Best of
20th-Century

2008

Remember Us: My Journey from the Shtetl Through the Holocaust


Martin Small - 2008
    All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. From work camps to the partisans of the Nowogrudek forests, from the Mauthausen concentration camp to life as a displaced person in Italy, and from fighting the Egyptian army in a tiny Israeli kibbutz in 1948 to starting a new life in a new world in New York, this book encompasses the mythical “hero’s journey” in very real historical events. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.

Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?


Horace Greasley - 2008
    There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war. After seven weeks training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicester, he found himself facing the might of the German army in a muddy field in Northern France, with just 30 rounds of ammunition in his weapon pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. He was taken prisoner on May 25th, 1940 and forced to endure a 10 week march across France and Belgium en route to Holland. Horace survived, barely, but many of his comrades were not so fortunate. Falling by the side of the road through exhaustion and malnourishment meant a bullet through the back of the head and the corpse left to rot. After a three day train journey without food and water, Horace found himself incarcerated in a prison camp in Poland. It was there he embarked on an incredible love affair with a German girl interpreting for his captors. He experienced the sweet taste of freedom each time he escaped to see her, yet incredibly he made his way back into the camp each time—sometimes two or three times a week. He broke out of the camp more than 200 times, often bringing food back to his fellow prisoners to supplement their meager rations, and toward the end of the war even managed to bring radio parts back in, allowing the BBC news to be delivered daily to more than 3,000 prisoners.

Murder On The Sea


Jane A. Adams - 2008
    Here on the Dorset coast, she runs her own immaculate guest house and life is blissfully quiet.Until . . .A few doors down, harmless old Mrs Freer is bludgeoned to death, and Rina can’t help but be drawn into the mystery.Mrs Freer’s home was ransacked, but this was no ordinary burglary.Who knew the old lady kept a gun stashed under her pillow?And who wanted it badly enough to kill?Detective Sebastian McGregor is called in to solve this baffling case.But with her neighbours’ safety at stake, Rina knows she needs to give him a helping hand.

A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight


Robert J. Mrazek - 2008
    fleet win critical victories at Midway and Guadalcanal. These 35 American men--many flying outmoded aircraft--changed the course of history, going on to become the war's most decorated naval air squadron, while suffering the heaviest losses in U.S. naval aviation history. Mrazek paints moving portraits of the men in the squadron, and exposes a shocking cover-up that cost many lives. Filled with thrilling scenes of battle, betrayal, and sacrifice, A DAWN LIKE THUNDERis destined to become a classic in the literature of World War II.

Tank Men: The Human Story of Tanks at War


Robert Kershaw - 2008
    This is warfare at the sharp end' --NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST The First World War saw the birth of an extraordinary fighting machine that has fascinated three generations: the tank. In Tank Men, ex-soldier and military historian Robert Kershaw brings to life the grime, the grease and the fury of a tank battle through the voices of ordinary men and women who lived and fought in those fearsome machines. Drawing on vivid, newly researched personal testimony from the crucial battles of the First and Second World Wars, this is military history at its very best.

Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922


Giles Milton - 2008
    The city's vast wealth created centuries earlier by powerful Levantine dynasties, its factories teemed with Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Jews. Together, they had created a majority Christian city that was unique in the Islamic world. But to the Turkish nationalists, Smyrna was a city of infidels.In the aftermath of the First World War and with the support of the Great Powers, Greece had invaded Turkey with the aim of restoring a Christian empire in Asia. But by the summer of 1922, the Greeks had been vanquished by Atatürk's armies after three years of warfare. As Greek troops retreated, the non-Muslim civilians of Smyrna assumed that American and European warships would intervene if and when the Turkish cavalry decided to enter the city. But this was not to be.On September 13, 1922, Turkish troops descended on Smyrna. They rampaged first through the Armenian quarter, and then throughout the rest of the city. They looted homes, raped women, and murdered untold thousands. Turkish soldiers were seen dousing buildings with petroleum. Soon, all but the Turkish quarter of the city was in flames and hundreds of thousands of refugees crowded the waterfront, desperate to escape. The city burned for four days; by the time the embers cooled, more than 100,000 people had been killed and millions left homeless.Based on eyewitness accounts and the memories of survivors, many interviewed for the first time, Paradise Lost offers a vivid narrative account of one of the most vicious military catastrophes of the modern age.

Collected Works Of Edna St. Vincent Millay


Edna St. Vincent Millay - 2008
    This collection includes: Aria da Capo, A Few Figs from Thistles, Second April, Renascence and Other Poems

Leningrad: State of Siege


Michael Jones - 2008
    “In this struggle for survival, we have no interest in keeping even a proportion of the city’s population alive.”During the famed 900-day siege of Leningrad, the German High Command deliberately planned to eradicate the city’s population through starvation. Viewing the Slavs as sub-human, Hitler embarked on a vicious program of ethnic cleansing. By the time the siege ended in January 1944, almost a million people had died. Those who survived would be marked permanently by what they endured as the city descended into chaos.In Leningrad, military historian Michael Jones chronicles the human story of this epic siege. Drawing on newly available eyewitness accounts and diaries, he reveals the true horrors of the ordeal—including stories long-suppressed by the Soviets of looting, criminal gangs, and cannibalism. But he also shows the immense psychological resources on which the citizens of Leningrad drew to survive against desperate odds. At the height of the siege, for instance, an extraordinary live performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony profoundly strengthened the city’s will to resist.A riveting account of one of the most harrowing sieges of world history, Leningrad also portrays the astonishing power of the human will in the face of even the direst catastrophe.

Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine


Diarmuid Jeffreys - 2008
    To this day, companies formerly part of the Farben cartel—the aspirin-maker Bayer, the graphics supplier Agfa, the plastics giant BASF—continue to play key roles in the global market. IG Farben itself, however, is remembered mostly for its infamous connections to the Nazi Party and its complicity in the atrocities of the Holocaust. After the war, Farben’s leaders were tried for crimes that included mass murder and exploitation of slave labor. In Hell’s Cartel, Diarmuid Jeffreys presents the first comprehensive account of IG Farben’s rise and fall, tracing the enterprise from its nineteenth-century origins, when the discovery of synthetic dyes gave rise to a vibrant new industry, through the upheavals of the Great War era, and on to the company’s fateful role in World War II. Drawing on extensive research and original interviews, Hell’s Cartel sheds new light on the codependence of industry and the Third Reich, and offers a timely warning against the dangerous merger of politics and the pursuit of profit.

True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney


Lawrence Weschler - 2008
    Weschler chronicles Hockney's protean production and speculations, including his scenic designs for opera, his homemade xerographic prints, his exploration of physics in relation to Chinese landscape painting, his investigations into optical devices, his taking up of watercolor—and then his spectacular return to oil painting, around 2005, with a series of landscapes of the East Yorkshire countryside of his youth. These conversations provide an astonishing record of what has been Hockney's grand endeavor, nothing less than an exploration of "the structure of seeing" itself.

Nocturne


Diane Armstrong - 2008
    its magic hung in the air. It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elzunia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF. Forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, Elzunia learns that even children must create their own rules to survive. When the Ghetto defies the invaders, and later the entire city of Warsaw rises up, Elzunia finds strength in ways she never imagined. Nocturne is a powerful and inspiring testament to resilience and courage in the face of cruelty and betrayal.

The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt, Vol. 3


Al Feldstein - 2008
    Originally published in 1952 and 1953, this volume of Gemstone''s EC Archives series reprints issues #13-18 of Tales from the Crypt! Creators include writers Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, and artists Jack Davis, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, and George Evans.

Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front: The Memoir of Dr Hans Rehfeldt. Volume 1: From the Moscow Winter Offensive to Operation Zitadelle


Hans Heinz Rehfeldt - 2008
    Battling in freezing conditions, at its lowest -52℃, the descriptions of the privations are vivid and terrifying. With no winter clothes they resorted to using those taken from Soviet corpses.In 1942, fighting near Oriel, however, his battalion suffered heavy losses and was disbanded. Ill with frostbitten legs, Rehfeldt was treated in hospital and once recovered was dispatched to the Front.Following various battles (Werch, Bolchov) his battalion again suffered heavy losses and it merged. In agony from severe frostbite to his legs, Rehfeldt defied the odds and astonished his surgeon when he walked again. He was promoted from Gunner to Trained Private Soldier in 1942, and to Corporal for bravery in the field in 1943.He was awarded numerous honors including the Wound Badge and the Infantry Assault Badge.On 3 May 1945 he was captured by US Forces and held as POW for one month in a camp at Waschow before internment in Holstein from where he was released in July 1945 after agreeing to work on the land. In December 1945 he began studying veterinary medicine: his future career.This astonishing account of a man who kept bouncing back from near death is a testament to the author’s determination and sheer strength of spirit.

