Riley, UVA’s Miller CenterIn 1849, when Abraham Lincoln returned to Springfield, Illinois, after two seemingly uninspiring years in the U.S. House of Representatives, his political career appeared all but finished. His sense of failure was so great that friends worried about his sanity. Yet within a decade, Lincoln would reenter politics, become a leader of the Republican Party, win the 1860 presidential election, and keep America together during its most perilous period. What accounted for the turnaround?As Michael J. Gerhardt reveals, Lincoln’s reemergence followed the same path he had taken before, in which he read voraciously and learned from the successes, failures, oratory, and political maneuvering of a surprisingly diverse handful of men, some of whom he had never met but others of whom he knew intimately—Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, John Todd Stuart, and Orville Browning. From their experiences and his own, Lincoln learned valuable lessons on leadership, mastering party politics, campaigning, conventions, understanding and using executive power, managing a cabinet, speechwriting and oratory, and—what would become his most enduring legacy—developing policies and rhetoric to match a constitutional vision that spoke to the monumental challenges of his time.Without these mentors, Abraham Lincoln would likely have remained a small-town lawyer—and without Lincoln, the United States as we know it may not have survived. This book tells the unique story of how Lincoln emerged from obscurity and learned how to lead.

    Singh has been a formidable civil servant, an empathetic politician, a keen chronicler of India’s socioeconomic history and the quintessential academic that academia never got. His life’s work, as chronicled in this book has indeed been intertwined with the progress India has made. In many such cases, Singh has been not just an active contributor but has also given shape to those many momentous decisions—whether through the use of diplomacy or the rigours of understanding the mechanism of the levers of power or, for that matter, by consensus building.Portraits of Power is not just an autobiography of a man, who for several decades has played an active role in India’s march towards becoming a formidable economy; it is indeed, on multiple levels, a book that profiles myriad institutions that work in harmony to make things happen. And in everything that N.K. Singh has done, so in this book too, there is both incisive clarity and insightful anecdotal heft.This book helps readers navigate the vast complexities of India but in a way that is stark and yet elegant.From personal happenings to national movements, Portraits of Power covers it all.

    Since then, they have become embroiled in allegations of state capture, of dishing out cabinet posts to officials who would do their bidding, and of benefiting from lucrative state contracts and dubious loans. The Republic of Gupta investigates what the Gupta brothers were up to during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency and how they got into the inner circle of President Jacob Zuma. It shines new light on their controversial ventures in computers, cricket, newspapers and TV news, and coal and uranium mining. And it explores their exposure by public protector Thuli Madonsela, their conflict with finance minister Pravin Gordhan, and the real reasons behind the cabinet reshuffle of March 2017.Pieter-Louis Myburgh delves deeper than ever before into the Guptas’ business dealings and their links to prominent South African politicians, and explains how one family managed to transform an entire country into the Republic of Gupta.

    to LondonOCothe professional dancer's extraordinaryajourney to the glitzy world of ballroomWith his slick moves, calm demeanor, and brooding good looks, Pasha Kovalev has becomeaa senation as a popular dancer. His talent and determination have taken him around the world, but as he shares here, it was the stark, grey landscape of his Siberian hometown, still reeling from the Communist regime, which provided the unlikely inspiration for his early love of ballroom dancing. With a strongadesire to succeed, he moved to theaU.S. in 2001awith his professional dance partner Anya Garnis and settled in Fort Lee, New Jersey.aHe auditioned for seasonathree of "So You Think You Can Dance "in 2007, amoved to L.A. in 2008, aand heahas since participated in all following seasons as either a choreographer or an All Star. Froma2009-2011ahe joined the cast of Jason Gilkison's production "Burn the Floor," one of the leading ballroom based shows in the world, during its stint on Broadway. In September 2011, Pasha joined the BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing" as the new professional dancer of the ninth season, abeing partnered in the 10th season with Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh. He speaks candidly in this heartwarming autobiography, on topics from romance to body image to the illness that nearly killed him. Most of all, he gives readers a glimpse behind the scenes of the flashy world of ballroom, and what really goes on beneath the veneer of sparkles and glamour."

    His career in baseball spanned forty years and two eras—from the game’s raucous early days to its emergence as big business.Charles C. Alexander, a professor of history at Ohio University, Athens, and the author of Ty Cobb, calls John McGraw “perhaps the single most significant figure in baseball’s history before Babe Ruth transformed the game with his mammoth home runs and unparalleled showmanship.”

