Now one of the most isolated and fear ridden cities on earth, no-one is allowed to speak to western journalists or leave Raqqa, without IS’s permission. Those caught breaking the rules face death by beheading.Despite this, Mike Thomson, with the help of BBC’s Arabic Service, found a young man who is willing to risk his life to tell the world what is happening in his city. Part of a small anti-IS activist group, the diaries were written, encrypted and sent to a third country before being translated.The diarist’s father is killed and mother badly injured during an air strike, he is sentenced to 40 lashes for speaking out against a beheading, he sees a woman stoned to death. They show how every aspect of life is impacted – from the spiralling costs of food to dictating the acceptable length of trousers.At one point, the sale of televisions is banned. As Samer says, 'it seems it’s not enough to stop us talking to the outside world, now we can’t even look at it.’ Having seen friends and relatives butchered, his community’s life shattered and the local economy ruined by these hate-fuelled extremists, Samer believes he’s fighting back by telling the world what is happening to his beloved city.Raw, direct and profoundly affecting, The Raqqa Diaries is an important book by a brave young man, which allows unprecedented access to the brutal conditions that many Syrians are living under.

    At the same time plans were being made to deport Rome’s Jews to Auschwitz, Wolff began playing a dangerous game: stalling Hitler’s plot against the pope, whom he hoped would save him from the noose in case Germany lost the war. To save Pius, Wolff & fellow conspirators blackmailed him into silence when the Jews were rounded up, hoping that Hitler would rescind his order. This tale of intrigue & betrayal is one of the most important untold stories of WWII. Dan Kurzman was the 1st journalist to have interviewed General Wolff following his release from prison after the war. This is the only book to tell the full behind-the-scenes story of the plot against the Vatican & its far-reaching consequences.

    She survived covertly, with fake identity papers, one of the most horrendous periods in human history. Her life-saving wisdom and inner knowing became an inspiration to all Her many breathtaking personal stories give a rare, unique perspective on one of the war’s most horrific times, when both the Germans and Soviets armies bombed Warsaw during the Polish Uprising. Dina was alone in the midst of this living hell. Each obstacle she encountered, each decision and intuitive insight that led her to act one way and not another, saved her life and altered her destiny forever.Dina became a mentor for life, her integrity, hope and belief are radiating throughout everything she does until this day. This book is a gateway to her amazing life. It holds within the story of her unique journey and precious life wisdom. Scroll up now to get your copy of Dina: Surviving Undercover!

    Sole Survivor, based on three years of interviews with Poon and his family, reconstructs his remarkable ordeal and the survival techniques that earned him world celebrity and a listing in the Guiness Book of World Records. "A classic saga of ordeal and survival that reminds us of the courage, strength, and resourceful intelligence of which human beings are capable."-Tillie Olsen, author of Tell Me a Riddle

    Lindbergh a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite? Or was he the target of a vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt? In Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt, author James Duffy tackles these questions head-on, by examining the conflicting personalities, aspirations, and actions of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles A. Lindbergh. Painting a politically incorrect portrait of both men, Duffy shows how the hostility between these two American giants divided the nation on both domestic and international affairs. From canceling U.S. air mail contracts to intervening in World War II, Lindberg and Roosevelt’s clash of ideas and opinions shaped the nation’s policies here and abroad. Insightful, and engaging, Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt reveals the untold story about two of history’s most controversial men, and how the White House waged a smear campaign against Lindbergh that blighted his reputation forever.

    It's only five in the afternoon, but a sandtorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town's sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq... Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ed combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.

    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.

    George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Maine, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell's memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics--including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform--as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchell's incredible stories--some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing--offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.

    While in prison, Nosair helped plan the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. In one of his infamous video messages, Osama bin Laden urged the world to “Remember El-Sayyid Nosair.”For Zak Ebrahim, a childhood amongst terrorism was all he knew. After his father’s incarceration, his family moved often, and as the perpetual new kid in class, he faced constant teasing and exclusion. Yet, though his radicalized father and uncles modeled fanatical beliefs, to Ebrahim something never felt right. To the shy, awkward boy, something about the hateful feelings just felt unnatural.In this book, Ebrahim dispels the myth that terrorism is a foregone conclusion for people trained to hate. Based on his own remarkable journey, he shows that hate is always a choice—but so is tolerance. Though Ebrahim was subjected to a violent, intolerant ideology throughout his childhood, he did not become radicalized. Ebrahim argues that people conditioned to be terrorists are actually well positioned to combat terrorism, because of their ability to bring seemingly incompatible ideologies together in conversation and advocate in the fight for peace. Ebrahim argues that everyone, regardless of their upbringing or circumstances, can learn to tap into their inherent empathy and embrace tolerance over hatred. His original, urgent message is fresh, groundbreaking, and essential to the current discussion about terrorism.

