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The fierce, bloody battles of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines are legendary in the annals of World War II.…
Those who survived faced the horrors of life as prisoners ofthe Japanese.In Conduct Under Fire, John A. Glusman chronicles these events through the eyes of his father, Murray, and three fellow navy doctors captured on Corregidor in May 1942. Here are the dramatic stories of the fall of Bataan, the siege of "the Rock," and the daily struggles to tend the sick, wounded, and dying during some of the heaviest bombardments of World War II. Here also is the desperate war doctors and corpsmen waged against disease and starvation amid an enemy that viewed surrender as a disgrace. To survive, the POWs functioned as a family. But the ties that bind couldn't protect them from a ruthless counteroffensive waged by American submarines or from the B-29 raids that burned Japan's major cities to the ground. Based on extensive interviews with American, British, Australian, and Japanese veterans, as well as diaries, letters, and war crimes testimony, this is a harrowing account of a brutal clash of cultures, of a race war that escalated into total war.Like Flags of Our Fathers and Ghost Soldiers, Conduct Under Fire is a story of bravery on the battlefield and ingenuity behind barbed wire, one that reveals the long shadow the war cast on the lives of those who fought it.Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer
By Michael Lowy, Inez Hedges. 2016
Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer is an attempt to identify and properly contextualize the social critique in Kafka's biography and work…
that links father-son antagonisms, heterodox Jewish religious thinking, and anti-authoritarian or anarchist protest against the rising power of bureaucratic modernity. The book proceeds chronologically, starting with biographical facts often neglected or denied relating to Kafka's relations with the Anarchist circles in Prague, followed by an analysis of the three great unfinished novels--Amerika, The Trial, The Castle--as well as some of his most important short stories. Fragments, parables, correspondence, and his diaries are also used in order to better understand the major literary works. Löwy's book grapples with the critical and subversive dimension of Kafka's writings, which is often hidden or masked by the fabulistic character of the work. Löwy's reading has already generated controversy because of its distance from the usual canon of literary criticism about the Prague writer, but the book has been well received in its original French edition and has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, and Turkish.The Clarks of Cooperstown
By Nicholas Fox Weber. 1994
Nicholas Fox Weber, author of the acclaimed Patron Saints ("Exhilarating avant-garde entertainment"--Sam Hunter, The New York Times Book Review) and…
Balthus ("The authoritative account of his life and work"--Michael Ravitch, Newsday), gives us now the idiosyncratic lives of Sterling and Stephen Clark--two of America's greatest art collectors, heirs to the Singer sewing machine fortune, and for decades enemies of each other. He tells the story, as well, of the two generations that preceded theirs, giving us an intimate portrait of one of the least known of America's richest families.He begins with Edward Clark--the brothers' grandfather, who amassed the Clark fortune in the late-nineteenth century--a man with nerves of steel; a Sunday school teacher who became the business partner of the wild inventor and genius Isaac Merritt Singer. And, by the turn of the twentieth century, was the major stockholder of the Singer Manufacturing Company.We follow Edward's rise as a real estate wizard making headlines in 1880 when he commissioned Manhattan's first luxury apartment building. The house was called "Clark's Folly"; today it's known as the Dakota.We see Clark's son--Alfred--enigmatic and famously reclusive; at thirty-eight he inherited $50 million and became one of the country's richest men. An image of propriety--good husband, father of four--in Europe, he led a secret homosexual life. Alfred was a man with a passion for art and charity, which he passed on to his four sons, in particular Sterling and Stephen Clark.Sterling, the second-oldest, buccaneering and controversial, loved impressionism, created his own museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts--and shocked his family by marrying an actress from the Comédie Française. Together the Sterling Clarks collected thousands of paintings and bred racehorses.In a highly public case, Sterling sued his three brothers over issues of inheritance, and then never spoke to them again.He was one of the central figures linked to a bizarre and little-known attempted coup against Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency. We are told what really happened and why--and who in American politics was implicated but never prosecuted.Sterling's brother--Stephen--self-effacing and responsible--became chairman and president of the Museum of Modern Art and gave that institution its first painting, Edward Hopper's House by the Railroad. Thirteen years later, in an act that provoked intense controversy, Stephen dismissed the Museum's visionary founding director, Alfred Barr, who for more than a decade had single-handedly established the collection and exhibition programs that determined how the art of the twentieth century was regarded.Stephen gave or bequeathed to museums many of the paintings that today are still their greatest attractions.With authority, insight, and a flair for evoking time and place, Weber examines the depths of the brothers' passions, the vehemence of their lifelong feud, the great art they acquired, and the profound and lasting impact they had on artistic vision in America.From the Hardcover edition.Warlord: Broken by War, Saved by Grace
