A History of China


Wolfram Eberhard - 1960
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle


Margaret S. Creighton - 2005
    In augmenting this incomplete history, Margaret Creighton presents a new look at the decisive battle through the eyes of Gettysburg's women, immigrant soldiers, and African Americans.An academic with a superb flair for storytelling, Creighton draws on memoirs, letters, diaries, and newspapers to get to the hearts of her subjects. Mag Palm, a free black woman living with her family outside of town on Cemetery Ridge, was understandably threatened by the arrival of Lee's Confederate Army; slavers had tried to capture her three years before. Carl Schurz, a political exile who had fled Germany after the failed 1848 revolution, brought a deeply held fervor for abolitionism to the Union Army. Sadie Bushman, a nine-year-old cabinetmaker's daughter, was commandeered by a Union doctor to assist at a field hospital. In telling the stories of these and a dozen other participants, Margaret Creighton has written a stunningly fluid work of original history--a narrative that is sure to redefine the Civil War's most essential battle.

Frederick the Great: A Military History


Dennis E. Showalter - 1995
    Famed for his military successes and domestic reforms, his campaigns were a watershed in the history of Europe - securing Prussia's place as a continental power and inaugurating a new pattern of total war that was to endure until 1916. However, much myth surrounds this enigmatic man - his personality and his role as politician, warrior and king. Showalter's cleverly written book provides a refreshing, multidimensional depiction of Frederick the Great and an objective, detailed reappraisal of his military, political and social achievements.Early chapters set the scene with an excellent summary of 18th century Europe - The Age of Reason; an analysis of the character, composition and operating procedures of the Prussian army; and explore Frederick's personality as a young man. Later chapters examine his stunning victories at Rossbach and Leuthen, his defeats at Prague and Kolin and Prussia's emergence as a key European power.Written with style and pace, this book offers brilliant insights into the political and military history of the 18th century, and one of history's most famous rulers.

The Start of World War II: The History of the Events that Culminated with Nazi Germany’s Invasion of Poland


Charles River Editors - 2011
    you will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi régime. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude ... we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road ... we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged.” – Winston Churchill "My good friends," the mustached, bony man with thick eyebrows and large, strong teeth somewhat reminiscent of those of a horse, shouted to the crowds from the second-floor window of his house at 10 Downing Street, "this is the second time in our history, that there has come back to Downing Street from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." (McDonough, 1998, 70). The man addressing the crowd, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, had just returned from the heart of Nazi Germany following negotiations with Adolf Hitler, and the crowd gathered outside the English leader's house on September 30, 1938 greeted these ringing words with grateful cheers. The piece of paper Chamberlain flourished exultantly seemed to offer permanent amity and goodwill between democratic Britain and totalitarian Germany. In it, Britain agreed to allow Hitler's Third Reich to absorb the Sudeten regions of Czechoslovakia without interference from either England or France, and since high percentages of ethnic Germans – often more than 50% locally – inhabited these regions, Hitler's demand for this territory seemed somewhat reasonable to Chamberlain and his supporters. With Germany resurgent and rearmed after the disasters inflicted on it by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the pact – known as the Munich Agreement – held out hope of a quick end to German ambitions and the return of stable, normal international relations across Europe. Of course, the Munich agreement is now notorious because its promise proved barren within a very short period of time. Chamberlain's actions either failed to avert or actually hastened the very cataclysm he wished to avoid at all costs. The "Munich Agreement" of 1938 effectively signed away Czechoslovakia's independence to Hitler's hungry new Third Reich, and within two years, most of the world found itself plunged into a conflict which made a charnelhouse of Europe and left somewhere between 60-80 million people dead globally. Of course, as most people now know, the invasion of Poland was merely the preface to the Nazi blitzkrieg of most of Western Europe, which would include Denmark, Belgium, and France by the summer of 1940. The resistance put up by these countries is often portrayed as weak, and the narrative is that the British stood alone in 1940 against the Nazi onslaught, defending the British Isles during the Battle of Britain and preventing a potential German invasion. In particular, the campaign in Poland is remembered as one in which an antiquated Polish army was quickly pummeled by the world’s most modern army. Polish lancers charging in a valiant yet idiotic attack against German tanks is the only image from the 1939 Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland remaining in the popular imagination today. Originating as a piece of Nazi propaganda, paradoxically adopted by the Poles as a patriotic myth, the fictional charge obscures the actual events of September 1939.

One Small Candle: The Pilgrims' First Year in America


Thomas Fleming - 1964
    We accompany them on their harrowing voyage across the Atlantic, through the rigors of the first New England winter and the threat of Indian attack as they desperately search for the home they eventually find at Plymouth. Once there, they must continue the struggle against brutal weather and disease.With masterly skill, New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Thomas Fleming gives us life-size portraits of the Pilgrim leaders. The Pilgrims' unique achievements – the Mayflower Compact, their tolerance of other faiths, the strict separation of church and state – are discussed in the context of the first year's anxieties and crises. Fleming writes admiringly of the younger men who emerged in the first year as the real leaders of the colony – William Bradford and Miles Standish. And he provides new insights into the deep humanity and tolerance of the Pilgrims' spiritual shepherd, Elder William Brewster.On the first Thanksgiving, already in the Pilgrim mind is a dawning consciousness that they are the forerunners of a great nation. It is implicit in William Bradford's words, "As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light kindled here has shone until many. . . ."

The Romanov Family Album


Marilyn Pfeifer Swezey - 1982
    Almost entirely informal photos.Copyright 1982 in Great Britain, printed and bound in Italy

Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation


Alexander J. Shaia - 2014
    Shaia gives us back our central sacred text - the four gospels - not as conflicted and faulty historical records, but as a vibrant, luminous path of transformation. He reveals "The Four-Gospel Journey" as a living guide (for Christians and seekers alike), re-centering human life on wisdom, compassion and service, rooted in a mystical relationship with Christ. And the potential for this living guide is already becoming manifest, as individuals, groups and entire communities are using it all over the world, and the word is spreading." - from the Foreword by Marc Andrus, Episcopal Bishop of California. In this fresh lens, each gospel account is more than a telling of Jesus' life and words. Each is the story of a practice in response to a pressing life question. The Gospel of Matthew: How do we face change? Mark: How do we move through trials and suffering? John: How do we receive joy and know union? Luke: How do we mature in service? And these four gospels are more than the sum of their parts. The four in the sequence of their ancient reading cycle form a telling of the universal journey of growth, transformation and love. In our language, The Four-Gospel Journey is the pattern of the living Christ - the pattern within all and across all time. And if you wish to explore this journey with another or a small community - see the "Heart and Mind Companion Guides" at www.quadratos.com There is a Guide for each gospel path, as well as a series that supports you in making an entire cycle of The Four-Gospel Journey.

Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives


Dwight Young - 2005
    '05"There are more than 80 letters, reflecting both our history and our very American sense that when we speak, our president should listen." --The Arizona Republic, Dec. '05Drawn from the extensive holdings of the National Archives--which includes all of the Presidential libraries--these carefully chosen letters remind us that ours is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," which entitles us to make our views known to our leaders. Most of the letters come from working citizens; others were written by notable figures: John Glenn, Elvis Presley, Walt Disney, Ho Chi Minh, Nikita Kruschev, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Robert Kennedy, and many more.Grouped thematically, the sections cover such topics as civil rights, the Cold War, physical fitness, joblessness, World War II, western expansion, and the space race. An introduction by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and essays by Dwight Young evoke the tenor of the times in which the letters were written. A wonderful gift book for any American, Dear Mr. President is both enlightening and fun to read.