"In the 1970s, Madeleine Blais' in-laws purchased a vacation house on Martha's Vineyard for the exorbitant sum of $80,000. 2.2 miles down a poorly marked, one lane dirt road, the house was better termed a shack--it had no electricity, no modern plumbing, the roof leaked, and mice had invaded the walls. It was perfect. Sitting on Tisbury Great Pond--well-stocked with oysters and crab for foraged dinners--the house faced the ocean and the sky, and though...

"American politics is not just a combination of high ideals and low cunning. It is also the story of thousands of local influencers, fixers, activists, and run-of-the-mill voters who shape the destinies of candidates. It's about the flawed and ambitious people who become candidates and must first grind it out for one vote at a time, if they want to ascend to the nation's highest office. Nowhere is this more true, and more carefully preserved, than...

"The story of our separate and unequal America in the making, and one man's fight against it--During the long, hot summers of the late 1960s and 1970s, one man began a campaign to open some of America's most exclusive beaches to minorities and the urban poor. That man was anti-poverty activist and one-time presidential candidate Ned Coll of Connecticut, a state that permitted public access to a mere seven miles of its 253-mile shoreline. Nearly all...