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Showing 1 - 20 of 82290 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 Barbara Crossette. 1998
In 1997 this New York Times journalist traveled across Asia, visiting the classic hill towns built by several colonial powers.…
She recalls her journeys to these remote locations, discusses their history, and describes how each has evolved since being inherited by an independent nation. 1998.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.What will it take to solve the biggest issues of our time? Jim Wallis, the man who changed the conversation…
about faith and politics, has traveled the United States and found a nation hungry for a politics of solutions and hope. He shows us that a revival is happening, as people of faith and moral conviction seek common ground for change. c2008.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 Sydney Sharpe. 1994
Sharpe takes an in-depth look at women in Canadian politics, and their struggles in an arena of male privilege and…
influence. She documents the attitudes of male politicians towards women, from Pearson to Mulroney, and interviews women in all levels of politics across the country, such as Monique Begin, Sheila Copps, and Barbara McDougall. c1994.By Godfrey Hodgson. 2000
Presents an account of the popular senator's life as a politician who championed both liberal and conservative causes. Traces Moynihan's…
difficult childhood, his educational path, and his varied career in government. Discusses the philosophy behind his landmark 1965 report on African American families. Some strong language. 2000.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 Linda Spalding. 1998
The author recounts her expedition into the forests of Borneo in search of a reclusive primatologist, who has devoted her…
life to protecting orphaned orangutans. Describes the beauty of the island, the local society, and the despoilment of natural resources through poaching, deforestation, and misguided ecotourism. 1998.By Timothy C Winegard. 2016
Oil is the source of wealth and economic opportunity. Oil is also the root source of global conflict, toxicity and…
economic disparity. The author argues that beginning with the First World War, oil became the preeminent commodity to safeguard national security and promote domestic prosperity. For the first time in history, territory was specifically conquered to possess oil fields and resources; vital cogs in the continuation of the industrialized warfare of the twentieth century. 2016.By Jeffrey Simpson. 2001
Simpson argues that with the Liberal Party's re-election to a third majority government, Canada is in danger of becoming a…
de facto one-party state. He tries to make sense of what has been happening in three areas that are vital to Canadian democracy: the parliamentary system, the political parties, and the electorate. What has occurred within each of these spheres has directly influenced developments in the others. 2001.By Tristram Hunt. 2009
Friedrich Engels was a textile magnate and fox-hunter, a raffish, high-living, heavy drinking devotee of the good things in life.…
But Engels was also the man behind Karl Marx who for forty years funded him, looked after his children, soothed his furies, and provided one-half of history's most celebrated ideological partnership. He was co-author of The Manifesto of the Communist Party and co-founder of what would come to be known as Marxism. Interpreted and misinterpreted, quoted and misquoted, Friedrich Engels became one of the central architects of modern global socialism. 2009.By James Angelos. 2015
The author presents the contrasting images of Greece, a nation both romanticized for its classical past and castigated for its…
dysfunctional present. With vivid character-driven narratives and engaging reporting that offers an immersive sense of place, he brings to life some of the causes of the country’s financial collapse, and examines the changes, some hopeful and others worrisome, emerging in its aftermath. 2015.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.