    They met on the Paris Metro and fell in love, and became famous when Beate slapped the face of the West German chancellor--a former Nazi--Kurt Georg Kiesinger.For the past half century, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld have hunted, confronted, prosecuted, and exposed Nazi war criminals all over the world, tracking down the notorious torturer Klaus Barbie in Bolivia and attempting to kidnap the former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka on the streets of Cologne. They have been sent to prison for their beliefs and have risked their lives protesting anti-Semitism behind the Iron Curtain in South America and in the Middle East. They have been insulted and exalted, assaulted and heralded; they've received honors from presidents and letter bombs from neo-Nazis. They have fought relentlessly not only for the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust but also for modern-day victims of genocide and discrimination across the world. And they have done it all while raising their children and sustaining their marriage.Now, for the first time, in Hunting the Truth, a major memoir written in their alternating voices, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tell the thrilling story of a lifetime dedicated to combating evil.

    Here he tells of the scorn and ridicule he endured for sounding the alarm when many still viewed Hitler as a positive and inevitable force. He recounts the sorrow of having to leave his home, friends, and family in Germany to conduct his fight against the Nazis from Austria. He tells how he defiantly challenged Nazism in the public square, prompting the German ambassador in Vienna to describe him to Hitler as “the architect of the intellectual resistance." And throughout it all, he conveys his unwavering trust in God, even during his harrowing escape from Vienna and his desperate flight across Europe, with the Nazis always just one step behind.

    But for the first time in this memoir, an active Muslim American federal agent reveals his experience infiltrating and bringing down a terror cell in North America.A longtime undercover agent, Tamer Elnoury joined an elite counterterrorism unit after September 11. Its express purpose is to gain the trust of terrorists whose goals are to take out as many Americans in as public and as devastating a way possible. It's a furious race against the clock for Tamer and his unit to stop them before they can implement their plans. Yet as new as this war still is, the techniques are as old as time: listen, record, and prove terrorist intent.Due to his ongoing work for the FBI, Elnoury writes under a pseudonym. An Arabic-speaking Muslim American, a patriot, a hero: To many Americans, it will be a revelation that he and his team even exist, let alone the vital and dangerous work they do keeping all Americans safe.

    In September 1939, Bella was a carefree teenager living in Poland when the German army struck. She was rounded up with her friends and family and sent to a series of grim Jewish ghettos. After loved ones were separated and lost through the war years, Bella survived by changing her identity. Narrowly escaping death each time, she moved from place to place, odd job to odd job, new name to new name. After finding the birth certificate of a Catholic girl five years her senior, she became Sabina Mazurek. Then she went into the eye of the storm, Germany, where she believed she might be safest. "Sabina is her story. As in "Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank and "Night" by Elie Wiesel, Bella Kuligowska marshaled unexpected resources to manage as a teen during the horrors of World War II. Sabina offers a different perspective on how many Jews survived outside of the concentration camps, in more familiar yet infinitely hostile settings, with the help of others along the way.

    The rest was merely a matter of seconds. The bomber fell like a stone out of the sky and exploded on the ground. The nightmare came to an end."In this enthralling memoir, the author recounts his experiences of the war years and traces the story of the ace fighter pilots from the German development of radar to the Battle of Britain.Johnen flew his first operational mission in July 1941, having completed his blind-flying training. In his first couple of years he brought down two enemy planes. The tally went up rapidly once the air war was escalated in spring 1943, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command began the campaign dubbed the Battle of the Ruhr.During this phase of the war Johnens successes were achieved against a 710-strong force of bombers. Johnens further successes during Harriss subsequent Berlin offensive led to his promotion as Staffelkapitan (squadron leader) of Nachtjagdgeschwader and a move to Mainz. During a sortie from there, his Bf 110 was hit by return fire and he was forced to land in Switzerland. He and his crew were interned by the authorities. The Germans were deeply worried about leaving a sophisticatedly equipped night fighter and its important air crew in the hands of a foreign government, even if it was a neutral one. After negotiations involving Gring, the prisoners were released.Johnens unit moved to Hungary and by October 1944 his score was standing at 33 aerial kills. His final one came in March the following year, once Johnen had moved back to Germany.

    The townspeople were proud of their ancient Christian heritage and lived at peace with their Jewish neighbors. But early in 1947, their idyllic lifestyle was swept away as tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps. An exile in his native land, Elias began a years-long struggle with his love for the Jewish people and the world's misunderstanding of his own people, the Palestinians. How was he to respond? He found his answer in the simple, haunting words of the Man of Galilee: "Blessed are the peacemakers." In Blood Brothers, Chacour blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the birth of modern Israel. He touches on controversial questions such as "What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East?," "What does Bible prophecy really have to say?," and "Can bitter enemies ever be reconciled?" Originally published by Chosen Books in 1984 and now expanded with a new introduction by the author, a new foreword by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and a "Since Then" epilogue by writer David Hazard, this compelling book offers readers hope-filled insight into living at peace in the most volatile region of the world.