She is the girl with the blue tattoo.The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.Rumors swelled. Her tattoo became a symbol of Native barbarianism and the triumph of American goodness, but like many stories of that era, the truth is far more complicated.This short book details the murders, her captivity, the aftermath, and her baffling return to her captors. Unravel the mystery of the woman who would become famous for all the wrong reasons and discover what her life story says about cultural identity, the power of resiliency, and what happens when fact and fiction bend and twist to muddy the waters.Read on to find out the truth!

    After his mother dies, he leaves the Lower East Side and moves to Jerusalem, where he ends up as an assistant to an elderly kabbalist and his wife who daily minister to the seekers who gravitate to their courtyard.One day on an errand, Isaac happens upon Mustafa, an Arab janitor who works on the Temple Mount, holy to both Jews and Muslims. Mustafa suffers from an extreme case of torticollis – his head is turned painfully and permanently to one side. He has been cast out of his own village – a mutant – unloved even by his own mother.Somehow, the luckless haberdasher from the Lower East Side has finally managed to heal someone’s wounded spirit, in this case, Mustafa, and the two men enter into an intense and fraught friendship.Though rejected by his family, Mustafa longs to return and be respected by his village. Isaac yearns to find his place, in the courtyard (where he is forever the assistant), and in the romantic realm (he goes out on innumerable blind dates to seek a wife), and is thwarted on both counts by his own anxieties and memories of past betrayals. When a beautiful young woman in the courtyard, Tamar, becomes electrified with feeling for Isaac, he is too frightened and prudish to respond.Mustafa, wishing to return Isaac’s kindness, finds an ancient shard on the Temple Mount whose value may exceed anyone’s imagination, and brings it to Isaac in gratitude. That gesture sets in a motion a series of unexpected events that land Isaac in the company of Israel’s worst criminal riff raff, put Mustafa in mortal danger, even as Tamar struggles to save them both.

    Raw concrete buildings front trash-strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. On the border with Egypt, swaths of Rafah have been bulldozed to rubble. Rafah is today and has always been a notorious flashpoint in this bitterest of conflicts. Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah—cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake—reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs, Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy. As in Palestine and Safe Area Goražde, Sacco’s unique visual journalism has rendered a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail. Footnotes in Gaza, his most ambitious work to date, transforms a critical conflict of our age into an intimate and immediate experience.

    VanderKam here offers a superb new introduction to early Judaism.Based on the best, most recent archaeological research, this illustrated volume explores the history of Judaism during the Second Temple period (516 B.C.E. - 70 C.E.), describing the body of Jewish literature written during these centuries and the most important groups, institutions, and practices of the time. Particularly interesting are VanderKam's depiction of events associated with Masada and the Kokhba revolt, and his commentary on texts unearthed in places like Elephantine, Egypt, and Qumran.Written in the same accessible style as VanderKam's widely praised Dead Sea Scrolls Today, this volume provides the finest classroom introduction to early Judaism available.

    Why it's easy to demonstrate, the evidence given to the Warren Commission by members of the Dallas police, was all created. There are 44 photos and illustrations in, 'Ambush in Dealey Plaza'. Many prove Lee Oswald did not kill President Kennedy or Officer Tippit. LookBack Publications

    Mary and Olive had already been told they were going to an ack-ack training camp in Berkshire, and she crossed her fi ngers, hoping that she would be setting off with them. Finally, the corporal came to her name. ‘Private Ward,’ she called out. ‘Anti-aircraft.’At that moment, Jessie couldn’t have been happier. She was joining the artillery, and would soon be giving the Germans what for.”In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone against Germany. The British Army stood at just over one and a half million men, while the Germans had three times that many, and a population almost twice the size of ours from which to draw new waves of soldiers. Clearly, in the fight against Hitler, manpower alone wasn’t going to be enough.Eighteen-year-old Jessie Ward defied her mother to join the ATS, leaving her quiet home for the rigours of training, the camaraderie of the young women who worked together so closely and to face a war that would change her life forever.Overall, more than half a million women served in the armed forces during the Second World War. This book tells the story of just one of them. But in her story is reflected the lives of hundreds of thousands of others like them – ordinary girls who went to war, wearing their uniforms with pride.

