PA BOOKS on PCN

PA BOOKS on PCN

PA Books features authors of books about Pennsylvania-related topics. These hour-long conversations allow authors to discuss both their subject matter and inspiration behind the books.

Episodes

September 5, 2025 58 mins

When news reached Parliament of the Boston radicals' destruction of the Royal East India Company's tea, it passed the Coercive Acts, a collection of punitive measures designed to rein in that insubordinate seaport town. The Coercive Acts unleashed a political firestorm as communities from Massachusetts to Georgia drafted resistance resolutions condemning Parliament's perceived encroachment upon American liberty. This project was fi...

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From December 12-19, 1777, Washington's Army encamped in the towering hills of Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles from Philadelphia. Known as the Threshold to Valley Forge, the Gulph Mills Encampment is often forgotten or minimized, falling as it did between the more famous military engagements of the Philadelphia Campaign and the well-known experience of the army at Valley Forge. This project was financed in part by a grant ...

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September 5, 2025 53 mins

In summer 2023, Chester County, Pennsylvania, was shaken by the daring escape of convicted murderer Danilo Cavalcante. Cavalcante scaled a prison wall, sparking a gripping two-week manhunt. He traversed forests, farmlands, and neighborhoods, evading law enforcement and causing schools to close, businesses to shutter, and streets to empty.

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Learn about the stories of the men and women who traveled across the mountain ranges and through the valleys that made up the Appalachian region, focusing on the 18th century leading to the American Revolution and events that occurred mainly in Pennsylvania and New York.

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September 5, 2025 57 mins

Pittsburgh contains multitudes. From the decline of the steel industry and the exodus of a vast diaspora of Pittsburghers to its reinvention as a trendy mid-sized metropolis, the ethos of the Steel City remains ever-changing. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development.

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September 5, 2025 53 mins

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh's Hill District was the heart of the city's Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene. In Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, Colter Harper looks at how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Developm...

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September 5, 2025 58 mins

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. The tale will leave readers staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development.

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From the origins of "Penn's Woods" to the controversial practice of fracking, Cradle of Conservation provides the first comprehensive study of Pennsylvania's environmental history. The story starts with forester Ralph Brock at the dawn of the conservation era and continues through the eras of energy production using coal, oil, natural gas, and other resources. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pe...

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September 5, 2025 57 mins

"Never To Be Forgotten" tells the story of York County Pennsylvania residents just living their lives, building homes, raising families, making things and growing communities. The general history of this south central Pennsylvania county shows - with concise writing and more than 250 pictures - a community that is working hard at getting better - a place and people that are building on a worthy past honed with strong hands, smart ...

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Take a new definitive look through the eyes of a misunderstood backcountry merchant, Major William Trent, who not only overcame obstacles and suffered loss, but whose strong quill and rebellious interactions with future founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, ambitiously helped shape and form the future United States of America. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, t...

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Philadelphia is famous for its colonial and revolutionary buildings and artifacts, but Philadelphia existed long before the Liberty Bell was first rung, and its history extends well beyond the American Revolution.This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the city, from the region's original Lenape inhabitants to the myriad of residents in the twenty-first century. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwea...

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September 5, 2025 57 mins

Gathering a treasure trove of powerful, rare, and haunting original documents, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo presents a uniquely readable and intimate oral history of the Civil War's turning point. We hear from a Union staff officer, a Confederate amputee, artilleryman, a sympathetic Northern woman, a Union prisoner-of-war, Union colonels and Confederate generals, a drummer boy, a fea...

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This book provides a comprehensive examination of the Keystone State's formal and informal political institutions and players, past and present, and elucidates the place each holds in governing the commonwealth today. Covering a period of more than three hundred years, this volume presents a clear and succinct overview of the commonwealth's political history, culture, and geography.

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In late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold War, two of the Soviet Union's long-dominant national hockey teams traveled to North America to play an eight-game series against the best teams in the National Hockey League. The culmination of the "Super Series" was reigning Soviet League champion HC CSKA Moscow's face-off against the defending NHL champion Flyers in Philadelphia on January 11, 1976.

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"Telling of the Anthracite" explores the various ways in which anthracite history has been represented and remembered since 1960, the chosen date for the start of the "posthistorical" era coinciding approximately with the Knox mine disaster (1959) and the beginning of the Centralia mine fire (1962-), two cataclysmic and fateful events that symbolize the beginning of the end for wide scale deep anthracite mining in northeastern Penn...

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The September 11, 1777, battle of Brandywine, a defeat for General George Washington, is too often forgotten by historians. Brandywine was one of the most important engagements of the war, also the largest land battle. Lafayette began his rise to an American hero that afternoon when he shed his blood for American freedom. Artist Karl J. Kuerner and author Bruce E. Mowday grew up near the main battlefield. Karl received instructions...

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Turbulent rapids and wild shorelines of the Youghiogheny River highlight natural wonders of the Appalachian Mountains, and midway on the stream's revealing path, Ohiopyle State Park is a showcase of beauty and has become a recreational hotspot where the river thunders over its iconic falls and cascades through the wooded gorges of Pennsylvania. Now, in this revised and expanded edition of his classic narrative on this special lands...

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The untold story of how America's declaration of independence hinged on seven critical months in 1776 and the courageous votes that changed the world forever. This gripping account reveals the precarious path to American independence through a series of pivotal dates that history has nearly forgotten. While July 4th claims the glory, the actual vote for independence came on July 2nd-and even that historic moment almost didn't happe...

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In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world's greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed "ringers" like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as "safe shelter" leagues.

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May 13, 2024 57 mins

Beginning in the early 1990s, Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood began to transform from the post-industrial morass it had been suffering for the last few decades. Artists began to rent empty apartments, what were once shot-and-a-beer bars became hip dive bars and entrepreneurs found inexpensive real estate to follow their visions. It was in this landscape that the Beehive Coffeehouse began to attract a new 90s alternative crowd.

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