Book picks similar to
Genocide on the Drina River by Edina Becirevic
non-fiction
balkans
balkan
hist
Alpha One Sixteen: A Combat Infantryman's Year in Vietnam
Peter Clark - 2018
Clark was assigned to the Alpha Company. Clark gives a visceral, vivid and immediate account of life in the platoon, as he progresses from green recruit to seasoned soldier over the course of a year in the complexities of the Vietnamese conflict.Clark gradually learns the techniques developed by US troops to cope with the daily horrors they encountered, the technical skills needed to fight and survive, and how to deal with the awful reality of civilian casualties. Fighting aside, it rained almost every day and insect bites constantly plagued the soldiers as they moved through dense jungle, muddy rice paddy and sandy roads. From the food they ate (largely canned meatballs, beans and potatoes) to the inventive ways they managed to shower, every aspect of the platoon's lives is explored in this revealing book. The troops even managed to fit in some R&R whilst off-duty in the bars of Tokyo.Alpha One Sixteen follows Clark as he discovers how to cope with the vagaries of the enemy and the daily confusion the troops faced in distinguishing combatants from civilians. The Viet Cong were a largely unseen enemy who fought a guerrilla war, setting traps and landmines everywhere. Clark's vigilance develops as he gets used to 'living in mortal terror, ' which a brush with death in a particularly terrifying fire fight does nothing to dispel. As he continues his journey, he chronicles those less fortunate; the heavy toll being taken all round him is powerfully described at the end of each chapter.
Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence
Charles Augustus Goodrich - 1832
But Charles Goodrich does not just focus upon the more famous of the fifty-signers as he draws evidence from a wide variety of sources to shine light upon even the most obscure of the Declaration’s signatories. Indeed some of the most fascinating of the lives within this work are those that have more frequently been forgotten. Goodrich begins the work with a short history of why the Declaration of Independence came into being. It provides an excellent grounding for his biographies of all fifty-six signers and lives that they led, both before and after they had added their names to this famous document. “The same intrepidity and genius which had raised them to be leaders of the nation at that crisis, carried them forward in the career of glory through a long period of public life. … we are convinced these biographies will be read with pleasure.” The North American Review This book is worthy reading for anyone interested in how the United States was founded and for people wishing to learn more about the figures that shaped its history in those early years. Charles Augustus Goodrich was an American author and Congregational minister, who popularized the motto "a place for everything and everything in its place". His book Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of independence was first published in 1829 and he passed away in 1862.
Operation Primrose: U110, the Bismarck and the Enigma code breakers
David Boyle - 2015
One of the biggest secrets of the war, the capture of that one machine turned the tide of the war in British favour. The German U-boat attacks were crippling the nation’s ability to survive, and the key to breaking that threat was in deciphering the German’s naval Enigma code. Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park worked tirelessly to crack the code, and with the working Enigma machine they finally had their break-through moment. This book sets the story, and the Enigma cryptographers, in context – at the heart of the Battle of the Atlantic, when it reached its crescendo in the pursuit of the battleship Bismarck the week after U110 was taken. It sets Bletchley Park in its wider context too, at the heart of an intricate and maverick network of naval intelligence, tracking signals and plotting them to divert convoys around waiting U-boats, involving officers like James Bond’s future creator, Ian Fleming. It also sets out the most important context of all, forgotten in so much of the Enigma history: that Britain’s own naval code had already been cracked, and its signals were being read, thanks to the efforts of Turing’s opposite number, the German naval cryptographer, Wilhelm Tranow.An exciting and enthralling true story ‘Operation Primrose’ is an excellently researched piece on the race for naval supremacy in the Second World War. David Boyle's work has been widely praised. ‘The tone of the book may be gloomy but there is plenty of entertainment value …’ Anne Ashworth, The Times ‘Exhilarating’ Daily Mail ‘He tells these stories, on the whole persuasively and with some startling asides.’ New Statesman ‘A book that is engagingly sensitive to the sentiments of what is sometimes called “middle England”’ Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include ‘Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma’, ‘Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot’, ‘Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914’, ‘Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem’, ‘Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles’, ‘Towards the Setting Sun: The Race for America’ and ‘The Age to Come’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
Airborne: The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company
Ian Gardner - 2015
A member of Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame, Shames saw combat in some of the most ferocious battles of World War II. From jumping behind the lines of Normandy on D-Day with the 101st Airborne Division, to the near victory of Operation Market Garden, to the legendary stand at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, Shames fought his way across Europe and into Germany itself.In Airborne Shames and writer Ian Gardner (Tonight We Die As Men) tell the gripping true story of what it was like to be at the spear point of World War II in Europe. Neither the book nor TV series of Band of Brothers ever showed the real Ed Shames. Although he started as a private, combat soon forged Shames into a tough and inspired leader who would win a battlefield commission in Normandy. Seeming always to be where the fighting was, his two goals were to prevail in each fight against the Germans, and to keep his men alive. “Shames, you are the meanest, roughest son of a bitch I've ever had to deal with. But you brought us home,” was what he considered to be the highest compliment he received from one of his men.Even though he was wounded in the Ardennes, Ed Shames never stopped fighting until Germany surrendered and the war was won. He has never stopped being a warrior.
