Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation
Clarence B. Jones - 2011
brought the plight of African Americans to the public consciousness and firmly established himself as one of the greatest orators of all time. Behind the Dream is a thrilling, behind-the-scenes account of the weeks leading up to the great event, as told by Clarence Jones, co-writer of the speech and close confidant to King. Jones was there, on the road, collaborating with the great minds of the time, and hammering out the ideas and the speech that would shape the civil rights movement and inspire Americans for years to come.
The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s
Piers Brendon - 2000
In this sweeping history, Piers Brendon brings the tragic, dismal days of the 1930s to life. From Stalinist pogroms to New Deal programs, Brendon re-creates the full scope of a slow international descent towards war. Offering perfect sketches of the players, riveting descriptions of major events and crises, and telling details from everyday life, he offers both a grand, rousing narrative and an intimate portrait of an era that make sense out of the fascinating, complicated, and profoundly influential years of the 1930s.
Just a Drop of Water
Kerry O'Malley Cerra - 2014
Right now, though, he just wants to outsmart—and outrun—the rival cross country team, the Palmetto Bugs. But then the tragedy of September 11 happens. It’s quickly discovered that one of the hijackers lived nearby, making Jake’s Florida town an FBI hot spot. Two days later, the tragedy becomes even more personal when Jake’s best friend, Sam Madina, is pummeled for being an Arab Muslim by their bully classmate, Bobby.According to Jake’s personal code of conduct, anyone who beats up your best friend is due for a butt kicking, and so Jake goes after Bobby. But soon after, Sam’s father is detained by the FBI and Jake’s mom doubts the innocence of Sam’s family, forcing Jake to choose between his best friend and his parents. When Jake finds out that Sam’s been keeping secrets, too, he doesn’t know who his allies are anymore. But the final blow comes when his grandpa’s real past is revealed to Jake. Suddenly, everything he ever knew to be true feels like one big lie. In the end, he must decide: either walk away from Sam and the revenge that Bobby has planned, or become the hero he’s always aspired to be.A gripping and intensely touching debut middle grade novel by Kerry O’Malley Cerra, Just a Drop of Water brings the events of September 11, which shook the world, into the lens of a young boy who is desperately trying to understand the ramifications of this life-altering event.Winner of a Florida Book Award, the Crystal Kite Award, and named to VOYAs Top Shelf Fiction for Middle Readers' 2014 list, Just a Drop of Water is a read for all age levels.
Crimes of Stalin: The Murderous Career of the Red Tsar
Nigel Cawthorne - 2011
Hitler: The Memoir of the Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer
Ernst Hanfstaengl - 2011
By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists such as Goering, Hess, and Goebbels, and Hanfstaengl became estranged from him. But with the Nazi’s major unexpected political triumph in 1930, Hitler became a national figure, and he invited Hanfstaengl to be his foreign press secretary. It is from this unique insider’s position that the author provides a vivid, intimate view of Hitler—with his neuroses, repressions, and growing megalomania—over the next several years. In 1937, four years after Hitler came to power, relations between Hanfstaengl and the Nazis had deteriorated to such a degree that he was forced to flee for his life, escaping to Switzerland. Here is a portrait of Hitler as you’ve rarely seen him.
The Zimmermann Telegram
Barbara W. Tuchman - 1958
Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era
In January 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that all was lost unless the United States joined the war, but President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality. At just this moment, a crack team of British decoders in a quiet office known as Room 40 intercepted a document that would change history. The Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message to the president of Mexico, inviting him to join Germany and Japan in an invasion of the United States. How Britain managed to inform the American government without revealing that the German codes had been broken makes for an incredible story of espionage and intrigue as only Barbara W. Tuchman could tell it. Praise for The Zimmermann Telegram “A true, lucid thriller . . . a tremendous tale of hushed and unhushed uproars in the linked fields of war and diplomacy . . . Tuchman makes the most of it with a creative writer’s sense of drama and a scholar’s obeisance to the evidence.”—The New York Times “The tale has most of the ingredients of an Eric Ambler spy thriller.”—Saturday Review
Steel Inferno: 1st SS Panzer Corps in Normandy
Michael Reynolds - 1997
After hard fighting, American, British, and Canadian troops won a toehold in Nazi-held Europe. But Germany's elite Panzer divisions hadn't been present at the beaches. Due to poor intelligence and a divided command, the tanks with black crosses only came to the invasion area after the first landings. But when the German Panther and Tiger tanks finally arrived, they were seeking a battle of annihilation, presenting the Allied attack inland with a ring of fire and steel.For nearly two months, the Allies hammered the enemy, even as the Germans attempted to throw them back into the sea. Some of the most intense armored battles ever fought in war were fought in Normandy, bringing glory and infamy to hardened and colorful soldiers such as Kurt "Panzer" Meyer, Jochen Peiper, and Max Wunsche, and enhancing their reputations for ferocious, desperate combat. In the end, their actions would decide the outcome of the war.Told in an engaging style and packed full of fascinating details of the 1st SS Panzer Corps, Steel Inferno offers a unique perspective on one of the greatest military engagements in history.
