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The story of human civilization can be read most deeply in the materials we have found or created, used or abused. They have dictated how we build, eat, communicate, wage war, create art, travel, and worship. Some, such as stone, iron, and bronze, lend their names to the ages. Others, such as gold, silver, and diamond, contributed to the rise and fall of great empires. How would history have unfolded without glass, paper, steel, cement, or gunpowder? The impulse to master the properties of our material world and to invent new substances has remained unchanged from the dawn of time; it has guided and shaped the course of history. Sass shows us how substances and civilizations have evolved together. In antiquity, iron was considered more precious than gold. The celluloid used in movie film had its origins in the search for a substitute for ivory billiard balls. The same clay used in the pottery of antiquity has its uses in today’s computer chips. Moving from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon, from the days of prehistoric survival to the cutting edge of nanotechnology, this fascinating and accessible book connects the worlds of minerals and molecules to the sweep of human history, and shows what materials will dominate the century ahead. |
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The “remarkable” New York Times bestseller about the battle in the Pacific that turned the tide of World War II—from the author of The Miracle of Dunkirk ( Los Angeles Times ).  On the morning of June 4, 1942, doom sailed on Midway. Hoping to put itself within striking distance of Hawaii and California, the Japanese navy planned an ambush that would obliterate the remnants of the American Pacific fleet. On paper, the Americans had no chance of winning. They had fewer ships, slower fighters, and almost no battle experience. But because their codebreakers knew what was coming, the American navy was able to prepare an ambush of its own. Over two days of savage battle, American sailors and pilots broke the spine of the Japanese war machine. The United States prevailed against momentous odds; never again did Japan advance. In stunning detail, Walter Lord, the #1 New York Times –bestselling author of Day of Infamy and A Night to Remember , tells the story of one of the greatest upsets in naval history. “Graphic and realistic . . . not an impersonalized account of moves on the chessboard of war, [but] a story of individual people facing crucial problems.” — The New York Times   |
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An epic narrative of World War II naval action that brings to life the sailors and exploits of the war's most decorated destroyer squadron. When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron 21) to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring resume; it was the people serving aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to treat his patients at sea, epitomize the sacrifices made by all the men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron that bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to Tokyo. |
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Intrepid's Last Case chronicles the post-World War II activities of Sir William Stephenson, whose fascinating role in helping to defeat the Nazis was the subject of the worldwide bestseller A Man Called Intrepid. Sir William Stephenson (Intrepid) still stood at the center of events when he and author William Stevenson discussed in the 1980s an investigation into sudden allegations that Intrepid's wartime aide, Dick Ellis, had been both a Soviet mole and a Nazi spy. They concluded that the rumors grew, ironically, from Intrepid's last wartime case involving the first major Soviet intelligence defector of the new atomic age: Igor Gouzenko. Intrepid saved Gouzenko and found him sanctuary inside a Canadian spy school. Gouzenko was about to make more devastating disclosures than those concerning atomic espionage when the case was mysteriously terminated and Intrepid's organization dissolved. Unraveling the implications of Gouzenko's defection and Intrepid's removal from the case, tracing the steps of Dick Ellis and disclosing much new information regarding United States and Canadian postwar intelligence activities, Intrepid's Last Case is a story that for sheer excitement rivals the best spy fiction--and is all the more important because every word is true. Filled with never-before-revealed facts on the Soviet/Western nuclear war dance and a compelling portrayal of the mind of a professional spy, Intrepid's Last Case picks up where the first book ended, at the very roots of the cold war. It describes one of the most widespread cover-ups and bizarre betrayals in intelligence history. This is the incredible Intrepid against the KGB. |
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Hagia Sophia is more than 1,400 years old. It was a Christian Church, then a Muslim mosque, and is now a museum. Here, from National Book Award winner Richard Winston, is the extraordinary story of one of the world's great architectural treasures and its everchanging role in the history of Constantinople. |