The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (Boomer Book Series)


Othniel J. Seiden - 2008
    . ." Solomon Shalensky After researching the World War II transcripts of the Nuremburg Trials and interviewing 'The Remnant' or Jewish survivors of the holocaust, many still living in Israel; Othniel Seiden was compelled to write their startling and remarkable stories of WWII in this historically accurate Jewish novel. In this stunning and compelling WWII historical novel about the Jews who were able to remain free and fight, Seiden documents their survival, their suffering, their missions and their guerrilla warfare tactics against the Nazi occupation forces. Also, well documented, the tragedy of Kiev and now infamous ravine of Babi Yar where it is thought that nearly a million people, Jews and non-Jews alike were massacred. These brave few escaped the certain death of their co-religionists by acts of bravery and sheer determination to live. The myth that the Jewish people 'went to their deaths like sheep to slaughter. . .' is put to rest forever in the stories of "The Remnant." Preview this historic Jewish novel now - simply click the cover of The Remnant - The Jewish Resistance of WWII

On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation


Robert Whitaker - 2008
    . . September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. During the previous three months, racial fighting had erupted in twenty-five cities. And deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers were meeting in a humble wooden church, forming a union and making plans to sue their white landowners, who for years had cheated them out of their fair share of the cotton crop. A car pulled up outside the church . . . What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy.In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story of courage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefully documents—and exposes—one of the worst racial massacres in American history. Over the course of several days, posses and federal troops gunned down more than one hundred men, women, and children.But that is just the beginning of this astonishing story. White authorities also arrested more than three hundred black farmers, and in trials that lasted only a few hours, all-white juries sentenced twelve of the union leaders to die in the electric chair. One of the juries returned a death verdict after two minutes of deliberation. All hope seemed lost, and then an extraordinary lawyer from Little Rock stepped forward: Scipio Africanus Jones. Jones, who’d been born a slave, joined forces with the NAACP to mount an appeal in which he argued that his clients’ constitutional rights to a fair trial had been violated. Never before had the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a criminal verdict in a state court because the proceedings had been unfair, so the state of Arkansas, confident of victory, had a carpenter build coffins for the men.We all know the names of the many legendary heroes that emerged from the civil rights movement: Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. among them. Whitaker’s important book commemorates a legal struggle, Moore v. Dempsey, that paved the way for that later remaking of our country, and tells too of a man, Scipio Africanus Jones, whose name surely deserves to be known by all Americans.

All Roads Lead To Ganga


Ruskin Bond - 2008
    on pilgrimage, shrines, beautiful writing.

Shadow Warrior


David Everett - 2008
    Here, for the first time, is his remarkable story.A far-from-strapping lad from Tasmania, Dave proved everybody wrong by passing the gruelling selection course to join the SAS. Unsatisfied by the Regiment, he left to take up the cause of the oppressed Karen people of Burma, becoming a seasoned jungle-fighter in the process.On his return to Australia, Dave became every government’s nightmare: a highly skilled special-forces soldier on a crime spree. On a mission to raise funds for the Karen, he kidnapped people from their homes, robbed movie theatres and plotted some of the most audacious crimes ever conceived in Australia. At the height of his infamy every police officer in the country was on the lookout for him, while the tabloid press fuelled the public’s fear of a trained killer gone crazy.Dave was blown-up, shot at, starved, bashed, interrogated, tortured and locked in solitary confinement, but nothing diminished his wild streak. While serving his jail sentence, he had time to reflect. In Shadow Warrior, he tells his story with unflinching honesty and larrikin wit.

Enemies of the Heart


Rebecca Dean - 2008
    She finds it hard to adjust to her new life, not least when she discovers that the family business she has just married into -- Remer Steel -- is producing weaponry for the German army. With the First World War looming, Vicky flees to Yorkshire with her children, leaving Berlin, and her husband, behind. Striking dark-haired beauty Zelda Wallace is no stranger to marriage. Widowed at just twenty-one with a young son, she is eager to meld into Berlin's high society and sever all ties with her American identity in order to become a true Berliner. But beneath her exotic looks, Zelda holds a deeply hidden secret that if revealed, could threaten everything she holds dear!

Our Father


Alexander Schmemann - 2008
    Because this single short prayer of Jesus Christ has everything that needs to be said about God, his kingdom, this life, about all of us - it is not an exaggeration to suggest that in this commentary Fr. Schmemann provides us with a map for seeing anew the purpose and measure of our whole life as he awakens in us a fresh understanding of these familiar petitions. Includes black and white illustrations.

Krazy and Ignatz, 1943-1944: He Nods in Quiescent Siesta


George Herriman - 2008
    With this volume, Fantagraphics and its precursor Eclipse will have reprinted the entire 29-year run of the Krazy Kat Sundays! Like Charles Schulz, George Herriman was a cartoonist to the very end. Aside from collecting the last masterful year and a half of "Krazy Kat," this new volume will offer a retrospective look at Herriman's life at the drawing table, offering many never before seen samples of his original art (which the cartoonist often lovingly hand-colored for friends). Gathered from many scattered collections, these pages testify to Herriman's inveterate passion for drawing. Rounding out the volume are scores of Krazy Kat daily strips also from Herriman's last years, further testament to the cartoonists vitality. Series editor and veteran comics historian, Bill Blackbeard, also provides a concluding, wide-ranging essay on the life and art of Herriman. More than a simple reprint collection, Krazy and Ignatz, 1943-1944 portrays the full range of a cartoonist who remained an artist all his life.

G.I. Joe: Classics #1


Larry Hama - 2008
    Adele Burkhart, a controversial scientist privy to pivotal secrets that could spell doom for America! It's up to G.I. Joe to infiltrate Cobra's island base and rescue Dr. Burkhart before it is too late. Will they make it in time or will Cobra succeed? Find out in the issue that started it all!

The Complete Story Girl Series: The Story Girl + The Golden Road


L.M. Montgomery - 2008
    The Story Girl is a 1911 novel by L. M. Montgomery. It narrates the adventures of a group of young cousins and their friends who live in a rural community on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The book is narrated by Beverley, who together with his brother Felix, has come to live with his Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec King on their farm while their father travels for business. The sequel to the book is The Golden Road, written in 1913. When Sara Stanley, the Story Girl, returns to Carlisle to spend the winter with the King family, she comes up with a great idea. To help them through the dreary months ahead, she, Felicity, Cecily and Dan will publish a magazine.Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874 – 1942), was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays.

Titanic: The Last Great Images


Robert D. Ballard - 2008
    Dead ships, however, do.Over seventy years after the great ocean liner sank, marine geologist Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the icy North Atlantic. Now Ballard presents the world with an opportunity to live the story of the famous ship through his amazing last great images, before Titanic's remains are gone forever. This is a story told in rusted, twisted metal and debris, but it is also a human story told in a porcelain doll's face, an empty shoe, and an abandoned derby hat.Titanic: The Last Great Images maps the wreck of the ship from a variety of perspectives to give a completely new picture of the triumph and tragedy that was Titanic. This illustrated volume—and a National Geographic special—weave the strands of the ocean liner's story together in renderings done by the ship's original designers, charts of the debris field, and period illustrations. Robert Ballard provides the clearest, most accurate view of the ship we have ever seen. In crisply detailed underwater photography, disintegrating ruins and shattered pieces reveal pride of workmanship, a rigidly defined class system, and indelible images of terror and courage. This book shows what makes the Titanic worthy of the world's undying fascination.

To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918


Edward G. Lengel - 2008
    Their commander, General John J. Pershing, believed in the superiority of American "guts" over barbed wire, machine guns, massed artillery, and poison gas. In thirty-six hours, he said, the Doughboys would crack the German defenses and open the road to Berlin. Six weeks later, after savage fighting across swamps, forests, towns, and rugged hills, the battle finally ended with the signing of the armistice that concluded the First World War. The Meuse-Argonne had fallen, at the cost of more than 120,000 American casualties, including 26,000 dead. In the bloodiest battle the country had ever seen, an entire generation of young Americans had been transformed forever. To Conquer Hell is gripping in its accounts of combat, studded with portraits of remarkable soldiers like Pershing, Harry Truman, George Patton, and Alvin York, and authoritative in presenting the big picture. It is military history of the first rank and, incredibly, the first in-depth account of this fascinating and important battle.

Life and Death in the Third Reich


Peter Fritzsche - 2008
    In deciphering the reasons behind Nazism's ideological grip on the German people, the author argues that its basic appeal lay in the Volksgemeinschaft - a 'people's community' that seemed to be part of a great project to right the wrongs of Versailles, make the country strong, and rid the body politic of corrupting elements.

The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914


Philipp Blom - 2008
    The major topics of the day: terrorism, globalization, immigration, consumerism, the collapse of moral values, and the rivalry of superpowers. The twentieth century was not born in the trenches of the Somme or Passchendaele—but rather in the fifteen vertiginous years preceding World War I.In this short span of time, a new world order was emerging in ultimately tragic contradiction to the old. These were the years in which the political and personal repercussions of the Industrial Revolution were felt worldwide: Cities grew like never before as people fled the countryside and their traditional identities; science created new possibilities as well as nightmares; education changed the outlook of millions of people; mass-produced items transformed daily life; industrial laborers demanded a share of political power; and women sought to change their place in society—as well as the very fabric of sexual relations.From the tremendous hope for a new century embodied in the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris to the shattering assassination of a Habsburg archduke in Sarajevo in 1914, historian Philipp Blom chronicles this extraordinary epoch year by year. Prime Ministers and peasants, anarchists and actresses, scientists and psychopaths intermingle on the stage of a new century in this portrait of an opulent, unstable age on the brink of disaster.Beautifully written and replete with deftly told anecdotes, The Vertigo Years brings the wonders, horrors, and fears of the early twentieth century vividly to life.

Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North


Thomas J. Sugrue - 2008
    Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North

A.J. Liebling: World War II Writings


A.J. Liebling - 2008
    J. Liebling spent five years reporting the dramatic events and myriad individual stories of World War II. As a correspondent for The New Yorker, Liebling wrote with a passionate commitment to Allied victory, an unfailing attention to telling details, and an appreciation for the literary challenges presented by the ?discursive, centrifugal, both repetitive and disparate? nature of war. This volume brings together three books along with 26 uncollected New Yorker pieces and two excerpts from The Republic of Silence (1947), Liebling?s collection of writing from the French Resistance.The Road Back to Paris (1944) narrates Liebling?s experiences from September 1939 to March 1943, including his shock at the fall of France and dismay at isolationist indifference in the United States; it contains classic accounts of a winter voyage on a Norwegian tanker during the Battle of the Atlantic, visits to front-line airfields in North Africa, and the defeat of a veteran panzer division by American troops in Tunisia. Mollie and Other War Pieces (1964) brings together Liebling?s portrait of a legendary nonconformist American soldier in North Africa with his eyewitness account of Omaha Beach on D-Day, evocative reports from Normandy, and investigation of a German atrocity in rural France. In Normandy Revisited (1958) Liebling writes about his return to France in 1955 and recalls the joyous liberation of his beloved Paris while exploring with bittersweet perception how wartime experience is transformed into memory. The selection of uncollected New Yorker pieces includes a profile of an RAF ace, surveys of the French underground press, and an encounter with a captured collaborator in Brittany, as well as postwar reflections on battle fatigue, Ernie Pyle, and the writing of military history. With maps and chronology.

The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919


Mark Thompson - 2008
    Mussolini fought in these trenches, as did most of his collaborators. But so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil.

Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes


Maurice Isserman - 2008
    In this lively and generously illustrated book, historians Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver present the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in fifty years. They offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.The book recounts the adventures of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s and 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, and many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political and social change on the world of mountaineering, and they offer a penetrating analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork and fellowship among climbers, but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame and glory.

A Long Long War: Voices from the British Army in Northern Ireland 1969-98


Ken Wharton - 2008
    This was a war against terrorists who knew no mercy or compassion; a war involving sectarian hatred and violent death. Over 1,000 British lives were lost in a place just 30 minutes flying time away from the mainland.The British Army was sent into Northern Ireland on August 14, 1969 by the Wilson government as law and order had broken down and the population (mainly Catholics) and property were at grave risk. Between then and 1998 some 300,000 British troops served in Northern Ireland. This is their story - in their own words - from first to last.There are stories from some of the most seminal moments in the period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland - detailed accounts of firefights at Crossmaglen from the commanders on the ground at the time; an incredible story from a British Army sniper in Londonderry, 1973; an account from the first squaddie on the scene at Penny Lane after the 1988 funeral killings of the two corporals; the 1988 Ballygawley coach blast which killed 8 Light Infantrymen, with a first-hand account by one of the survivors; the case of the missing Christmas Club money in the Ardoyne; Gerry Adams' 'birthday treat' at a vehicle checkpoint, accounts by plain-clothes intelligence officers on the streets of Belfast ... and many more. The brave men and women of the Ulster Defence Regiment, many of whom were murdered in their homes or at their places of work, occupy a prominent place in the book.The author has also conducted a great deal of original research to produce a roll of honor for all service personnel killed in Northern Ireland. A major contribution to research, the list differs to its 'official' MoD counterpart to a surprising degree. It includes more than 20 names before the first official casualty, Gunner Robert Curtis (1971) and more than 10 after the last official casualty, L/Bombardier Stephen Restorick (1997).Receiving a remarkable amount of cooperation from Northern Ireland veterans eager to tell their story, the author has compiled a vivid and unforgettable record. Their experiences - sad and poignant, fearful and violent, courageous in the face of adversity, even downright hilarious - make for compelling reading. Their voices need to be heard.

Until Our Last Breath: A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance


Michael Bart - 2008
    Michael had never heard his parents referenced as Freedom Fighters.Following his father’s death, and with his mother in failing health, Michael embarked on a ten-year research project to find out more details about his parents’ time in the Vilna ghetto, where they met, fell in love, and married, and about their activities as members of the Jewish resistance. Until Our Last Breath is the culmination of his research, and his parents’ story of love and survival is seamlessly tied into the collective story of the Vilna ghetto, the partisans of Vilna, and the wider themes of world history.Zenia, Bart’s mother, was born and raised in Vilna. Leizer fled there to escape the Nazi invasion of his hometown of Hrubieshov in Poland. They were married by one of the last remaining rabbis ninety days before the liquidation of the ghetto. Leizer was friends with Zionist leader Abba Kovner and became a member of the Vilna ghetto underground. Shortly before the total liquidation of the ghetto, Zenia and Leizer, along with about 120 members of the underground, were able to escape to the Rudnicki forest, about 25 miles away. They became part of the Jewish partisan fighting group led by Abba Kovner—known as the Avengers—which carried out sabotage missions against the Nazi army and eventually participated in the liberation of Vilna.Until Our Last Breath is intensely personal and painstakingly researched, a lasting memorial to the Jews of Vilna, including the resistance fighters and the author’s family.

Mother Teresa's Secret Fire


Joseph Langford - 2008
    Whatever you thought you knew -- about God, about life, about the world -- Mother Teresa's extraordinary message will take you deeper still!Written by the co-founder of her priests' communityPublished at Mother Teresa's personal request to share her message with the worldRevealing insightsPersonal storiesGain unprecedented access to and understanding of Mother Teresa's secret source of passion, spirit, and impact! Read about the author here.

New York Times: The Complete Front Pages: 1851-2008


Richard Bernstein - 2008
    From wars and political assassinations to social movements and space exploration, all the news that is fit to print—or download—can be found in this extraordinary book-and-DVD set.More than 300 of the most significant New York Times front pages have been carefully selected and beautifully reproduced in the book. Read the headlines and stories covering such world-changing events as Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Ten foldouts present twenty key front pages at their magnificent full size. News summaries throughout highlight the most significant events of each era and put the front pages into a historical context. Seventeen insightful essays by prominent Times writers comment on pivotal moments, including "The End of Slavery" by William Safire, "Women’s Suffrage" by Gail Collins, and "The Age of Television" by Frank Rich.The 3 DVDs include each of the 54,266 front pages printed by the Times over the past 157 years. Completely searchable and user-friendly, the disks are designed to provide access to the full stories that made front-page news each day since the paper’s founding in 1851. Click on a page—the day you were born, for example—and you're instantly transported to the Times' online archive.The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages is the ultimate gift for history buffs, news junkies, students, and anyone who strives to be well-informed.DVD-ROMs run on a PC (Windows 2000/XP or later) or Mac (OSX I0.4.8 or later) with Adobe 8.o or later.  Free download available on the DVD-ROMs.

Lost Person Behavior: A Search and Rescue Guide on Where to Look for Land, Air, and Water


Robert J. Koester - 2008
    The book ties togather and will be a required reference manual for land, maritime, and aeronautical searchers. From abductions and downed aircraft to lost workers and youth. The book is aimed at law enforcement, fire, emergency management, researchers, and the search and rescue specialist. Everyone involved in search and rescue must answear the basic question, where is the missing person. This book guides the reader through the initial reflex response and subsequent search. Field personnel will also gain important insight into the nature of lost person behavior. Readers will learn how to apply learn new methods of looking at lost person behavior. Lost person categories include dementia, children in detailed age brackets, despondents, bikes, ATVs, snowboarders, snowmobiliers, and many other new subject categories. The book also tackles the subjects of those who become lost in vehicles, runaway from vehicles, are abducted, become trapped in structure collapse, crash in aircraft, and enter into the water. Each subject category provides a detailed definition, overview of the category, unique subject profile and characteristics, distance statistics, mobility, elevation, find location, and survivability characteristics. In addition, basic initial tasks based upon these facts tell the searcher or search planner what should be done first. Finally, several detailed and subject specfic investigation questions are provided. Almost all of the research and tables has never been seen before. If you are in any way related, involved, or interested in search and rescue, you must have this book.

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement


Bob Zellner - 2008
    In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner's professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern "way of life" he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner's larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.

Novels and Other Narratives, 1986-1991: The Counterlife / The Facts / Deception / Patrimony


Philip Roth - 2008
    By special arrangement with the author, The Library of America continues the definitive edition of Roth's collected works. This fifth volume of The Library of America's definitive edition of Philip Roth's collected works presents four books that exemplify the description of Roth, proposed by British novelist Anthony Burgess, as a writer “who never steps twice into the same river.” The Counterlife (1986) is a novel told from conflicting perspectives about people enacting drastic dreams of renewal and escape. The Facts (1988)—the first of the “Roth Books”—is a novelist's autobiography in which the author presents his own battles defictionalized and unadorned. In the second Roth book, Deception (1990), a married American named Philip, living in London, and the married Englishwoman who is his mistress meet sporadically in a secret trysting place where the woman eloquently reveals herself to her lover as they talk before and after making love. In the third Roth book, Patrimony (1991), the author watches as his 86-year-old father, Herman Roth, battles a fatal brain tumor.Library of America #185Library of America #185

Greeks, Romans, Germans: How the Nazis Usurped Europe's Classical Past


Johann Chapoutot - 2008
    When Hitler told the assembled masses that they were a people with no past, he meant that they had no past following their humiliation in World War I of which to be proud. The Nazis' constant use of classical antiquity—in official speeches, film, state architecture, the press, and state-sponsored festivities—conferred on them the prestige and heritage of Greece and Rome that the modern German people so desperately needed. At the same time, the lessons of antiquity served as a warning: Greece and Rome fell because they were incapable of protecting the purity of their blood against mixing and infiltration. To regain their rightful place in the world, the Nazis had to make all-out war on Germany's enemies, within and without.