Against a Tide of Evil: How One Man Became the Whistleblower to the First Mass Murder of the Twenty-First Century
Mukesh Kapila - 2013
It is the deeply personal account of one man driven to extreme action by the unwillingness of those in power to stop mass murder. It explores what empowers a man like Mukesh Kapila to stand up and be counted, and to act alone in the face of global indifference and venality.Kapila’s story reads like a knife-edge international thriller as he risks all to use the powers at his disposal to bring to justice those responsible for the first mass murder of the twenty-first century: the Darfur genocide.
Rough Riders: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill
Mark Lee Gardner - 2016
Its dramatic unfolding of a familiar, yet not-fully-known story will remind readers of James Swanson’s Manhunt.Two months after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in February 1898, Congress authorized President McKinley to recruit a volunteer army to drive the Spaniards from Cuba. From this army emerged the legendary “Rough Riders,” a mounted regiment drawn from America’s western territories and led by the indomitable Theodore Roosevelt. Its ranks included not only cowboys and other westerners, but several Ivy Leaguers and clubmen, many of them friends of “TR.” Roosevelt and his men quickly came to symbolize American ruggedness, daring, and individualism. He led them to victory in the famed Battle at San Juan Hill, which made TR a national hero and cemented the Rough Riders’ place in history. Now, Mark Lee Gardner synthesizes previously unknown primary accounts as well as period newspaper articles, letters, and diaries from public and private archives in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Boston, and Washington, DC, to produce this authoritative chronicle. He breathes fresh life into the Rough Riders and pays tribute to their daring feats and indomitable leader. Gardner also explores lesser-known aspects of the story, including their relationship with the African-American “Buffalo Soldiers," with whom they fought side by side at San Juan Hill.Rich with action, violence, camaraderie, and courage, Rough Riders sheds new light on the Theodore Roosevelt saga—and on one of the most thrilling chapters in American history.
Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz
Rudolf Höss - 1956
Death Dealer is a new, unexpurgated translation of Höss’s autobiography, written before, during, and after his trial. This edition includes rare photos, the minutes of the Wannsee Conference (where the Final Solution was decided and coordinated), original diagrams of the camps, a detailed chronology of important events at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Höss's final letters to his family, and a new foreword by Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. Death Dealer stands as one of the most important—and chilling—documents of the Holocaust.
Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp
Leonard Berney - 2015
T.D. is the only book to be published that recounts the events that led up to the British Army’s uncovering of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and its 60,000 prisoners, how the Army dealt with the unprecedented horror that existed in the camp, how the surviving prisoners were rescued, how the inmates were evacuated, how the Royal Army Medical Corps established the world’s largest hospital to care for the many thousands of sick and emaciated ex-inmates, how the survivors were rehabilitated and cared for, how they were repatriated to their own countries, why many thousand refused to return ‘home’ and the eventual establishment of the Belsen Displaced Persons camp, the largest DP camp in Germany. The author of this book was a senior British Army officer who participated in the liberation of the Camp, who was in charge of evacuating the ex-prisoners to the vast Rehabilitation Camp that the Army set up, and who was then appointed as the Commandant of that Camp until its management was handed over to the United Nations, and who gave evidence against the SS guards at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. Forewords by Nanette Blitz Konig, Belsen survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank, and Major-General Nicholas Eeles CBE, with the introduction by the Oscar®-nominated film director, Joshua Oppenheimer.
Exocet Falklands: The Untold Story of Special Forces Operations
Ewen Southby-Tailyour - 2014
In that context alone this book is of international military importance. Using previously unknown material and through interviewing key players who have remained silent for 30 years, Ewen Southby-Tailyour has finally established the truth: that it has taken so long reflects the sensitivities, both military and personal, involved. Interviews with the SAS officer commanding Operation Plum Duff, members of the reconnaissance patrol for Operation Mikado, plus the navigator of the helicopter that flew eight troopers into Tierra del Fuego, has allowed the author to describe the tortuous events that led, instead, to a significant survival story. The RAF [pilots tasked with ' crash-landing' two Hercules onto Rio Grande during Operation Mikado have spoken of the extraordinary procedures they developed: so has the captain of the British submarine involved. The Super Etendard pilots who sank HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor and then 'attacked' HMS Invincible, plus a key member of the Argentine special forces and the brigadier defending Rio Grande, add credence, depth and gravitas to the saga. Exocet Falklands is a ground-breaking work of investigative military history.
