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In this analysis of human history and myth, “[Calasso’s] flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your depth, but smarter and better read” ( The New York Times Book Review ). A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice There was a time, even before prehistory, when man was simply a defenseless animal. The gods he worshiped took the form of other beasts or were the patterns of the stars he saw above him each night in the sky, which he transformed into figures and around which he created stories. Soon, however, man learned to imitate the animals that attacked him and he became a hunter. This transformation, Roberto Calasso posits, from defenseless victim to hunter was a key moment, the first step on man’s ascendance to power. Suddenly the notion of the hunter became fundamental. It would be developed over thousands of years through the figures that became central to Greek mythology, including the constellations. Among them was Orion, the celestial hunter, and his dog, Sirius. Vivid and strikingly original, and expertly translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon, T he Celestial Hunter traces how man created the divine myths that would become the cornerstones of Western civilization. As Calasso demonstrates, the repercussions of these ideas would echo through history, from Paleolithic to modern times. And they would be the product of one thing: the human mind. “Calasso is vital.” — The Guardian “At a moment when atavistic kinds of peril, awe and terror seem close at hand, it feels no great stretch to share Calasso’s core belief that ‘The gods always return.’” — Financial Times “Elliptical, allusive and dazzlingly eclectic.” — The Spectator “Thought-provoking.” — Publishers Weekly |
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One of Indigo's Top 10 History Books of 2024 and Top 100 Books of 2024 • One of the Toronto Star ’s 25 books to read this season From the #1 national bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet and True Reconciliation , a truly unique history of our land—powerful, devastating, remarkable—as told through the voices of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The totem pole forms the foundation for this unique and important oral history of Canada. Its goal is both toweringly ambitious and beautifully direct: To tell the story of this country in a way that prompts readers to look from different angles, to see its dimensions, its curves, and its cuts.  To see that history has an arc, just as the totem pole rises, but to realize that it is also in the details along the way that important meanings are to be found.  To recognize that the story of the past is always there to be retold and recast, and must be conveyed to generations to come. That in the act of re-telling, meaning is found, and strength is built. When it comes to telling the history of Canada, and in particular the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, we need to accept that the way in which our history has traditionally been told has not been a common or shared enterprise. In many ways, it has been an exclusive and siloed one. Among the countless peoples and groups that make up this vast country, the voices and experiences of a few have too often dominated those of many others. Reconciling History shares voices that have seldom been heard, and in this ground-breaking book they are telling and re-telling history from their perspectives. Born out of the oral history in True Reconciliation , and complemented throughout with stunning photography and art, Reconciling History takes this approach to telling our collective story to an entirely different level. |
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From the author of  Mayflower, Valiant Ambition , and  In the Hurricane's Eye-- t he riveting bestseller tells the story of the true events that inspired Melville's Moby-Dick .  Winner of the National Book Award, Nathaniel Philbrick's book is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure, steeped in the lore of whaling, with deep resonance in American literature and history. In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea , recently adapted into a major feature film starring Chris Hemsworth, is a book for the ages. |
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The New Yorker “Excellent... a hair-raising, minute-by-minute account of an accident at a Titan II missile silo in Arkansas, in 1980, which [Schlosser] renders in the manner of a techno-thriller… Command and Control is how nonfiction should be written.” (Louis Menand) Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A ground-breaking account of accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: how do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved--and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age. |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan . The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made. |
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As strange as this may sound , I hope you do not enjoy this book, I hope it disturbs you. I hope after reading you realize there is something wrong with Jamaica that needs to be fixed......I hope you will never look at a ghetto person the same again. I hope you will never see a young girl in a compromising position with an older man and not question what is going on. I hope you will never see a young man in jail and write him off as 'wutless' or bad.....Most importantly, I hope that you will not only hear but listen to the voice of the ghetto. I end in the words of Marcus Garvey - One God, One Aim, One Destiny, one Love. Until we meet again, I remain, yours truly. |
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Paul Kennedy's classic naval history, now updated with a new introduction by the author This acclaimed book traces Britain's rise and fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural 'sons of the waves', he suggests instead that the country's fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between 'continental' and 'maritime' schools of strategy over Britain's policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political and strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history. A new introduction extends his analysis into the twenty-first century and reflects on current American and Chinese ambitions for naval mastery. 'Excellent and stimulating' Correlli Barnett 'The first scholar to have set the sweep of British Naval history against the background of economic history' Michael Howard, Sunday Times 'By far the best study that has ever been done on the subject ... a sparkling and apt quotation on practically every page' Daniel A. Baugh, International History Review 'The best single-volume study of Britain and her naval past now available to us' Jon Sumida, Journal of Modern History |