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#1  NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • The author of  The Devil in the White City  and  Dead Wake  delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis One of  Chicago Tribune ’s Best Books of the Year So Far • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR “Churchill’s lessons of resilience and his style of steady-handed leadership are essential to the state of mind of American readers.”— Vanity Fair On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile , Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.   The Splendid and the Vile  takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together. |
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Du choléra au sida, en passant par le typhus, la variole, la grippe espagnole et la H1N1, le Québec a subi, comme le reste du monde, de grandes épidémies. Entre la peste du XIVe siècle et la pandémie de la COVID-19, la compréhension des modèles de transmission a grandement évolué, et l'on est passé des croyances magico-religieuses à une approche scientifique de la maladie. Denis Goulet dresse un portrait des grandes épidémies qui ont marqué le Québec depuis le XIXe siècle et présente les différents modèles explicatifs des causes des maladies infectieuses qui ont parsemé cette période. Il fait une analyse originale de l'évolution des réactions, des attitudes et des comportements de la population face à des fléaux qui ont bouleversé sa vie quotidienne. Il met en lumière les difficultés des pouvoirs publics à réagir efficacement face à ces maladies, parfois nouvelles, et dont l'ampleur dépasse les moyens de prévention. Denis Goulet, Ph. D., professeur associé à la Faculté de médecine de l'Université de Montréal, est un spécialiste en histoire de la médecine et des maladies. Il a publié de nombreux ouvrages et articles scientifiques sur ces sujets. Il a aussi enseigné l'épidémiologie dans le cadre de cours en géographie et sociologie de la santé. |
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During the course of most of Russia's turbulent history, czars ruled. The story of these men and women - as diverse as the lands they governed - is, in many ways, the story of Russia itself. From the birth of the Kievan state in the second half of the ninth century to the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, historians James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci trace the long and twisted line of imperial rule in Russia, offering many insights into the uses and abuses of absolute power, as well as a glimpse at world history through the eyes of those who made it. The Czars is a vital page in the literature of Russian history. |
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 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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“Brilliantly written, vivid, a powerful and often uncomfortable true story that deserves to be read and remembered. It beautifully captures the strength of the bond between a father and son.”--Heather Morris, author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz The #1 Sunday Times bestseller—a remarkable story of the heroic and unbreakable bond between a father and son that is as inspirational as The Tattooist of Auschwitz and as mesmerizing as The Choice. Where there is family, there is hope In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality. Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz—and certain death. For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow.  Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future.  Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz’s story—an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable. |
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY THE GLOBE AND MAIL  • CBC • CHATELAINE  • QUILL & QUIRE  • THE HILL TIMES  • POP MATTERS A bold and profound meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America from award-winning Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott. In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight into the ongoing legacy of colonialism. She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrifcation, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political—from overcoming a years-long battle with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft Dinner to how systemic oppression is directly linked to health problems in Native communities.  With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott provides a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future. |
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A Sunday Times bestseller "[ Putin's People ] will surely now become the definitive account of the rise of Putin and Putinism." —Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic "This riveting, immaculately researched book is arguably the best single volume written about Putin, the people around him and perhaps even about contemporary Russia itself in the past three decades." —Peter Frankopan, Financial Times Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it? In Putin’s People , the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB’s revanche—a story that begins in the murk of the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert influence operations abroad. Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach—and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match— Putin’s People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world. |