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy
Thomas Buergenthal - 2007
Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. Now dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship. A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all.
Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War
Giles Milton - 2011
It is a powerful story of warfare and human survival and a reminder that civilians on all sides suffered the consequences of Hitler's war.
Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?
David Fromkin - 2004
For nearly a century since, historians have debated the causes of the war. Some have cited the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; others have concluded it was unavoidable.In Europe’s Last Summer, David Fromkin provides a different answer: hostilities were commenced deliberately. In a riveting re-creation of the run-up to war, Fromkin shows how German generals, seeing war as inevitable, manipulated events to precipitate a conflict waged on their own terms. Moving deftly between diplomats, generals, and rulers across Europe, he makes the complex diplomatic negotiations accessible and immediate. Examining the actions of individuals amid larger historical forces, this is a gripping historical narrative and a dramatic reassessment of a key moment in the twentieth-century.
Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial
Richard J. Evans - 2001
No objective historian, declared the judge, would manipulate the documentary record in the way that Irving did. Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief advisor for the defense, uses this pivotal trial as a lens for exploring a range of difficult questions about the nature of the historian's enterprise. For instance, don't all historians in the end bring a subjective agenda to bear on their reading of the evidence? Is it possible that Irving lost his case not because of his biased history but because his agenda was unacceptable? The central issue in the trial -- as for Evans in this book -- was not the past itself, but the way in which historians study the past. In a series of short, sharp chapters, Richard Evans sets David Irving's methods alongside the historical record in order to illuminate the difference between responsible and irresponsible history. The result is a cogent and deeply informed study in the nature of historical interpretation.
Tobacco Sticks
William Hazelgrove - 1995
Old loyalties and familiar ties are abandoned as their sleepy community lashes out with hate when Burke Hartwell, Sr. chooses to defend a black maid who is accused of stealing a priceless heirloom from the man who wants to remain the U.S. Senator from Virginia. As his world fills with confusing strife, 13-year-old Lee Hartwell struggles to avoid the perils of first love, break the silence between his family and the brother they refuse to understand, and make his way in a time of unrelenting change. Through it all, his father counsels and confides, easing the path of maturity with a strength of conviction that takes a lifetime to learn.
On War
Carl von Clausewitz - 1832
Its coherence and ambition are unmatched by other military literature. On War is full of sharp observation, biting irony, and memorable phrases, the most famous being, "War is a continuation of politics by other means."About the AuthorExcept for a brief stint in 1812 when he served in the Russian army, Clausewitz spent his whole career, from the age of twelve until his death in 1831, in the Prussian army. He fought in all the major Prussian campaigns against France, and his most fateful experience - the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, in which Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army - inspired him to write On War.
Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil
Ron Rosenbaum - 1998
Hitler did not escape the bunker in Berlin but, half a century later, he has managed to escape explanation in ways both frightening and profound. Explaining Hitler is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories. This is a passionate, enthralling book that illuminates what Hitler explainers tell us about Hitler, about the explainers, and about ourselves.
There Will Be Killing: A Novel of War and Murder
John L. Hart - 2014
What country in its right mind would draft a child psychiatrist fresh out of his residency from Columbia University Med School and send him to Vietnam in 1969? But Izzy was here for the duration: three-sixty-four and a wake-up. A year that would change everything.Assigned to the 99KO, the psychiatric unit of the 8th Field Hospital in sultry Nha Trang, Izzy attempts to use his skills in ways he never could have imagined; not to heal, but to get boys back onto the field of battle. A circle of compatriots soon grows around him – Gregg, the surfer dude turned psychologist; Rick, the tough-as-nails Special Ops commando; J.D., a man of many guises and even more secrets; Margie, the gorgeous, relentless head psychiatric nurse; Kate, the stunning thrill-seeker with a taste for the illicit; Nikki, the endearing, incongruously sweet Red Cross dolly. As their relationships weave and intertwine, the face of Vietnam evolves for Izzy.But nothing will turn his world upside down – and redefine the nature of war to him – like the mission on which he finds himself an unwilling participant. Someone is massacring soldiers in unthinkable ways with the goal of demoralizing via terror, and Izzy needs to be part of the team tracking down the killer. Before he'd come to Vietnam, Izzy had never heard the term "ghost soldier." Now one might dictate what remains of his life.Written with the verisimilitude only possible from someone who has been there, THERE WILL BE KILLING is an unforgettable work of fiction brimming with horror and humanity.