From its beginnings as a trickle of icy water in Virginia's northwest corner to its miles-wide mouth at Hampton Roads, the James River has witnessed more recorded history than any other feature of the American landscape -- as home to the continent's first successful English settlement, highway for Native Americans and early colonists, battleground in the Revolution and the Civil War, and birthplace of America's twentieth-century navy. In 1998, restless in his job as a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Earl Swift landed an assignment traveling the entire length of the James. He hadn't been in a canoe since his days as a Boy Scout, and he knew that the river boasts whitewater, not to mention man-made obstacles, to challenge even experienced paddlers. But reinforced by Pilot photographer Ian Martin and a lot of freeze-dried food and beer, Swift set out to immerse himself -- he hoped not literally -- in the river and its history. What Swift survived to bring us is this engrossing chronicle of three weeks in a fourteen-foot plastic canoe and four hundred years in the life of Virginia. Fueled by humor and a dauntless curiosity about the land, buildings, and people on the banks, and anchored by his sidekick Martin -- whose photographs accompany the text -- Swift points his bow through the ghosts of a frontier past, past Confederate forts and POW camps, antebellum mills, ruined canals, vanished towns, and effluent-spewing industry. Along the banks, lonely meadowlands alternate with suburbs and power plants, marinas and the gleaming skyscrapers of Richmond's New South downtown. Enduring dunkings, wolf spiders, near-arrest, channel fever, and twenty-knot winds, Swift makes it to the Chesapeake Bay. Readers who accompany him through his Journey on the James will come away with the accumulated pleasure, if not the bruises and mud, of four hundred miles of adventure and history in the life of one of America's great watersheds.

From the establishment of the first permanent English colony at Jamestown in 1607 to the fall of Richmond in 1865, the James River has been instrumental in the formation of modern America. It was along the James that British and Native American cultures collided and, in a twisted paradox, the seeds of democracy and slavery were sown side by side. The culture crafted by Virginia's learned aristocrats, merchants, farmers, and frontiersmen gave voice to the cause of the American Revolution and provided a vision for the fledgling independent nation's future. Over the course of the United States' first century, the James River bore witness to the irreconcilable contradiction of a slave-holding nation dedicated to liberty and equality for all. When that intractable conflict ignited civil war, the James River served as a critical backdrop for the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. As he guides readers through this exciting historical narrative, Deans gives life to a dynamic cast of characters including the familiar Powhatan, John Smith, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold, and Robert E. Lee, as well as those who have largely escaped historical notoriety. The River Where America Began takes readers on a journey along the James River from the earliest days of civilization nearly 15,000 years ago through the troubled English settlement at Jamestown and finishes with Lincoln's tour of the defeated capital of Richmond in 1865. Deans traces the historical course of a river whose contributions to American life are both immeasurable and unique. This innovative history invites us all to look into these restless waters in a way that connects us to our past and reminds us of who we are as Americans.

Morning Journey is a fictional romance by James Hilton. An actress and a director get intertwined in dramatic love. Excerpt: "He guessed she must have some other lawyer or lawyers somewhere, together with the usual outfit of agents, business managers, tax-consultants, and so on; he knew also how impulsively actors get themselves into a mess and how capriciously they can turn on those whom they pay to get them out. Maybe she was in a mood for such a change. He himself had tried to winnow down his clientele into those who were his personal friends and who, if they did get into trouble, would give him the pleasure as well as the task of extrication. He wondered if he would want Carey Arundel as such a client, even if she asked him. Possibly."

"Readers of "Story of a Lean Journey" will empathize with the plight of Allison Manufacturing Services (AMS), a small manufacturer struggling to survive global competition and specialization to the point where it is trying to be everything to everyone. Its board of directors is disheartened with the downward spiral of profits, continuing loss of market share, and lackluster performance of "flavor of the month" initiatives. Looking for a way to save the company, the board hires Bill Watts, a lean consultant, as its new executive vice president. But the story just begins here. Knowing that a successful lean journey requires a culture shift that must begin at the top, Bill must rally the support of the board members who are, of course, skeptical as to what lean will bring to the bottom line. But the change in thinking required to make lean implementation successful is only the beginning. "Story of a Lean Journey" will take you through the first three-years of lean application at AMS. But read the story for yourself, it doesn't end there either."--Publisher.

Celebrate one of the most beloved park systems in the nation, the James River Park System.

James F. Simon is Martin Professor of Law Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of New York Law School and the author of eight books on American history, law, and politics. This first major biography of Justice William O. Douglas presents a vital, human portrait of the most controversial man to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court in its 191 year history. Simon researched this book for three and a half years and interviewed Douglas's friends and enemies, his children, his wives and Douglas himself. His causes so offended conservative members of Congress that, on four separate occasions, they tried to impeach him. An insightful and intimate portrait of Douglas's generosity and pettiness, his genius and intellectual laziness, his personal problems and his public greatness.