By Malcolm Mcconnell, Ilario Pantano. 2006
This is the powerful true story of the Marine lieutenant who, having fought for his country in the first Gulf…
War, went on to professional success in finance, only to be compelled to reenlist in the wake of 9/11. Leaving behind an ex-model wife and two children, he served once again in Iraq -- and was charged by the U.S. military with murder. Ilario Pantano has always been a warrior at heart -- it's the force that drives him, that defines his core being and his life. But on April 15, 2004, just a few moments during the most violent and chaotic month in the Iraq War would change his life forever. On a raid in the Sunni hotbed of the Al Anbar province, Lieutenant Pantano shot and killed two Iraqi insurgents. Months later, while successfully leading Marines during the explosive surge in terrorist activity, including the battles for Fallujah, one of his own men disputed Pantano's self-defense claim in the Al Anbar shootings. Pantano was relieved of his command and charged with premeditated murder, a crime punishable by death. Now for the first time, in his own words, Pantano recounts his gripping and controversial story in Warlord, the memoir of a patriot who prepared to reenlist as the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, ten years after his service as an elite Marine sniper and veteran of Desert Storm. Warlord is the story of an unconventional fighter who combined his professional and military experiences to protect the lives of his men and win both on battlefields and in the courtroom. In the face of a widely publicized military hearing, Pantano's family "attacked into the ambush," launching a Defend-the-Defenders campaign that was met with overwhelming support nationwide. Pantano was cleared of all charges. But most surprising of all, the heart of the patriot has not been embittered as he calls on his fellow Americans to stand strong in the face of our enemies. A harrowing, redemptive, and singular contribution to the literature of war, Ilario Pantano's inspiring story brings an unrivaled human dimension to the conflict in Iraq, to the unyielding idealism that drives its American fighting men and women, and to the unexpected consequences and uncompromised faith that can emerge from the brutal, chaotic, and irreversible nature of combat.Leadership: Achieving Life-Changing Success from Within
By Alford L. Mcmichael. 2008
"Take one look at him, listen to him speak, watch him act, and you'll follow him. Why? Because throughout his…
life and military career, Sergeant Major Al McMichael has proven himself to be a visionary who develops and nurtures ideas to fruition.... Anyone who is charged with leading, teaching, mentoring, managing or caring for people should read the inspiring story of Al McMichael in Leadership." -- Dean Mark Pizzo, National Defense University in Washington, D.C. There is only one sergeant major of the Marine Corps at any one time. It is the highest rank an enlisted Marine can achieve. From 1999 to 2003 the USMC's 14th sergeant major, and the first African American to attain the position, was Alford L. McMichael. Now, Sergeant Major McMichael shares how the values taught to him around the dinner table and in the hard times of his dirt-poor Southern childhood took him to the top of his field and made him one of the most respected and valued leaders of our time. This is not a guide that speaks only to military personnel. This is not a guide that only CEOs will cherish. The magic of McMichael's life lessons is that anyone can relate to and build success from them, because McMichael himself learned them in the most modest of beginnings: growing up in the 1950s with nine siblings in a single-parent, one-story home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was the best training he could have received for the Marines, and with down-to-earth practicality and an engaging anecdotal style, McMichael demonstrates how the morals, work ethic and self-discipline he learned from his mother and grandmother gave him the life skills for groundbreaking success. Practice dinner table values...Find your compass...Rely on intelligence over emotion...Prepare so you can prosper...Impress yourself first...Give power to your people...Lead from the heart...These are among the pragmatic and distinctive nuggets of truth McMichael imparts in Leadership, and whatever your walk in life, they are the foundation for making great things happen. Are you ready to experience the phenomenal results when you ask the best of yourself and those around you?No Man's Land: The Life and Art of Mary Riter Hamilton, 1868-1954
By Kathryn A. Young, Sarah M. McKinnon. 2017
What force of will and circumstance drove a woman from a comfortable life painting china tea services to one of…
