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The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
By David Halberstam. 2007
"In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."--The New York TimesDavid Halberstam's…
magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures-Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack
By Tom Nagorski. 2006
An unforgettable story of children in wartime, of heroism at sea, and--above all--of courage and the power of the human…
spirit.On September 17, 1940, at a little after ten at night, a German submarine torpedoed the passenger liner S.S. City of Benares in the North Atlantic. There were 406 people on board, but the ship's prized passengers were 90 children whose parents had elected to send their boys and girls away from Great Britain to escape the ravages of World War II. They were considered lucky, headed for quiet, peaceful, and relatively bountiful Canada.The Benares sank in half an hour, in a gale that sent several of her lifeboats pitching into the frigid sea. They were more than five hundred miles from land, three hundred miles from the nearest rescue vessel.Miracles on the Water tells the astonishing story of the survivors--not one of whom had any reasonable hope of rescue as the ship went down. The initial "miracle" involves one British destroyer's race to the scene, against time and against the elements; the second is the story of Lifeboat 12, missed by the destroyer and left out on the water, 46 people jammed in a craft built and stocked for 30. Those people lasted eight days on little food and tiny rations of drinking water. The survivors have grappled ever since with questions about the ordeal: Should the Benares have been better protected? How and why did they persevere? What role did faith and providence play in the outcome?Based on first-hand accounts from the child survivors and other passengers, including the author's great-uncle, Miracles on the Water brings us the story of the attack on the Benares and the extraordinary events that followed.Sid Phillips knew he was a long way from his home in Mobile, Alabama, when he plunged into the jungles…
of Guadalcanal in August 1942... A mortarman with H-2-1 of the legendary 1st Marine Division, Sid was only seventeen years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned Sid into an "Old Timer" by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home a man. These are his memoirs, the humble and candid tales that Sid collected during a Pacific odyssey spanning half the globe, from the grueling boot camp at Parris Island, to the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, to the romantic respite of Australia. In this true story, Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend, Eugene Sledge. Here, he remembers the rain of steel from Japanese bombers and battleships, the brutality of the tropical elements, and the haunting notion of being expendable. This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the inner strength and deep faith necessary to survive the dark, early days, of WWII in the Pacific.The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
By David Halberstam. 2007
"In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."--The New York TimesDavid Halberstam's…
magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures-Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.Miracles on the Water
By Tom Nagorski. 2006
An unforgettable story of children in wartime, of heroism at sea, and--above all--of courage and the power of the human…
spirit.On September 17, 1940, at a little after ten at night, a German submarine torpedoed the passenger liner S.S. City of Benares in the North Atlantic. There were 406 people on board, but the ship's prized passengers were 90 children whose parents had elected to send their boys and girls away from Great Britain to escape the ravages of World War II. They were considered lucky, headed for quiet, peaceful, and relatively bountiful Canada.The Benares sank in half an hour, in a gale that sent several of her lifeboats pitching into the frigid sea. They were more than five hundred miles from land, three hundred miles from the nearest rescue vessel.Miracles on the Water tells the astonishing story of the survivors--not one of whom had any reasonable hope of rescue as the ship went down. The initial "miracle" involves one British destroyer's race to the scene, against time and against the elements; the second is the story of Lifeboat 12, missed by the destroyer and left out on the water, 46 people jammed in a craft built and stocked for 30. Those people lasted eight days on little food and tiny rations of drinking water. The survivors have grappled ever since with questions about the ordeal: Should the Benares have been better protected? How and why did they persevere? What role did faith and providence play in the outcome?Based on first-hand accounts from the child survivors and other passengers, including the author's great-uncle, Miracles on the Water brings us the story of the attack on the Benares and the extraordinary events that followed.The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage
By Walter Dean Myers, Bill Miles. 2006
The story of the Harlem Hellfighters is not simply one of victory in a war. . . . It is…
the story of men who acted as men, and who gave a good account of themselves when so many people thought, even hoped, that they would fail. What defines a true hero? The "Harlem Hellfighters," the African American soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I, redefined heroism -- for America, and for the world. At a time of widespread bigotry and racism, these soldiers put their lives on the line in the name of democracy. The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage is a portrait of bravery and honor. With compelling narrative and never-before-published photographs, Michael L. Printz Award winner Walter Dean Myers and renowned filmmaker Bill Miles deftly portray the true story of these unsung American heroes.Born Naked
By Farley Mowat. 2013
