This book tells the story of the thirty-year unfolding and undoing of that movement. Ada Ferrer examines the participation of black and mulatto Cubans in nationalist insurgency from 1868, when a slaveholder began the revolution by freeing his slaves, until the intervention of racially segregated American forces in 1898. In so doing, she uncovers the struggles over the boundaries of citizenship and nationality that their participation brought to the fore, and she shows that even as black participation helped sustain the movement ideologically and militarily, it simultaneously prompted accusations of race war and fed the forces of counterinsurgency.Carefully examining the tensions between racism and antiracism contained within Cuban nationalism, Ferrer paints a dynamic portrait of a movement built upon the coexistence of an ideology of racial fraternity and the persistence of presumptions of hierarchy.

    Hitler is dead, and the Third Reich little more than smoking rubble. No GI wants to be the last man killed in action against the Germans. But for cigar-chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking, hard-charging Captain Jack Lee and his men, there is one more mission: rescue fourteen prominent French prisoners held in an SS-guarded castle high in the Austrian Alps. It’s a dangerous mission, but Lee has help from a decorated German Wehrmacht officer and his men, who voluntarily join the fight.Based on personal memoirs, author interviews, and official American, German, and French histories, The Last Battle is the nearly unbelievable story of the most improbable battle of World War II — a tale of unlikely allies, bravery, cowardice, and desperate combat between implacable enemies.

    Traveling to Scotland to marry a Laird she has never met, all her plans are demolished when she meets the dashing Highlander sent to escort her.Andrew MacLohl’s life changed with his father’s death. A warrior under Laird Lochenbrew’s command, he leads a quiet life, despite the Laird’s dismay for him. When he is tasked with the protection of the Laird’s bride-to-be, his efforts not to give in to his scorching desire for her fall short.Ambushed by bandits, Juliana and an injured Andrew are forced to take shelter in a neighboring Laird’s castle. Only to stumble upon long-buried secrets that should have been taken to the grave: a conspiracy that started twenty-six years ago.A conspiracy that thirsts for Andrew's blood…*Consumed by the Lost Highlander is a steamy Scottish historical romance novel of 80,000 words (around 400 pages). No cheating, no cliffhangers, lots of steam and a happy ending.

    Especially one into the unknown. The shocking discovery of her lover with someone else propels Roxanne into escaping to France, and seeking work as a grape-picker. She's never been abroad before and certainly never travelled alone. Opportunistic loner, Armand, exploits her vulnerability when they meet by chance. She never thought she would see him again, or be the one who exposes his terrible crime.Join Roxanne on her journey of self discovery, love and tragedy in rural France. Taste the wine, feel the sun, drive through the Provencal mountains with her, as her courage and resourcefulness are tested to the limit.

    Over a thousand of these soldiers were Australian. By the end of the war, just one-third of them had survived and Ambon became a place of nightmares, one of the most notorious of all POW camps the war had seen.Many of the men captured were massacred, and of those who initially survived, many later succumbed to the sadistic brutality of the Japanese guards. Starvation also took a fearful toll, and then there were the medical 'experiments'. It was a place almost without hope for those who held on, made worse by the fact that the savagery inflicted on them wasn't limited to their captors but also came from their own. One soldier described their hopelessness towards the end with the bleak words: 'The men knew they were dying.'Yet astoundingly there were survivors and in Ambon they speak of not just the horrors, but the bravery, endurance and mateship that got them through an ordeal almost impossible to imagine.The story of Ambon is one of both the depravity and the triumph of the human spirit; it is also one that's not been widely told. Until now.

    Not only are such phenomena possible, they happen fairly often, with dolls being one of the most frequent targets of spirit attachment. Sometimes those spirits are benign, or at the most mischievous. But many are outright evil and dangerous. This book examines some of the world’s most famous haunted dolls. Some you may have heard about. Others will be new. All will make you reconsider the world you thought you knew. Here is some of what you’ll find inside: * Robert, the haunted doll from Key West. A lot of the information out there about him is wrong. Find out the truth behind the legend. But don’t think the truth is any less terrifying. * Annabelle, the demonic doll featured in the movies The Conjuring and Annabelle. Find out why the real Annabelle is much, much more frightening. * Peggy, the Internet sensation. Why you should think twice before looking at her picture. * Find out which doll started as a hoax, turned into a terrifying reality, and is now considered one of the most "active" haunted dolls in the world. * Discover which exotic locale and tourist attraction is a pediophobe’s biggest nightmare. You won’t believe such a place exists. * Clown dolls. Need more be said? These stories and many more are what you’ll find in this collection of true accounts from the frightening yet fascinating world of haunted and demonic dolls. Reading this book will undoubtedly raise more questions than it answers, but one thing is assured: you’ll never look at a doll the same again.