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From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson , which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state. |
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“Part lively social history, part architectural survey, here is the story of Broadway—from 17th-century cow path to Great White Way.”—Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal From Bowling Green all the way to Marble Hill, Fran Leadon takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan. Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the “Path of Progress” and a “street of broken dreams,” home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress. |
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A fascinating, photo-rich exploration of early aviation in Canada, told through the backstories of pilots who flew, fought, and risked their lives in the First World War, through the interwar period, and beyond. In Our Youth explores the lives of thirty-two young Canadian military and civilian flyers, viewed through the medium of archival photography. All of these young men were pilots in the First World War, a time when flying was pure adventure and danger. Some of them were from humble origins, some from elite families, some became heroes, one was cowardly, and most have now faded from our attention. However, all embraced the romance of flight and the danger of war. Although much of the book is focused on military experiences—including the mental stress and injuries faced by pilots who had barely reached adulthood—the book looks beyond war, examining the fascinating world of civilian aviation from 1908 to 1941. Featuring long-hidden photography uncovered from provincial archives, confidential military records, and precious family collections, this book covers the lives of many young Canadians who made important contributions as they flew and fought in what seem today to be the flimsiest of machines. |
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A radical reinterpretation of da Gama’s pioneering voyages, revealing their role as a decisive turning point in the struggle between Christianity & Islam. In 1498 a young captain sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies and, with it, access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage known in history. The little ships were pushed beyond their limits, and their crews were racked by storms and devastated by disease. However, their greatest enemy was neither nature nor even the sheer dread of venturing into unknown worlds that existed on maps populated by coiled, toothy sea monsters. With bloodred Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents. An epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused and often comical collisions between cultures encountering one another for the first time;  Holy War  also offers a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history. Identifying Vasco da Gama’s arrival in the East as a turning point in the centuries-old struggle between Islam and Christianity—one that continues to shape our world— Holy War  reveals the unexpected truth that both Vasco da Gama and his archrival, Christopher Columbus, set sail with the clear purpose of launching a Crusade whose objective was to reach the Indies; seize control of its markets in spices, silks, and precious gems from Muslim traders; and claim for Portugal or Spain, respectively, all the territories they discovered. Vasco da Gama triumphed in his mission and drew a dividing line between the Muslim and Christian eras of history—what we in the West call the medieval and the modern ages. Now that the world is once again tipping back East,  Holy War  offers a key to understanding age-old religious and cultural rivalries resurgent today. |
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The Folland Gnat was used by the RAF mainly in the advanced training role, in the 1960s and 70s, where it proved to be an ideal lead-in trainer for high-performance aircraft such as the iconic Lightning, the first RAF supersonic fighter. It was also the aircraft used by the famous Yellowjacks formation aerobatic team, formed in 1964, the forerunner of the world-famous Red Arrows team which was equipped with the Gnat for over a decade before being replaced by the Hawk in 1980. Lesser known, the Gnat was also used as a lightweight fighter by both the Indian and Finnish air forces. In the case of India, the Gnat, later called the ‘Ajeet’ (Midge), saw combat experience in the Indo-Pakistani wars, most notably in the Battle of Boyra. Today, over 60 years since the aircraft first flew, several Gnats continue to be operated from North Weald Airfield in Essex by the Heritage Aircraft Trust under the brand, the Gnat Display Team. This book relates the history of the aircraft and includes many fascinating and untold stories by those who flew the aircraft, many of them well-known and distinguished aviators including those from the Indian and Finnish air forces. There is also a focus on the civilian life of the Gnat in the 21st century with accounts from those who continue to fly the aircraft with the Heritage Aircraft Trust. |
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What is sewn into a pilot’s uniform when they receive their wings? In what year did the first female jet pilot join the RAF? Why were former Lightning pilots called WIWOLS? For the answers to all these questions and more, take off into this fascinating miscellany and become a true RAF aficionado. With its famous Supermarine Spitfire and the legendary Red Arrows, the RAF has been a pillar of British military operations since its beginnings in 1918. This new miscellany brings together the origins of the RAF, the people who make it tick and the technology that lets it take to the skies, as well as the aviation lingo and time-honoured traditions that characterise the force we know today. Whether you have first-hand RAF experience or you’re an enthusiastic supporter from the ground, this remarkable volume will be your guide to the oldest independent air force in the world. Chocks away! |
