The front lines are collapsing all around, bombs are falling. On Thuringia too, a state in the centre-east of Germany. The Second World War is nearing its end. Boys of fifteen and sixteen from the Jungvolk and Hitler Youth movements set off in the belief that they can still save the fatherland – they are determined to defend it, bravely and loyally. Inadequately armed, however, they are forced to retreat from the advancing enemy in an entirely pointless march. They are taken prisoner and transferred to one of the infamous camps near Bad Kreuznach. Conditions in the camp are tough. The diarist is fortunate enough to survive and to be released relatively early, at the end of June 1945. Germany, spring 2005. The fatherland too has survived and has been reunified. It is a year of commemoration days, of monuments and memorials, and in the run-up to the sixtieth anniversary it is already being declared by all the media as a year of remembrance of the downfall of the ‘Third Reich’. Inspired by this, the diarist, now seventy-five years old, remembers the notes and diary entries kept at that time by his fifteen-year-old self. Originally written on scraps of toilet paper, he copied them out after his fortunate return in July 1945, and has not looked at them since. The notes are very personal and honest and, above all, authentic. They give an insight into the experiences and the thoughts of a young boy who by his own admission left as a ‘proud soldier’ and returned home as a ‘pitiful vagabond’. It is a historical document. It is not the story of an individual fate. Thousands had the same experiences. That is why the diarist decided, with some hesitation, to publish his diary as a part of the historical truth, even if there already existed numerous reports and publications about the camps in Bad Kreuznach, Bretzenheim, Dietersheim, Bingen, Heidesheim and the other ‘Rhine Meadows camps’. All these records are testament to the fact that tyranny often abounds when one group of people is given unchecked power over another. According to Livy, as many as 2400 years ago the Gaulish king Brennus called to the defeated Romans: ‘Vae victis!’ – woe to the vanquished! Herwarth Metzel

    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.

    We are still waiting to find out who won. The Indy 500 was created to showcase the controversial new sport of automobile racing, which was sweeping the country. Daring young men were driving automobiles at the astonishing speed of 75 miles per hour, testing themselves and their vehicles. It was indeed a young man’s game: with no seat belts, hard helmets or roll bars, the dangers were enormous. When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909, seven people were killed, some of them spectators. Oil-slicked surfaces, clouds of smoke, exploding tires, and flying grit all made driving extremely hazardous, especially with the open-cockpit, windshield-less vehicles. Most drivers rode with a mechanic, who pumped oil manually while watching for cars attempting to pass. Drivers sometimes threw wrenches or bolts at each other during the race in order to gain an advantage. The night before an event, the racers would take up a collection for the next day’s new widows. Bookmakers offered bets not only on who might win but who might survive. Not all the participants in that first Indy 500 lived to see the checkered flag. Although the 1911 Indy 500 judges declared Ray Harroun, driving a Marmon Wasp, the official winner, there is reason to doubt that result. The timekeeping equipment failed, and the judges had to run for their lives when a driver lost control and his car spun wildly toward their stand. It took officials two days to determine the results, and Speedway authorities ordered the records to be destroyed. But Blood and Smoke is about more than a race, even a race as fabled as the Indianapolis 500. It is the story of America at the dawn of the automobile age, 29.99 a country in love with speed, danger, and spectacle. It is a story, too, about the young men who would risk their lives for money and glory, the sportsmen whose antics would thrill and outrage Americans in those long-ago days when the automobile was still brand new.

    Perfect for readers of Max Hastings, Martin Middlebrook and Tim Cook. By 1915, the Western Front had descended into deadlock. Near the town of Ypres, soldiers from Canada, Britain, India, France, Belgium, the French Colonies and Germany sat in long winding trenches facing each other. German commanders sought to break through the Allied lines by using a new weapon: chlorine gas. At five o’clock on 22nd April 1915, German troops opened the valves on their deadly steel cylinders and chemical warfare entered the First World War. As the thick, yellow-green cloud of smoke was carried by the wind into Allied trenches it overcame all those who breathed in its poisonous vapours. By the end of the Second Battle of Ypres, thousands of men had been killed and even more were injured as a result of gas. J. McWilliams and R. J. Steel uncover this horrifying battle from beginning to end and explore what it was like the for the French Algerians who first witnessed the gas clouds approaching them, how the Canadians stubbornly refused to retreat in the face of gas, what the British and Indians hoped to achieve with their tragic counterattacks, and ultimately why the German offensive failed. Gas! The Battle for Ypres, 1915 discusses the course of the battle, not just from the perspective of generals, but also drawing information from the accounts of field commanders and men who were there in the trenches witnessing these terrifying events first-hand.

    So He sent us His very strongest men and women." So begins the heartwarming story of Verna Mae and her father, Isom B. "Kitteneye" Slone, an extraordinary personal family history set in the hills around Caney Creek in Knott County, Kentucky.

    Lee Scott and white-water expert turned sustainability consultant Jib Ellison, the result is nothing less than a green business revolution.Wal-Mart—long the target of local businesses, labor advocates, and environmentalists who deplore its outsourced, big-box methods—has embraced an unprecedented green makeover, which is now spreading worldwide. The retail giant that rose from Sam Walton's Ozarks dime store is leveraging the power of 200 million weekly customers to drive waste, toxics, and carbon emissions out of its stores and products. Neither an act of charity nor an empty greenwash, Wal-Mart's green move reflects its river guide's simple, compelling philosophy: that the most sustainable, clean, energy-efficient, and waste-free company will beat its competitors every time. Not just in some distant, utopian future but today.From energy conservation, recycling, and hybrid trucks to reduced packaging and partnerships with environmentalists it once met only in court, Wal-Mart has used sustainability to boost its bottom line even in a tough economy—belying the age-old claim that going green kills jobs and profits. Now the global apparel business, the American dairy industry, big agriculture, and even Wall Street are following Wal-Mart's lead, along with the 100,000 manufacturers whose products must become more sustainable to remain on Wal-Mart's shelves. Here Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Edward Humes charts the course of this unlikely second industrial revolution, in which corporate titans who once believed profit and planet must be at odds are learning that the best business just may be a force of nature.

