from this not so quiet town''s past... from both the dead and the living.

What I wanted was a cute little kitten. Instead, I got a tough tomcat that talks. And that''s not all! He says he''s my Great-Grandpa Julius and he needs my help. And messy litter box or not, family is family!

One minute I was looking for my retainer in the bathroom. The next, I was staring at a boy who looked just like me. And I don''t mean my reflection! What''s going on here?

A young boy with a knack for creating unusual inventions when he should be helping his mother on the farm finds a use for them when he is made sheriff of a town in Texas and must get rid of a gang of no-good bullies.

Zack isn''t thrilled about having to get a tooth pulled, but a trip to the orthodontist proves a lot hairier than he ever expected. Nice old Dr. Silver has been replaced by the fang- toothed Dr. Jekyll, a mouthwash-guzzling mad scientist whose secret experiments have gone ker-plewy!

Who''d have thought mind reading could be such a pain? I mean, I expected to discover everyone''s silly secrets. But someone is planning something very strange--and it''s no joke!

No detailed description available for "The Spanish of Argentina and Uruguay".

A popular guide to Mississippi''s unique and off-beat attractions. Fascinating people and places that contribute to Mississippi''s special charm are included in this book.

When Zack is bitten by a tick during a class trip to Central Park he succumbs to Rhyme Disease, which causes him to speak only in rhymes and to float like a helium balloon.

Thanks to a heaping helping of a new dietetic sugar substitute, Zack shrinks down to the size of a bug and discovers an army of ants who are building an ant pyramid for their despotic pharaoh-queen

A full-color phographic book presenting 100 American eagle artifacts, artworks, and memorabilia from one of the world''s most eminent collections.

Clearing the air : attack of the giant eagle aims to display some of the many different myths involving eagle attacks and explain why eagle attack stories remain popular throughout human history, even in the present day.