    Carter would participate in a number of expeditions against the Comanche and other tribes in the Texas-area. It was during one of these campaigns that he was brevetted first lieutenant and awarded the Medal of Honor for his "most distinguished gallantry" against the Comanche in Blanco Canyon on a tributary of the Brazos River on October 10, 1871. He became a successful author in his later years writing several books based on his military career, including On the Border with Mackenzie (1935), as well as a series of booklets detailing his years as an Indian fighter on the Texas frontier. Carter writes: "IT IS nearly fifty years since these tragedies occurred. There are few survivors. The writer is, perhaps, the only one. This is written in the vague hope that this chronicle of the events of that period may possibly prove of some lasting and, perhaps, historical value to posterity. "The country all about the scene of these tragical events—the Texas Panhandle—was then wild, unsettled, covered with sage brush, scrub oak and chaparral, and its only inhabitants were Indians, buffalo, lobo wolves, coyotes, jack-rabbits, prairie-dogs and rattlesnakes, with here and there a few scattered herds of antelope. The railroad, that great civilizing agency, the telegraph, the telephone, and the many other marvelous inventions of man, have wrought such a wonderful transformation in our great western country that the American Indian will, if he has not already, become a race of the past, and history alone will record the remarkable deeds and strange career of an almost extinct people. With these miraculous changes has come the total extermination of the buffalo—the Indians' migratory companion and source of living—and pretty much all of the wild game that in almost countless numbers freely roamed those vast prairies. Where now the railroads girdle that country the nomadic redman lived his free and careless life and the bison thrived and roamed undisturbed at that period— where are now the appliances of modern civilization, and prosperous communities, then nothing but desolation reigned for many miles around. "In the expansion and peopling of this vast country, our little Army was most closely identified. In fact, it was the pioneer of civilization. The life was full of danger, hardships, privations, and sacrifices, little known or appreciated by the present generation. "Where populous towns, ranches and well-tilled farms, grain fields, orchards, and oil "gushers" are now located, with railroads either running through or near them, we were making trails, upon which the main roads now run, in search of hostile savages, for the purpose of punishing them or compelling them to go into the Indian reservations, and to permit the settlers, then held back by the murderous acts of these redskins, to advance and spread the civilization of the white man throughout the western tiers of counties in that far-off western panhandle of Texas."

    The Wright Brothers is an historical narrative that draws on extensive archival materials, personal journals, and public records to tell the story of the Wright brothers as men of incredible character and determination along the road towards their significant contributions to aviation history. The summary parallels the structure of the book which is divided into three parts. The first part explores the period of the boys’ childhood through their work on flight testing various models of gliders. The second part picks up with the addition of the engine to the Wright planes and traces the brother’s work through the early stages of powered flight, roughly 1903 to 1908. Part three follows the brothers, now globally famous, through the years when they captured the most attention for their accomplishments. A central aspect of this historical account is the development of Orville and Wilbur Wright as individuals who showed fierce determination in the face of relentless setbacks. It also sheds light on their private nature and their deep bond as brothers. McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for other historical works, Truman and John Adams. He also won the National Book Award twice and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His educational background includes a degree in English Literature from Yale University. He is also a well-known narrator, as well as previous host of American Experience. Read more....

    Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.

    But when she traveled to Palestine in 2003, she found herself thrown with dizzying speed into the realities of Palestinian life.Fast Times in Palestine is Olson’s powerful, deeply moving account of life in Palestine—both the daily events that are universal to us all (house parties, concerts, barbecues, and weddings) as well as the violence, trauma, and political tensions that are particular to the country. From idyllic olive groves to Palestinian beer gardens, from Passover in Tel Aviv to Ramadan in a Hamas village, readers will find Olson’s narrative both suspenseful and discerning. Her irresistible story offers a multi-faceted understanding of the Palestinian perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict, filling a gap in the West’s popular understanding of the difficult relationship between the two nations.At turns funny, shocking, and galvanizing, Fast Times in Palestine is a gripping narrative that challenges our ways of thinking—not only about the Middle East, but about human nature, cultural identity, and our place in the world.