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#1 New York Times Bestseller From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.  Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot -20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.  Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. |
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In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER  DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST         NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times  • USA Today • O: The Oprah Magazine • Amazon • Publishers Weekly •  Salon • Newsday  • The Daily Beast   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker •  The Washington Post • The Economist • Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle •  Chicago   Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch  • The Christian Science Monitor  From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.   With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic. |
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"Shocking. Revelatory. Compelling. A truly authentic and riveting read. A milestone in WWII and Holocaust history."   –  Damien Lewis, author: The Nazi Hunters "A harrowing, beautifully written and extremely well-researched account of a little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Patricia Posner's fine prose style grips from page one, and the horror will stay with you long after you finish the book." –  Andrew Roberts, author: The Storm of War "A gruesome story, eloquently told."  –  Kirkus Reviews "Posner avoids sensationalism and gives us a harrowing and important read." –  Jewish Renaissance "Posner's book doubles as the spellbinding story of Nazi Germany's largest industrial conglomerate, I.G. Farben . . . [and] in one important way, her book is a celebration of a rare kind of heroism. Its compelling side story offers an in-depth profile of Nazi hunter Fritz Bauer, who proved relentless in hunting down Capesius and bringing him to justice." –  Dallas Morning News "The research is impeccable . . . The prose is clear and concise . . . Good for you, Patricia Posner, for documenting a story that really is not yet over. This is a gripping read. Highly recommended." –  miamiartzine T he Pharmacist of Auschwitz  is the little known story of Victor Capesius, a Bayer pharmaceutical salesman from Romania who, at the age of 35, joined the Nazi SS in 1943 and quickly became the chief pharmacist at the largest death camp, Auschwitz. Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius’s reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, fueled in part by his theft of gold ripped from the mouths of corpses, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder twenty years after the end of the war. The Pharmacist of Auschwitz  is much more, though, than a personal account of Capesius. It provides a spellbinding glimpse inside the devil’s pact made between the Nazis and Germany’s largest conglomerate, I.G. Farben, and its Bayer pharmaceutical subsidiary. The story is one of murder and greed with its roots in the dark heart of the Holocaust. It is told through Nazi henchmen and industrialists turned war criminals, intelligence agents and zealous prosecutors, and intrepid concentration camp survivors and Nazi hunters. Set against a backdrop ranging from Hitler’s war to conquer Europe to the Final Solution to postwar Germany’s tormented efforts to confront its dark past, Posner shows the appalling depths to which ordinary men descend when they are unrestrained by conscience or any sense of morality.  The Pharmacist of Auschwitz  is a moving saga that lingers long after the final page. |
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This is not just the story of what was perhaps the most daring raid undertaken by the commandos during the war, but it is also the true and remarkable account of a desperate escape by Marine Sparks and Major 'Blondie' Hasler across German-occupied France. For nearly three months, while they desperately sought assistance from the suspicious French Resistance and dodged German soldiers at every turn, Sparks and Hasler found themselves avoiding capture and certain death. |
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Take a trip through the defining moments of our global story and see the thinkers, leaders, ideas, and inventions that have shaped the world. Presented in a beautiful slipcase, World History is an essential guide for anyone who loves history or wants to broaden their knowledge. This accessible book covers over 350 of the world's most important turning points, from our earliest human ancestors of prehistory to political events of the modern world. Follow detailed maps showing the continuous movement of humans across the Earth, and examine fascinating paintings illustrating the events and individuals that took them there. Beautiful photography throughout the book will carry you back in time to see the people and places of the stories - along with stunning artifacts from every historical period. From magnificent buildings like the Colosseum to magnificent words like "I have a dream!", this guide brings history's most significant events to life for every reader to discover and enjoy. |