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“S ome of the most fascinating, intriguing and, yes, brutal episodes of the region’s past written in the fast-paced, involving style of an adventure novel” ( Italy Magazine , “Book of the Week”).   With the perfect fusion of history, art, architecture, superb natural beauty, and weather—not to mention magnificent traditions of food and drink—Tuscany has cast its spell over visitors for centuries. What is it that makes this exquisite part of Italy so seductive?   To answer this question, Alistair Moffat embarks on a journey into Tuscany’s past. From the flowering of the Etruscan civilization in the seventh century BC through the rise of the powerful medieval communes of Arezzo, Lucca, Pisa, and Florence and the birth of the Renaissance, he underlines both the area’s regional uniqueness and the vital role it has played in the history of the whole of Italy. Insightful, readable, and imbued with the author’s own enthusiasm for Tuscany, this book includes a wealth of information not found in tourist guides. As the Herald raves, “If you travel to the region, you’ll want to take with you Moffat’s Tuscany: A History ; and if you read the book, you’ll want to travel to the region.”   “Compelling . . . Moffat takes the reader on a delicious trip through the geography, history and culture of the region—an impressive book.” — The Sunday Telegraph   “Facts and figures are woven into a sun-drenched meditation on the character of the place and its people.” — The Scotsman |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” ( The Wall Street Journal ) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. “Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century.”— Los Angeles Times On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers. |
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction “with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller”( The New York Times ) that unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century—the story of the legendary British explorer who ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a fabled civilization and never returned. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."— New York Magazine After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed writer David Grann set out to determine what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z. For centuries Europeans believed the Amazon, the world’s largest rain forest, concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. Then he vanished. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.”   In this masterpiece, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager ! |
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An “almost absurdly colorful” history of the WWII battle for the Levant: “In places . . . the material is like Casablanca meets The English Patient ” ( The Wall Street Journal ). In the spring of 1941, the Allied forces had one last hope: that the Axis would run through its fuel supply. In Blood, Oil and the Axis , historian John Broich tells the vital story of Iraq and the Levant during this most pivotal time of the war. Four Iraqi generals staged a pro-German coup in Iraq, they established military cooperation between the Axis and the Middle East. The Allies responded with an improvised and unlikely coalition: Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs, Australians, American and British soldiers, Free French Foreign Legionnaires, and Jewish Palestinians. All shared a common desire to quash the formation of an Axis state in the region. Taking readers from a bombed-out Fallujah, to Baghdad, to Damascus, this definitive chronicle features numerous memorable figures, including Jack Hasey, a young American who fought with the Free French Foreign Legion; Freya Stark, a famous travel-writer-turned-government-agent; and even Roald Dahl, a young Royal Air Force recruit and future author of beloved children’s books. |
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The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, “They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor.  Writing in English in 1943, after his risky escape to freedom in the United States, Hélion vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and smells of the camps, and shrewdly sizes up both captors and captured. In the deep humanity, humor, and unsentimental intelligence of his observations, we can recognize the artist whose long career included friendships with the likes of Mondrian, Giacometti, and Balthus, and an important role in shaping modern art movements. Hélion’s picture of almost two years without his art is a self-portrait of the artist as a man. |
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The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “In Nuclear War: A Scenario , Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.”— Wall Street Journal There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.   Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.   Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency. |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY   “A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath ; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal “What she’s done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times   WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize • The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize • The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut • Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize   FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • Dayton Literary Peace Prize   ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • USA Today • Publishers Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast   ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: 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   In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970.   Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.   Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. 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 a modern classic. |