Little Aunt Crane


Geling Yan - 2008
    As the Chinese move in, the elders of the Japanese settler village of Sakito decide to preserve their honour by killing all the villagers in an act of mass suicide. Only 16-year-old Tatsuru escapes.But Tatsuru's trials have just begun. As she flees, she falls into the hands of human traffickers. She is sold to a wealthy Chinese family, where she becomes Duohe - the clandestine second wife to the only son, and the secret bearer of his children. Against all odds, Duohe forms an unlikely friendship with the first wife Xiaohuan, united by the unshakeable bonds of motherhood and family.Spanning several tumultuous decades of Mao’s rule, Little Aunt Crane is a novel about love, bravery and survival, and how humanity endures in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Doveglion: Collected Poems


José García Villa - 2008
    H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and a young Gore Vidal. But beyond his exotic ethnicity, Villa was a global poet who was admired for "the reverence, the raptness, the depth of concentration in [his] bravely deep poems" (Marianne Moore). Doveglion (Villa's pen name for dove, eagle, and lion) contains Villa's collected poetry, including rare and previously unpublished material.

The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov: The Story of Stalin's Persecution of One of the Great Scientists of the Twentieth Century


Peter Pringle - 2008
    In a drama of love, revolution, and war that rivals Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago," Pringle tells the story of a young Russian scientist, Nikolai Vavilov, who had a dream of ending hunger and famine in the world. Vavilov's plan would use the emerging science of genetics to breed super plants that could grow anywhere, in any climate, in sandy deserts and freezing tundra, in drought and flood. He would launch botanical expeditions to find these vanishing genes, overlooked by early farmers ignorant of Mendel's laws of heredity. He called it a "mission for all humanity."To the leaders of the young Soviet state, Vavilov's dream fitted perfectly into their larger scheme for a socialist utopia. Lenin supported the adventurous Vavilov, a handsome and seductive young professor, as he became an Indiana Jones, hunting lost botanical treasures on five continents. In a former tsarist palace in what is now St. Petersburg, Vavilov built the world's first seed bank, a quarter of a million specimens, a magnificent living museum of plant diversity that was the envy of scientists everywhere and remains so today.But when Lenin died in 1924 and Stalin took over, Vavilov's dream turned into a nightmare. This son of science was from a bourgeois background, the class of society most despised and distrusted by the Bolsheviks. The new cadres of comrade scientists taunted and insulted him, and Stalin's dreaded secret police built up false charges of sabotage and espionage.Stalin's collectivization of farmland caused chaos in Soviet food production, and millions died in widespread famine. Vavilov's master plan for improving Soviet crops was designed to work over decades, not a few years, and he could not meet Stalin's impossible demands for immediate results.In Stalin's Terror of the 1930s, Russian geneticists were systematically repressed in favor of the peasant horticulturalist Trofim Lysenko, with his fraudulent claims and speculative theories. Vavilov was the most famous victim of this purge, which set back Russian biology by a generation and caused the country untold harm. He was sentenced to death, but unlike Galileo, he refused to recant his beliefs and, in the most cruel twist, this humanitarian pioneer scientist was starved to death in the gulag.Pringle uses newly opened Soviet archives, including Vavilov's secret police file, official correspondence, vivid expedition reports, previously unpublished family letters and diaries, and the reminiscences of eyewitnesses to bring us this intensely human story of a brilliant life cut short by anti-science demagogues, ideology, censorship, and political expedience.

Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume II


Jacques Derrida - 2008
    Advancing his reflection on many issues, such as sexual difference, architecture, negative theology, politics, war, nationalism, and religion, Volume II also carries on Derrida's engagement with a number of key thinkers and writers: De Certeau, Heidegger, Kant, Lacoue-Labarthe, Mandela, Rosenszweig, and Shakespeare, among others. Included in this volume are new or revised translations of seminal essays (for example, "Geschlecht I: Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference," "Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand," "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials," and "Interpretations at War: Kant, the Jew, the German").

Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race


George Yancy - 2008
    George Yancy examines themes such as double consciousness, invisibility, and corporeal malediction that capture the lived reality of Black bodies under tremendous existential duress. He demonstrates that the Black body is a historically lived text on which whites have inscribed their projections which speak equally forcefully to whites' own self-conceptions.

Franco's International Brigades: Adventurers, Fascists, and Christian Crusaders in the Spanish Civil War


Christopher Othen - 2008
    

Yayati: A Play


Girish Karnad - 2008
    It is based on an episode in the Mahabharata, where Yayati, one of the ancestors of the Pandavas, is given the curse of premature old age by his father-in-law, Shukracharya, who is incensed by Yayati's infidelity.

If You Lived When Women Won Their Rights


Anne Kamma - 2008
    That all began to change in 1848, when American women (and some men) met in Seneca Falls, NY, at the first convention for women's rights held anywhere in the world. In the familiar question-and-answer format, this installment in the acclaimed If You Lived... history series tells the exciting story of how women worked to get equal rights with men, culminating in the 19th amendment to the Constitution and giving women the right to vote.

Archer & Armstrong: First Impressions


Jim Shooter - 2008
    However, instead of revenge he finds Armstrong, the centuries-old immortal wanderer who spends his time drinking, fighting, and spinning tales of his hedonistic adventures throughout history! When a ruthless cult and its bumbling agents try to enlist Archer to kill Armstrong (the one they believe to be the Devil), the two most unlikely traveling companions turn the tables and team up to face down the threat that could destroy the world!

Destined to Live: One Woman's War, Life, Loves Remembered


Sabina Wolanski - 2008
    In her diary, along with innocent adolescent longings, she recorded what happened next: the humiliations and terrors, the murder of her beloved family and the startling story of her own survival. Leaving Europe after the war, Sabina forged a new life in Australia, juggling a thriving design business, her family, and an unorthodox love life. But as time wore on, she began asking herself why had she survived when so many died? And what kind of justice fitted such crimes? In May 2005, when Germany opened its controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin, Sabina was chosen to speak as the voice of the six million dead. In her speech she noted that although the Holocaust had taken everything she valued, it had also taught her that hatred and discrimination are doomed to fail. Her ability to survive, to love, and to live well, has been her greatest triumph. 'I couldn't put down this engaging, honest story of love, loss and survival.' Diane Armstrong, bestselling author of THE VOYAGER OF THEIR LIFE 'important and wonderfully written' Australian Literary Review

Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality


Regina G. Kunzel - 2008
    But it has long been the subject of intense scrutiny by both prison administrators and reformers—as well as a source of fascination and anxiety for the American public. Historically, sex behind bars has evoked radically different responses from professionals and the public alike. In Criminal Intimacy, Regina Kunzel tracks these varying interpretations and reveals their foundational influence on modern thinking about sexuality and identity. Historians have held the fusion of sexual desire and identity to be the defining marker of sexual modernity, but sex behind bars, often involving otherwise heterosexual prisoners, calls those assumptions into question. By exploring the sexual lives of prisoners and the sexual culture of prisons over the past two centuries—along with the impact of a range of issues, including race, class, and gender; sexual violence; prisoners’ rights activism; and the HIV epidemic—Kunzel discovers a world whose surprising plurality and mutability reveals the fissures and fault lines beneath modern sexuality itself. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including physicians, psychiatrists, sociologists, correctional administrators, journalists, and prisoners themselves—as well as depictions of prison life in popular culture—Kunzel argues for the importance of the prison to the history of sexuality and for the centrality of ideas about sex and sexuality to the modern prison. In the process, she deepens and complicates our understanding of sexuality in America.

Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story


Anna Egan Smucker - 2008
    Owners of a nursery in Missouri were looking for the perfect apple. It would be sweet and juicy. In the spring of 1914, they were astonished to taste just that apple.

Bloc Life: Stories from the Lost World of Communism


Peter Molloy - 2008
    Bloc Life collects first hand testimony of the people who lived in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania during the Cold War era, and reveals a rich tapestry of experience that goes beyond the headlines of spies and surveillance, secret police and political corruption. In fact, many of the people remember their lives under communism as 'perfectly ordinary' and even hanker for the 'security' that it offered.From political leaders, athletes and pop stars, to cooks, miners and cosmonauts, the stories collected in Bloc Life evoke the moods, preoccupations and experiences of a world that vanished almost overnight.

Most Beautiful Princess


Christina Croft - 2008
    Petersburg to the back streets of Moscow. Through intrigues, assassination, war and revolution, to the tragedy of her own horrific murder, she remained true to her calling to bring beauty into the world. Based on the true story of 'the most beautiful princess in Europe', this novel is written in tribute to a remarkable and courageous woman.

