Killing Goldfinger: The Secret, Bullet-Riddled Life and Death of Britain's Gangster Number One


Wensley Clarkson - 2017
    During the late 1990s, Palmer was rated as rich as The Queen by the Sunday Times Rich List.Palmer earned his nickname Goldfinger after smelting (in his back garden) tens of millions of pounds worth of stolen gold bullion from the 20th century's most lucrative heist; the Brink's-Mat robbery. Palmer then used his share of the millions to become the vicious overlord of a vast illegal timeshare property empire in Tenerife. At the same time, Goldfinger financed huge international drugs shipments as well as some of the most notorious UK robberies of the past 30 years, including the £50m Securitas heist in Kent in 2006 and, many believe, the Hatton Garden heist in 2015.Palmer vowed to hunt down all his underworld enemies. But in the end it was those same criminals who decided to bring his life to an end. Murdered in June 2015, with charges of fraud, money laundering and worse pending, this book tells his murky story for the first time.As outrageous and bullet-riddled as the hit Netflix series Narcos, Killing Goldfinger tells the true story of Britain's underworld kingpin, who turned the sunshine holiday island of Tenerife into his very own Crime Incorporated and then paid the ultimate price.

Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala


Stephen C. Schlesinger - 1982
    First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government documents and interviews with former CIA and other officials. It is a warning of what happens when the United States abuses its power.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence


Clyde N. Wilson - 2016
    The entire South—its people, culture, history, customs, both past and present—has been and continues to be lied about and demonized by the unholy trinity of the American establishment: Academia, Hollywood, and the Media. In the midst of the anti-South hysteria currently infecting the American psyche—the banning of flags, charges of hate and “racism,” the removal and attempted removal of Confederate monuments, the renaming of schools, vandalism of monuments and property displaying the Confederate Battle Flag, and even physical assaults, albeit rarely at present, on people who display the symbols of the South — Shotwell Publishing offers this unapologetic, unreconstructed, pro-South book with the hope that it will reach those who are left that are not afraid to question the sanity of this cultural purge and the veracity of its narrative concerning the South.

Rooster: The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn


Brett Cogburn - 2012
    

Monument Men


Michael Baker - 2013
    A must-read screenplay for fans of cinema, World War II, and art-lovers, “Monument Men” provides an insightful look into the value and importance we place on art in our society using historical fiction. A labor of love, we spent years knocking on Hollywood doors trying to spark interest in our story. After years of being told the material “had no audience”, it is gratifying to see the story of the Monuments Men finally being released as a feature film this coming December. Although the version on the big screen is based upon the book “The Monuments Men – Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, And The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History” by Robert M. Edsel, and is unrelated to our version, we encourage you to read our script and judge for yourself which you prefer. We think you’ll love “Monument Men”!

Palm Beach Babylon: The Sinful History of America's Super-Rich Paradise


Murray Weiss - 1992
    Starting with the island's founder Henry Flagler, and updated for Kindle, "Palm Beach Babylon" chronicles the Kennedys, the Trumps, the Dodges, Helmsleys, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Mizners and Madoffs, and many more "Titans of Industry" and "Royalty." "The history is solid, the writing stylish," wrote renowned author Pete Hamill. "Riveting," exclaimed Nicholas Pileggi, author of "Wiseguy" and "Casino." The New York Times declared "Palm Beach Babylon" the best book ever written on the storied tropical island, where the "Rich and Famous" flock every winter to indulge in a world that only money can pierce. "Murray Weiss and Bill Hoffmann have . . . produced an intriguing account of the wagers of too much wealth and too much leisure time," wrote Dominick Dunne, the best selling novelist and true-crime expert. And as one reader posted along with 5-Stars: A REAL PAGE TURNER: I loved this book because it had all the allure of great fiction, yet it was about real people who, although they live in a real place (Palm Beach, FL), seem more like Great Gatsby characters than anything else! It also provides a fascinating historical perspective of the glamorous Palm Beach, how it was built, the man who built it, and the wealthy who flocked to it.

The Grounding of Modern Feminism


Nancy F. Cott - 1987
    Cott, author of The Bonds of Womanhood, offers a new interpretation of American feminism during the early decades of this century—a period traditionally viewed as on in which women won the right to vote and then lost interest in feminist issues. Cott argues instead that his period was a time of crisis and transition from the nineteenth-century "woman movement’ to the beginning of modern feminism. Many of the issues that are central to women today, says Cott, were firmly articulated in the early decades of this century. For example, the problem of defining sexual equality so as to recognize sexual difference between men and women, the ambiguous potential of a movement seeking individual freedoms for women by mobilizing sex solidarity, and the tensions involved in attaining full expression in work and love are all enduring elements of feminism seized upon by women of the 1910s and 1920s. First discussing how feminism was indebted to its predecessors, Cott shows that increasing heterogeneity and diverse loyalties among women in the early twentieth century contradicted the premise of the nineteenth-century "cause of woman" (the singular noun symbolizing the unity of the female sex). From this crisis emerged feminism, championing individual variability and refuting the premise that a singular "woman" existed.Cott focuses on the suffrage-campaign milieu in which feminism arose, giving particular attention to the character and role of the National Woman’s Party from its militant suffrage days to its advocacy of the equal right amendment in the 1920s. Against prevailing interpretations of the decline of women’s political activities after 1920, Cott counterposes the swelling numbers in women’s voluntary associations and their political efforts. She also analyzes the pitfalls that awaited women who tried for effectiveness in the male-dominated political parties. She sets the controversy over the equal rights amendment in new context, discussing the full dimensions of the conflict as not merely over personalities, tactics, or class loyalties, but as a signal example of the modern problem of capturing sexual equality and sexual difference in law.The book explores the irony-strewn path of women who as aspiring professionals and political actors attempted to put into practice the feminist intent to replace the abstraction "woman" with, instead, "the human sex." This history—the story of women who first claimed the name feminists—builds an essential bridge between the presuffrage period and today.