    

    My objective has been to provide you with a lifetime supply of icebreakers and points of discussion. Amaze your friends and family by telling them that all the planets in our Solar System could fit in the distance between Earth and the Moon or that flamingos can drink boiling water.Following the success of my site RaiseYourBrain, I decided to collect the best trivia gems and present you with a fact compendium suitable for a wide audience. This is the product of years of sifting through history and references books on a myriad of subjects as well as searching the Internet and paying attention to the news.These facts are a result of years of sifting through history and reference books, as well as searching the Internet and researching the news. Each fact is suitable for nearly any age – the “spiciest” entries are separated by their own chapter but still use clean language!Become a trivia whiz with even more facts in the Hard to Believe Facts series!

    He served with the Legion in Cambodia and Bosnia, then returned to civilian life, but military habits would not allow him to settle.His need for intense excitement and extreme danger drove him back to the lifestyle he knew and loved, and using his Legion training, he became a ?hidden soldierOCO by opting for security missions in Iraq and Haiti.In Iraq he was the sole survivor of an ambush in no manOCOs land between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, the most dangerous place on earth.An intense, exciting and vivid account of extraordinary and sometimes horrific events, "Hidden Soldier" lifts the veil on the dark and shadowy world of security contractors and what the situation is really like in Iraq as well as other trouble spots.This bestseller also includes photographs taken by Padraig OOCOKeeffe while he was a Legionnaire and when he was in Iraq."

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Comprehensive explanations of their secret rituals and symbolism. Including alchemy, astrology, Kabbalism, ceremonial magic, animal magnetism and more.

    But journeys embarked upon full of the joys of the season all too often grind into a standstill of rage and bitterness before Hampshire even gives way to Wiltshire.Four-and-a-half thousand years ago the bluestones of Stonehenge were conveyed west from the river Avon along a small section of its route. Roman roads crossed it and drovers' paths lie beneath it. Its route cuts across some of the finest chalkland in southern England. The views are huge, the hills wide and windswept. Ancient woods lay across the summits of the downs and prehistoric monuments and sites are everywhere, the evidence of ancient habitation and worship left in abundance.Tom Fort samples the fare at the Willoughby Hedge Café , legendary among truckers. He seeks out service stations and inns and turnpike toll houses; tells stories of dreadful crashes and highway robberies; of solstice seekers and Stonehenge; of Queen Guinevere and Sir Launcelot; of army camps and racing tracks; Battles and festivals; of churches, abbeys, farms, houses, burial mounds, trout fishermen and falconers.Digging in dark corners, explorating long-forgotten byways and pouring over ancient maps Tom Fort has created a travel book, a book of social and cultural history, and a book about the England of 3000 BC and the England of 2010 AD.

    He draws on interviews with some of the world’s highest performing researchers, the literature and his own experience to identify a small number of important insights that can transform how researchers work. The book is based on an unparalleled breadth of interdisciplinary evidence that speaks directly to researchers of all disciplines and career stages. The lessons in this book will make you more productive, more satisfied with what you produce, and enable you to be happy working less, and being more. The hardback edition has the title and design imprinted on a fabric cover, hand crafted by a book maker in Yorkshire. It contains spectacular colour photography throughout. Chapters are accompanied by close-up images of trees that build up to the forest metaphor that concludes the book. These are bookended by wide perspective canopy images that accompany the front matter (from which the cover design is derived) and concluding chapter. The overall effect is a touch and feel that makes this a book to savour. Mark Reed is Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University and the University of Leeds. He has over 140 publications that have been cited more than 10,000 times. He is author of The Research Impact Handbook, which he has used to train over 4000 researchers from more than 200 institutions in 55 countries.

    He constructs the story like a detective novel, putting pieces of clues together to form the whole puzzle and he makes an incredibly exciting job of it. He writes for the lay reader but he is far from condescening. His language is a joy to read. I agree with BlairBurton that the book is wildly entertaining but I resented his reference to the author as 'the premier theorist of crackpot science.' Velikovsy's 'crackpot' theories are yet to be disproved and his predictions have the uncanny habit of being proved right so that the world of the scientific community is as shaky as the description of the earth in "Worlds In Collision!" Readers will find great rewards in reading all of his works and judging for themselves. While "Oedipus and Akhnaton" is the least 'scientific' of his works it is no less fascinating and eminently readable.

    And just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. In his innovative account of this interdependency, W. Jeffrey Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world.While overfishing is often thought of as a contemporary problem, Bolster reveals that humans were transforming the sea long before factory trawlers turned fishing from a handliner s art into an industrial enterprise. The western Atlantic s legendary fishing banks, stretching from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, have attracted fishermen for more than five hundred years. Bolster follows the effects of this siren s song from its medieval European origins to the advent of industrialized fishing in American waters at the beginning of the twentieth century.Blending marine biology, ecological insight, and a remarkable cast of characters, from notable explorers to scientists to an army of unknown fishermen, Bolster tells a story that is both ecological and human: the prelude to an environmental disaster. Over generations, harvesters created a quiet catastrophe as the sea could no longer renew itself. Bolster writes in the hope that the intimate relationship humans have long had with the ocean, and the species that live within it, can be restored for future generations.