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A riveting firsthand account of training for—and surviving—air combat during World War I, by the author of No Parachute .   Thanks to a broken leg during flight school, Arthur Gould Lee gained valuable time flying trainers before he was posted in France during World War I. In November 1917 during low-level bombing and strafing attacks, he was shot down three times by ground fire. He spent eight months at the front and accumulated 222 hours of flight time in Sopwith Pups and Camels during a staggering 118 patrols, and engaged in combat 56 times. And yet he lived to retire from the RAF as an air vice-marshal in 1946.   Lee puts you in the cockpit in this compelling personal account of life as a fighter pilot at the front. At turns humorous and dramatic, this thoughtful, enlightening memoir is a classic of military aviation. |
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The five and a half month long Somme campaign in the summer and autumn of 1916 was a defining moment in the history of the British Army. From the disastrous opening day on 1 July to the final attacks in November, each large battle and minor action is given equal treatment inside these pages.The book concentrates on the British Army's repeated efforts to first break through the enemy lines,and then to wear down the German in a bloody war of attrition. By compiling information from the Official History and the printed histories we get a balanced view of the most talked about side of the campaign, the British side.You will find plenty of information on the reasoning behind each battle and the objectives. There is discussion on artillery bombardments, tactics, zero hours, the terrain and insights into the successes and failures of each attack. Over ninety new maps chart the day by day progress of Fourth and the Reserve Armyacross the rolling chalk downs of the Somme.Together the narrative and mapsprovide an insight into the British Army's learning curve during that fateful summer; a learning curve which set the scene for future battles on the Western Front. We can see the hard lessons learnt and the solutions used to solve a multitude of problems, from communication and all arms co-operation, to the inclusion of tanks and the growing role of the Royal Flying Corps.Where possible the men who made a difference are mentioned; the men who lead the assault companies and bombing teams, those who cut the wire and led the survivors into the German trenches, those who stopped the counterattacks and those awarded the Victoria Cross.Discover the real Somme campaign fought by the British Army and learn how its brave soldiers fought hard to achieve their objectives. |
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On December 6, 1917, the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and the Norwegian war-relief vessel Imo collided in the harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia. That accident sparked a fire and an apocalyptic explosion that was the largest man-made blast prior to the 1945 dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Together with the killer tsunami that followed, the explosion devastated the entire city in the wink of an eye and instantly killed more than two thousand people. While much has been written about the disaster, there is still more to the story, including the investigation of the key figures involved, the histories of the ships that collided and the confluence of circumstances that brought these two vessels together to touch off one of the most tragic man-made disasters of the twentieth century. The Halifax Explosion is a fresh, revealing account that finally answers questions that have lingered for a century: Was the explosion a disaster triggered by simple human error? Was it caused by the negligence of the ships’ pilots or captains? Was it the result of shortcomings in harbour practices and protocols? Or was the blast—as many people at the time insisted—the result of sabotage carried out by wartime German agents? December 6, 2017, marks the centennial of the great Halifax explosion. The Halifax Explosion tells the gripping, as-yet untold story of Canada’s worst disaster—a haunting tale of survival, incredible courage and, ultimately, the triumph of the human spirit. |
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Destined to become a modern classic in the vein of Guns, Germs, and Steel , Sapiens is a lively, groundbreaking history of humankind told from a unique perspective.      100,000 years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the earth. Today there is just one.      Us. Homo Sapiens .      How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?      In Sapiens , Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical -- and sometimes devastating -- breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?      Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power...and our future. |
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The final volume of the prime minister’s four-part history of Britain brings the nation from the Napoleonic Wars to the Boer War of 1902.   In the “wilderness” years after Sir Winston Churchill unflinchingly guided his country through World War II, he turned his masterful hand to an exhaustive history of the country he loved above all else. And the world discovered that this brilliant military strategist was an equally brilliant storyteller. In 1953, the great man was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”   This final volume in Churchill’s extraordinary, sweeping history follows Britain from the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars to the Boer War of 1902. In it, Churchill makes an impassioned argument for the crucial role played by the English-speaking people in exporting not just economic benefits, but political freedom by encouraging democracy throughout the world. Churchill’s passion for this era—informed by his own experience as a soldier and a wartime journalist during the Boer War—shines through in this thrilling conclusion to his historic work.   “This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues—its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country’s past.” — The Daily Telegraph |
