Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 26387 items
The great escape: the untold story
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.The Great Dominion: Winston Churchill in Canada, 1900-1954
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.The generals: the Canadian army's senior commanders in the Second World War
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.The great escape
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.The girl in the green sweater: a life in Holocaust's shadow
By Daniel Paisner, Krystyna Chiger. 2008
In 1943, with Lvov's 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of…
Polish Jews sought refuge in the city's sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, provides a first-person account of those fourteen months with her family. Also describes Leopold Socha, a Polish Catholic and former thief, who risked his life to help Chiger's underground family survive, bringing them food and supplies. 2009, c2008.The genius of China: 3,000 years of science, discovery, and invention
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.The fog of war: censorship of Canada's media in World War Two
By Mark Bourrie. 2011
The Canadian government censored the news during World War II for two main reasons: to keep military and economic secrets…
out of enemy hands and to prevent civilian morale from breaking down. But in those tumultuous times - with Nazi spies landing on our shores by raft, U-boat attacks in the St. Lawrence, army mutinies in British Columbia and Ontario, and pro-Hitler propaganda in the mainstream Quebec press - censors had a hard time keeping news events contained. Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. c2011.The frock-coated communist: the revolutionary life of Friedrich Engels
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.The first Vietnam war
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.The forgotten dead: why 946 American servicemen died off the coast of Devon in 1944 - and the man who discovered their true story
By Ken Small, Mark Rogerson. 1993
The night of 27 April 1944: Exercise Tiger, a rehearsal for the D-Day landings, is held off Slapton Beach in…
Devon. As the mock assault is under way, 946 American servicemen die. Under wartime restrictions the story is concealed and in time forgotten, until local hotelier Ken Small finds American bullets and money while beachcombing and decides to find the truth. 1993.The doctor will not see you now
By Jane Poulson. 2002
Autobiography of Dr. Jane Poulson, the first blind person in Canada to become a practising doctor. Poulson suffered from diabetes…
and because of the disease, lost her sight and then experienced severe heart problems. Nonetheless she was an extremely accomplished doctor, published widely in leading medical journals, and showed great courage and endurance to all who knew her. She wrote this book during the last two years of her life. 2002.The fall of Berlin 1945
By Antony Beevor. 2002
Chronicles the horror of Berlin's fall to the Soviets in 1945, recalling the starvation, exposure, artillery fire, rape, and mass…
destruction that marked the Red Army's final push on Germany's capital. 2002.The far land
By Eva MacLean. 1993
Eva MacLean left her settled, Presbyterian Ontario life behind to accompany her young minister-veternarian husband to the "wilds" of northwestern…
B.C. in the early 1900s, during times of mining rushes and railroad-building. 1993.The endless steppe
By Esther Rudomin Hautzig. 1995
During World War II, when she was eleven years old, the author and her family were arrested in Poland by…
the Russians as political enemies and exiled to Siberia. She recounts here the trials of the following five years spent on the harsh Asian steppe. Grades 5-8. 1995, c1968.The end of Hong Kong: the secret diplomacy of imperial retreat
By Robert Cottrell. 1993
On June 30, 1997, Britain ended its colonial rule over Hong Kong, the wealthy city state with six million people.…
The terms of the handover to China were to be those set out in a Joint Declaration initialled by Britain and China in 1984. This is an account of the diplomacy behind that settlement, and the prospects that lay ahead for Hong Kong. 1993.The damned: the Canadians at the battle of Hong Kong and the POW experience, 1941-45
By Nathan M Greenfield. 2010
Fall, 1941. Almost 2,000 members of the Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent to bolster the British garrison at…
Hong Kong, but in the seventeen day battle for the colony following the attack on December 8, the Canadians suffered grievous losses. The second part of their story describes how the Canadians survived the horrendous conditions of Japanese POW camps. Some descriptions of sex, explicit descriptions of violence and strong language. 2010.The China mission: George Marshall's unfinished war, 1945–1947
By Daniel Kurtz-Phelan. 2018
As World War II came to an end, General George Marshall was renowned as the architect of Allied victory. Set…
to retire, he instead accepted what he thought was a final mission--this time not to win a war, but to stop one. Conflict between Chinese Nationalists and Communists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. His assignment was to broker a peace, build a Chinese democracy, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. 2018.The coffin corner boys: one bomber, ten men, and their incredible escape from Nazi occupied France
By Carole Engle Avriett, George W Starks. 2018
After being shot down in Nazi-occupied France, nineteen-year-old George Wiley Starks and crew members spent six weeks walking to Switzerland…
with help from ordinary folks and the Resistance. He then returned to France to locate and honor those brave souls who assisted him in desperate hours of need. Here he retraces his steps to freedom and reveals the amazing stories of sacrifice and survival and how ten young American boys, plus their French helpers, became heroes. 2018.The conquering tide: war in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944
By Ian W Toll. 2015
This history encompasses the heart of the Pacific War--the period between mid-1942 and mid-1944--when parallel Allied counteroffensives north and south…
of the equator washed over Japan's far-flung island empire like a 'conquering tide,' concluding with Japan's irreversible strategic defeat in the Marianas. It was the largest, bloodiest, most costly, most technically innovative and logistically complicated amphibious war in history, and it fostered bitter interservice rivalries, leaving wounds that even victory could not heal. Bestseller. 2015.The emergence of modern Japan: an introductory history since 1853
By Janet Hunter. 1989
Understanding Japan's recent history is essential to form an efficient working relationship with the country. The author concentrates on the…
years from 1853, when the outer world broke through Japan's isolation, to 1952 when the postwar settlement and economic recovery set her on the road to becoming an economic superpower. 1989.