Book picks similar to
Life and Death at Windover by Rachel K. Wentz


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Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers


Glen Simmons - 1998
    . . should have strong, immediate interest for the ecologists engaged in efforts to restore the Everglades."--William B. Robertson, research biologist for Everglades National ParkFrom the book--Pa built our house out of rough lumber that they got from Frazier’s sawmill . . . a one-room house about 16 to 18 feet long and 12 feet wide. We all slept on cots and sat on boxes or a trunk. The kitchen was in the corner, and Ma cooked on a four-hole stove, which cost six dollars. Me and my middle brother, Alvin, sat on a trunk to eat at the table. That trunk had some long cracks in it. My brother knew just how to move so the crack would pinch . . . .Years before the Park was established, when all the land and marsh seemed to belong to me, we would help ourselves to whatever we could see or trade for survival. Mostly we would sell gator and otter hides. . . . On this particular trip, after grunting awhile at the gator hole, I gave up and made tracks to the camp since I wanted to return by dark. . . . I was lying under my skeeter bar with a small tarp stretched between two cabbage palms. About midnight, I heard the dried cabbage fronds breaking in the path toward my camp. The night was pitch black . . .Few people today can claim a living memory of Florida's frontier Everglades. Glen Simmons, who has hunted alligators, camped on hammock-covered islands, and poled his skiff through the mangrove swamps of the glades since the 1920s, is one who can. Together with Laura Ogden, he tells the story of backcountry life in the southern Everglades from his youth until the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947. During the economic bust of the late ‘20s, when many natives turned to the land to survive, Simmons began accompanying older local men into Everglades backcountry, the inhospitable prairie of soft muck and mosquitoes, of outlaws and moonshiners, that rings the southern part of the state. As Simmons recalls life in this community with humor and nostalgia, he also documents the forgotten lifestyles of south Florida gladesmen. By necessity, they understood the natural features of the Everglades ecosystem. They observed the seasonal fluctuations of wildlife, fire, and water levels. Their knowledge of the mostly unmapped labyrinth of grassy water enabled them to serve as guides for visiting naturalists and scientists. Simmons reconstructs this world, providing not only fascinating stories of individual personalities, places, and events, but an account that is accurate, both scientifically and historically, of one of the least known and longest surviving portions of the American frontier.Glen Simmons has lived in the south Florida Everglades since his birth in 1916 in Homestead. In 1995 he was awarded a State of Florida Heritage Award for his unique contribution to Florida's history and folk culture. He has demonstrated and taught glades skiff building for the Florida Department of State, Bureau of Folklife, and the South Florida Historical Society; his boats are on permanent display at the Florida Folklife Museum in White Springs, Florida, and at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Miami.Laura Ogden, also born in Homestead and a life-long friend of Glen Simmons, is assistant professor of anthropology at Florida International University.

Pandemics: Our Fears and the Facts (Kindle Single)


Sunetra Gupta - 2013
    As recently as 1918, a pandemic of influenza claimed over 50 million lives worldwide. The advent of drugs and vaccines led to an era of hope when we thought our battles with infectious disease were won, but our optimism has been eroded by the recognition that many pathogens have the capacity to transform themselves and escape our efforts to eradicate them. Are we now facing an inevitable repeat of a calamity such as the 1918 influenza pandemic or the Black Death? Can we anticipate and thwart such an event, or are we wilfully creating the conditions that would promote the emergence of new and highly virulent human infectious disease?Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford specialising in infectious diseases. She holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She has been awarded the Scientific Medal by the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific research. She is also a novelist whose books have been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Crossword Award, and longlisted for the DSC and Orange Prizes.

Sikhs: The Untold Agony Of 1984


Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - 2015
    She claimed the police had inserted a stick inside her… Swaranpreet realised that she had been cruelly violated; He spoke a single sentence but repeated it twice in chaste Punjabi: ‘Please give me a turban? I want nothing else…’ These are voices begging for deliverance in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October-November 1984 in which 2,733 Sikhs were killed, burnt and exterminated by lumpens in the country. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay walks us through one of the most shameful episodes of sectarian violence in post Independent India and highlights the apathy of subsequent governments towards Sikhs who paid a price for what was clearly a state-sponsored riot. Poignant, raw and most importantly, macabre, the personal histories in the book reveal how even after three decades, a community continues to battle for its identity in its own country.

The Economist - US Edition


The Economist - 2011
    Download issues at no extra cost from Archived Items. The Economist is the premier source for the analysis of world business and current affairs, providing authoritative insight and opinion on international news, world politics, business, finance, science and technology, as well as overviews of cultural trends and regular Special reports on industries and countries. Established in 1843 to campaign against the protectionist corn laws, The Economist remains, in the second half of its second century, true to the liberal principles of its founder. James Wilson, a hat maker from the small Scottish town of Hawick, believed in free trade, internationalism and minimum interference by government, especially in the affairs of the market. The Economist also takes a fiercely independent stance on social issues, from gay marriage to the legalisation of drugs, but its main service to its readers is as a global newspaper: To uncover new ideas from all around the world. The Kindle Edition of The Economist contains all of the articles and graphics found in the print edition, but will not include all photos. For your convenience, issues are auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle each Friday at the same time the print edition hits the newsstand.

