Town Histories

Trochenbrod was the only freestanding, fully realized Jewish town in history. It began with a few Jewish settlers searching for freedom from the Russian Czars’ oppressive policies, which included the forced conscriptions of one son from each Jewish family household throughout Russia. This scene of ethnic harmony was soon shattered, as Trochenbrod vanished in 1941 - her residents slaughtered, her homes, buildings, and factories razed to the ground.

In prose as crystalline as his view to the Pyrenees on a clear day, Allman animates Lauzerte and its surrounding communities—Cahors, Moissac, Montauban—all ever in thrall to the magnetic impulse of Paris. Witness to so many dramas over the centuries, his house comes alive as a historical protagonist in its own right, from its wine-cellar cave to the roof where he wages futile battle with pigeons, to the life lessons it conveys. “The onward march of history, my House keeps demonstrating, never takes a rest,” he observes, pulling us vividly into his world.

June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia—population just 3,000 in 1944—died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost—it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. The Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind.

When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months his ideas spread across Germany then all of Europe; within years their author was not just famous but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.

Deadwood, 1876: a notorious little mining town in modern-day South Dakota that was a hive of criminal activity. Thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, and murderers ran rampant among its booming streets. There were over 300 murders in this town during the first year of its existence. When Wild Bill Hickok was brutally shot and killed at point-blank range in the back of the head, it was obvious that someone had to rise up and save the town of Deadwood from itself.

From the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy, 15men and women veterans of the Italian campaign open up about a war that was so brutal, news of it was downplayed at home. Here are the stories from a vanishing generation speaking to America today. The war in the Mediterranean, and particularly the Italian Campaign, is one that for many Americans is shrouded in mystery and murkiness. Yet it was here that the United States launched its first offensive in the west on enemy soil.

In Ludlow, Kentucky, where Confederate flags once dominated the landscape and call for civil war echoed on Facebook, a circus raised its big top—and never left. On January 20, 2025, as Donald Trump returned to office, the KKK plastered the town with hateful fliers, but the circus, a 250-year-old beacon of diversity and inclusion, stood its ground. This is the true, stranger-than-fiction story of how a creative community defied hate, bureaucracy, and small-town politics to transform Ludlow into Kentucky’s hottest real estate market.

Justice in Plain Sight is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the US Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public - including the press - needed to bear witness to justice....

There is nobody like Patrick Mahomes. In three seasons, he has won a Super Bowl and competed in another, earned the titles of First Team All-Pro, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and league MVP, and turned the Kansas City Chiefs from famed playoff failures into the most successful team in the NFL. With his unique and groundbreaking playing style, and winning personality both on and off the field, Mahomes has become a truly transcendent quarterback in a journey that mirrors and accentuates the rebirth of the once swingin’ cow town of Kansas City, Missouri.

Young listeners will adore these two inspirational children's stories that are accompanied by original music. The History of Christmas: In this charming metaphor about the discovery of self-worth and the following of one's destiny, a grandfather tells the story of Jesus' birth and how he found his star. The Smallest Mouse in Town convinces himself that he is a giant, and in the end, he proves that the most important thing is to be who you are no matter what. After all, liking yourself is one of life's most important lessons.

A genteel Border South town not far from the nation’s capital is shaken by a series of vicious slayings at historic sites. These include a Civil War cemetery for escaped slaves; a burial mound of Confederate soldiers; a church associated with George Washington; and a museum on the Antebellum Era. At the same time, violent break-ins take place at venerable banks and townhomes connected with the lives of Washington, Robert E. Lee, and civil rights figures.

Often overshadowed by San Francisco, its larger and more glamorous twin, Oakland has a fascinating history of its own. From serving as a major transportation hub to forging a dynamic manufacturing sector, by the mid-twentieth century Oakland had become the urban center of the East Bay. Hella Town focuses on how political deals, economic schemes, and technological innovations fueled this emergence but also seeded the city's postwar struggles.

In The Company Town, Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shaping the American economy, beginning in the country's earliest years....

On Saturday, September 22, 1928, Barbara Griffiths, aged four, strayed into the woods surrounding the upstate village of Massena, New York. Hundreds of people looked everywhere for the child but could not find her. At one point, someone suggested that Barbara had been kidnapped and killed by Jews, and as the search continued, policemen and townspeople alike gave credence to the quickly-spreading rumors. The allegation of ritual murder, known to Jews as "blood libel", took hold.

The story of the American mining frontier can be traced in the ghost towns - from the camps of California's forty-niners to the 20th-century ruins in the Nevada desert. They mark an epoch of high adventure, of quick wealth and quicker poverty, of gambling and gun-slinging and hell-raising. We who have seen too many Western movies sometimes think that the legends of the Wild West were invented by scriptwriters - but the ghost towns remain.

Andrea Wint’s life in the small town of Port Inez, Washington, is a simple one. She works, enjoys the gorgeous view from her bay window, and visits her dad at the memory-care facility. Her father is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, but Andrea brings in one coin from his valuable collection every day—little bits of precious metals that seem to bring him back to himself, even if just for a few moments. So when Andrea’s house is burgled and the coins disappear, she’s bereft.

Mining Towns in the Wild West: The History of the Construction and Abandonment of the Frontier’s Most Famous Sites profiles some of the most important events and camps that popped up in response to mineral discoveries. The audiobook also describes their history and how they were often left behind nearly as quickly as they peaked.

Whether you call Cape Cod a man-made island or describe it as a geographic peninsula connected to the mainland by bridges, there is one non-debatable fact. Cape Cod is surrounded by water on all four sides, jutting out prominently into the Atlantic Ocean. This characteristic accounts in large measure for its history, its economic development, its aesthetic beauty, and its maritime legacy.

Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town, urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places.