Farley Mowat's outrageous memoir begins with his unlikely conception in a canoe and continues to his boyhood fascination with creatures…
of the natural world and on to his youthful rambles and adventures. To his immense pleasure and his parents' dismay, he adopted various beasts (whom he affectionately calls "The Others") as roomates. In this boyhood memoir, he recounts the exploits of this second family, who have been the subjects of many of his beloved books for young readers. This is the tale of a mischievous, immensely gifted young naturalist, recounted with the wisdom, humour and grown-up perspective of a very talented writer.Airborne
By Tom Clancy. 2000
They are America's front lines--serving proudly in forward areas around the world. Representing the very best from the Army and…
Air Force, the Airborne Task Force is an unstoppable combination of manpower and firepower. Now, Tom Clancy examines this elite branch of our nation's armed forces. With pinpoint accuracy and a style more compelling than any fiction, the acclaimed author of Executive Orders delivers an fascinating account of the Airborne juggernaut--the people, the technology, and Airborne's mission in an ever-changing world... * Two Tom Clancy "mini-novels"--real world scenarios involving the airborne task force * Airborne's weapons of the 21st century, including the Javelin anti-tank missile, the fiber-optically guided N-LOS fire support system, and the Joint Strike Fighter * 18 weeks: Life in an Airborne Alert Brigade * Exclusive photographs, illustrations, and diagrams PLUS: An in-depth interview with the incoming commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, General John KeenI Will Plant You a Lilac Tree
By Laura Hillman. 2005
"HANNELORE, YOUR PAPA IS DEAD." In the spring of 1942 Hannelore received a letter from Mama at her school in…
Berlin, Germany--Papa had been arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Six weeks later he was sent home; ashes in an urn. Soon another letter arrived. "The Gestapo has notified your brothers and me that we are to be deported to the East--whatever that means." Hannelore knew: labor camps, starvation, beatings...How could Mama and her two younger brothers bear that? She made a decision: She would go home and be deported with her family. Despite the horrors she faced in eight labor and concentration camps, Hannelore met and fell in love with a Polish POW named Dick Hillman. Oskar Schindler was their one hope to survive. Schindler had a plan to take eleven hundred Jews to the safety of his new factory in Czechoslovakia. Incredibly both she and Dick were added to his list. But survival was not that simple. Weeks later Hannelore found herself, alone, outside the gates of Auschwitz, pushed toward the smoking crematoria. I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is the remarkable true story of one young woman's nightmarish coming-of-age. But it is also a story about the surprising possibilities for hope and love in one of history's most brutal times.To Life
By Ruth Minsky Sender. 1988
"WE ARE FREE!" When Russian soldiers liberate Grafenort, the Nazi labor camp where she is a prisoner, nineteen-year-old Riva discovers…
that liberation doesn't mean the end of her hardship and suffering. Cold and starving, threatened with rape by the same Russian soldiers who were her saviors, Riva makes her way to her old home in Poland, searching like so many others for family who may have survived. Strengthened by her mother's credo, as long as there is life, there is hope, and by the promise of a new love and a new life, Riva endures the long years of waiting for real freedom and a real home. Picking up where her acclaimed memoir The Cage leaves off, Ruth Minsky Sender has written another inspirational document of the power of hope and love over unspeakable cruelty.The Other Air Force: U.S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media Since 9/11
By Matt Sienkiewicz. 2016
As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of citizens in the Muslim world, the United States has poured…
millions of dollars into local television and radio programming, hoping to generate pro-American currents on Middle Eastern airwaves. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and creative agendas while working within U.S. restrictions. The Other Air Force gives readers a unique inside look at television and radio production in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, from the isolated villages of the Afghan Panjshir Valley to the congested streets of Ramallah. Communications scholar Matt Sienkiewicz explores how the U.S. takes a "soft-psy" approach to its media efforts combining "soft" methods of encouraging entertainment programming, such as adaptations of The Voice and The Apprentice with more militaristic "psy-ops" approaches to information control. Drawing from years of field research and interviews with everyone from millionaire executives to underpaid but ever resourceful cameramen, Sienkiewicz considers the perspectives of the Afghan and Palestinian media workers trying to forge viable broadcasting businesses without straying outside American-set boundaries for acceptable content. As it carefully examines the interplay of U.S. military and economic might with the capacity for local ingenuity and resistance, the book also analyzes the intriguingly complex programming that emerges from this tension. Combining eyewitness reportage with cutting-edge scholarship, The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world's tensest conflict zones.Marines (Special Forces: Protecting, Building, Te)
By Jack Montana. 2011
In September 2001, in response to terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C., the American forces, including the U.S.…
