Mark Strecker – författare

The practice of big business promoting war to profit materially was firmly in place by the time Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote about it in his anti-corporate pamphlets. This historical biography explores the life of Butler, a little-known American Marine who exposed an alleged fascist coup to remove President Franklin D. Roosevelt from office. This text is an exploration of the political issues of the first half of the twentieth century and an examination of a complicated, valiant man who shifted from Republican ideals to anti-corporate, left-wing populism.

"Shaghaiing," or forcing a man to join the crew of a merchant ship against his will, plagued seafarers the world over between 1849 and 1915. Perpetrators were known as "crimps," and they had no respect for a man's education, social status, race, religion, or seafaring experience. The merchant ships were involved in the opium, tea and gold trades, and the practice was spurred by the opening of the Suez Canal. A major reason for it was a shortage of sailors and the unwillingness of seamen to sail on certain types of ships. They suffered from great deprivations, all for a paltry sum usually squandered during shore leave. Navies and pirates had their own form of shanghaiing called impressment.This work explores the rich history of shanghaiing and impressment with a focus on victims and also considers the 19th century seafarer and the circumstances that made shanghaiing so lucrative.

Northeast Ohio is awash with nearly forgotten historical events. In 1780, American scout Captain Samuel Brady leaped across the Cuyahoga River where Kent now stands to evade a party of Native Americans aiming to take his scalp. During the Civil War, Confederates tried to free their compatriots from the Johnson''s Island prisoner of war camp by capturing two ferries and attempting to poison the crew of the Union''s only gunboat in Lake Erie. The town of Kirtland was briefly the national headquarters of the Mormons and the location of one of the Church of Latter-day Saints'' most revered temples. Mark Strecker has unearthed a hidden gem of local history for each of Northeast Ohio''s twenty-two counties.

World War I began in August 1914--the United States did not enter the conflict until April 1917. During those nearly three years of neutrality, a small number of Americans did experience the horrors of the war zones of Europe. Some ran for their lives as refugees while others, like journalists and doctors, headed toward the fighting. Missionaries in Persia (Iran) and the Ottoman Empire became witnesses to both the Armenian genocide and the persecution of Assyrian Christians. This history focuses on the war from the perspective of ordinary people who found themselves in the midst of what was then the most destructive and bloody war in history.