In Town Born, Barry Levy shows that New England's distinctive and far more egalitarian order was due neither to the colonists' peasant traditionalism nor to the region's inhospitable environment. Instead, New England's labor system and relative equality were every bit a consequence of its innovative system of governance, which placed nearly all land under the control of several hundred self-governing town meetings. As Levy shows, these town meetings...

U.S. president Ashton is in Salamanca, Spain to announce plans for a major global summit on terrorism. As he stands behind the podium in front of a loudly cheering crowd, he is shot twice. This is followed minutes later by a small explosion and then a massive blast. Secret Service agents Barnes, Taylor, and Holden immediately jump into action, trying to find the terrorists responsible amid all the chaos. First, the events are seen through the eyes...

Big game: When Air Force One is shot down by terrorists leaving the President of the United States stranded in the wilderness, there is only one person around who can save him, a thirteen-year old boy called Oskari. In the forest on a hunting mission to prove his maturity to his family, Oskari had been planning to track down a deer, but instead discovers the most powerful man on the planet in an escape pod. Olympus has fallen: When the president...