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Michael (MRD) Foot enjoys the rare distinction of being the only person referred to by his real name in a John Le Carre novel. A highly significant tribute to the man entrusted with writing the official record of the Special Operations Executive. He authored first (1966) the History of SOE in France and twenty years later the highly sensitive accounts of SOE operations in Belgium and Holland (which the Germans infiltrated with disastrous results). With his own war service background and academic reputation MRD Foot was an inspired choice for these historic tasks. He was fearless in pursuit of the truth and in thwarting bureaucratic attempts to muzzle him. His war exploits make thrilling reading. His behind-the-lines mission to track down a notorious SD interrogator went badly wrong and he only just escaped with his life. His career has brought him into close contact with an astonishing cast of characters and his tongue-in-cheek account of academic life makes lively reading. |
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The Gift of Black Folk is a history book by W. E. B. Du Bois concerning the contributions of the African American community to life in the United States. Du Bois presents a well written book on the contributions of black people to the creation and establishment of the United States of America. He was a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists that wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. |
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A thrilling narrative that introduces a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolitte Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history. In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, he demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward, and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. In Last Mission to Tokyo , Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers—in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes—that would change the face of our legal and military history. Perfect for fans of Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial , Last Mission to Tokyo is a thrilling war story-meets-courtroom-drama that explores a key moment in World War II. |
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The art of a country, like the character of the inhabitants, belongs to the nature of the land. The climate, the scenery, the contrasts of each country, all clothe the artistic impulse as diversely as they clothe the people themselves. A burly, florid Teuton in his furs and jewellery, and a lithe brown Indian in his waist-cloth, would each look entirely absurd in the other’s dress. There is no question of which dress is intrinsically the best in the world; each is relatively the best for its own conditions, and each is out of place in other conditions. So it is with art: it is the expression of thought and feeling in harmony with its own conditions. The only bad art is that which is mechanical, where the impulse to give expression has decayed, and it is reduced to mere copying of styles and motives which do not belong to its actual conditions. An age of copying is the only despicable age. It is but a confusion of thought, therefore, to try to pit the art of one country against that of another. A Corinthian temple, a Norman church, or a Chinese pavilion are each perfect in their own conditions; but if the temple is of Aberdeen granite, the church of Pacific island coral, and the pavilion amid the Brighton downs, they are each of them hopelessly wrong. To understand any art we must first begin by grasping its conditions, and feeling the contrasts, the necessities, the atmosphere, which underlie the whole terms of expression. Now the essential conditions in Egypt are before all, an overwhelming sunshine; next, the strongest of contrasts between a vast sterility of desert and the most prolific verdure of the narrow plain; and thirdly, the illimitable level lines of the cultivation, of the desert plateau, and of the limestone strata, crossed by the vertical precipices on either hand rising hundreds of feet without a break. In such conditions the architecture of other lands would look weak or tawdry. But the style of Egypt never fails in all its varieties and changes. |
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Le IIIe Reich ne fut pas seulement cette grande machine de mort, l’État dont le délire raciste conduisit à la Shoah. Le Reich de mille ans voulu par Hitler fut aussi une immense entreprise de pillages qui enrichit quelques dizaines de dignitaires nazis dont le parcours après 1945 relève souvent du roman d’espionnage. Jean-Paul Picaper s’est donc lancé sur la trace de ces trésors nazis - métaux précieux, diamants, argent et autres biens dérobés notamment aux juifs - à travers le monde, pendant et après la guerre. À partir de l’or déposé par les SS dans les mines de Thuringe et découvert par l’armée américaine en 1945 puis remis à la future Bundesbank, ce livre dresse le portrait des spoliateurs - Bormann, Himmler, Pohl et bien d’autres – sans oublier leurs victimes ni négliger le rôle joué par les banques et les grandes entreprises allemandes et européennes encore en activité aujourd’hui. L’auteur analyse en particulier les méthodes à la fois subtiles et brutales employées par les nazis pour arriver à leur fin. Il apporte de nouveaux éléments sur le IIIe Reich, à travers le parcours des organisateurs de ce gigantesque brigandage et des initiateurs de l’Holocauste, remonte les filières et suit les chasseurs de nazis dans leur traque implacable des anciens chefs SS. Aujourd’hui, l’opinion publique demande des bilans. C’est l’un des intérêts de ce livre, mais ce n’est pas le seul, que d’ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives pour tenter de comprendre un peu mieux le nazisme dans ses aspects les plus secrets. |