    First published in 1970, the book seeks to explain the causes for the 13 May 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur.Dr Mahathir sets out his view as to why the Malays are economically backward and why they feel they must insist upon immigrants becoming real Malaysians speaking in due course nothing but Malay, as do immigrants to America or Australia speak nothing but the language of what the author calls “the definitive people”. He argues that the Malays are the rightful owners of Malaya. He also argues that immigrants are guests until properly absorbed, and that they are not properly absorbed until they have abandoned the language and culture of their past.

    Sachar’s A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time was regarded one of the most valuable works available detailing the history of this still relatively young country. More than 30 years later, readers can again be immersed in this monumental work. The second edition of this volume covers topics such as the first of the Aliyahs in the 1880s; the rise of Jewish nationalism; the beginning of the political Zionist movement and, later, how the movement changed after Theodor Herzl; the Balfour Declaration; the factors that led to the Arab-Jewish confrontation; Palestine and its role both during the Second World War and after; the war of independence and the many wars that followed it over the next few decades; and the development of the Israeli republic and the many challenges it faced, both domestic and foreign, and still faces today.This is a truly enriching and exhaustive history of a nation that holds claim to one of the most complicated and controversial histories in the world.

    Along the way he has written major stories for American outlets, including a remarkable New York Times Magazine cover story. Now comes the powerful new work that has always been his ultimate goal, The Way to the Spring.We are familiar with brave journalists who travel to bleak or war-torn places on a mission to listen and understand, to gather the stories of people suffering from extremes of oppression and want: Katherine Boo, Ryszard Kapuściński, Ted Conover, and Philip Gourevitch among them. Palestine is, by any measure, whatever one's politics, one such place. Ruled by the Israeli military, set upon and harassed constantly by Israeli settlers who admit unapologetically to wanting to drive them from the land, forced to negotiate an ever more elaborate and more suffocating series of fences, checkpoints, and barriers that have sundered home from field, home from home, this is a population whose living conditions are unique, and indeed hard to imagine. In a great act of bravery, empathy and understanding, Ben Ehrenreich, by placing us in the footsteps of ordinary Palestinians and telling their story with surpassing literary power and grace, makes it impossible for us to turn away.

    An honest and troubling snapshot of Israel—both Palestinian and Israeli—that reveals the creeping realization that a two-state solution may no longer be possible."—Kirkus (starred review)Throughout their youth Nir Baram’s generation were bombarded with news about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—the injustices, the wrongdoings, the killings. Over the decades, the horror and despair had become habit—he noticed people had begun to give up on the possibility of resolution. Yet, as Baram notes, ‘the vast majority of Israelis—as well as international onlookers— know next to nothing about life on the West Bank, the area at the heart of the conflict they have spent their adult lives dissecting’. Most have never visited the occupied territories, and thus ‘the debate revolves around a theoretical, ill-defined area sketched out in our political imagination.’This book of reportage emerged from the author’s realization that Israel is separated from the West Bank not only by checkpoints but also, more significantly, by a cognitive barrier. And so began his quest to understand the occupation from both sides. The result is an essential and nuanced journey through places and experiences that receive little coverage.Baram, widely considered one of the most important intellectual voices in Israel today, faces painful challenges to his personal political views and his hopes for a more peaceful future.Nir Baram has worked as a journalist, editor, and advocate for Palestinian rights. He is the author of five novels in Hebrew. In 2010 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew Literature.

    When he is granted a scholarship to an elite Jewish boarding school, his family rejoices, dreaming that he will grow up to be the first Arab to build an atom bomb. But to their dismay, he turns out to be a coward devoid of any national pride; his only ambition is to fit in with his Jewish peers who reject him. He changes his clothes, his accent, his eating habits, and becomes an expert at faking identities, sliding between different cultures, different schools, different languages, and eventually a Jewish lover and an Arab wife.With refreshing candor and self-deprecating wit, Kashua brings us a protagonist whose greatest accomplishment is his ability to disappear. In a land where personal and national identities are synonymous, Dancing Arabs brilliantly maps one man’s struggle to disentangle the two, only to tragically and inevitably forfeit both.