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The Epic New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Texas Book Award Winner of the Oklahoma Book Award This stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” ( The New York Times Book Review ). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history. |
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From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, the National Book Award-winning masterwork revealing how racist ideas were created, spread, and became deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope. Praise for Stamped from the Beginning: "We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous , ambitious , and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times , Best Books of 2017 " Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." -- Seattle Times "A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." -- The Atlantic Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller On President Obama's Black History Month Recommended Reading List Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe , Washington Post , Chicago Review of Books , The Root , Buzzfeed , Bustle , and Entropy |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Propulsive.” — Time * “Reads like a tense thriller.” — The Washington Post * “The most exciting book I’ve read all year.” —Admiral William H. McRaven From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday , comes an electrifying behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima. April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. In an instant, Vice President Harry Truman, who has been kept out of war planning and knows nothing of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atomic bomb, must assume command of a nation at war on multiple continents—and confront one of the most consequential decisions in history. Countdown 1945 tells the gripping true story of the turbulent days, weeks, and months to follow, leading up to August 6, 1945, when Truman gives the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. In Countdown 1945 , Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday , takes readers inside the minds of the iconic and elusive figures who join the quest for the bomb, each for different reasons: the legendary Albert Einstein, who eventually calls his vocal support for the atomic bomb “the one great mistake in my life”; lead researcher J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer and the Soviet spies who secretly infiltrate his team; the fiercely competitive pilots of the plane selected to drop the bomb; and many more. Perhaps most of all, Countdown 1945 is the story of an untested new president confronting a decision that he knows will change the world forever. Truman’s journey during these 116 days is a story of high drama: from the shock of learning of the bomb’s existence, to the conflicting advice he receives from generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall, to wrestling with the devastating carnage that will result if he gives the order to use America’s first weapon of mass destruction. But Countdown 1945 is more than a book about the atomic bomb. It’s also an unforgettable account of the lives of ordinary American and Japanese civilians in wartime—from “Calutron Girls” like Ruth Sisson in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to ten-year-old Hiroshima resident Hideko Tamura, who survives the blast at ground zero but loses her mother and later immigrates to the United States, where she lives to this day—as well as American soldiers fighting in the Pacific, waiting in fear for the order to launch a possible invasion of Japan. Told with vigor, intelligence, and humanity, Countdown 1945 is the definitive account of one of the most significant moments in history. |
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The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War--a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This brilliantly argued new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict. |
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When the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto first went up in November 1940, Emmanuel Ringelblum was there. In the face of horrendous persecution and palpable danger, his goal was to create a written record of life in the Ghetto, not just the destitution and brutality of life under Nazi rule, but out of the shining acts of nobility and heroism by people under the most dire circumstances. From Inside the Ghetto, Ringelblum, a well-respected historian and archivist, compiled his journal recording daily life in the Ghetto, from its beginnings to the eve of the Ghetto uprising in April 1943. Using accounts and anecdotes from his many friends and neighbours, Ringelblum created a detailed, colourful, and emotional record of one of the most terrible epochs in human history. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto is an unflinching, first-hand account of history unfolding before your very eyes. |
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Winner: New Zealand Post Book Award, Best First Book, Non-fiction On a sunny afternoon in November 2010, a massive explosion rocked the underground Pike River coal mine, deep in a mountain range in New Zealand's South Island. More than an hour and a half later, two ashen men stumbled from the mine's entrance to report that 29 men remained trapped inside. Samples revealed extremely high levels of carbon monoxide in the mine and the presence of fire. For five agonizing days the men's families and friends waited and prayed until, after a second violent blast, all hope was extinguished. Tragedy at Pike River Mine is a dramatic, suspenseful account of a disaster that shook the nation—and the world. Pike River was no ordinary mine. It had been touted by the company and by government ministers as a showcase of modern mining. Shares in the company had been rapidly taken up by investors, swept away by predictions of extraordinary returns. Beneath the hype, though, lay mismanagement, mistakes and willful blindness that would cost men their lives. Based on extensive research and more than a hundred interviews, this powerful book provides chilling insights into the causes of the tragedy and puts a human face on the people who suffered. |