    Beginning with first-hand accounts of the reaction to Chamberlain's declaration of war in 1939, Kershaw portrays the many aspects of war through the words of those who were there, from the sailors of the little ships of Dunkirk to German soldiers preparing for Operation 'Sea Lion'. He takes us from the nightly horrors of the Blitz to battles in the limitless desert of North Africa, and from jungle war in Burma to Lancaster bombers over Germany and the beaches of Normandy. Featuring new interviews with veterans and civilians from Britain, the Commonwealth and Germany as well as diaries, letters, and first-hand accounts, this is a testimony to the remarkable men and women who lived through the Second World War -- whose refusal to surrender changed them, and Britain, forever.

    

    Reprint.

    In this new book royal historian Lady Colin Campbell covers The Queen’s Marriage in intimate detail. Using her connections and impeccable sources she recounts details of the inside story of the monarch’s relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh and her close family.

    The school production that year was Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, and she was among the three girls chosen to play the lead role of Gladys Antrobus. Before long, the three “Gladyses” were inseparable friends, and by the time the play debuted, “The Gladys Society” had stretched to twelve members. Thirty years on and living in England, Sandi decided to return to the States to discover what had happened to her eleven fellow Gladyses and, in the process, revisit America. By turns hilarious and moving, this is a delightfully engaging story of friends united and a country rediscovered.

     When her wagon train was 8 miles from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, a Sioux Oglalas war party, in war-paint, suddenly appeared and began to encircle their wagons, pretending to be most friendly and asking for presents. The Indians urged the emigrants on, and offered to accompany them, so that they pushed on in company for a short time, until it was saw that they were approaching a ravine where his party would be at a disadvantage, and he insisted on camping outside of it. The Indians, after some hesitation, agreed, and the travellers began to make preparations for supper, when suddenly the Indians fired a volley at them. Some of those who escaped the attack succeeded in hiding in the brushwood, but Mrs. Kelly and her adopted daughter, Mary, as well as Mrs. Larimer and her children, became the prisoners of the Indians. After the second night of capture, Larimer and her son Frank managed to escape and were later reunited with her husband at Camp Collins, Colorado Territory. Larimer wrote of her harrowing captivity and escape in her 1871 book "The Capture and Escape: Life Among the Sioux." In describing dangers encountered during their escape from the Indians, Larimer noted: "The horrors of our situation were harassing to contemplate. The wolves seemed congregated upon the highlands, and, awaking from their night’s repose, their wailing cries echoed back from the distant hills with terrific clearness. These prowling creatures abound in that country, where some species attain a great size. Even the buffalo, which does not fear them in the herd, knows his danger when overtaken alone; and the solitary bull, secreted from its hunter, succumbs before the united force of a gang of wolves." Sarah Luse Larimer (1836-1913) was born in Pennsylvania, headed west in 1859 with her husband, living for a while in Allen County, Kansas, where she operated a photographic gallery. In 1864, along with her husband and son the family set out for the mines of Idaho Territory, when their plans were disrupted by Oglalas on the warpath. John Bratt in his 1921 book "Trails of Yesterday" writes of Larimer: "At Sherman Station I became well acquainted with Mrs. Larimer and her son, who kept a general store there, bought and sold ties and cord wood, while her husband had a star route mail contract from Point of Rocks north. There was also a Mrs. Kelly living near the station. These two women and Mrs. Larimer's son had been captured by the Sioux Indians near Fort Laramie. Mrs. Larimer and her son, after two weeks' captivity in the lodge of the chief, stole away one night and though the Indians hunted them day and night, they succeeded in eluding them and got back to the fort, after suffering unmentionable cruelties. Mrs. Kelly, not so fortunate, was taken by the Indians up on the Missouri River and kept with the band over six months." In describing the moment of rescue by a passing wagon train, Larimer writes that "as we sat in this shelter, which proved to be the last, a most joyful and welcome sound greeted our ears —one in which there was no mistake—our own language, spoken by some boys who passed, driving cattle."

    The Atomic Outhouse, Hot Extractions, Listening Out, and Best Vacation Ever, will have you enthralled. These stories and sixty more like them pull no punches to give you a genuine understanding of a war that was more bizarre than you ever imagined.