William J. Cooper – författare

From a distinguished historian of the America South comes this thoroughly human portrait of the complex man at the center of our nation''s most epic struggle.Jefferson Davis initially did not wish to leave the Union-as the son of a veteran of the American Revolution and as a soldier and senator, he considered himself a patriot. William J. Cooper shows us how Davis'' initial reluctance turned into absolute commitment to the Confederacy. He provides a thorough account of Davis'' life, both as the Confederate President and in the years before and after the war. Elegantly written and impeccably researched, Jefferson Davis, American is the definitive examination of one of the most enigmatic figures in our nation''s history.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A unique opportunity to learn about the most important developments in environmental applications of ionizing radiation This book makes it easy for scientists and engineers to acquaint themselves with the state of the art in ionizing radiation techniques for pollution control, environmental cleanup, and waste processing. With contributions by more than 100 researchers working in industry, academia, and government, it reports from around the world on the most important recent advances in the field. From the latest refinements in electron beam technology to new techniques for the purification of flue gases, and from radiation recycling of rubber wastes to radiation-induced cleanup of water and wastewater, this valuable resource covers all established and emerging environmental applications of ionizing radiation. The only book available in English to focus exclusively on the subject, Environmental Applications of Ionizing Radiation belongs in the working library of every aspiring or practicing scientist or engineer concerned with environmental pollution. Radiation has long been used in food processing, medical device sterilization, and polymer production, but only recently has it begun to be widely accepted as a valued component in environmental cleanup initiatives. The growing popularity of radiation as a means of neutralizing both natural and synthetic contaminants is due, in great part, to impressive results recently achieved by researchers worldwide using ionizing radiation methods, especially those involving electron beam techniques. Despite these many successes, there continues to be a conspicuous poverty of professional references on the subject. Environmental Applications of Ionizing Radiation fills that gap. Environmental Applications of Ionizing Radiation brings together contributions by more than 100 leading scientists from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The first English-language text devoted exclusively to this exciting growth area, it affords readers a unique opportunity to acquaint themselves with state-of-the-art applications of ionizing radiation for solving environmental remediation problems. Featuring many fascinating and informative case studies from around the world, it brings scientists and engineers quickly in line with the latest advances in:* Electron beam design* Flue gas treatment using electron beams* Ionizing radiation in pollution control* Irradiation treatment of industrial wastes* Irradiation treatment of soil and biosolids* Irradiation and photocatalytic processes* New and emerging applications of ionizing radiation. Environmental Applications of Ionizing Radiation is a valuable working resource for civil, chemical, and environmental engineers and scientists involved with pollution control, water treatment, and natural and industrial waste treatment. It also belongs on the syllabuses of all graduate-level engineering courses in air and water management.

Overshadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as hyper-intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from the malodorous 1828 presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery. Now, William J. Cooper insightfully demonstrates that Adams should be considered a lost Founding Father, his moral and political vision the final link to the great visionaries who created the American nation. This game-changing biography reveals Adams to be one of the most battered but courageous and inspirational politicians in American history.

An exploration of the American South's paradoxical devotion to liberty and the practice of slavery. Cooper contends that southerners defined their notions of liberty in terms of its opposite - slavery. He assesses how abolitionism, in the eyes of white southerners, threatened the death of liberty.

Few events in American history have been studied more closely than the Civil War, this book is an examination of the effort to chronicle it. Topics covered include battlefield operations and the impact of race and gender.

First published in 1968, The Conservative Regime was the inaugural work from the prolific Cooper. An investigation of the way in which South Carolinians redefined their state in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the volume addresses two divergent political eras and the powerful figures who shaped them. The 1876 election of General Wade Hampton as governor marked the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from South Carolina and returned the state to one-party Democratic rule under Hampton's ""Redeemers"" or ""Bourbons."" Bourbon rule brought limited cooperation with African American leadership, but little in the way of economic growth and what profits of industry were to be had remained securely in the hands of the Old Guard. Reaction to the do-nothing policies of Hampton and the Bourbons brought the rise of Ben Tillman to the state's highest office and the evocation of more progressive thinking in the late 1880s.

Jefferson Davis is one of the most complex and controversial figures in American political history (and the man whom Oscar Wilde wanted to meet more than anyone when he made his tour of the United States). Elected president of the Confederacy and later accused of participating in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he is a source of ongoing dissension between northerners and southerners. This volume, the first of its kind, is a selected collection of his writings culled in large part from the authoritative Papers of Jefferson Davis, a multivolume edition of his letters and speeches published by the Louisiana State University Press, and includes thirteen documents from manuscript collections and one privately held document that have never before appeared in a modern scholarly edition. From letters as a college student to his sister, to major speeches on the Constitution, slavery, and sectional issues, to his farewell to the U.S. Senate, to his inaugural address as Confederate president, to letters from prison to his wife, these selected pieces present the many faces of the enigmatic Jefferson Davis.As William J. Cooper, Jr., writes in his Introduction, “Davis’s notability does not come solely from his crucial role in the Civil War. Born on the Kentucky frontier in the first decade of the nineteenth century, he witnessed and participated in the epochal transformation of the United States from a fledgling country to a strong nation spanning the continent. In his earliest years his father moved farther south and west to Mississippi. As a young army officer just out of West Point, he served on the northwestern and southwestern frontiers in an army whose chief mission was to protect settlers surging westward. Then, in 1846 and 1847, as colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment, he fought in the Mexican War, which resulted in 1848 in the Mexican Cession, a massive addition to the United States of some 500,000 square miles, including California and the modern Southwest. As secretary of war and U.S. senator in the 1850s, he advocated government support for the building of a transcontinental railroad that he believed essential to bind the nation from ocean to ocean.”From the Hardcover edition.