Marine Corps (USMC), were put on the highest level of military alert since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. These soldiers are among the toughest in the world; the prestige of the unit is second to none. The entry system for new recruits is a supreme test--only about 25 percent make the grade. Over the course of an intensive 40-week "basic" training program, trainers shout at new recruits, force them to run for miles, deprive them of sleep for days at a time, and require them to make decisions almost every waking minute. This book teaches you what it takes to become a U.S. Marine. It is a grueling challenge that only the strongest survive. You need: * intelligence * self-control * courage * knowledge * resistance to pain and discomfort * team spiritHiroshima [Illustrated Edition]
By John Hersey. 2014
Includes The Bombing Of Japan During World War II illustrations pack with 120 maps, plans, and photosOn August 6, 1945,…
Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times).The Prisoners of Breendonk: Personal Histories from a World War II Concentration Camp
By James M. Deem. 2015
Fort Breendonk was built in the early 1900s to protect Antwerp, Belgium, from possible German invasion. Damaged at the start…
of World War I, it fell into disrepair . . . until the Nazis took it over after their invasion of Belgium in 1940. Never designated an official concentration camp by the SS and instead labeled a "reception" camp where prisoners were held until they were either released or transported, Breendonk was no less brutal. About 3,600 prisoners were held there--just over half of them survived. As one prisoner put it, "I would prefer to spend nineteen months at Buchenwald than nineteen days at Breendonk." With access to the camp and its archives and with rare photos and artwork, James M. Deem pieces together the story of the camp by telling the stories of its victims--Jews, communists, resistance fighters, and common criminals--for the first time in an English-language publication. Leon Nolis's haunting photography of the camp today accompanies the wide range of archival images. The story of Breendonk is one you will never forget.The Secret Pool (Tilbury House Nature Book #0)
By Rebekah Raye, Kimberley Ridley. 2013
You might walk right by a vernal pool and not notice it. Often mistaken for mere puddles in the woods,…
vernal pools are the source of life for many interesting creatures. If you look carefully, you can find them--and be amazed! These secret pools form every year when low places on the forest floor fill up with rain and melted snow. They soon become home to hatching wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and fairy shrimp. Even in late summer and fall, when many vernal pools have shrunk to mud holes, creatures such as turtles and snakes rely on them for shelter and food. The Secret Pool introduces young readers to the wonders right underfoot as the voice of a vernal pool shares its secrets through the seasons, and sidebars provide fun facts on its inhabitants and the crucial role these small, often overlooked wetlands play in maintaining a healthy environment. Winner of the 2018 Riverby AwardThe Secret Pool (Tilbury House Nature Book #0)
By Rebekah Raye, Kimberley Ridley. 2013
You might walk right by a vernal pool and not notice it. Often mistaken for mere puddles in the woods,…
vernal pools are the source of life for many interesting creatures. If you look carefully, you can find them--and be amazed! These secret pools form every year when low places on the forest floor fill up with rain and melted snow. They soon become home to hatching wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and fairy shrimp. Even in late summer and fall, when many vernal pools have shrunk to mud holes, creatures such as turtles and snakes rely on them for shelter and food. The Secret Pool introduces young readers to the wonders right underfoot as the voice of a vernal pool shares its secrets through the seasons, and sidebars provide fun facts on its inhabitants and the crucial role these small, often overlooked wetlands play in maintaining a healthy environment. Winner of the 2018 Riverby AwardWhat Was the Holocaust? (What Was?)
By Gail Herman, Jerry Hoare, Who Hq. 2017
A thoughtful and age-appropriate introduction to an unimaginable event—the Holocaust.The Holocaust was a genocide on a scale never before seen,…
with as many as twelve million people killed in Nazi death camps—six million of them Jews. Gail Herman traces the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, whose rabid anti-Semitism led first to humiliating anti-Jewish laws, then to ghettos all over Eastern Europe, and ultimately to the Final Solution. She presents just enough information for an elementary-school audience in a readable, well-researched book that covers one of the most horrible times in history.This entry in the New York Times best-selling series contains eighty carefully chosen illustrations and sixteen pages of black and white photographs suitable for young readers.From the Trade Paperback edition.In/visible War: The Culture of War in Twenty-first-Century America
By John Lucaites, Purnima Bose, David Campbell, Diane Rubenstein, Wendy Kozol, Nina Berman, Rebecca Adelman, James Derian, Christopher Gilbert, Claudia Breger, De Kilgore, Jeremy Gordon, Jody Madeira, Jon Simons, Roger Stahl. 2017
In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and…
yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans. Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.In/visible War: The Culture of War in Twenty-first-Century America
By John Lucaites, Purnima Bose, David Campbell, Diane Rubenstein, Wendy Kozol, Nina Berman, Rebecca Adelman, James Derian, Christopher Gilbert, Claudia Breger, De Kilgore, Jeremy Gordon, Jody Madeira, Jon Simons, Roger Stahl. 2017
In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and…
yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans. Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.In/visible War: The Culture of War in Twenty-first-Century America
By John Lucaites, Purnima Bose, David Campbell, Diane Rubenstein, Wendy Kozol, Nina Berman, Rebecca Adelman, James Derian, Christopher Gilbert, Claudia Breger, De Kilgore, Jeremy Gordon, Jody Madeira, Jon Simons, Roger Stahl. 2017
In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and…
yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans. Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.