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Conversations with Durito: The Story of Durito and the Defeat of Neo-Liberalism by Subcomandante Marcos
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Alexander Hamilton: Founding Father-: The Real Story of his life, his loves, and his death
Mark Steinberg - 2016
The book is a detailed account of this very important but controversial figure in American history. The story is a “classic rags to riches” one and begins with his childhood in the British West Indies. Though his life is filled with tragedy and he is very poor, Hamilton manages to distinguish himself through his writing and his business skills. Eventually, he leaves the West Indies and immigrates to North America where he receives a first rate education. Later, he becomes a hero in the Revolutionary War and is appointed to be General George Washington’s right hand man. Because of his service to Washington, Hamilton becomes the Secretary of the Treasury when Washington is elected President. As a member of the new government, Hamilton makes significant contributions including setting up a banking system and a currency system which are still used today. He also plays a major role in the ratification of the United States Constitution. While Alexander Hamilton: Founding Father primarily focuses on Hamilton’s great contributions, it also presents his dark side. Though Hamilton married a wealthy woman and became a member of the aristocracy, he was also involved in a scandalous affair and ultimately died in a duel defending his honor.
Midnight Son
James Dommek Jr. - 2019
But now Inukuns only exist in rumors and whispers. Until an actor-turned-fugitive named Teddy Kyle Smith had an encounter that brought Iñukuns from myth to reality. Smith was an aspiring actor with a promising career, but it all came crashing down one night in September with a gunshot, followed by a manhunt, bloodshed, and then stranger things. This story has long haunted James Dommek Jr., the great-grandson of the last of the Inupiaq storytellers. Midnight Son is his journey to who Teddy Kyle Smith was, what he did, and what he really saw. It’s a true story that takes listeners from the Alaskan wilderness to Hollywood and to the courtroom. A story that pits Inupiaq folklore against American justice in a battle over the nature of reality and the soul of the real Alaska.
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
Peter Hessler - 2001
Surrounded by the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, Fuling has long been a place of continuity, far from the bustling political centers of Beijing and Shanghai. But now Fuling is heading down a new path, and gradually, along with scores of other towns in this vast and ever-evolving country, it is becoming a place of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth. As the people of Fuling hold on to the China they know, they are also opening up and struggling to adapt to a world in which their fate is uncertain.Fuling's position at the crossroads came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. He found himself teaching English and American literature at the local college, discovering how Shakespeare and other classics look when seen through the eyes of students who have been raised in the Sichuan countryside and educated in Communist Party doctrine. His students, though, are the ones who taught him about the ways of Fuling and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.As he learns the language and comes to know the people, Hessler begins to see that it is indeed a unique moment for Fuling. In its past is Communist China's troubled history the struggles of land reform, the decades of misguided economic policies, and the unthinkable damage of the Cultural Revolution and in the future is the Three Gorges Dam, which upon completion will partly flood thecity and force the resettlement of more than a million people. Making his way in the city and traveling by boat and train throughout Sichuan province and beyond, Hessler offers vivid descriptions of the people he meets, from priests to prostitutes and peasants to professors, and gives voice to their views. This is both an intimate personal story of his life in Fuling and a colorful, beautifully written account of the surrounding landscape and its history. Imaginative, poignant, funny, and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Strange Man Standing Deep in the Shadows
Charlotte Montague - 2015
Poe is viewed as the ultimate doomed romantic whose last days are shrouded in sordid mystery. His life was a disaster, but his achievements in writing are amazing. He is widely recognized as father of the modern short story, inventor of the detective story and the master of horror. A Boston born writer, editor, and literary critic, he's best known for his creepy and macabre tales as well as being one of the central figures in the Romanticism movement in the United States. Accurately being dubbed as the ultimate doomed romantic, Poe was a drunk, his last days are shrouded in mystery akin to that of his short stories. During his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe didn't make a dime out of writing, but his legacy to the world is one of never-ending riches. He left behind seventy-three wonderfully gruesome stories and a novel filled with suspense and brilliantly twisted plots. Hist stories and poems are now read and revered globally. As another master of horror, Stephen King, has said, we are all "the children of Poe." Abraham Lincoln, Josef Stalin, Michael Jackson, and Bart Simpson all have one thing in common; they are fans of the nineteenth century American writer and poet, Edgar Allan Poe. The writer of "The Raven" has legions of such devotees across the globe. The list of authors inspired by Poe is long and varied, but his profound influence reaches much further-into music, film, and art just as much as modern day literature. There have been more than a dozen film adaptations of his story "The Fall of the House of Usher," and his works have inspired composers ranging from Claude Debussy to Lou Reed. More than 160 years after his death, Charlotte Montague has written a fascinating account of Poe's life and times, in which she uncovers a strange man, standing deep in the shadows, who's unique imagination and macabre writing have changed popular culture forevermore. n the process, she uncovers a strange man, standing deep in the shadows, whose macabre stories and twisted plots changed literature forever. The Oxford People series offers deep dives into the most influential people, subjects, and cultures from history. From horror-fiction legends like H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, to historical heavyweights like Houdini and JFK, to the supernatural world of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts—Oxford People encompasses it all. Other titles in this series include: Angels, Che, Creating Sherlock Holmes, Extreme Science, Gettysburg, Ghosts, Gunfighters, Houdini, HP Lovecraft, John F. Kennedy, Myths and Legends, Privates and Privateers, Roosevelt and Churchill, Royal Weddings, Skies of WWII, Tesla, Tesla vs. Edison, Vampires, Vikings, Werewolves, Women of Invention, Zombies.