The Ghosts of Smyrna


Loren Edizel - 2008
    The fire, which destroyed not only a beautiful and ancient city but also a multicultural way of life that had blossomed there over centuries, occurred at the end of the war of independence led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk against the occupying European countries. Th e story takes place in the period between World War I and the great fire.The Levantines in Turkey are a cultural minority of European ancestry mixed with local Greek, Turkish and Armenian heritage. Centuries ago, during the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, they settled in the major cities and ports of the empire. Many families had Genoese or Venetian backgrounds and were involved in commerce and trade. In Izmir (Smyrna) Levantines were polyglots who functioned with ease in Turkish, Greek, French, Italian and English and were essential to the cultural and economic fabric of the city, contributing to its distinct identity.Evocative of time and place, and beautifully told, The Ghosts of Smyrna is a novel that deals with love, war and loss, and tragedies that are universal to human existence.

Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia


Savo Heleta - 2008
    At the age of just thirteen, Savo's life was turned upside down as war broke out. When Bosnian Serbs attacked the city, Savo and his family became objects of suspicion overnight. Through the next two years, they endured treatment that no human being should ever be subjected to. Their lives were threatened, they were shot at, terrorized, put in a detention camp, starved, and eventually stripped of everything they owned. But after two long years, Savo and his family managed to escape. And then the real transformation took place.From his childhood before the war to his internment and eventual freedom, we follow Savo's emotional journey from a young teenager seeking retribution to a peace-seeking diplomat seeking healing and reconciliation. As the war unfolds, we meet the incredible people who helped shape Savo's life, from his brave younger sister Sanja to Meho, the family friend who would become the family's ultimate betrayer. Through it all, we begin to understand this young man's arduous struggle to forgive the very people he could no longer trust. At once powerful and elegiac, Not My Turn to Die offers a unique look at a conflict that continues to fascinate and enlighten us.

Bombing Without Moonlight: The Origins of Suicidal Terrorism


Abdal Hakim Murad - 2008
    In this probing investigation of the origins of suicidal terrorism, Abdal Hakim Murad finds not "Jihad versus MacWorld" but "MacJihad versus MacWorld." In this concise essay, the author contents that today's terrorist movements have their roots in a very western and very relativistic worldview, adopted by self-proclaimed Islamists whose mindset is as westernized as the societies they strike.

Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh


Amy Raphael - 2008
    First trained in theater, Leigh devised his own method for the making of first plays and then films, based on months of improvisation and rehearsal with actors prior to shooting. Leigh’s actors invent characters based on real people, each unaware of what the other is up to or the larger design Leigh has in mind. In their commingling of bleakness and humor, Leigh’s films re-create the tragicomic world of people whose everyday lives are far from glamorous: a world in which “the done thing” usually prevails, contrary to our inner hopes, wants, or needs. Leigh’s work has always reflected its times and entered the vernacular, whether the harsh studies of Meantime and Naked or the humor of the now legendary Abigail’s Party and Nuts in May. Above all, Leigh is an accomplished storyteller, and these films deal with universal themes: births, marriages and deaths, parenthood and failed relationships, families and their secrets and lies. Leigh speaks to Amy Raphael more openly than ever before about his life and inimitable working method, revealing himself as passionate, wise, and the owner of a dry and playful Mancunian wit.

Terror of the Autumn Skies: The True Story of Frank Luke, America's Rogue Ace of World War I


Blaine Lee Pardoe - 2008
    In the Great War, when fliers were still "knights of the air," Luke was an ungallant loner, a kid from Arizona who collected tarantulas, shot buzzards, and boxed miners. But during two torrid weeks in September 1918, he was the deadliest man on the Western Front. In only ten missions, he destroyed fourteen heavily-defended German balloons and four airplanes, a rampage unequaled even by the dreaded von Richtofen, and the second highest American tally of the entire war. Cocksure and constantly reprimanded, Luke was actually under arrest on the day of his final flight, but he stole a plane to join the fatal action that won him the first Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to a pilot. Blaine Pardoe retraces and refreshes Frank Luke's story through recently discovered correspondence. What emerges is a portrait of a life out of an "Old West" that was, by the late Teens, colliding with modernity. Frantic, short, and splendid, the life of Frank Luke, Jr. dramatizes the tragic intervention of an American spirit in the war that devastated Europe.

Magnificence of the Tsars: Ceremonial Men's Dress of the Russian Imperial Court, 1721-1917


Svetlana Amelekhina - 2008
    The luxurious, opulent lifestyles enjoyed by the Russian tsars, their families, and courts were among the world’s most extravagant for nearly two centuries, continue to be a source of endless fascination today. In this exquisitely illustrated collection, the grandeur of Imperial Russia is displayed in full. Starting in the 1730s with exquisitely embroidered coats and elaborately patterned silks from the wardrobe of Tsar Peter II these resplendent garments document a unique dialogue between military uniform, court dress, European fashion, and traditional Russian dress.

Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens


Hazel Dickens - 2008
    Growing up in a West Virginia coal mining community, she drew on the mountain music and repertoire of her family and neighbors when establishing her own vibrant and powerful vocal style that is a trademark in old-time, bluegrass, and traditional country circles. Working Girl Blues presents forty original songs that Hazel Dickens wrote about coal mining, labor issues, personal relationships, and her life and family in Appalachia. Conveying sensitivity, determination, and feistiness, Dickens comments on each song, explaining how she came to write them and what they meant and continue to mean to her. Bill C. Malone's introduction traces Dickens's life, musical career, and development as a songwriter, In addition, Working Girl Blues features forty-one illustrations and a detailed discography of Dickens's commercial recordings.

Through the Wheat: The U.S. Marines in World War I


Edwin H. Simmons - 2008
    'Through the Wheat' is a vivid and detailed study of the role of US Marines in World War One.

Bloody Streets: The Soviet Assault on Berlin


Aaron Stephan Hamilton - 2008
    The objective was to seize Berlin before the Western Allies.Sixteen days later, the former capital of the Third Reich fell to the conquering armies of Generals Georgi Zhukov and his rival Ivan Koniev. The cost to capture the largest urban complex on mainland Europe from a handful of understrength Heer and Waffen-SS divisions, supported by Volkssturm and Hitlerjugend formations armed mainly with Panzerfaust anti-armour rockets, was exceptionally high. The Red Army suffered more casualties among its soldiers than during the six month siege of Stalingrad, and it lost more armoured vehicles than during the Battle of Kursk.Total losses among the defenders and civilian population remain unknown. Central Berlin was left a wasteland. The scars of the street fighting are still visible today, seventy-five years after the battle.When Bloody Streets was first published in 2008 it detailed the tactical street fighting in Berlin day-by-day for the first time through vivid first person accounts and period aerial imagery of the city. Ten years later this ground breaking study is back in print completely revised. Previously unpublished first person accounts from both the German and Soviet perspectives supplement archival documents that include new data from the operational war diaries of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts. The book is highly illustrated throughout with period images of the city, aerial overviews, and wartime photos.Building on more than 15 years of research, the second edition of Bloody Streets is a capstone to the author's prior works on the final climatic battles along the Eastern Front. It will remain a benchmark study of the Battle of Berlin for years to come.https://helionbooks.wordpress.com/202...

Lucian Freud On Paper


Lucian Freud - 2008
    Speaking recently about his early years he claimed, "I would have thought I did 200 drawings to every painting in those early days. I very much prided myself on my drawing." Drawing became an important part of Freud’s life from the start and a famous sketchbook, The Freud-Schuster Book, has survived dating back to January 1940, when Freud was in Snowdonia with Stephen Spender, as do sketches from Freud’s life as a merchant seaman on a cargo vessel in the Atlantic in 1941. His then surreal style lent itself to illustrations and his fascination with animals, birds, and fish was revealed in the famous line drawings he produced for Nicholas Moore’s book of poems, The Glass Tower (1944). This volume charts Freud’s work on paper, including the etchings, over his entire career. It includes the formative early work, the sketches in preparation for painting his masterpiece, Large Interior W11 (after Watteau) (1983), the sketches of the completed painting in the studio and the astonishing later studies of his mother. The book ends with the etchings of recent years. The works on paper are an extraordinary achievement, providing even deeper insights into the work of perhaps the greatest figurative artist of our time.

1900s-1990s (Decades of the 20th Century)


Nick Yapp - 2008
    In English, Spanish and Italian. Each volume is 400 pages with 370 pictures. Organized by themes, including politics, pop, art and sports

Ghost Notes


Art Edwards - 2008
    He's a founding member of Fun Yung Moon, a band that's sold 2.6 million copies of its debut record. He's seen his face on MTV mixed in with the biggest music names of the day, tours the country in an airbrushed bus, plays stages other musicians would kill just to stand on. But all is not well. It's 1995, and while the tidal wave of grunge rolls on, Fun Yung Moon's sophomore record is dead in the water, with a single no one plays, a failing tour, and band members with their own agendas. Back home, his wife Celia is oddly distant, and perhaps worst of all, Hote can't find the magic in the music anymore, that special pulse that propelled him through the songs and made the course of his life clear. One day on the road, Celia reveals to Hote she's been unfaithful, which sends Hote on a three-day odyssey through Orange County, culminating in an encounter with a father he's never known. He meets many others along the way, but none as captivating as Betty, a sixteen-year-old singer/songwriter who wants more from Hote than an autograph on her ticket stub. Will Hote find renewed hope through Betty, or is his spirit as doomed as his dead heroes, haunting the rock 'n' roll afterworld, learning too late the cruel backlash of rock music immortality?

