She also exerted a singular influence on American popular culture, challenging rigid assumptions about how women should behave - and almost single-handedly gave them permission to wear pants. The list of adjectives used to describe Hepburn - bold, stubborn, witty, beautiful - only begin to hint at the complex woman who entranced audiences around the world (she could also be controlling, selfish, and self-righteous). So here is the full, epic story of "the patron saint of the independent American female," as one critic described her - from her breakthrough in Hollywood in the early 1930s to On Golden Pond in the 1980s to her dramatic affairs with Howard Hughes and Spencer Tracy and beyond. With her distinctive, patrician voice and tsunami-force personality, Hepburn always lived life strictly on her own terms. And oh, what a life it was.

    Having risen through Hammer Horror films to international stardom as Bill Sykes in Oliver!, Reed became, in his own works, 'the biggest star this country has got'. With his legendary off-screen exploits and blunt opinions - especially of his co-stars - he was also one of the most infamous.Bestselling author Cliff Goodwin uses material from first-hand interviews with Reed's family, friends and colleagues and never before seen photographs to explore Reed's eventful career. But he also reveals another side to this unique and complex man.

    Life and adventures of "Billy" Dixon, of Adobe Walls, Texas panhandle: a narrative in which is described many things relating to the early Southwest, with an account of the fights between Indians and buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls and the desperate engagement at Buffalo Wallow, for which Congress voted the medal of honor to the survivors.

    Operating from camps in places like Kontum and Dak To, Special Forces recon men risked their lives behind enemy lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia, conducting missions whose detection often meant death or something worse. Officially, they did not exist. Their government denied that they were operating in “neutral” countries; Hanoi denied the very existence of the Trail. If killed or captured in Laos or Cambodia, the Green Berets would be reported MIA or KIA—in Vietnam. They fought for each other and for their honor as soldiers. It is 1970. The United States Government is seeking a way out of the war “with honor” via a face-saving program called “Vietnamization.” This is the story of the fate of the recon men and the missions they conducted while highly skilled and motivated NVA hunter-killer teams pursued them on the enemy’s home turf. A recon team discovers a choke point on the enemy’s line of communication. For every day the Trail is blocked, enemy support of forces in the south is set back a month, giving South Vietnam a leg up. The special operators in Kontum are given the mission to do just that. There is a rub; the American president and his government must have “plausible deniability.” Therein lies the legacy of lies. “Very few authors have captured the action, intrigue and backstory of the secret missions as well as Colonel Gole does in ‘Legacy of Lies.’ A must read for those seeking the precursor to today’s military support to sensitive activities.” —Michael S. Repass, Major General, US Army (Retired) Special Forces “Gole’s novel is Fantastic! The best part, the top to bottom approach—from the White House, JCS, CINCPAC, MACV, down through SOG, right to the One-Zero firing tracers to mark his position for Covey.” —Colonel, USAF, (Ret) Tom Yarborough, author and decorated Covey pilot for SOG

    There’s Killer of the Cloth, The Baby in the Convent, Mosquito Point Road, Death of a First Baseman, The Blue Gardenia, and Pure/Evil. Three of the killers are female.

    An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination? In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.

    With the Japanese deeply entrenched and determined to die rather than surrender, Robert Dick and his fellow soldiers quickly realized that theirs would be a war fought inch by bloody inch–and that their Sherman tanks would serve front and center. As driver, Dick had to maneuver his five-man crew in and out of dangerous and often deadly situations.Whether crawling up beaches, bogged down in the mud-soaked Leyte jungle, or exposed in the treacherous valleys of Okinawa, the Sherman was a favorite target. A land mine could blow off the tracks, leaving its crew marooned and helpless, and the nightmare of swarms of Japanese armed with satchel charges was all too real. But there was a war to be won, and Americans like Robert Dick did their jobs without fanfare, and without glory. This gripping account of tanker combat is a ringing testament to the awe-inspiring bravery of ordinary Americans.From the Paperback edition.

    Robert Blair Mayne is still regarded as one of the greatest soldiers in the history of military special operations. He was the most decorated British soldier of the Second World War, receiving four DSOs, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion d'honneur, and he pioneered tactics used today by the SAS and other special operations units worldwide. Rogue Warrior of the SAS tells the remarkable life story of "Colonel Paddy," whose exceptional physical strength and uniquely swift reflexes made him a fearsome opponent. But his unorthodox rules of war and his resentment of authority would deny him the ultimate accolade of the Victoria Cross. Drawing on personal letters and family papers, declassified SAS files and records, together with the Official SAS Diary compiled in wartime and eyewitness accounts, this is the true story of the soldier.