hardship and loneliness in the battle zones of France and Belgium following the Great War? For western Canadian artist Mary Riter Hamilton (1868-1954), art was her life’s passion. Her tale is one of tragedy and adventure, from homestead beginnings, to genteel drawing rooms in Winnipeg, Victoria and Vancouver, to Berlin and Parisian art schools, to Vimy and Ypres, and finally to illness and poverty in old age. "No Man’s Land" is the first biographical study of Hamilton, whose work can be found in galleries and art museums throughout Canada. Young and McKinnon’s meticulous research in unpublished private collections brings to light new correspondence between Hamilton and her friends, revealing the importance of female networks to an artist’s well being. Her letters from abroad, in particular, bring a woman’s perspective into the immediate post-war period and give voice to trying conditions. Hamilton’s career is situated within the context of her peers Florence Carlyle, Emily Carr, and Sophie Pemberton with whom she shared a Canadian and European experience.A Sniper in the Arizona
By John Culbertson. 1999
"Morning was always a welcome sight to us. It meant two things. The first was that we were still alive.…
. . ."In 1967, death was the constant companion of the Marines of Hotel Company, 2/5, as they patrolled the paddy dikes, mud, and mountains of the Arizona Territory southwest of Da Nang. But John Culbertson and most of the rest of Hotel Company were the same lean, fighting Marines who had survived the carnage of Operation Tuscaloosa. Hotel's grunts walked over the enemy, not around him. In graphic terms, John Culbertson describes the daily, dangerous life of a soldier fighting in a country where the enemy was frequently indistinguishable from the allies, fought tenaciously, and thought nothing of using civilians as a shield. Though he was one of the top marksmen in 1st Marine Division Sniper School in Da Nang in March 1967--a class of just eighteen, chosen from the division's twenty thousand Marines--Culbertson knew that against the VC and the NVA, good training and experience could carry you just so far. But his company's mission was to find and engage the enemy, whatever the price. This riveting, bloody first-person account offers a stark testimony to the stuff U.S. Marines are made of.From the Paperback edition.Dustoff 7-3: Saving Lives Under Fire in Afghanistan
By Erik Sabiston. 2015
Dustoff 7-3 tells the true story of four unlikely heroes in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan where medics are…
forced to descend on wires to reach the wounded and helicopter pilots must fight wind weather and enemy fire to pluck casualties from some of the world s most difficult combat arenas Complete opposites thrown together cut off and outnumbered Chief Warrant Officer Erik Sabiston and his flight crew answered the call in a race against time not to take lives--but to save them The concept of evacuating wounded soldiers by helicopter developed in the Korean War and became a staple during the war in Vietnam where heroic unarmed chopper crews flew vital missions known to the grateful grunts on the ground as Dustoffs The crew of Dustoff 7-3 carried on that heroic tradition flying over a region that had seen scores of American casualties known among veterans as the Valley of Death At the end of Operation Hammer Down they had rescued 14 soldiers made three critical supply runs recovered two soldiers killed in action and nearly died It took all of three days"A Mattress Maker's Daughter "richly illuminates the narrative of two people whose mutual affection shaped their own lives and in…
some ways their times. According to the Renaissance legend told and retold across the centuries, a woman of questionable reputation bamboozles a middle-aged warrior-prince into marrying her, and the family takes revenge. He is Don Giovanni de' Medici, son of the Florentine grand duke; she is Livia Vernazza, daughter of a Genoese artisan. They live in luxury for a while, far from Florence, and have a child. Then, Giovanni dies, the family pounces upon the inheritance, and Livia is forced to return from riches to rags. Documents, including long-lost love letters, reveal another story behind the legend, suppressed by the family and forgotten. Brendan Dooley investigates this largely untold story among the various settings where episodes occurred, including Florence, Genoa, and Venice. In the course of explaining their improbable liaison and its consequences, "A Mattress Maker's Daughter "explores early modern emotions, material culture, heredity, absolutism, and religious tensions at the crux of one of the great transformations in European culture, society, and statecraft. Giovanni and Livia exemplify changing concepts of love and romance, new standards of public and private conduct, and emerging attitudes toward property and legitimacy just as the age of Renaissance humanism gave way to the culture of Counter-Reformation and early modern Europe.Moment of Battle
By Williamson Murray, Jim Lacey. 2013
Two modern masters of military history make their case for the twenty most pivotal battles of all time, in a…