State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America
Matt WeilandDavid Rakoff - 2008
Vollmann, S.E. Hinton, Dave Eggers, Myla Goldberg, Rick Moody, and Alexander Payne. Inspired by the Depression-era WPA guides and awarded an “A” grade by Entertainment Weekly, these delightful essays on the American character deliver “the full plumage of American life, in all its riotous glory” (The New Yorker).
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War
Deb Olin Unferth - 2011
The East-West balance has begun to tip, although the world doesn't know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador). The months wear on and cracks begin to form in their relationship: they get fired, they get sick, they run out of money, they grow disillusioned with the revolution and each other. But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all. Unferth's heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson | Chapter Compilation
Ethan Thomas - 2016
The ship was called “magnificent”, consuming as much as one hundred forty tons of coal every day even if it just stands still on the dock, and standing seven stories tall from dock to bridge. She was considered by engineers and shipbuilders as one of the finest examples of man’s ingenuity and creativity. In addition, out of all the ships that were converted for use in the war, the Lusitania was the only one that was exempted and continued on as a cruise ship. However, its job of carrying passengers across the Atlantic Ocean was not the thing that made her famous today. Read more.... Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved by Unlimited Press Works, LLC
Shopping in Jail: Ideas, Essays and Stories for an Increasingly Real Twenty-First Century
Douglas Coupland - 2013
Nine short non-fiction pieces with a forward by Shumon Basar.
The Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan
Jenny Nordberg - 2014
A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom. The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults. At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.
The Real Right Returns: A Handbook for the True Opposition
Daniel Friberg - 2015
After decades of humiliation and political failures, the opposition is reorganising, catching up with the times, and getting itself in order. It is none too soon. Europe faces numerous challenges, challenges which the entrenched, incompetent elites of politics, academia, and the mass media are unable and unwilling to confront. Uncontrolled immigration, the mindless waste of resources, and destruction wrought by consumer society upon the very core of Western man — these are problems posing questions which the ‘establishment’ cannot answer.Daniel Friberg, MBA, is CEO of the Swedish mining corporation Wiking Mineral and was a founding member of the Swedish metapolitical think tank, Motpol. He has a long history in the Swedish opposition, and was one of the founders of Arktos.
The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates
Bruce Markusen - 2006
Still, though I followed their season closely, I never fully understood their impact."—Allen Barra, The New York SunIn 1947, major league baseball experienced its first measure of integration when the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson to the National League. While Robinson's breakthrough opened the gates of opportunity for African Americans and other minority players, the process of integration proved slow and uneven. It was not until the 1960s that a handful of major league teams began to boast more than a few Black and Latino players. But the 1971 World Championship team enjoyed a full and complete level of integration, with half of its twenty-five-man roster comprised of players of African American and Latino descent. That team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, managed by an old-time Irishman.In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports. In addition to the fact that they fielded the first all-minority lineup in major league history, the 1971 Pirates are noteworthy for the team's inspiring individual performances, including those of future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Bill Mazeroski, and their remarkable World Series victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. But perhaps their greatest legacy is the team's influence on the future of baseball, inspiring later championship teams such as the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics to open their doors fully to all talented players, regardless of race, particularly in the new era of free agency.
Haunts of Mackinac: Ghost Stories, Legends, & Tragic Tales of Mackinac Island
Todd Clements - 2006
The lure of the Island has made it the top tourist destination in the state of Michigan. However, Mackinac Island holds many secrets. These secrets come in many forms—some from beyond the grave, others passed down for hundreds of years.If you have been to Mackinac Island many times before, or you have not yet visited this gem of the Great Lakes, the stories in this book will both inform and entertain you.Inside this book you will not only find many of the Island's ghost stories, legends, and tragic tales, but also a brief history describing each location. In addition, stories from the Straits of Mackinac, including deadly shipwrecks, ghost ships, and other tragedies, are included. Last, for those unfamiliar with ghostly phenomena, you will find a chapter with a crash course introduction to the who, what, when, why, and where of ghosts.
Pinochet and Me
Marc Cooper - 2000
Marc Cooper went to Chile and became translator to Salvadore Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist head of state. With an office in the Moneda Palace, the author had to flee as the US sponsored bombing on September 11, 1973 sent the palace up in flames.
The Undocumented Americans
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio - 2020
It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants--and to find the hidden key to her own.Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented--and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the nation of singular, effervescent characters often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects.In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival.In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.
Call Us What We Carry
Amanda Gorman - 2021
Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.