In "American on Purpose," Craig Ferguson delivers a moving and achingly funny memoir of living the American dream as he journeys from the mean streets of Glasgow, Scotland, to the comedic promised land of Hollywood. Along the way he stumbles through several attempts to make his mark--as a punk rock musician, a construction worker, a bouncer, and, tragically, a modern dancer.

For fans of Douglas Stuart and Nick Hornby comes an uproarious, tenderhearted memoir of growing up in working-class Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s. Don Paterson is one of our most acclaimed contemporary poets, possessed of "an infinite sensitivity to the world" (Zadie Smith). But his current standing gives few hints of his hilariously misspent youth. An indifferent student prone to obsessions (with girls at school and...origami), Paterson nevertheless...

A biography of the Scottish immigrant who made a fortune in the steel industry and used much of it for philanthropic causes.

A biography of the curious Scottish-American who is best remembered for inventing the telephone in 1876 but whose devotion to discovery led to improvements in everything from boats and airplanes to machines that helped sick people breathe.

"A rising-star historian offers a significant new global perspective on the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as seen through the eyes of the outsiders of colonial society. Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America's marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers : the history of the Revolutionary...

Author Buchan breathes new life into Adam Smith's legacy and the beginnings of modern economics. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) has been adopted by neoconservatives as the ideological father of unregulated business and small government. Politicians such as Thatcher and Reagan promoted his famous 1776 book The Wealth of Nations as the bible of laissez-faire economics. In this accessible book, Buchan refutes much of what modern politicians...

Scope and content: Biographies, military records, obituaries, clippings, photographs, educational records, and other papers dating from 1899 to 1946, documenting the lives of S. George Cochron, a Nashville watchmaker, and his niece, Rebecca Evalyn Cochran Simmelink. (George and Rebecca spelled their last names differently.)