A Soldier Of The Legion: An Englishman's Adventures Under the French Flag in Algeria and Tonquin
George Manington - 1907
He would remain part of the French Foreign Legion for the next five years. After swearing to the cause of liberté, égalité, fraternité Manington was immediately transported away from France to begin his training in Algeria. But Africa was not where he would be fighting, instead he and his comrades, from Germany, Scotland, America and the rest of the world, were sent to south-east Asia. Tonquin in French Indochina was their destination, to help quell the rebels against colonial rule that had emerged after the Sino-French War. The Yên Thế Insurrection had been continuing for twenty-two years in this area before Manington arrived, and he entered into the midst of this of this vicious war. Manington’s work A Soldier of the Legion is a fascinating account of life in one of the most famous regiments in history. Although loyal to the legion, he saw many faults in the colonial administration and developed friendships with the locals. This work gives brilliant insight into the guerrilla warfare used by the Tonkinese rebels. Methods of warfare that would be once again used in this area in the twentieth century, first against the French and later against the Americans during the Vietnam War. George Manington left the French Foreign Legion in 1895. Prior to joining he had been a student in France and Germany and a prospective doctor in Paris. After his time serving under the French flag he continued to live in Southeast Asia as an interpreter, traveller and journalist. This work was published in 1907.
HMS Rodney: Slayer of the Bismarck and D-Day Saviour (Warships of the Royal Navy)
Iain Ballantyne - 2012
The Book of My Lives
Aleksandar Hemon - 2013
Here, a young man's life is about poking at the pretensions of the city's elders with American music, bad poetry, and slightly better journalism. And then, his life in Chicago: watching from afar as war breaks out in Sarajevo and the city comes under siege, no way to return home; his parents and sister fleeing Sarajevo with the family dog, leaving behind all else they had ever known; and Hemon himself starting a new life, his own family, in this new city.And yet this is not really a memoir. The Book of My Lives, Hemon's first book of nonfiction, defies convention and expectation. It is a love song to two different cities; it is a heartbreaking paean to the bonds of family; it is a stirring exhortation to go out and play soccer—and not for the exercise. It is a book driven by passions but built on fierce intelligence, devastating experience, and sharp insight. And like the best narratives, it is a book that will leave you a different reader—a different person, with a new way of looking at the world—when you've finished. For fans of Hemon's fiction, The Book of My Lives is simply indispensable; for the uninitiated, it is the perfect introduction to one of the great writers of our time.A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
1066: The Year of the Conquest
David Howarth - 1977
But how many of us can place that event in the context of the entire dramatic year in which it took place? From the death of Edward the Confessor in early January to the Christmas coronation of Duke William of Normandy, there is an almost uncanny symmetry, as well as a relentlessly exciting surge, of events leading to and from Hastings.
Vietnam
Larry Burrows - 2002
His images, published in Life magazine, brought the war home, scorching the consciousness of the public and inspiring much of the anti-war sentiment that convulsed American society in the 1960s. To see these photo essays today, gathered in one volume and augmented by unpublished images from the Burrows archive, is to experience (or to relive), with extraordinary immediacy, both the war itself and the effect and range of Larry Burrows’s gifts—his courage: to shoot “The Air War,” he strapped himself and his camera to the open doorway of a plane . . . his reporter’s instinct: accompanying the mission of the helicopter Yankee Papa 13, he captured the transformation of a young marine crew chief experiencing the death of fellow marines . . . and his compassion: in “Operation Prairie” and “A Degree of Disillusion” he published profoundly affecting images of exhausted, bloodied troops and maimed Vietnamese children, both wounded, physically and psychologically, by the ever-escalating war.The photographs Larry Burrows took in Vietnam, magnificently reproduced in this volume, are brutal, poignant, and utterly truthful, a stunning example of photojournalism that recorded history and achieved the level of great art. Indeed, in retrospect, says David Halberstam in his moving introduction, “Larry Burrows was as much historian as photographer and artist. Because of his work, generations born long after he died will be able to witness and understand and feel the terrible events he recorded. This book is his last testament.”With 150 illustrations, 100 in full color
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo
Zlata Filipović - 1993
It begins as the day-today record of the life of a typical eleven-year-old girl, preoccupied by piano lessons and birthday parties. But as war engulfs Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovic becomes a witness to food shortages, the deaths of friends, and learns to wait out bombardments in a neighbor’s cellar. Yet throughout she remains courageous and observant. The result is a book that has the power to move and instruct readers a world away.