The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization


Alys Eve WeinbaumMary Louise Roberts - 2008
    Modern Girls wore sexy clothes and high heels; they applied lipstick and other cosmetics. Dressed in provocative attire and in hot pursuit of romantic love, Modern Girls appeared on the surface to disregard the prescribed roles of dutiful daughter, wife, and mother. Contemporaries debated whether the Modern Girl was looking for sexual, economic, or political emancipation, or whether she was little more than an image, a hollow product of the emerging global commodity culture. The contributors to this collection track the Modern Girl as she emerged as a global phenomenon in the interwar period.Scholars of history, women’s studies, literature, and cultural studies follow the Modern Girl around the world, analyzing her manifestations in Germany, Australia, China, Japan, France, India, the United States, Russia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Along the way, they demonstrate how the economic structures and cultural flows that shaped a particular form of modern femininity crossed national and imperial boundaries. In so doing, they highlight the gendered dynamics of interwar processes of racial formation, showing how images and ideas of the Modern Girl were used to shore up or critique nationalist and imperial agendas. A mix of collaborative and individually authored chapters, the volume concludes with commentaries by Kathy Peiss, Miriam Silverberg, and Timothy Burke.Contributors: Davarian L. Baldwin, Tani E. Barlow, Timothy Burke, Liz Conor, Madeleine Yue Dong, Anne E. Gorsuch, Ruri Ito, Kathy Peiss, Uta G. Poiger, Priti Ramamurthy, Mary Louise Roberts, Barbara Sato, Miriam Silverberg, Lynn M. Thomas, Alys Eve Weinbaum

Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader


Leo Zeilig - 2008
    After his murder in 1961 he became an icon of anti-imperialist struggle. His picture was brandished on demonstrations in the 1960s across the world along with Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh.

The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000


Yuval Noah Harari - 2008
    In the period 1750-1850 war became much more than a test: it became a secular revelation. This new understanding of war as revelation completely transformed Western war culture, revolutionizing politics, the personal experience of war, the status of common soldiers, and the tenets of military theory.

Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry


Nguyen Do - 2008
    Celebrating Vietnam’s diverse and thriving literary culture, the poems collected here combine elements of French Romanticism, Russian Expressionism, American Modernism, and native folk stories into a Vietnamese poetic tradition marked by vivid imagery, powerful emotions, and inventive forms. Included here are 17 postmodern and experimental Vietnamese poets, including the founding editor of Skanky Possum magazine, as well as American poets of Vietnamese descent.

Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History


Michelle Ann Abate - 2008
    Michelle Abate uncovers the origins, charts the trajectory, and traces the literary and cultural transformations that the concept of "tomboy" has undergone in the United States. Abate focuses on literature including Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding and films such as Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon and Jon Avnet's Fried Green Tomatoes. She also draws on lesser-known texts like E.D.E.N. Southworth's once wildly popular 1859 novel The Hidden Hand, Cold War lesbian pulp fiction, and New Queer Cinema from the 1990s.

Three Poets of the First World War


Ivor Gurney - 2008
     This indispensable anthology brings together the works of three major poets from the First World War. Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) was a classical music composer and poet who published two volumes of poems, "Severn and Somme" and "War's Embers." Wilfred Owen's (1893- 1918) realistic poetry is remarkable for its details of war and combat. Isaac Rosenberg's (1890-1918) "Poems from the Trenches" is widely considered one of the finest examples of war poetry from the period. Carefully selected by Jon Stallworthy, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Oxford, these poems comprise a landmark publication that reflects the disparate experiences of war through the voices of the soldiers themselves.

Ship 16: The Story of a German Surface Raider


Ulrich Morh - 2008
    Ship 16 sank twenty-two British and Allied ships during its 110,000 miles and 602 days continuously - at sea until she was sunk by HMS Devonshire. Her exploits in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans over almost two years created huge problems for the Allies as they tried to find the mystery ship with twenty-six disguises. Sinking ship after ship, Atlantis also searched them for documents. Finding secret files on the Automedon regarding British troop dispositions in the Far East, this document hastened Japan's entry into the war. Eventually sunk in November 1941, the 350 crew of Atlantis, as Ship 16 had been named, were rescued by U-boat which towed them to the safety of the supply ship Python. Sunk again, four U-boats eventually took the survivors of both Atlantis and Python to safety in France. The story is told by the ship's First Officer and was recounted from his diaries kept aboard the Atlantis.

Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist (Will Eisner Instructional Books)


Will Eisner - 2008
    Here, in his classic Comics and Sequential Art, he refines the art of graphic storytelling into clear, concise principles that every cartoonist, comic artist, writer, and filmmaker meeds to know. Adapted from Eisner's landmark course at New York's School of Visual Arts, Comics and Sequential Art is an essential text filled with invaluable theories and easy-to-use techniques. Eisner reveals here the fundamentals of graphic storytelling. He addresses dialogue, anatomy, framing, and many other important aspects of the art form. Fully updated and revised to reflect current practices and technology, including a section on digital media, this introduction to the art of comics is as valuable a guide as it was when first published.

The Besieged City


Qian Zhongshu - 2008
    [....] Maintaining the major plots true to the original, the abridged version of 40,000 words, represents approximately one-sixth of the original 230,000 Chinese characters."

The Spanish Republic and Civil War


Julián Casanova - 2008
    The climate of euphoria and hope that greeted the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy was utterly transformed just five years later by a cruel and destructive civil war. Here Julian Casanova, one of Spain's leading historians, offers a magisterial new account of this critical period in Spanish history. He exposes the ways in which the Republic brought into the open simmering tensions between Catholics and hardline anticlericalists, bosses and workers, Church and State, order and revolution. In 1936 these conflicts tipped over into the sacas, paseos and mass killings which are still passionately debated today. The book also explores the decisive role of the international instability of the 1930s in the duration and outcome of the conflict. Franco's victory was in the end a victory for Hitler and Mussolini and for dictatorship over democracy.

The Red Prince: The Fall of a Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Europe


Timothy Snyder - 2008
    He could handle a saber, a pistol, a rudder, or a golf club; he handled women by necessity and men for pleasure. He spoke the Italian of his archduchess mother, the German of his archduke father, the English of his British royal friends, the Polish of the country his father wished to rule, and the Ukrainian of the land Wilhelm wished to rule himself. In this exhilarating narrative history, prize-winning historian Timothy D. Snyder offers an indelible portrait of an aristocrat whose life personifies the wrenching upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, as the rule of empire gave way to the new politics of nationalism. Coming of age during the First World War, Wilhelm repudiated his family to fight alongside Ukrainian peasants in hopes that he would become their king. When this dream collapsed he became, by turns, an ally of German imperialists, a notorious French lover, an angry Austrian monarchist, a calm opponent of Hitler, and a British spy against Stalin. Played out in Europe's glittering capitals and bloody battlefields, in extravagant ski resorts and dank prison cells, The Red Prince captures an extraordinary moment in the history of Europe, in which the old order of the past was giving way to an undefined future-and in which everything, including identity itself, seemed up for grabs.

Tony Hancock: The Definitive Biography


John Fisher - 2008
    A man whose star burned brightly in the eyes and ears of millions before his untimely death. This is the first fully authorized account of his life.

On a Wing and a Prayer: The Untold Story of the Pioneering Aviation Heroes of WWI, in Their Own Words


Joshua Levine - 2008
    The men who joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 were the original heroes of flying, treading into unknown territory and paving the way for later aerial combat. They became icons for the soldiers in the trenches, and a stark contrast to the hundreds on the ground fighting faceless hundreds as men fought aircraft to aircraft and man to man—for the first time the air became a battlefield of its own. In 1914 aircraft were a questionable technology, used for only basic reconnaissance. But by 1918, hastened by the terrible war, aircraft were understood to be the future of modern warfare. The war changed flying forever. The Wright brothers' achievements of a mere 10 years earlier and Blériot's crossing of the Channel just a few years before the war seemed a distant memory as aircraft became killing machines—the war becoming the ancestor of the fearsome air wars of later years. The stories are presented to the reader in a frank and open way, revealing the feelings of the men who defended the trenches from above and witnessed the war from a completely different perspective. These first-hand accounts tell the almost totally unknown tale of men who rewrote the rules of military engagement and changed the course of modern history as a result.

Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery


Elizabeth Rollins Epperly - 2008
    In Imagining Anne, over 100 pages of the scrapbooks are fully and beautifully reproduced in colour, and the significance of the souvenirs and clippings Montgomery collected are explained by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly. This beautiful gift book is a must-have for all Montgomery fans, lovers of Canadian history, and scrapbook enthusiasts.