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Dive into this “truly compelling” ( Good Morning America ) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war—from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia , Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.   Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?     In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”   Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war. |
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A remarkable eyewitness account of the most brutal combat of the Pacific War, from Peleliu to Okinawa, this is the true story of R.V. Burgin, the real-life World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific . “Read his story and marvel at the man...and those like him.”—Tom Hanks When a young Texan named R.V. Burgin joined the Marines 1942, he never imagined what was waiting for him a world away in the Pacific. There, amid steamy jungles, he encountered a ferocious and desperate enemy in the Japanese, engaging them in some of the most grueling and deadly fights of the war.   In this remarkable memoir, Burgin reveals his life as a special breed of Marine. Schooled by veterans who had endured the cauldron of Guadalcanal, Burgin’s company soon confronted snipers, repulsed jungle ambushes, encountered abandoned corpses of hara-kiri victims, and warded off howling banzai attacks as they island-hopped from one bloody battle to the next. In his two years at war, Burgin rose from a green private to a seasoned sergeant, fighting from New Britain through Peleliu and on to Okinawa, where he earned a Bronze Star for valor.   With unforgettable drama and an understated elegance, Burgin’s gripping narrative stands alongside those of classic Pacific chroniclers like Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge—indeed, Burgin was even Sledge’s platoon sergeant. Here is a deeply moving account of World War II, bringing to life the hell that was the Pacific War. |
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Winner of the 2018 Louise de Kiriline Lawrence Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the 2018  RBC Taylor Prize Shortlisted for the 2018  Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction The sweeping, epic story of the mysterious land that came to be called “Canada” like it’s never been told before. Every map tells a story. And every map has a purpose--it invites us to go somewhere we've never been. It’s an account of what we know, but also a trace of what we long for. Ten Maps conjures the world as it appeared to those who were called upon to map it. What would the new world look like to wandering Vikings, who thought they had drifted into a land of mythical creatures, or Samuel de Champlain, who had no idea of the vastness of the landmass just beyond the treeline?   Adam Shoalts, one of Canada’s foremost explorers, tells the stories behind these centuries old maps, and how they came to shape what became “Canada.”  It’s a story that will surprise readers, and reveal the Canada we never knew was hidden. It brings to life the characters and the bloody disputes that forged our history, by showing us what the world looked like before it entered the history books. Combining storytelling, cartography, geography, archaeology and of course history, this book shows us Canada in a way we've never seen it before. |
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The never-before-told story of one of the most decorated units in the war in Afghanistan and its fifteen-month ordeal that culminated in the 2008 Battle of Wanat, the war's deadliest A single company of US paratroopers--calling themselves the "Chosen Few"--arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides. Month after month, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, and machine-gun fire poured down on the isolated and exposed paratroopers as America's focus and military resources shifted to Iraq. Just weeks before the paratroopers were to go home, they faced their last--and toughest--fight. Near the village of Wanat in Nuristan province, an estimated three hundred enemy fighters surrounded about fifty of the Chosen Few and others defending a partially finished combat base. Nine died and more than two dozen were wounded that day in July 2008, making it arguably the bloodiest battle of the war in Afghanistan. The Chosen Few would return home tempered by war. Two among them would receive the Medal of Honor. All of them would be forever changed. |
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INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER Love, betrayal, and a secret war: the untold story of two elite agents, one Canadian, one British, who became one of the most decorated couples of WWII. On opposite sides of the pond, Sonia Butt, an adventurous young British woman, and Guy d’Artois, a French-Canadian soldier and thunderstorm of a man, are preparing for war. From different worlds, their lives first intersect during clandestine training to become agents with Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. As the world’s deadliest conflict to date unfolds, Sonia and Guy learn how to parachute into enemy territory, how to kill, blow up rail lines, and eventually . . . how to love each other. But not long after their hasty marriage, their love is tested by separation, by a titanic invasion—and by indiscretion. Writing in vivid, heart-stopping prose, Ayed follows Sonia as she plunges into Nazi-occupied France and slinks into black market restaurants to throw off occupying Nazi forces, while at the same time participating in sabotage operations against them; and as Guy, in another corner of France, trains hundreds into a resistance army. Reconstructed from hours of unpublished interviews and hundreds of archival and personal documents, the story Ayed tells is about the ravaging costs of war paid for disproportionately by the young. But more than anything, The War We Won Apart is a story about love: two secret agents who were supposed to land in enemy territory together, but were fated to fight the war apart. |
