Showing results by author "Edward Renehan" in All Categories

On a dismal day at the end of October, 1968, a weekend sailor by the name of Donald Crowhurst set out from England in a flimsy trimaran, hoping to become the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the world nonstop. His was an exercise in over-arching ambition, delusion, and tragedy such as the world has seldom seen. Before it was over, the world media would be subject to a fraud of enormous proportions, and Crowhurst would die a madman in the middle of the Atlantic. What he left behind was a shattered boat, a shattered family, and this incredible story.

Pope John Paul II is an informative introduction to the life of this major historical figure. Pope John Paul II led the Catholic Church during a time of great upheaval. During his pontificate (1979-2005), the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall collapsed, and great strides were made for freedom worldwide. The first non-Italian pope in more than four centuries, the Polish John Paul was also the very first Slavic pope ever.

The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen.

One of the most famous moments of the '60s - and one that continues, to this day, to be grossly misconstrued, mistold, and loaded with undeserved meaning - is the night in July, 1965, when Bob Dylan played an electric set (or at least tried to play an electric set) at the Newport Folk Festival: an event after which, supposedly, the culture of the '60s was never quite the same again. But was Dylan's much-hyped and quite abbreviated, 15-minute performance really a pivot point?

Blacklists. Political witch-hunts. Congressional Inquisitions. Loyalty oaths. And one brave banjo-wielding patriot willing to risk prison and professional ruin rather than acquiesce....

In May 1869, the U.S. railroad network unified when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads came together in Promontory, Utah. The Transcontinental Railroad: The Gateway to the West discusses this important milestone in the expansion of the United States and its impact on the nation, both positive and negative. This book tells how the east-west railroad played an integral role in opening western markets to the residents of the eastern United States, but it also examines how the railroad led to the demise of many American Indian groups in the West.

Family memoirs and previously unpublished material provide the backdrop for this poignant portrait of a man whose heroic idealism inspired a nation. Edward Renehan's graceful prose allows listeners a close-up look at an entire family of larger-than-life heroes. Theodore Roosevelt taught his sons that wealth and influence were inextricably bound up with a duty to defend democracy to the death. His own exemplary conduct in the Spanish-American War helped win the war for the United States.