The Serial Killer's Apprentice: And 12 Other True Stories of Cleveland's Most Intriguing Unsolved Crimes


James Renner - 2008
    He cares about these victims . . . When it comes to true crime, this is the kind of writer we need." -- Crime Shadow NewsAn investigative journalist cracks open 13 of Northeast Ohio's most intriguing unsolved crimes and attempts to crack open dark secrets that have baffled Clevelanders for years, including:- Murder--Beverly Jarosz, just 16 years old, felt a dark foreboding in the months before she was stabbed to death in her quiet Garfield Heights home in December 1964.- Stolen Identity--Joseph Newton Chandler of Eastlake was not who he claimed to be. Some think he was the Zodiac killer; others say he was D.B. Cooper, or even Jim Morrison.- Suicide or murder?--Joseph Kupchik hid gambling problems from friends and family until he was found at the bottom of a nine-story parking deck in downtown Cleveland--with multiple stab wounds.- Heist--In 1969, Lakewood bank employee Ted Conrad nabbed $215,000 from the vault one day after his twentieth birthday. The FBI still shows up at his high school reunions.- Controversy--Jeffrey Krotine was thrice tried for the grisly 2003 murder of his wife and ultimately acquitted, to the frustration of Cuyahoga County prosecutors, detectives, and even jurors.These stories venture into dark alleys and seedy strip clubs, as well as comfortable suburbs and cozy small towns, where some of the region's most horrendous crimes have occurred. Renner's unblinking eye for detail and unwavering search for the truth make this book a gripping read.

Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait


Michael Peppiatt - 2008
    In this invaluable book Michael Peppiatt, a major art critic and close friend of Bacon’s, offers an entertaining and uniquely well-informed portrait of this complex artist. Peppiatt’s collection of interviews and essays spans more than forty years—from 1963, when the two men met, to 2007, when Peppiatt wrote an essay explaining Bacon’s passionate involvement with Van Gogh. The pieces in between include discussions of Bacon’s working methods and techniques, his unlikely relationship with his London dealer, his attitude toward Christian belief and classical myth, and his defining friendship with the eminent French writer Michel Leiris. Peppiatt also provides fascinating anecdotes about the artist’s early life, his intimate relationships, and his connections with the artists who were his contemporaries and friends. In addition, among the interviews reproduced for the book are new transcripts of two interviews presenting previously omitted material that brings out many little-known aspects of Bacon’s presence and personality.

Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World


Niloufar Talebi - 2008
    It is as if she has, by force of commitment and vision, and by way of cultural hunger, bequeathed a new literary heritage to Iran and the world. Here is a lyric symphony of utterance in the voices of exiles, immigrants, refugees, and expatriates. That Talebi assembled such an extraordinary collection is impressive enough—that she translated most of these poems herself is nothing short of remarkable.”—Carolyn Forché, editor of Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness

Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath


Judith Kroll - 2008
    Each chapter challenges its readers to confront a writer whose verse is full of tremendous complexity and nuance. Kroll shows that Plath's poems form a mythic biography presided over by a “Moon-Muse” in which depictions of death are nearly always matched with visions of rebirth and transformation. This new edition features a substantial new foreword from Kroll, in which she dispels many myths surrounding her authorship and relations with Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes. Chapters in a Mythology is an original work of fresh scholarship and impressive insight that remains a compelling examination of one of the 20th century's great poets.

Baby and Child A-Z Medical Handbook


Miriam Stoppard - 2008
    Baby and Child A-Z Medical Handbook (Perigee) [Jan 01, 1996] Stoppard, Miriam ...

The Holocaust: History & Memory


Jeremy Black - 2008
    Taking issue with generations of scholars who separate the Holocaust from Germany s military ambitions, historian Jeremy M. Black demonstrates persuasively that Germany s war on the Allies was entwined with Hitler s war on Jews. As more and more territory came under Hitler s control, the extermination of Jews became a major war aim, particularly in the east, where many died and whole Jewish communities were exterminated in mass shootings carried out by the German army and collaborators long before the extermination camps were built. Rommel s attack on Egypt was a stepping stone to a larger goal the annihilation of 400,000 Jews living in Palestine. After Pearl Harbor, Hitler saw America s initial focus on war with Germany rather than Japan as evidence of influential Jewish interests in American policy, thus justifying and escalating his war with Jewry through the Final Solution. And the German public knew. In chilling detail, Black unveils compelling evidence that many everyday Germans must have been aware of the genocide around them. In the final chapter, he incisively explains the various ways that the Holocaust has been remembered, downplayed, and even dismissed as it slips from horrific experience into collective consciousness and memory. Essential, concise, and highly readable, The Holocaust: History and Memory bears witness to those forever silenced and ensures that we will never forget their horrifying fate."

Inventing America's "Worst" Family: Eugenics, Islam, and the Fall and Rise of the Tribe of Ishmael


Nathaniel Deutsch - 2008
    In what becomes a profoundly unsettling counter-history of the United States, Nathaniel Deutsch traces how the Ishmaels, whose patriarch fought in the Revolutionary War, were discovered in the slums of Indianapolis in the 1870s and became a symbol for all that was wrong with the urban poor. The Ishmaels, actually white Christians, were later celebrated in the 1970s as the founders of the country's first African American Muslim community. This bizarre and fascinating saga reveals how class, race, religion, and science have shaped the nation's history and myths.

Howard L. Bingham's Black Panthers 1968


Tom Brokaw - 2008
    The very secretive Panthers and their Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver would only allow Life to do the story if Bingham was the photographer. Bingham and Moore followed the Panthers for months from Oakland to New York to Los Angeles only to have the story pulled due to a disagreement between Moore and the magazine. Now, Forty years later, these photographs and their story will finally be published. The book will include interviews with Bingham and Moore about the assignment, the Black Panthers and their place in history.

Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror - A Public Defender's Inside Account


Steven T. Wax - 2008
    In his twenty-nine years as a public defender, Wax had never had to warn a client that he or she might be taken away to a military brig, or worse, a "black site," one of our country's dreaded secret prisons. How had our country come to this? The disappearance of people happens in places ruled by tyrants, military juntas, fascist strongmen--governments with such contempt for the rule of law that they strip their citizens of all rights. But in America?Under the current Bush administration, not only are the civil rights of foreigners in jeopardy, but those of U.S. citizens. Wax interweaves the stories of two men that he and his team represented: Brandon Mayfield, an American-born small town lawyer and family man, arrested as a suspected terrorist in the Madrid train station bombings after a fingerprint was incorrectly traced back to him by the FBI; and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator taken from his apartment to a Pakistani prison and then flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Kafka Comes to America reveals where and how our civil liberties have been eroded for a false security, and how each of us can make a difference. If these events could happen to Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad, they can happen to anyone. It could happen to us. It could happen to you.

Cold War Island


Michael Szonyi - 2008
    Local society and culture were dramatically transformed. Michael Szonyi uses oral history, official documents, and dissident writings to convey the history of the island during this period. In so doing, he sheds light on the social and cultural impact of the Cold War on those who lived through it, as well as on the relationship between China, the United States and the USSR at this critical moment. By analysing the effects of Quemoy's distinctive geopolitical situation on the economy, gender and the family, and citizenship and religion, the book provides a new perspective on the social history of Cold War relations, showing how geopolitics can affect individual lives and communities.

Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art


Angela D. Mack - 2008
    Through eighty-three color plates, nineteen black-and-white illustrations, and six thematic essays, the collection examines depictions of plantation structures, plantation views, and related slave imagery and art in the context of the American landscape tradition, addressing the impact of these works on race relations in the United States. Created by artists as diverse as Thomas Coram, Louis R�my Mignot, Dave The Potter Drake, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Thomas Hart Benton, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas, Juan Logan, Joyce Scott, Carrie Mae Weems, Radcliffe Bailey, and Kara Walker, the wide range of objects discussed includes paintings, drawings, photographs, statuary, ceramics, and items of folk art.A genre predominantly tied to the American South, the plantation view has received slight attention in the study of American landscape art. Regarded by art historians as derivative of the early-eighteenth-century British estate view, the plantation image straddles the aesthetic boundary between topographical depiction and landscape painting. In recent years, however, plantation views have increasingly attracted the attention of social and cultural historians who have identified the genre as a rich source for exploring themes of wealth, power, race, memory, nostalgia, and conflict. Landscape of Slavery provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of the aesthetic motives and social uses of this art in the shaping of Southern history and culture. The contributors analyze depictions of white dominion, Southern affluence, and the idealizing nostalgia of the post-Civil War era as well as the black aesthetic that has developed as a dissident counterpoint to this tradition.Serving as a companion to a traveling exhibit of the same name, the volume includes a foreword by Todd D. Smith, executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina; an introduction by editor and chief curator Angela D. Mack; and essays by John Michael Vlach, Roberta Sokolitz, Leslie King-Hammond, Maurie D. McInnis, Alexis L. Boylan, and Michael D. Harris.

Shhh: The Story of a Childhood


Raymond Federman - 2008
    Jewish Studies. "Shhh, murmured my mother. And the first thirteen years of my life vanished into the darkness of that third floor closet." On a July morning in 1942, Raymond Federman's childhood ended, as his parents and two sisters were arrested by collaborationist French police and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz, with Raymond alone evading capture. In SHHH, his final novel, Federman reconstructs this childhood out of fragments, speculations, and doubtful recollections--the stories of a lost life, enmeshed with a history that can never be forgotten. "Federman is inarguably one of the most significant vanguard writers of the second half of the twentieth century and first years of the twenty-first"--Lance Olsen.