riveting trip through the ages to those moments when the fate of the world hung in the balance. In the grand tradition of Edward Creasy's classic Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, James Lacey and Williamson Murray spotlight only those engagements that changed the course of civilization. In gripping narrative accounts they bring these conflicts and eras to vivid life, detailing the cultural imperatives that led inexorably to the battlefield, the experiences of the common soldiers who fought and died, and the legendary commanders and statesmen who matched wits, will, and nerve for the highest possible stakes. From the great clashes of antiquity to the high-tech wars of the twenty-first century, here are the stories of the twenty most consequential battles ever fought, including * Marathon, where Greece's "greatest generation" repelled Persian forces three times their numbers--and saved Western civilization in its infancy * Adrianople, the death blow to a disintegrating Roman Empire * Trafalgar, the epic naval victory that cemented a century of British supremacy over the globe * Saratoga, the first truly American victory, won by united colonial militias, which ensured the ultimate triumph of the Revolution * Midway, the ferocious World War II sea battle that broke the back of the Japanese navy * Dien Bien Phu, the climactic confrontation between French imperial troops and Viet Minh rebels that led to American intervention in Vietnam and marked the rise of a new era of insurgent warfare * Operation Peach, the perilous 2003 mission to secure a vital bridge over the Euphrates River that would open the way to Baghdad Historians and armchair generals will argue forever about which battles have had the most direct impact on history. But there can be no doubt that these twenty are among those that set mankind on new trajectories. Each of these epochal campaigns is examined in its full historical, strategic, and tactical context--complete with edge-of-your-seat you-are-there battle re-creations. With an eye for the small detail as well as the bigger picture, Lacey and Murray identify the elements that bind these battles together: the key decisions, critical mistakes, and moments of crisis on which the fates of entire civilizations depended. Some battles merely leave a field littered with the bodies of the fallen. Others transform the map of the entire world. Moment of Battle is history written with the immediacy of today's news, a magisterial tour d'horizon that refreshes our understanding of those essential turning points where the future was decided. Advance praise for Moment of Battle "A riveting human story about how a few remarkable individuals changed 2,500 years of history."--Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture and The Savior Generals"Two world-class historians present, eloquently and persuasively, twenty battles that fundamentally changed the course of history. Moment of Battle is a must acquisition for anyone seeking to understand the nature of human development--and its turning points."--Dennis E. Showalter, professor of history, Colorado College, author of Armor and BloodFrom the Hardcover edition.Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 6
By Peter Cozzens. 2004
Sifting carefully through reports from newspapers, magazines, personal memoirs, and letters, Peter Cozzens' Volume 6 brings readers more of the…
best first-person accounts of marches, encampments, skirmishes, and full-blown battles, as seen by participants on both sides of the conflict. Alongside the experiences of lower-ranking officers and enlisted men are accounts from key personalities including General John Gibbon, General John C. Lee, and seven prominent generals from both sides offering views on "why the Confederacy failed." This volume includes one hundred and twenty illustrations, including sixteen previously uncollected maps of battlefields, troop movements, and fortifications.The Snake Eaters
By Owen West. 2012
WHEN A DOZEN UNPREPARED AMERICAN ARMY RESERVISTS ARE DROPPED OFF on an isolated Iraqi outpost with orders to be its…
military advisors, they have no idea that what they will really be doing is fighting. With no training to fall back on, this group--including a guitarist, a DEA agent, a plumber, and a postal worker--must somehow mentor the "Snake Eaters," an Iraqi battalion locked in a deadly struggle over an insurgent-infested town along the Euphrates River. They are plunged into complex counterinsurgent warfare side by side with their Iraqi charges, soon discovering that at such close quarters moral standards are inevitably blurred. The battle becomes so personal that the combatants know each other's names, faces, and especially the families caught in the middle. Owen West, a third-generation U.S. Marine, tells the gripping, boots-on-the-ground story of the remarkable American and Iraqi troops who for two years fought the insurgency street by street and house by house in the poisonous city of Khalidiya, Iraq. The American advisors were a ramshackle group of Army reservists, Marines, and National Guardsmen with little support or understanding from the higher ranks. The Iraqi battalion they were assigned was from the very first both amateurish and hostile. In a town where the people they were trying to protect were indistinguishable from the enemy they were trying to kill--and few locals ever told the truth--it seemed like a mission doomed to failure. But with courage, infinite patience, and a sense of duty few outsiders understood, the young American and Iraqi soldiers on patrol learned to work with each other and with the townspeople, winning their trust and revealing war as a series of human acts. From Major Mohammed, the Snake Eater who garners the most respect from the Americans precisely because he likes them the least, to the bighearted Staff Sergeant Blakley, a medic stalked by a sniper, the heroic soldiers in these pages are as complex as their war. By the end of the mission, the Snake Eaters was the first Iraqi battalion granted independent battle space, the insurgency was wiped off the streets of Khalidiya, and peace was restored. A rare success story to emerge from the war, West's exceptional book is as instructive as it is impossible to put down. Owen West is donating his net proceeds from The Snake Eaters to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation and to the families of fallen advisors and fallen Iraqi "Snake Eaters."In the Shadow of Freedom: A Heroic Journey to Liberation, Manhood, and America
