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Part I of this book is a geographic history of Kentucky’s distilling industry, focusing on the nineteenth century. Kentucky distillers have produced alcohol spirits, bourbon, and rye whiskeys for more than two centuries. This part examines the change from craft distilling practiced by farmers and millers to large-scale industrial distilling using mechanized processes and refined production techniques. Some distillers relocated their works away from traditional sites along creeks to rail-side sites, whether in the countryside or in towns. The changeover to commercial-scale distilling was accompanied by increasing government taxation and oversight controls. Mechanized distilleries readily expanded production and increased their demand for labor, grains, cooperage, and copper stills. Improved transportation allowed distillers to obtain grains and equipment from more distant sources, while also allowing them to distribute their products to national and international markets. A by-product of industrial production was spent grains, or slop,which was disposed of primarily by feeding it to livestock. The nineteenth-century temperance movement eventually led to national Prohibition, which was in effect from 1920 to 1933. A small number of distillers survived by making medicinal whiskey. Part II consists of three chapters that outline the concentration of industrial distilling in the Inner and Outer Bluegrass regions as well as in Ohio Valley cities.

John Shalikashvili: From Boy on the Bridge to Top American General tells the captivating tale of how John Shalikashvili, a penniless, stateless World War II refugee achieved the American dream by being appointed the thirteenth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the US military, during the Clinton administration. Through a gripping narrative covering his wartime upbringing, aristocratic family background, parental influence, immigrant experience, and betrayals by loved ones—particularly by his high school girlfriend and by his father’s affiliation with the Waffen-SS, which came to light during Shalikashvili’s confirmation process—the biography explores the themes of nature vs. nurture and the role of agency vs. luck (i.e., the influence of his own actions vs. factors beyond his control) in determining Shalikashvili’s character, leadership abilities, and career success.

Joe B. Hall shares memories that stretch across his ninety years. He tells of his youth in Cynthiana, Kentucky, where his love for family, the outdoors, fishing, sports, work, and Kentucky all started. He describes what is was like to be a student at the University of Kentucky in 1947, and a member of the celebrated coach Adolph Rupp’s Wildcats during the Fabulous Five period. Those famous five players made his chances of playing for Kentucky slim, so as a sophomore, he transferred to Sewanee, where he did play basketball well and acquired a great friend in his coach Lon Varnell, who took him and other players on a summer tour to Europe to play basketball. Choosing not to return to Sewanee, Joe B. took a job as a salesman, married Katharine Dennis, and decided his goal in life was to be a college basketball coach. After he completed his bachelor’s degree, he acquired experience coaching first at a high school, then at two colleges, and earned his master’s degree. Throughout that time, Coach Rupp kept in contact with Joe B. When Coach Rupp asked him to return to UK to work as his first assistant, he happily accepted. Coach Rupp and Joe B. respected each other, and Joe understood that colorful character as well anyone could. Yet later, when Coach Rupp resisted the university’s mandatory retirement law and refused to announce his successor, the turmoil in the basketball program surprised and saddened Joe B. Joe B. accepted the challenge of becoming head coach in 1972. He frankly discusses his failures as well as his successes. Exciting are his accounts of the two games in the 1974-1975 season the Wildcats played against Bobby Knight’s Indiana and the game against John Wooden’s Bruins for the NCAA in 1975. He also discusses the mysterious manner in which the Wildcats lost to Georgetown, and the pure exhilaration he and his players felt winning the NCAA championship. The book includes a chapter on the Wildcat Lodge, and another on the humorous antics of some of his players. Serious health problems caused Joe B. to retire early, and he tells us about the other interesting work he did after coaching. His favorite retirement job was the radio talk show he shared with Coach Denny Crum for ten years.

This biography examines the long career of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, who was born to a family of modest means in rural Virginia. His early education at the Virginia Military Institute, steeped him in Confederate lore and nurtured his “can do” attitude, natural aggressiveness, demanding personality and sometimes self-serving nature. These qualities later earned him the sobriquet “Sic’em, Ned,” which stuck with him for the remainder of his career. Almond commanded the African-American 92nd Infantry Division during World War II. The division failed in combat and was re-organized, after which it contained one white, one black, and the Army’s only Japanese-American (Nisei) regiment. The years since that war have seen the glorification of the “Greatest Generation,” with all racist notions and ideas “whitewashed” with a veneer of honor. When war came to Korea, Almond commanded X Corps in the Inchon invasion, liberation of Seoul, race to the Yalu. When the Chinese entered the war and sent the US Army into retreat, Almond mounted one of the largest evacuations in history at Hungnam -- but not before the disaster at Chosin claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines. This book reveals Almond as a man who stubbornly held onto bigoted attitudes about race, but also exhibited an unfaltering commitment to the military profession. Often viewed as the “Army’s racist,” Almond reflected the attitudes of the Army and society. This book places Almond in a broader context and presents a more complete picture of this flawed man yet gifted officer.

This is a story of greed, adventure and settlement; of causes won and lost. The book’s theme is eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conflict and settlement in the Ohio River valley, told within the context of the national and international events that led to the American Revolution and guided Kentucky’s postwar future.“Colonel” George Croghan serves as the exemplar of Britain’s trans-Appalachian experience. The Revolution was fought in three theaters; the northern belonged to George Washington, and among his officers was Croghan’s nephew, Major William Croghan. The major joined the southern theater at the moment the Continental Army surrendered to Britain in Charleston. The third theater was the Revolution in the West, and its leader was Virginia colonel, later general, George Rogers Clark, whose vision secured the old Northwest Territory for the new nation. Taken together, the war adventures of Clark and Croghan epitomize the American course of the Revolution. Croghan and Clark arrived at the Falls of the Ohio River after the Revolutionto survey the land that served as payment for Virginia’s soldiers. Clark, however, regularly was called by Virginia and the federal government to secure peace in the Ohio River valley, leading to his financial ruin and emotional decline. Croghan, his partner and brother-in-law, remained at Clark’s side throughout it all, even as he prospered in the new world they had fought to create, while Clark languished.

From the first moments of the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 through to the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945, the sea shaped the course and conduct of the war. The impact could be felt far beyond the shoreline as the arms and armies carried across the oceans were ultimately destined to wage war ashore. Populations and industries depended on the raw materials and supplies in a war that increasingly became a contest of national will and economic might. It was ultimately the war at sea, and from the sea, that linked numerous regional conflicts and theaters of operation and wove them into a global war. Although individual campaigns, innovations, and personalities have received ample attention over the decades, the role of the sea as a whole has increasingly been marginalized in the wartime historiography. As the war grew in complexity and covered an increasingly larger geographical area, the organization of the maritime effort and the impact it had on the formulation of national strategy also evolved. This volume seeks to illustrate the impact the sea had on the Second World War by highlighting selected topics previously neglected in the scholarship. In doing so, it provides new insights into political, strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of the maritime dimension of the war.