The Life And Masterworks Of J.M.W.Turner (Temporis Series)


Eric Shanes - 2008
    The highlights of this book are: - Important works of Turner- Illustrations with an index for each work- Details on each illustration with its size and where it is displayed

The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy


Clark G. Reynolds - 2008
    Navy's metamorphosis from battleship-oriented to a carrier-centered fleet.

The Tunguska Mystery


Vladimir Rubtsov - 2008
    The first concerns alleged "final solutions" that have ostensibly been found in Russia or elsewhere. The second concerns the mistaken belief that there has been little or no progress in understanding the nature of the Tunguska phenomenon. All this is treated by the author in a scholarly and responsible manner. Although the book does present certain unusual findings of Russian and Ukrainian scholars, it is important to stress that this is not a sensational book; it is, rather, a serious exposition of the results of rational investigations into a difficult scientific problem. We are demonstrating the true complexity of the problem that is now entering its second century of existence. Simple meteoritic models cannot explain all the characteristics of this complicated event, and therefore certain so-called "unconventional hypotheses" about the nature of the Tunguska explosion are to be considered as well.

La Medusa


Vanessa Place - 2008
    At the heart of the whole floats Medusa, an androgynous central awareness that anchors the novel throughout. La Medusa is at once the city of Los Angeles, with its snaking freeways and serpentine shifts between reality and illusion, and a brain—a modern mind that is both expansive and penetrating in its obsessions and perceptions.Vanessa Place’s characters—a trucker and his wife, a nine-year-old saxophonist, an ice cream vendor, a sex worker, and a corpse, among others—are borderless selves in a borderless city, a city impossible to contain. Her expert ventriloquism and explosive imagination anchor this epic narrative in language that is fierce and vibrant, a penetrating cross-section of contemporary Los Angeles and a cross-section of the modern mind."Is the brain all these little movies, one synapsing into the next? Or I mean is culture that? Who are all those people on the freeway next to me, or dying in the blink of an eye when I forget about them. Vanessa Place's La Medusa is a novel of a million (I am sure there is a more precise count) brilliant suggestions about the mind and time and us. What seems impossible is that she is pulling "it" off in this impressive tome that moves like traffic when you have gotten it impossibly incredibly light. No wrong moves here. We get home fast." —Eileen Myles "Dazzling and daze-inducing, Vanessa Place dares to ask the dangerous question: What happened to Modernism? Why did what was ambitious, difficult, serious and experimental in Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stein, and Beckett give way to a glittering string of infinite jests - high-wire acts, virtuosity, transcendental Camp? La Medusa returns to James Joyce's Ulysees to find the inspiration for an investigation into the nature of experience. Los Angeles takes the role of Dublin. The brain and its double cortex generate the stylistic intricacies that the organs and senses do in Joyce. And this is above all a Female Epic in which the swirling city-universe is explored and shaped by the petrifying eye and intellect of the wily Medusa, her coiling locks extending everywhere. " —Michael Silverblatt, Bookworm, KCRW Public Radio"La Medusa, Vanessa Place's monumental polyvalent, polyglot epic novel of Los Angeles in which the postmodern morphs into random-access postcontemporary, in which the device of the narrative text in film script form has replaced that of the epistolary novel, is like a shocking rock slide of polished stones of the first water, cut by master jeweler, faceted into ten thousand-and-one sides — and the whole spill run in relative slow motion with no drag, no yawns, all be-bop, hip-hop Now. And sardonic: it zaps, out Fante-ing Fante and out-Rechy-ing Rechy. Looked at metaphorically in terms of motion pictures, Medusa is an epic silent, as long as Von Stroheim's Greed and every bit as cumulatively powerful. But one thing is certain: no matter how good the picture may turn out to be, the book will definitely have been better." —James McCourt

Rift: Poems


Barbara Helfgott Hyett - 2008
    In one sense a personal explication of a long marriage and its betrayal, these stunning poems take solace in nature's steadfastness, and in the prospect of a newly resilient self, awakened to the predicament of a battered world. The title poem spills across the face of history—9/11, Hiroshima, the harrowing geological formation of earth, the sudden appearance of cave art, and ultimately, the uncertainty of God. The Daphne and Apollo sequence invents fourteen speakers, including a chisel, a river god, the sculptor, Bernini, and the poet, Ovid, each telling his own story as together they deconstruct the longstanding myth of lust gone awry. Such is the imaginative, kaleidoscopic process of Rift, in which acts of observation shatter and shift our view of experience. While we ache for the loss in these poems, Helfgott Hyett risks such honest grief that redemption comes, free standing and moral, on its own.

RAF Evaders: The Comprehensive Story of Thousands of Escapers and Their Escape Lines, Western Europe, 1940-1945


Oliver Clutton-Brock - 2008
    The first one to assist the evaders and escapers ("E & E" as the Americans called them) was the PAT line, along the Mediterranean coast to Perpignan and down the Spanish border; named after a naval officer Pat O'Leary, from 1942 it became the PAO line.Next was the Comet line, from Brussels to the Pyrenees. Thousands of brave people were to be involved for whom, if caught, the penalty was death. Theirs is a stirring and awe-inspiring story. Respected historian Oliver Clutton-Brock has researched in depth this secret world of evasion, uncovering some treachery and many hitherto unpublished details, operations and photos.It is a tremendous reference work, written in his own colorful style with numerous anecdotes, which fills a gap of knowledge formerly unavailable to historians, professional or amateur. Packed the information, key figure biographies and listings--2, 094 evaders identified--this is a valuable testimony to the courage of all those involved.

James Baldwin's Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile


Magdalena J. Zaborowska - 2008
    In this first in-depth exploration of Baldwin’s “Turkish decade,” Magdalena J. Zaborowska reveals the significant role that Turkish locales, cultures, and friends played in Baldwin’s life and thought. Turkey was a nurturing space for the author, who by 1961 had spent nearly ten years in France and Western Europe and failed to reestablish permanent residency in the United States. Zaborowska demonstrates how Baldwin’s Turkish sojourns enabled him to re-imagine himself as a black queer writer and to revise his views of American identity and U.S. race relations as the 1960s drew to a close.Following Baldwin’s footsteps through Istanbul, Ankara, and Bodrum, Zaborowska presents many never published photographs, new information from Turkish archives, and original interviews with Turkish artists and intellectuals who knew Baldwin and collaborated with him on a play that he directed in 1969. She analyzes the effect of his experiences on his novel Another Country (1962) and on two volumes of his essays, The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972), and she explains how Baldwin’s time in Turkey informed his ambivalent relationship to New York, his responses to the American South, and his decision to settle in southern France. James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade expands the knowledge of Baldwin’s role as a transnational African American intellectual, casts new light on his later works, and suggests ways of reassessing his earlier writing in relation to ideas of exile and migration.

Insanity: Murder, Madness, and the Law


Charles Patrick Ewing - 2008
    Though it is available to people charged with virtually any crime, and is often employed without controversy, homicide defendants who raise the insanity defense are often viewed by the public and even thelegal system as trying to get away with murder. Often it seems that legal result of an insanity defense is unpredictable, and is determined not by the defendants mental state, but by their lawyers and psychologists influence.From the thousands of murder cases in which defendants have claimed insanity, Doctor Ewing has chosen ten of the most influential and widely varied. Some were successful in their insanity plea, while others were rejected. Some of the defendants remain household names years after the fact, like JackRuby, while others were never nationally publicized. Regardless of the circumstances, each case considered here was extremely controversial, hotly contested, and relied heavily on lengthy testimony by expert psychologists and psychiatrists. Several of them played a major role in shaping the criminaljustice system as we know it today.In this book, Ewing skillfully conveys the psychological and legal drama of each case, while providing important and fresh professional insights. For the legal or psychological professional, as well as the interested reader, Insanity will take you into the minds of some of the most incomprehensiblemurderers of our age.

Prisoner Of War: Voices from Behind the Wire in the Second World War


Charles Rollings - 2008
    Waged against boredom, brutality, disease, hunger and despair, it was a battle for survival, fought without the aid of weapons against fully armed enemy captors. Based on interviews and correspondence with ex-POWs and their relatives over the last 25 years, Prisoner of War is a major survey of Allied POWs from all walks of life. Extraordinary stories of extremes – courage, hope and desperation are revealed in the words of those that were there. Arranged chronologically, the book follows those involved from capture, through interrogation, imprisonment, escape, to final liberation and homecoming. Rich with incident and emotion, Prisoner of War is a compelling look at the lives of extraordinary individuals behind the wire.

Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader


Tom Hayden - 2008
    The book is composed on sections about the new Left of the 1960s, the Chicago 8, Vietnam, electoral politics, gang violence, Ireland, the environment, global justice and US foreign policy today.Tom Hayden changed America, the national correspondent of The Atlantic, Nicholas Lemann, has written. He created the blueprint for the Great Society programs, according to presidential assistant Richard Goodwin. He was the single greatest figure of the 1960s student movement, according to The New York Times Book Review. Forty years later he was described as the conscience of the Senate.His journey is our journey through the tumultuous and disillusioning decades. He is our Everyman, he is us.--Seattle Post-IntelligencerOne comes away enthralled by Hayden's odyssey.--The Boston Sunday GlobeTom Hayden is the author or editor of more than a dozen critically acclaimed books, including Reunion and Street Wars.