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Showing 1 - 20 of 30471 items
By Ted Barris. 2014
On the night of March 24, 1944, eighty airmen crawled through a 400-foot-long tunnel, code-named "Harry," and dashed from Stalag…
Luft III, the infamous WWII German POW camp. It became known as The Great Escape. The breakout had taken a year to plan, involved 2,000 POWs, and prompted a massive manhunt across occupied Europe. All but three escapees were recaptured, and on Hitler’s orders, fifty were murdered. The author recounts this battle of wits and determination through the voices of those involved, assembles original interviews, memoirs, letters and diaries to reconstruct the Great Escape’s untold story. Bestseller. 2014.By Denise Kiernan. 2013
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents. But to most of the…
world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians—many of them young women from small towns across the South—were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war—when Oak Ridge’s fateful secret was revealed. Bestseller. 2013.By David Dilks. 2005
Winston Churchill's connection with Canada ("the Great Dominion", as he called it) spanned more than half a century: at Winnipeg…
he heard the news of Queen Victoria's death, in Ottawa in the dark days of 1941 he proclaimed his confidence in victory, and in 1952 had to concede that the result of victory had been far less satisfying than he had wished. No other Commonwealth country sparked such detailed knowledge or lifelong interest. 2005.By J. L Granatstein. 1993
Granatstein's study of life at the top during the Second World War centres on the most senior ranks in the…
Canadian Army. Men like Andrew McNaughton, Harold Crerar, Thomas Burns and Guy Simonds had not only to win military campaigns, but also command the sympathies of bureaucrats and powerful politicians. None, however, forgot they were fighting a war, and that their decisions directly affected the lives of Canadian soldiers. 1993.By Pierre Berton. 1990
Berton describes the follies and tragedies of the decade-long Depression and criticizes the political leaders who failed to take the…
bold steps necessary to deal with unemployment, drought and despair. He portrays the ordinary people who struggled to survive, and denounces the wealthy businessmen who stretched the laws and took advantage of their employees. Bestseller 1990. Nominated for the 1993 Torgi Award.By John Vaillant. 2005
In 1997, when a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an Alaskan island north of the Canadian border,…
they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. The author braids together the strands of this mystery and brings to life the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida and the harrowing world of logging. Canada Reads 2012. Winner of the 2005 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Bestseller. 2005.By David Cruise, Alison Griffiths. 1996
Amidst public outcry, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald created the North West Mounted Police to bring law and order to…
one of the most dangerous places in North America -- the Canadian West. Using original sources, the authors portray the first Mounties, some three hundred untrained young men, who were sent west to drive out whiskey smugglers and outlaws, and pacify the Indians. Some strong language. c1996.By Paul Brickhill. 2000
The Great Escape tells how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner of war camp worked together to…
achieve an extraordinary break-out. Every night for a year they dug tunnels, and those who weren't digging forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes to wear once they had escaped. All of this was conducted under the very noses of their prison guards. When the right night came, the actual escape itself was timed to the split second - but of course, not everything went according to plan... 2000.By Hunter Davies. 1972
By Carol Off. 2004
In 1993, Canadian peacekeepers in Croatia were plunged into the most significant fighting Canada had seen since the Korean War.…
In September 1993, in a tiny corner of Croatia known as Medak Pocket, a unit of Canadian peacekeepers planted themselves between besieged Serbs and the advancing Croat army, driving them from the area under United Nations protection. The soldiers should have returned home as heroes, but instead, they arrived under a cloud of suspicion and silence. Descriptions of violence and some strong language. 2004.By Robert K. G Temple, Joseph Needham. 1986
Reveals the Chinese origins of such "modern" inventions as paper and printing, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass. Temple's eleven topics--including…
astronomy, engineering, medicine, and warfare--provide historical context and show that more than half of the basic discoveries considered "Western" were developed earlier in China. 1998, c1986.By Ken Dryden. 2005
Former Montreal Canadiens goalie and former President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Dryden captures the essence of hockey and what…
it means to its fans. He gives us vivid portraits of the characters - Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, coach Scotty Bowman - that made the Canadiens of the 1970s one of the greatest hockey teams in history. Dryden also reflects on life on the road, in the spotlight, and on the ice, offering up a rare inside look at the game. This edition marks the 20th anniversary of book’s original publication. Strong language, some descriptions of violence. 2005.Although Canada is a young nation, its Catholic Church boasts a thousand-year history. The author, a Bishop, presents this history…
through vignettes of women and men whose presence, vision, daring, determination, compassion, and action planted the Canadian Church from sea to sea. He also provides a look at the Church today. 2002.By Bob Duff. 2017
2017-18 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the National Hockey League. But the league almost didn't survive its…
first year. Duff chronicles the trials and tribulations of that first season, and tells the story of that first generation of hockey heroes who lent their names to the game they loved, and helped to make it great. 2017.By Peter Cossins. 2017
The first Tour de France was a far cry from the polished international sporting event we see on television today.…
Organized by the financially free falling L'Auto magazine, the desperate editors thought that organizing a grand cycling tour was the only thing that could save their publication. There was no indication that a ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did, and cycling would never be the same again. 2017.By Gary Hart. 2004
Hart, a former senator and presidential candidate, fears that containment of communism has been supplanted by a blatant strategy of…
empire as the basis of American foreign policy. He rejects what he regards as the unilateral efforts by the current administration to promote geopolitical interests. As an alternative, Hart proposes a foreign policy designed to advance the "fourth power" - that is, the power of core American values, including representative government and individual liberty. 2004.By Peter M Dunn. 1985
Immediately after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War, Saigon was occupied by British forces directed…
from Mountbatten's South East Asia Command. These forces became the first of a Western nation to clash with a Communist-led revolution in Asia, and by thwarting the Viet Minh's desperate attempts to seize power, made it impossible for South Vietnam to hold out when North Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1954. 1985.By G. W. L Nicholson. 2006
When the First World War began, Newfoundland had been without any kind of military organisation for more than half a…
century, so public-spirited citizens immediately formed themselves into a Patriotic Association, and within sixty days had recruited, partially equipped and dispatched 537 officers and men overseas. Nicholson details the harrowing experiences of the Newfoundland Regiment at Gallipoli, Beaumont Hamel, the Third Battle of Ypres and Cambrai, for which they were granted the title "Royal" - the only army unit to receive such a distinction during World War I. Some descriptions of violence. 2006.By Cleophas Belvin. 2006
Recounts the history of the Quebec part of the Labrador coast. Describes the arrival of the Aboriginals and the activities…
of the Breton and Basque fishermen, and the French- and English-speaking merchants from Quebec City who controlled the region for more than one hundred and fifty years. Chronicles the early pioneers and their descendants and how they dealt with the precariousness of the fisheries, and explores the role of the Anglican and Catholic missionaries. 2006.By Declan Hill. 2010