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Alliance of Enemies tells the thrilling history of the secret World War II relationship between Nazi Germany's espionage service, the Abwehr, and the American OSS, predecessor of the CIA. The actors in this great as-yet-untold story were often at odds with their respective governments. Working in the face of competing ideologies and at great personal risk, these unorthodox collaborators struggled to bring about an early peace. By mining secret World War II files that were only recently declassified, as well as personal interviews, diaries, and previously unpublished accounts to unearth some of history's surprises, Agostino von Hassell and Sigrid MacRae shed new light on Franklin Roosevelt's surprising stance toward Hitler before the U.S. entered the war, and on the relationship of American business to the Third Reich. They offer vivid details on the German resistance's desperate efforts to at first avert war and then to make common cause with enemy representatives to end it. And their work details the scope and depth of German resistance and its many plots to eliminate Hitler and why they failed. New names and incredible wartime plots reveal the titanic power struggles that took place in Istanbul and Lisbon---cities crawling with spies. Intense, clandestine communications and spy rings come clear, as do the self-serving neutrality of Switzerland and Portugal and the shocking postwar scramble for German spies, scientists, and more, all to aid in the fight against a new enemy: communism. Alliance of Enemies fills a huge void in our knowledge of the hidden, layered warfare---and the attempts for peace---of World War II. It will fascinate and excite historians, spy and policy enthusiasts, and anyone concerned with the uses of intelligence in trying times. Nowhere has such a complete and provocative history of the wars behind World War II been told---until now. |
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TOPICS by CHAPTER: 1. TEXT  -   AVIATION SURVIVAL: SURVIVAL ELEMENTS, PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS, AND SURVIVAL MEDICINE 2.  TEXT IN SLIDE FORMAT  -  MULTI-SERVICE PROCEDURES FOR SURVIVAL, EVASION, AND RECOVERY 3.  VIDEO  -  SERE Current Era Compilation 4.  FILM  -  AMEDD OBC: SERE Lecture (1970s) 5.  FILM  -  U.S. Air Force Training Film: Camouflage For Evasion (1968) |
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Immigrants and immigration have always been central to Canadians’ perception of themselves as a country and as a society. In this crisply written history, Valerie Knowles describes the different kinds of immigrants who have settled in Canada, and the immigration policies that have helped to define the character of Canadian immigrants over the centuries. Key policymakers and moulders of public opinion figure prominently in this colourful story, as does the role played by racism. This new and revised edition contains additional material on immigration to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, sections on the evacuee children of the Second World War and Canadian War Brides, and material relating to significant developments in the immigration and refugee field since 1996. Special attention is paid to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of 2001. |
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This book is a collection of fond and treasured remembrances over the past nearly forty years, while spending the summers on my cherished Little Brackens Island on the Muskoka Lakes. As we get older, our recollections grow a bit dimmer. The descriptions blossom and become more delusional. The memories are augmented and laced with incongruities, misconceptions, errata, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and some questionable apparitions. All of them are sworn as the sacred truth by a beguiling, impetuous and fanaticizing imagination. |
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A vivid, brutal and enthralling account of the Burma Campaign – one of the most punishing and hard-fought military adventures of World War Two. The Burma Campaign was one of the most punishing and protracted military adventures of World War Two. Impenetrable jungle, poor transport infrastructure, seasonal monsoon rains, as well as famine, disease, snakes and crocodiles all bore heavily on the troops. Against this extraordinary backdrop, Frank McLynn constructs the dramatic story of the four larger-than-life commanders directing the Allied effort: Louis Mountbatten, Orde Wingate, Joseph Stilwell and William Slim, and explores the Campaign through their often stormy relationship. The Burma Campaign is a strikingly original account from one of our most celebrated historians. ‘Magnificent...a closely woven, tightly argued and beautifully written account of the extraordinary men and women who were responsible for the higher direction of the war...This book delights, page after page. McLynn held me spellbound’ BBC History Magazine |
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In this long-awaited book (already a major bestseller in Italy) Ginsborg has created a fascinating, sophisticated and definitive account of how Italy has coped, or failed to cope, with the past two decades. Contemporary Italy strongly mirrors Britain - the countries have roughly the same extent, population size and GNP - and yet they are fantastically different. Ginsborg sees this difference as most fundamentally clear in the role of the family and it is the family which is at the heart of Italian politics and business. Anyone wishing to understand contemporary Italy will find it essential to have this enormously attractive and intelligent book. |
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Pacific Settlement - A discussion on the Western and Eastern Settlement theories in the Pacific Ocean. Considers sea level change as a major factor in determining ease of settlement for the western and Polynesian area of the Pacific. Suit students looking for a research idea or school report. |
