The Rocky Mountain Revolution, by Stewart Holbrook

Harry Orchard, professional killer, rolled up a record in the days when the mine owners and the labor unions waged what was virtually civil war. That Orchard outlived the Western Federation of Miners and that he held one of the top records for length of terms a life prisoner–all this is unimportant compared to the…

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Open Borders, by Betsy Bell

It is 1983, and the anti-war movement Target Seattle is preparing for a trip to Tashkent, Seattle’s Sister City in Uzbekistan. Betsy Bell’s husband, Don, is the chair of the executive committee of Target Seattle, and co-leader of the trip. Traveling with three thousand copies of a peace petition, as well as her seventeen-year-old daughter…

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Crude Dreams, by Jack Roderick

In February 1968, the rumors became reality: An ARCO drilling rig has struck oil — lots of oil — on Alaska’s remote North Slope. Jack Roderick’s Crude Dreams: A Personal History of Oil and Politics in Alaska (448 pages) reads like a novel as he tells of the risky, expensive, and mostly frustrating search for…

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