As if it were yesterday: An old fat man remembers his youth as a Marine in Vietnam


Lee Suydam - 2017
    I try to tell what it was like for me and my brother Marines without fanfare or bravado and give the reader a vivid description of my 13 months.

Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End


Brent Schulte - 2019
    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!

Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital, and the great Southwest in the days of the wild Indian, the buffalo, the cowboy, dance halls, gambling halls and bad men (1913)


Robert Marr Wright - 1975
     With all that has been said about Dodge City no true account of conditions as they were in the early days was accessible until publication of Robert Wright's 1911 book "Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital." The author was especially well qualified to write a history of the "wicked city of the plains" since he had lived on the frontier for many years previous to the founding of the city and lived in the city from its opening. He had all the experience gleaned as a plainsman, explorer, scout, trader and as mayor of the town. His is a most interesting narrative of early days, as well as a very valuable contribution to western history. Prior to founding Dodge City in 1868, at 16 years old Wright came West to Missouri. In 1859 he made the first of six overland trips across the plains to Denver. He was later appointed post trader at Fort Dodge in 1867, when Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Prairie Apache abounded there. Wright was acquainted with old-school Western sheriff and gunfighter Bat Masterson, of whom he said, "Bat is a gentleman by instinct. He is a man of pleasant manners, good address and mild disposition, until aroused, and then, for God's sake, look out! "Bat was a most loyal man to his friends. If anyone did him a favor, he never forgot it. I believe that if one of his friends was confined in jail and there was the least doubt of his innocence, he would take a crow-bar and 'jimmy' and dig him out, at the dead hour of midnight; and, if there were determined men guarding him, he would take these desperate chances...." Wright describes a typical day in Dodge: "Someone ran by my store at full speed, crying out, 'Our marshal is being murdered in the dance hall!' I, with several others, quickly ran to the dance hall and burst in the door. The house was so dense with smoke from the pistols a person could hardly see, but Ed Masterson had corralled a lot in one corner of the hall, with his sixshooter in his left hand, holding them there until assistance could reach him...." Wright also describes one hair-raising encounter he witnessed from a roof on his ranch: "The savages circled around the poor Mexican again and again; charged him from the front and rear and on both sides. Presently the poor fellow's horse went down, and he lay behind it for awhile. Then he cut the girth, took off the saddle, and started for the river, running at every possible chance, using the saddle as a shield, stopping to show fight only when the savages pressed him too closely

Stepping Stones: A Journey Through The Ice Age Caves Of The Dordogne


Christine Desdemaines-Hugon - 2010
    A rapturous guide through five major Ice Age sites” (Archaeology).   The cave art of France’s Dordogne region is world-famous for the mythology and beauty of its remarkable drawings and paintings. These ancient images of lively bison, horses, and mammoths, as well as symbols of all kinds, are fascinating touchstones in the development of human culture, demonstrating how far humankind has come and reminding us of the ties that bind us across the ages.   Over more than twenty-five years of teaching and research, Christine Desdemaines-Hugon has become an unrivaled expert in the cave art and artists of the Dordogne region. In Stepping-Stones she combines her expertise in both art and archaeology to convey an intimate understanding of the “cave experience.” Her keen insights communicate not only the incomparable artistic value of these works but also the near-spiritual impact of viewing them for oneself.   Focusing on five fascinating sites, including the famed Font de Gaume and others that still remain open to the public, this book reveals striking similarities between art forms of the Paleolithic and works of modern artists and gives us a unique pathway toward understanding the culture of the Dordogne Paleolithic peoples and how it still touches our lives today.   “Her vivid descriptions help readers visualize the Cro-Magnon man or woman painting the beautiful bison, horses, mammoths, and other symbols. [A] fine reading experience.” —Library Journal