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The polearms used by pikemen constituted the first stage of a military revolution that would force a change in the tactics of warfare. The pike, a two-handed polearm with a long spear-like tip, originated in the fourteenth century and was carried by infantry soldiers as defense against charging cavalry. The halberd, too, proved a fearsome and pragmatic weapon used in the armies of medieval and post-medieval Europe. When supplemented by pikemen, halberdiers became a formidable force. Pikemen would dominate the battlefield until the late 1500s when new technology led to the implementation of muskets and later bayonets. Early bayonets were long sword-like weapons which, like the pike, were originally used to ward off cavalry charges. Part of the bayonet’s utility rested with the fact that firearms were cumbersome to reload. If the initial firing failed to dispatch the enemy, a bayonet charge might prove necessary. Although the bayonet charge seldom, if ever, decided the victory, the bayonet proved useful in trench warfare in conjunction with other weapons such as a rifle and hand grenade. This book begins with a discussion of the edged weapons that were the forerunners to the bayonet: the pike and the halberd. It then examines the physical drill and mental preparation required of the soldier to successfully engage an enemy combatant with the bayonet. Next it covers military operations in which the bayonet has served a primary function from the eighteenth century to modern day, followed by a study of the utility of the bayonet in the age of firearms, particularly in World War I. The concluding remarks focus on the popularity of the bayonet since its inception and the reasons why it survived as a weapon of the modern battlefield. |
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Ancient Greece and Rome, also referred to as the Classical world, laid the foundation for Western civilization. Because of their geographical proximity to one another and to the Mediterranean Sea, the countries shared many similarities with respect to culture and weapons. The early Greek swords used by infantry had straight two-edged blades, without taper, of equal width from hilt to point. The Spartan sword measured only 14 to 15 inches in length, and was by some considered short and non-frightening. Those who had an intricate understanding of edged weaponry and combat, however, knew that while a long sword carried certain psychological powers, length did not necessarily communicate the deadliness of the weapon. Rome, perhaps the greatest power of the Mediterranean, differed from other civilizations most notably in the notion of citizenship. The Romans were a pragmatic people who did not fail to adopt from other cultures the weapons or technology they found useful. The classic Roman short sword remained in use for centuries; however, while the Romans emulated many of the Greek weapons and armor, they also copied Hispanic daggers as well as straight Hispanic swords during the conquest of Spain in the third century BCE. This book begins with an introduction to bronze, iron, and steel used in weapons and armor in Classical Greece, Britain, Gaul, Rome, and Spain. Next it examines the type of training the soldiers encountered to prepare them for battle. This section focuses mainly on the training of the Roman warriors. The book then analyzes the military organization and battlefield tactics of the Greeks, Romans, and Celts. It ends with a discussion of war wounds and the protection that various types of armor afforded the soldier. The concluding remarks focus on the pragmatic way in which one viewed war in the Classical world. |
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A previously undocumented slice of London's underground sexual history, and its influence upon artists from Oscar Wilde to Francis Bacon and the Stones to Morrissey Piccadilly Circus has long been London's principal location for selling sex and this is the first book to really explore the history of male prostitution at "The Dilly." Dating from Oscar Wilde's notorious use of the location for pick-ups through to Francis Bacon's equal attraction to rough trade and right up to recent history, this is a pioneering piece of counterculture history. Employing a flair for acute visual imagery, the author maps out Soho's submerged gay clubs and drinking-rooms in the decades before de-criminalization. This is followed by the new masculinity advocated by the Mod look in the 1960s, the influence of the place on rock and pop stars such as the Stones, Marc Almond, and Morrissey (all of whom themed songs on the subject) and the book closes in the 1990s, when online male escorts replaced rent boys on the Piccadilly railing. An exhilaratingly colorful recreation of the illegal occupation of one of London'’s central commercial zones by lawless Dilly boys, this history is augmented by first-hand interviews with rent boys who worked the meat-rack in the 1970s as well as a chapter recording the author's personal friendship with the artist Francis Bacon. |