    Today those first wars continue to be fought around and inside us, influencing our individual behavior and that of civilization as a whole. War between populations—whether between different species or between rival groups of humans—is seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular concept of survival of the fittest explains and often excuses these actions.In Population Wars, Greg Graffin points to where the mainstream view of evolutionary theory has led us astray. That misunderstanding has allowed us to justify wars on every level, whether against bacterial colonies or human societies, even when other, less violent solutions may be available. Through tales of mass extinctions, developing immune systems, human warfare, the American industrial heartland, and our degrading modern environment, Graffin demonstrates how an oversimplified idea of war, with its victorious winners and vanquished losers, prevents us from responding to the real problems we face. Along the way, Graffin reveals a paradox: When we challenge conventional definitions of war, we are left with a new problem—how to define ourselves.Population Wars is a paradigm-shifting book about why humans behave the way they do and the ancient history that explains that behavior. In reading it, you'll see why we need to rethink the reasons for war, not only the human military kind but also Darwin's "war of nature," and find hope for a less violent future for mankind.

    Unable to sell a policy to Marais, Calvin joins Marais' merry band of mercenaries--until a fictious diary is stolen, and he is drawn into an explosion of violence. An audacious novel from the author of Riding the Iron Rooster.

    Prince, coauthor of the highly regarded blog of the same name, examines how the life of the franchise mirrors the life of its fans, particularly his own. Unabashedly and unapologetically, Prince stands up for all Mets fans and, by proxy, sports fans everywhere in exploring how we root, why we take it so seriously, and what it all means. What was it like to enter a baseball world about to be ruled by the Mets in 1969? To understand intrinsically that You Gotta Believe? To overcome the trade of an idol and the dissolution of a roster? To hope hard for a comeback and then receive it in thrilling fashion in 1986? To experience the constant ups and downs the Mets would dispense for the next two decades? To put ups with the Yankees right next door? To make the psychic journey from Shea Stadium to Citi Field? To sort the myths from the realities? Greg Prince, as he has done for thousands of loyal Faith and Fear in Flushing readers daily since 2005, puts it all in perspective as only he can.

    This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. An aristocratic woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame) —these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of illustrations.

    But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects. Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief —until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. The Map Thief delves into the untold history of this fascinating high-stakes criminal and the inside story of the industry that consumed him. Acclaimed reporter Michael Blanding has interviewed all the key players in this stranger-than-fiction story, and shares the fascinating histories of maps that charted the New World, and how they went from being practical instruments to quirky heirlooms to highly coveted objects. Though pieces of the map theft story have been written before, Blanding is the first reporter to explore the story in full—and had the rare privilege of having access to Smiley himself after he’d gone silent in the wake of his crimes. Moreover, although Smiley swears he has admitted to all of the maps he stole, libraries claim he stole hundreds more—and offer intriguing clues to prove it. Now, through a series of exclusive interviews with Smiley and other key individuals, Blanding teases out an astonishing tale of destruction and redemption. The Map Thief interweaves Smiley’s escapades with the stories of the explorers and mapmakers he knew better than anyone. Tracking a series of thefts as brazen as the art heists in Provenance and a subculture as obsessive as the oenophiles in The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Blanding has pieced together an unforgettable story of high-stakes crime.

    Bringing together elements of early modern European, African, and American history--their common, comparative, and interactive aspects--Atlantic history embraces essentials of Western civilization, from the first contacts of Europe with the Western Hemisphere to the independence movements and the globalizing industrial revolution. In these probing essays, Bernard Bailyn explores the origins of the subject, its rapid development, and its impact on historical study.He first considers Atlantic history as a subject of historical inquiry--how it evolved as a product of both the pressures of post-World War II politics and the internal forces of scholarship itself. He then outlines major themes in the subject over the three centuries following the European discoveries. The vast contribution of the African people to all regions of the West, the westward migration of Europeans, pan-Atlantic commerce and its role in developing economies, racial and ethnic relations, the spread of Enlightenment ideas--all are Atlantic phenomena.In examining both the historiographical and historical dimensions of this developing subject, Bailyn illuminates the dynamics of history as a discipline.

    Sort of. As the back-up for several legendary goalies, he saw everything - except much playing time. In this book, McLennan looks back on his career, from breaking into the NHL, to working with the legends, to life on the road and in the league.

    Immensely readable' Douglas Alexander, Financial TimesA compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from 'the most brilliant British historian of his generation' (The Times)Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.'Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant' New York Times'Stimulating, thought-provoking ... Readers will find much to relish' Martin Bentham, Evening Standard

    Many years later, a couple sailing around the world take refuge on an uncharted island. Although they believe the tiny atoll to be uninhabited, it is actually home to a mysterious woman who has been stranded there for more than forty years. As that woman ponders whether to stay hidden or step back into society, a tempestuous storm threatens to change the course of all their lives.