The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America


Stephen G. Rabe - 2011
    policies in Latin America during the Cold War. Author Stephen G. Rabe, a leading authority in the field, argues that the sense of joy and accomplishment that accompanied the end of the Cold War, the liberation of Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union must be tempered by the realization that Latin Americans paid a ghastly price during the Cold War. Dictatorship, authoritarianism, the methodical abuse of human rights, and campaigns of state terrorism characterized life in Latin America between 1945 and 1989. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala endured appalling levels of political violence. The U.S. repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of Latin American nations in the name of anticommunism, destabilizing constitutional governments and aiding and abetting those who murdered and tortured.Incorporating recently declassified documents, Rabe supplements his strong, provocative historical narrative with stories about the fates of ordinary Latin Americans, an extensive chronology, a series of evocative photographs, and an annotated bibliography.

The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB


Milton Bearden - 2003
    This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose through the ranks to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War. The clandestine operations they masterminded took them from the sewers of Moscow to the back streets of Baghdad, from Cairo and Havana to Prague and Berlin, but the action centers on Washington, starting in the infamous "Year of the Spy"--when, one by one, the CIA’s agents in Moscow began to be killed, up through to the very last man.Behind the scenes with the CIA's covert operations in Afghanistan, Milt Bearden led America to victory in the secret war against the Soviets, and for the first time he reveals here what he did and whom America backed, and why. Bearden was called back to Washington after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and was made chief of the Soviet/East Euro-pean Division—just in time to witness the fall of the Berlin Wall, the revolutions that swept across Eastern Europe, and the implosion of the Soviet Union.Laced with startling revelations--about fail-safe top-secret back channels between the CIA and KGB, double and triple agents, covert operations in Berlin and Prague, and the fateful autumn of 1989--The Main Enemy is history at its action-packed best.From the Hardcover edition.

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.

Ideology and U.S Foreign Policy


Michael H. Hunt - 1987
    Hunt argues that there is an ideology that has shaped American foreign policy--an ideology based on a conception of national mission, on the racial classification of other peoples, and on hostility toward social revolutions--and he traces its rise and impact from the eighteenth century down to the present day.

Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba & Then Lost it to the Revolution


T.J. English - 2007
    In Havana Nocturne, T.J. English offers a multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution & international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana & the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution.As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 50s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky & Charles "Lucky" Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the US Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government & in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion. Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels & casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women & gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara & others who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government & its foreign partners—an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory. Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana—including interviews with the era's key survivors—Havana Nocturne takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob—featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr & Albert Anastasia—& Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana—& how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the revolution.

The Cartel


Stephen Breen - 2017
    However, Christy Kinahan will never be fêted in the financial press. For his business - drugs, guns, money-laundering, murder - also makes him Ireland's leading criminal.While Kinahan kept a low profile as he grew his empire, by the time his crime cartel shot to public attention in 2010 it was known to European police forces for over a decade. In that year police raided members' homes and premises in Spain, Ireland the UK. By then Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr were already among the richest men in Europe, with an estimated joint worth of €750m.However, events in February 2016 made Kinahan a household name. A daring and deadly gun attack in a suburban Dublin hotel - an attack targeting Daniel Kinahan (who escaped) - stunned the public and exposed the depth of enmity between the Kinahans and the family and associates of the veteran Dublin criminal, Gerry Hutch. Despite an intense garda crack-down on the gangsters' activities, the body count continues to rise.The Cartel gives behind-the-scenes story of that initial Spanish-led raid on the Kinahans. The authors have had exclusive access to the wiretaps that tracked the cartel for two years and talked to key officers who investigated them. They expose the criminal clan's aims and actions - in members' own words - and reveal the surprising truths behind how they built their empire.And The Cartel brings the story bang up-to-date to explain the origins of and fall-out from the feud with the Hutches, one of the most violent and vicious Ireland has ever known - and one that could be the undoing of the Kinahans.The authors' combined depth of knowledge - Stephen Breen has been a crime correspondent for over 15 years and in addition to writing about crime for over a decade, Owen Conlon is a fluent Spanish speaker - has culminated in a detailed and gripping account of double-crossing, vengeance and murder.

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed


Alastair Morgan - 2017
    At the bottom of that iceberg of 'dark arts' - hacking, bugging and bribing bent cops - is the body of Daniel Morgan. The truth behind his killing is obscured by a web of corruption and cover-ups.Written by Daniel's brother Alastair, with investigative journalist Peter Jukes, Untold marks the 30th anniversary of the murder once described by an Assistant Commissioner of the Met as 'one of the most disgraceful episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service.'Going beyond the number one hit podcast of the same name, this is the inside story in full. Including fresh revelations, new evidence, all the latest findings and, at its heart, the tragic story of a family whose lives have been torn apart in the search for answers.If you haven't heard of this story, ask yourself, why?

The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: Corn Sugar and Blood


Rick Porrello - 1995
    Rick Porrello writes about the important connection with mega-mobsters Charles Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, the Cleveland mob's move to Las Vegas, and the first top-level national meeting of the Sicilian-American Mafia.