Each volume will include a foreword by Wesley K. Clark, and be co-edited by a different foreign general who will write an afterword. This exciting new series opens with “The Desert Fox,” the most famous German field marshall in World War II, Erwin Rommel. A hero of the people of the Third Reich and widely respected by his opponents, Rommel proved himself highly adept at Blitzkrieg warfare. Both in France and North Africa he consistently outwitted his adversaries through his ability to sense the weak spot in his enemy's deployment and the pace at which he conducted his operations. Rommel’s serious wounding in France came just three days before the aborted attempt on Hitler’s life. Rommel subsequently came under suspicion of being involved in the plot and, under pressure, he committed suicide. Rommel displayed an outstanding ability to seize the initiative and retain it, and here, Charles Messenger draws on the skills behind this ability for the benefit of modern day leaders.

    The Devil and Dr. Barnes traces the near-mythical journey of a man who was born into poverty, amassed a fortune through the promotion of a popular medicine, and acquired the premier private collection of works by such masters as Renoir, Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Ostentatiously turning his back on the art establishment, Barnes challenged the aesthetic sensibilities of an uninitiated, often resistant and scoffing, American audience. In particular, he championed Matisse, Soutine, and Modigliani when they were obscure or in difficult straits. Analyzing what he saw as the formal relationships underlying all art, linking the old and the new, Barnes applied these principles in a rigorous course of study offered at his Merion foundation. Barnes's own mordant words, culled from the copious printed record, animate the narrative throughout, as do accounts of his associations with notables of the era--Gertrude and Leo Stein, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey among them--many of whom he alienated with his appetite for passionate, public feuds. In this rounded portrait, Albert Barnes emerges as a complex, flawed man, who--blessed with an astute eye for greatness--has left us an incomparable treasure, gathered in one place and unforgettable to all who have seen it.

    But for Wylie, the gentle, cropped eared ball of fur, miracles seemed to happen quite regularly. Beaten and abused at the hands of uncaring humans, Wylie suffered terrible injuries that needed urgent treatment. Rescued close to death, with hacked off ears and a severed tail, he was attended to by soldiers who feared he would not last the night. Astonishingly he did, only to return days later with new injuries. However a lifeline came when he was handed over to animal welfare Charity Nowzad and flown to Britain in the hope of finding a new life. But would anyone take a chance on a seemingly undomesticated stray? Luckily for Wylie his biggest adventure yet was about to begin...

    Many of the legends you grew up with no longer apply, so whatever you've heard probably does not reflect the reality of service today. Evan McGorman explains in detail how to apply to get into this elite corps, what to expect if accepted, and how to make the most of the experience.

    Though lesser known than other wars the US has fought over the years, it was an important conflict that set the stage for the US to earn a reputation as a respected nation that could demonstrate power on foreign lands as well as its homeland…   PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book.    Inside this Instaread of Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: Overview of the book Important People Key Takeaways Analysis of Key Takeaways   About the Author With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

    *Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

    Navy history. In only 76 days of combat, Blackburn's Jolly Rogers downed a record 154 enemy warplanes, and Blackburn himself emerged as one of VF-17’s leading aces with eleven aerial combat victories to his credit. A complete history of the squadron from its commissioning in January 1943 to its disbanding in April 1944—including a harrowing account of the squadron’s intense, winning campaign against the Japanese over the northern Solomon Islands and Fortress Rabaul—this book offers a fascinating look at Blackburn’s approach to organizing, training, and leading his pilots—thirteen of whom, the author included, became air aces.

    As the war rages somewhere far beyond the boundaries of his hometown, he spends his days delivering newspapers, riding the trolley to the local amusement park, going to Orioles' baseball games, and goofing around with his younger sister. With a sharp eye for details, Osgood captures the texture of life in a very different era, a time before the polio vaccine and the atomic bomb. In his neighborhood of Liberty Heights, gaslights still glowed on every corner, milkmen delivered bottles of milk, and a loaf of bread cost nine cents. Osgood reminisces about his first fist-fight with a kid from the neighborhood, his childhood crush on a girl named Sue, and his relationship with his father, a traveling salesman. He also talks about his early love for radio and how he used to huddle under the covers after his parents had turned off the lights, listening to Superman, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, and, of course, to baseball games.Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack is a gloriously funny and nostalgic slice of American life and a moving look at World War II from the perspective of a child far away from the fighting, but very conscious of the reverberations.

    The author witnessed the mud-soaked agony of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and the rapidly moving events of the following year. The book contains one of the most extraordinary accounts of the German spring offensive in 1918, from the point of view of a gunner officer with a grandstand view of the ruthless German advance.The author's father was Prime Minister at the outbreak of the first world war. The author's three brothers also served during the war; his eldest brother died during the Battle of the Somme.

    

    At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II.This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II.A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. Charlie would face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddies’ planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of 1,000 bombers each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack. Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American 8th Air Force would later classify as “top secret.” It was an act that Franz could never mention or else face a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.

    A firsthand exploration of war and the people who survive it in three of the most war-ravaged countries on earth: Sierra Leone, Chechnya, and Bougainville.

    208 pp. 15,000 print.From the Hardcover edition.

    Initially cast as target-spotters for gunships and air-assault forces, the scout pilots evolved into live bait as enemy weapons and tactics improved. Their small helicopters were vulnerable even to minor damage, and parachuting from a damaged bird was impossible. Casualty rates could be as high as 50%; a scout unit often resembled a WWI fighter squadron, with replacements dying almost before they could unpack. Yet fresh volunteers kept coming, even if only to stay out of the infantry. In his visceral memoir, Smith tells the familiar story of a young man who flunked out of college, sampled the 1960s counterculture and found himself first in the army, then in Vietnam. For Smith, the war was a theater of the absurd whose only meaning was survival. His narrative of low-altitude, high-risk operations in 1969-70 replicates that of others: initial confusion giving way first to proficiency and pleasure in stalking and killing anonymous enemies, later to a sense that both his skill and his luck are running out. Gritty enough to appeal to adventure fans, this memoir makes a useful contribution to a subject, American helicopter pilots in Vietnam, whose recorded history is largely still in its anecdotal stage.

    It is filled with dozens of humorous tales of musician antics and concert meltdowns. Outsiders are rarely allowed such access, but at last you can have your own personal tour of the mystical and magical realm of professional orchestras and the people who play in them. "Real Men Don't Rehearse" was written by Justin Locke, who spent 18 seasons as a professional freelance double bassist in Boston. He played with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops, as well as for ballets, operas, and Broadway shows. He is also well known in the symphonic world as the author of "Peter VS. the Wolf" and "The Phantom of the Orchestra," which are internationally acclaimed programs for orchestra family concerts. This is the perfect gift for your favorite music lover! This is a book no musical library should be without!