By Tchicaya Missamou, Travis Sentell. 2010
FROM POVERTY TO WEALTH, FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA, AND FROM CHILD SOLDIER TO U. S. MARINE Born into the Congolese…
wilderness, Tchicaya Missamou became a child soldier at age 11. As a horrific civil war loomed across his country, Tchicaya began using his militia connections to ferry jewels, cash, computers, and white diplomats out of the country. By 17, he was rich. By 18, he was a hunted man, his house destroyed, his family brutalized in front of him by his own militia. By 19, he'd left behind everything he'd ever known, escaping to Europe and, eventually, to America. Incredibly, that was only the start of his journey. In the Shadow of Freedom is the uplifting story of one man's quest to achieve the American Dream. Tchicaya Missamou's life is a shining example of why America is a gift that should not be taken for granted, and why we are limited only by the breadth of our imagination and the strength of our will.A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea
By Richard Phillips, Stephan Talty. 2013
"I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew. His courage…
is a model for all Americans."--President Barack Obama It was just another day on the job for fifty-three-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, the United States-flagged cargo ship which was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship. The pirates didn't expect the crew to fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew. Thus began the tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue when U.S. Navy SEALs opened fire and picked off three of the captors. "It never ends like this," Captain Phillips said. And he's right. A Captain's Duty tells the life-and-death drama of the Vermont native who was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores. A story of adventure and courage, it provides the intimate details of this high-seas hostage-taking--the unbearable heat, the death threats, the mock executions, and the escape attempt. When the pirates boarded his ship, Captain Phillips put his experience into action, doing everything he could to safeguard his crew. And when he was held captive by the pirates, he marshaled all his resources to ensure his own survival, withstanding intense physical hardship and an escalating battle of wills with the pirates. This was it: the moment where training meets instinct and where character is everything. Richard Phillips was ready.Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
By Ellis Henican, Rorke Denver. 2013
From leadership expert, former Navy SEAL, "American Grit" feature player, and author of Worth Dying For: A Navy SEAL's Call…
to a Nation, Rorke Denver, the bestselling account of how he helped create the U.S. Navy SEALS of today. Rorke Denver trains the men who become Navy SEALs--the most creative problem solvers on the modern battlefield, ideal warriors for the kinds of wars America is fighting now. With his years of action-packed mission experience and a top training role, Lieutenant Commander Denver understands exactly how tomorrow's soldiers are recruited, sculpted, motivated, and deployed.Now, Denver takes you inside his personal story and the fascinating, demanding SEAL training program he now oversees. He recounts his experience evolving from a young SEAL hopeful pushing his way through Hell Week, into a warrior engaging in dangerous stealth missions across the globe, and finally into a lieutenant commander directing the indoctrination, requalification programs, and the "Hero or Zero" missions his SEALs undertake.From his own SEAL training and missions overseas, Denver details how the SEALs' creative operations became front and center in America's War on Terror-and how they are altering warfare everywhere. In fourteen years as a SEAL officer, Rorke Denver tangled with drug lords in Latin America, stood up to violent mobs in Liberia, and battled terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leading 200 commando missions, he earned the Bronze Star with V for valor. He has also served as flag aide to the admiral in charge and spent the past four years as executive officer of the Navy Special Warfare Center's Advanced Training Command in Coronado, California, directing all phases of the basic and advanced training that prepare men for war in SEAL teams. He recently starred in the film Act of Valor. He is married and has two daughters.Ellis Henican is a columnist at Newsday and an on-air commentator at the Fox News Channel. He has written two recent New York Times bestsellers, Home Team with New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and In the Blink of an Eye with NASCAR legend Michael Waltrip.With all the SEALs' recent successes, we have been getting a level of acclaim we're not used to. But something important has been missing in this warm burst of publicity . Correcting that is my mission here.My own SEAL dream was launched by a book. My hope is that this one teaches lessons that go far beyond the battlefield, inspiring a fresh generation of warriors to carry on that dream.-Lieutenant Commander Rorke DenverThe Andy Warhol Diaries