    For one thing, he was blessed with extraordinary talent. Those who played alongside and watched him in the Manchester United youth team in the early 1990s insist he was as good as Ryan Giggs - possibly even better. Giggs, who played on the opposite wing, says he is inclined to agree.Doherty was also an eccentric - by football standards, at least. When his colleagues went to Old Trafford to watch the first team on Saturday afternoons, he preferred to take the bus into Manchester to go busking. He wore second-hand clothes, worshipped Bob Dylan, read about theology and French existentialism and wrote songs and poems. One team-mate says "it was like having Bob Dylan in a No 7 shirt".On his 17th birthday, Doherty was offered a five-year contract - unprecedented for a United youngster at that time - and told by Alex Ferguson that he was destined for stardom. But what followed over the next decade is a tale so mysterious, so shocking, so unusual, so amusing but ultimately so tragic, that you are left wondering how on earth it has been untold for so long.The stories of Doherty's contemporaries, that group of Manchester United youngsters who became known as the "Class of '92", are well known. Giggs ended up as the most decorated player in United's history; David Beckham became the most recognisable footballer on the planet; Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and others are household names. The story you don't know is about the player who, having had the world at his feet, died the day before his 27th birthday following an accident in a canal in Holland.

    The central figure in this study of a crumbling society that gave birth to the modern world is Wittgenstein, the brilliant and gifted young thinker. With others, including Freud, Viktor Adler, and Arnold Schoenberg, he forged his ideas in a classical revolt against the stuffy, doomed, and moralistic lives of the old regime. As a portrait of Wittgenstein, the book is superbly realized; it is even better as a portrait of the age, with dazzling and unusual parallels to our own confused society. Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin have acted on a striking premise: an understanding of prewar Vienna, Wittgenstein s native city, will make it easier to comprehend both his work and our own problems .This is an independent work containing much that is challenging, new, and useful. New York Times Book Review."

    Within days the barbed-wire entanglement would undergo an extraordinary metamorphosis: it became an imposing 103-mile-long wall guarded by three hundred watchtowers. A physical manifestation of the struggle between Soviet Communism and American capitalism—totalitarianism and freedom—that would stand for nearly thirty years, the Berlin Wall was the high-risk fault line between East and West on which rested the fate of all humanity. Many brave people risked their lives to overcome this lethal barrier, and some paid the ultimate price.In this captivating work, sure to be the definitive history on the subject, Frederick Taylor weaves together official history, archival materials, and personal accounts to tell the complete story of the Wall's rise and fall, from the postwar political tensions that created a divided Berlin to the internal and external pressures that led to the Wall's demise. In addition, he explores the geopolitical ramifications as well as the impact the wall had on ordinary lives that is still felt today. For the first time the entire world faced the threat of imminent nuclear apocalypse, a fear that would be eased only when the very people the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on the historic night of November 9, 1989.Gripping and authoritative, The Berlin Wall is the first comprehensive account of a divided city and its people in a time when the world seemed to stand permanently on the edge of destruction.

    How, and why, did it happen?Laurence Rees' masterpiece is revealing in three ways. First, it is based not only on the latest academic research, but also on 25 years of interviewing survivors and perpetrators, often at the sites of the events, many of whom have never had their words published before. Second, the book is not just about the Jews - the Nazis would have murdered many more non-Jews had they won the war - and not just about Germans. Third, as Rees shows, there was no single 'decision' to start the Holocaust - there was a series of escalations, most often when the Nazi leadership interacted with their grassroots supporters.Through a chronological narrative, featuring the latest historical research and compelling eyewitness testimony, this is the story of the worst crime in history.

    From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the school’s “last crisis of brilliance.” Between 1910 and 1918 they loved, talked, and fought; they admired, conspired, and sometimes disparaged each others’ artistic creations. They created new movements; they frequented the most stylish cafés and restaurants and founded a nightclub; they slept with their models and with prostitutes; and their love affairs descended into obsession, murder, and suicide.

    Your very belief is tested in combat, you must kill your enemy, or your enemy will kill you – that is the simple, hard cold fact. Because in my humble opinion, War is hell on Earth. Evil roams freely in War, and it will kill you, one way or another, with its evil intent. Nightmares are common and, in their fantasy, never reflect the real horror and the reality that War can bring to your mind. No matter what your personal spiritual beliefs are, you will be tested. The conduct of your intent will be your judge for life. It is your second guessing that can be dangerous to you. A wise Philosopher once said in Greece, “If you want real peace, you must always prepare for War.” This book is about war. It tells my experiences of the paths I took as a United States Marine in Vietnam. The mouths of many soldiers will say the same – the same soldiers who had shared my paths with the experiences of my many paths in life. I have not shared these words or reflections with anyone, except in bits and pieces, and that too, with other veterans in the form of bunker talk.

    Against the background of an age which saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning - of humanism which penetrated and explored the arts and sciences and the 'dark' knowledge of alchemy, astrology, and numerology - Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello, as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola, both of whom clashed with the religious authorities. In this enthralling study, Paul Strathern also follows the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Médicis who became Queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns. Vivid and accessible, the book ends with the gloriously decadent decline of the Medici family in Florence as they strove to be recognised as European Princes.