The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution


Bruce R. Fenton - 2017
    Each clique of scientists has a part of the story correct, but new evidence shows they are all fundamentally wrong.On the one side, we have academics highlighting the astonishing fossil record of China with multiple sites now producing modern human fossils aged between 80 - 120 thousand years, or older. Several extremely ancient fossil finds in China, including Dali, Maba and Jinniushan, place archaic Homo sapiens in this region up to 260,000 years ago.On the other side, we have scientists pointing to Africa's impressive fossil record with its evidence of potential ancestors going back around 6 million years. The evidence of extreme genetic diversity among Africans and the discovery of 300,000-year-old archaic Homo sapiens fossils in Morocco tends to further support the idea that humans came out from Africa. We can understand why both sides are so sure of their positions, and why the debate continues. While leading academics focussed on their own agendas, they overlooked significant evidence. Between the two poles of Out of Africa and Out of Asia Theory, exists a 'Middle Way'. The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution, reveals that within the known fossil record, the current genetic studies and recent paleoclimate models there is compelling evidence for a superior theory of human origins, representing a paradigm displacement.The Into Africa Theory does not dispute the evidence placing the earliest hominins in Africa.However, it does not agree with the consensus view that Homo sapiens emerged there first and later migrated to Eurasia.The Into Africa Theory recognises the extraordinary evidence for critical stages in our development occurring in East and Southeast Asia. It is abundantly clear that as a new concerted effort to gather and evaluate fossil evidence begins in earnest we see astonishing new discoveries. The Into Africa Theorydisputes the claims of Out of Africa and Out of Asia(or Europe) adherents over the starting point for the migration which populated Eurasia approximately 60,000 years ago and identifies the actual location.Amazing facts that you will encounter:-Homo heidelbergensis was not ancestral to modern humans -Denisovan fossils in Siberia carried DNAfrom Australian Aboriginals-An Indonesian supervolcano brought about the end for multiple hominin species-Climate catastrophe locked humans in Africa from 73,000 to 59,000 years ago-There is no African fossil DNA over 10,000 years in age-While supposedly isolated, Aboriginal Australians interbred with Denisovans 44,000 years agoYou will gain access to a long-forgotten conversation involving the famous evolutionary scientists Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cann, in which they admitted that their data suggested Aboriginal Australians were ancestral to all modern humans.Learn why the appearance of the haplogroups foundational to Eurasians, L3 and CT, had to come from a population incursion rather than an in-situ mutation.Explore the cutting-edge scientific findings of 2016 and 2017 alongside a broad range of anomalies long suppressed or ignored in academic circles.The Forgotten Exodus' author Bruce R. Fenton began his journey towards a new understanding of human origins after an expedition to a mysterious megalithic complex in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Information Systems professional and lifelong scholar of ancient cultures, found himself tracing the threads of the human story across six continents and through 6,000,000 years of history. You will come away with a unique view of humanity and a sense of excitement for revelations still set to arrive. This book reminds all of us that we have a collective ability to overcome enormous obstacles.

Digging for the Truth: One Man's Epic Adventure Exploring the World's Greatest Archaeological Mysteries


Josh Bernstein - 2006
    Here, he shares his personal stories, journals and insights, revealing the risks and dangers of what went on behind-the-scenes in shooting his show 'Digging For The Truth'.

Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millennials


Matthew Hennessey - 2018
    Soon Gen Xers will be the only cohort of Americans who remember life as it was lived before the arrival of the Internet. They are, as Hennessey dubs them, “the last adult generation,” the sole remaining link to a time when childhood was still a bit dangerous but produced adults who were naturally resilient. More than a decade into the social media revolution, the American public is waking up to the idea that the tech sector’s intentions might not be as pure as advertised. The mountains of money being made off our browsing habits and purchase histories are used to fund ever-more extravagant and utopian projects that, by their very natures, will corrode the foundations of free society, leaving us all helpless and digitally enslaved to an elite crew of ultra-sophisticated tech geniuses. But it’s not too late to turn the tide. There’s still time for Gen X to write its own future. A spirited defense of free speech, eye contact, and the virtues of patience, Zero Hour for Gen X is a cultural history of the last 35 years, an analysis of the current social and historical moment, and a generational call to arms.

Anthropology and the Study of Humanity


Scott M. Lacy - 2017
    

Stalingrad: The Battle that Shattered Hitler's Dream of World Domination


Rupert Matthews - 2012
    The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German 6th Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.Over 1.5 million people lost their lives during the six months of fighting, many of them civilians caught up in the campaign. For the first time in the war, the German army had been defeated on the field of battle. Before Stalingrad the Russians never won; after Stalingrad they could not lose.This book looks at the titanic struggle that ended in the total destruction of the second city of the Soviet Union, the greatest battle the world has ever seen.

A Guide to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot


Liss Ross - 2012
    It includes a list of important people and important terms, and overall book summary, a chapter by chapter book summary as well as a supplemental essay.

A TASTE OF THE TRENCHES: The story of a soldier on the Western Front


D. Reitz - 2015
     Deneys Reitz was an unusual soldier. Having fought against the British in the Boer War, in 1917 he decided to go to London, in order to join the British Army. Presenting himself at a recruiting office in Chelsea, he enlisted as a private soldier. Shortly afterwards he was commissioned, and was sent to the Western Front in September 1917. Whilst on the Western Front, he witnessed the German spring offensive in 1918, and the allied counter-attack which followed. He was wounded twice as well as being gassed. Reitz experienced more than his fair share of the difficulties of trench warfare, from finding himself living in a trench whose sides were built out of sandbag-covered corpses, to being stretchered into a Casualty Clearing Station with serious wounds.