By Andy Warhol, Pat Hackett. 1989
In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the bestselling classic is introduced to a new generation-with an added preface by Warhol's…
diarist and long-time friend, Pat Hackett, contemplating Warhol's lasting cultural impact. This international literary sensation turns the spotlight on one of the most influential and controversial figures in American culture. Filled with shocking observations about the lives, loves, and careers of the rich, famous, and fabulous, Warhol's journal is endlessly fun and fascinating. Spanning the mid-1970s until just a few days before his death in 1987, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES is a compendium of the more than twenty thousand pages of the artist's diary that he dictated daily to Pat Hackett. In it, Warhol gives us the ultimate backstage pass to practically everything that went on in the world-both high and low. He hangs out with "everybody": Jackie O ("thinks she's so grand she doesn't even owe it to the public to have another great marriage to somebody big"), Yoko Ono ("We dialed F-U-C-K-Y-O-U and L-O-V-E-Y-O-U to see what happened, we had so much fun"), and "Princess Marina of, I guess, Greece," along with art-world rock stars Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Keith Haring. Warhol had something to say about everyone who crossed his path, whether it was Lou Reed or Liberace, Patti Smith or Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. A true cultural artifact, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES amounts to a portrait of an artist-and an era-unlike any other.Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom
By Lynn Vincent, Jerry Boykin. 2008
In 1978, Jerry Boykin joined what would become the world's premier Special Operations unit, Delta Force. The only promise: "A…
medal and a body bag." What followed was a .50 caliber round in the chest and a life spent with America's elite forces bringing down warlords and war criminals, despots, and dictators. In Colombia, his task force hunted the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. In Panama, he helped capture the brutal dictator Manuel Noriega, liberating a nation. From Vietnam to Iran to Mogadishu, Lt. General Jerry Boykin's life reads like an action-adventure novel. Boykin's powerful story will keep you riveted as he reveals how his military duty worked in tandem with his faith to bring him through the bloody storms of foreign battle-and through the political firestorm that ambushed him in his own country.Zero Footprint
By Ralph Pezzullo, Simon Chase. 2016
A dramatic insider account of the world of private military contracting.Armored cars, burner phones, top-notch weaponry and top-secret missions--this is…
the life of today's private military contractor. Like author Simon Chase, many PMCs were once the world's top military operatives, and since retiring from outfits like US Navy SEAL TEAM Six and the UK's Special Boat Service, they have devoted their lives to executing sensitive and hazardous missions overseas.Working at the request of U.S. and British government entities as well as for private clients, he takes on jobs that require "zero footprint," with no trace of their actions left behind.Chase delivers first-hand accounts of tracking Bin Laden in Afghanistan and being one of the first responders after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. We see his teams defuse terrorist bombs, guard dignitaries, and protect convoys traveling through perilous territory--and then there are the really big jobs: top-secret "zero footprint" missions that include searching for High Value Targets and setting up arms shipping networks.The missions in Zero Footprint will shock readers, but so will the personal dangers. Chase and the men he works with operate without government backup or air rescue. If they die serving their country--they remain anonymous. There are no military honors or benefits. Contractors like Simon Chase are the unsung heroes in the war against terrorism, a strong, but largely invisible force--until now.Guantánamo Diary
By Larry Siems, Mohamedou Ould Slahi. 2015
An unprecedented international publishing event: the first and only diary written by a still-imprisoned Guantánamo detainee.Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has…
been imprisoned at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. A federal judge ordered his release in March 2010, but the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go.Three years into his captivity Slahi began a diary, recounting his life before he disappeared into U.S. custody, "his endless world tour" of imprisonment and interrogation, and his daily life as a Guantánamo prisoner. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir---terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. Published now for the first time, GUANTÁNAMO DIARY is a document of immense historical importance and a riveting and profoundly revealing read.Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
By Sally Mann. 2015
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARThe New York Times, Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle,…
Vogue, NPR, Publishers Weekly, BookPage A revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder." In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.