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“A raw and authentic war story about untamed Green Berets in action.”—Dalton Fury,  New York Times  bestselling author of  Kill Bin Laden   Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. Dispatched as a diversionary force in support of the main coalition attack, Bradley’s Special Forces A-team watched as the NATO force was quickly engulfed in a vicious counterattack. Key to relieving it was possession of Sperwan Ghar, a modest patch of high ground. Bradley’s small detachment assaulted the hill and, in the midst of a savage and unforgettable firefight, soon learned they were facing nearly a thousand seasoned fighters. Now Bradley recounts the whole remarkable story as it actually happened and brings to life the men who impossibly won the day—Americans and Afghans alike—each unique, all indelible in their everyday exercise of extraordinary heroism. Praise for Lions of Kandahar   “A powerful and gripping account of a battle that helped shape the war in Afghanistan . . . With crisp writing and page-turning action, Lions of Kandahar is one of the best books written about the conflict.” —Mitch Weiss, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and co-author of Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War   “One of the most important documents to emerge from the war in Afghanistan.” — The Seattle Times   “Powerful . . . a riveting account of a strategic battle that doesn’t glorify war or focus on heroic deeds . . . Make room on your military bookshelf for Lions of Kandahar .” — San Antonio Express-News   “Bradley takes the reader into battle.” —Time |
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This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" ( New York Times Book Review ).   From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.  Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century.  "Thoroughly engrossing." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review |
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Hiver 1911. Le romancier et philosophe autrichien Stefan Zweig débarque en Amérique du Nord pour un périple qui va le conduire de Boston à Québec, en passant par Montréal. De cette aventure, il ne reste que peu de traces, si ce n'est une chronique publiée une première fois le 25 mars de la même année dans les pages du Frankfurter Zeitung. Instantané, avec filtre, de l’un des « îlots linguistiques esseulés qui, après s’être maintenus loyalement à travers les siècles, s’effritent silencieusement », écrit-il, ce document historique est présenté ici pour la première fois dans une traduction française inédite réalisée au Québec en 2013. Il est suivi de la nouvelle Le joueur d'échec qui, tout comme cette chronique témoigne encore et toujours d'une lucidité pertinente, un siècle plus tard. Préface de Fabien Deglise, journaliste, chroniqueur et blogueur au quotidien montréalais Le Devoir. |
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A BRACING ACCOUNT OF A WAR THAT IS EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD, FORGOTTEN, OR WILLFULLY IGNORED.   For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events. With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Bruce Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its origin as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America’s post–World War II occupation of Korea, reveals untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, exposing as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides. Elegantly written and blisteringly honest,  The Korean War  is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential. Praise for The Korean War “A powerful revisionist history . . . a sobering corrective.” — The New York Times “Worth reading . . . This work raises the question of what Korea can tell us about the outlook for Iraq and Afghanistan.” — Financial Times “Well-sourced [and] elegantly presented.” — The Wall Street Journal |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II, from the bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island “Brava to Lynne Olson for a biography that should challenge any outdated assumptions about who deserves to be called a hero.”— The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE WASHINGTON POST  In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, unthreatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.” No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence—including providing American and British military commanders with a 55-foot-long map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Day—as Alliance. The Gestapo pursued them relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcade’s own lover and many of her key spies. Although Fourcade, the mother of two young children, moved her headquarters every few weeks, constantly changing her hair color, clothing, and identity, she was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escape—once by slipping naked through the bars of her jail cell—and continued to hold her network together even as it repeatedly threatened to crumble around her. Now, in this dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself. “Fast-paced and impressively researched . . . Olson writes with verve and a historian’s authority. . . . With this gripping tale, Lynne Olson pays [Marie-Madeleine Fourcade] what history has so far denied her. France, slow to confront the stain of Vichy, would do well to finally honor a fighter most of us would want in our foxhole.”— The New York Times Book Review |
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Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all—the fight to survive. The World War II air war in the Pacific needed tough men like Colonel Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron. The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave new definition to “hell-raising”—on the ground and in the skies.  Pappy himself was a living legend—he personally shot down twenty-eight Japanese planes, and won the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. He broke every rule in the book doing so, but when he fell into the hands of the vengeful Japanese his real ordeal began. |
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Bestselling author Ben Elton's most personal novel to date, Two Brothers transports the reader to the time of history's darkest hour. Berlin 1920 Two babies are born. Two brothers. United and indivisible, sharing everything. Twins in all but blood. As Germany marches into its Nazi Armageddon, the ties of family, friendship and love are tested to the very limits of endurance. And the brothers are faced with an unimaginable choice... Which one of them will survive? |
