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The Architect of Kokoda: Bert Kienzle - The Man Who Made the Kokoda Track
By Robyn Kienzle. 2011
In my humble opinion, Bert Kienzle did more than any other single man to make Australian victory possible.' Peter FitzSimons,…
author of KokodaIn 1942, when the Japanese had invaded Papua New Guinea and the Australian soldiers sent to hold them back thought victory was impossible, one man, Bert Kienzle, changed the course of history.This charismatic man, well known in Papua for having run gold mines and plantations there, was charged with the seemingly impossible task of establishing a trail across the forbidding Owen Stanley Range in just a few short months.Out of jungle and mud, Kienzle carved a working transport route that his handpicked teams of native bearers, the now famous Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, would work on alongside the Australian troops ensuring that the men got the food, munitions and medical support they needed. The feats that these men performed were heroic, and their endurance as they transported supplies along the Trail unparalleled. Bert Kienzle lived an amazing life and the transport route he established ? the legendary Kokoda Trail ? made Australia?s victory possible.This is his story.Marching with the Devil: Legends, Glory and Lies in the French Foreign Legion
By David Mason. 2017
`Since its creation in 1831, the French Foreign Legion has become the stuff of myth, fiction and dreams... Anyone thinking…
of joining up would be well advised to read this book first? - The Sun HeraldA real-life boy's own adventure, Marching With The Devil is an account of David Mason's five years in the infamous French Foreign Legion.David Mason graduated from the Australian National University with a law degree and an honours degree. Like those around him, he could easily have settled for a life of share portfolios, good suits, new cars and big houses. But David wanted more ? he wanted a challenge, an adventure, something beyond the ordinary that would test him physically and mentally. He looked around to see what he could do. Working in an open-cut mine . . . done that. Running a marathon . . . hmm, not hard enough. Climbing Everest . . . maybe? Joining the French Foreign Legion . . . perfect!Marching With The Devil is the gripping true story of what happened when an Australian lawyer left his comfortable existence and joined the legendary French Foreign Legion. He stayed for five years and served time in the elite Parachute Regiments. With the motto 'March or Die', the legion has a history of pain, grief and glory. David Mason takes us behind the myth to reveal exactly what happens: the adventure, the danger, the drinking, the fighting and the lies that sustain the legend.fore the final choice must be made.`Remarkable... It's hard not to think it a shame that a man of such obvious gifts should have wasted them on the legion, just so as not to have to feel like a quitter, even if this book was the result? - The Age`Marching with the Devil quickly turns into an insightful and honest account of an unpretentious Aussie's experiences in one of the most ramshackle and soul-destroying military organisations on Earth? - Courier Mail`A strangely compulsive read about one man?s quest for self knowledge? - Men's Health Magazine`Mason left a comfortable life in Australia to test himself in the crucible of the legion, and he writes about it 20 years after his service time necessary to give himself the distance and context he needed to write about an extraordinary and painful experience? - Sunday Mail BrisbaneSAS Insider: An elite SAS fighter on life in Australia's toughest and most secretive combat unit
By Robert Macklin, Clint Palmer. 2014
The true story of Australia's SAS and the soldier who was there from the start.Clint Palmer has spent much of…
his adult life in the SAS and has fought in this elite military unit as it developed from its fledgling beginnings into the highly trained, specialised fighting force it is today. He is an insider with the long view and this is his unique story of life in the SAS.As a bush kid in the Northern Territory of Australia, growing up in a one dog mining town, Palmer?s best friends were mostly Aboriginal kids, and the outside world barely existed. But he always had one driving ambition - the army. Enduring the toughest of tough training, Palmer soon demonstrated his fighting capabilities and became part of the Australian SAS. So began almost thirty years of service.We go with him to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he is at the heart of some of the worst fighting in Operation Anaconda in the Shahi-Kot Valley in 2002. He lets us in on what it?s like to have made well over a thousand parachute jumps, many of them in terrible conditions and into treacherous terrain which may have ended not just his career but his life. And he shares with us how this adrenalin fuelled world has become a lifelong commitment.Palmer is the man who knows the Regiment almost better than anyone, so SAS Insider really is the inside story of the SAS - and a gripping account of one Australian soldier?s life at the sharp end.Robert Macklin is a well-known Australian biographer and historian with more than twenty books to his credit. His most recent books include ONE FALSE MOVE, DARK PARADISE and the bestselling SAS SNIPER which he co-wrote with Rob Maylor.Unsung Ordinary Men: A Generation Like No Other
By Sally Dingo. 2010
After spending over three years in the horrific prisoner-of-war camps, including those along the Thai-Burma Railway, Sally Dingo's father Max…
was one of the fortunate ones: he came home. And yet, like most of the 22,000 Australian POWs of the Japanese, he would not, or could not, talk about what happened with those closest to him. It is also the story of Max's father Mort, who had served in World War I, the story of Max's cobbers - the perhaps unique community of ex-POWs who kept each other going - and the story of the mothers, wives and children who tried to understand what their men were still going through, decades later. This is the story of men, unsung and ordinary, who defended their country and were reluctant to tell the tale.Ned Kelly: A Short Life
By Ian Jones. 1996
'the best Kelly biography by a country mile' - The AustralianThe definitive biography of Ned Kelly - and a superb…
description of his times. A bestseller since it was first published, Ned Kelly: A Short Life is acknowledged as being the definitive biography. Ian Jones combines years of research into all the records of the era and exhaustive interviews with living descendants of those involved, to present a vivid and gripping account of one of Australia's most iconic figures. `It will probably stand as the definitive account of Kelly?s life and its meaning?a work of prodigious scholarship, vivid reportage and sharp analysis?the most detailed portrait of the outlaw ever written? - Rod Moran, West Australian`the definitive biographical work? - Dr John McQuilton, author of The Kelly OutbreakThe Voices of War: Australians Tell Their Stories From World War I to the Present
By Michael Caulfield. 2010
Drawn from engagements ranging from World War I through to operations in East Timor and Iraq, these stories are taken…
from the Australians at War Film Archive, a collection of the memories of more than 2000 Australians who have served, both on the front line and at home. Some are unbelievably, unbearably tragic, even after sixty or seventy years; others are the golden memories of happy, albeit unusual, times. And, more often than not, they are stories that have never been shared with others, even family members. There are stories from winners of the Victoria Cross; from the POW camps of Asia and Europe; from the patrols of Vietnam, through to those who served as peacekeepers in Rwanda and Somalia. There are stories from nurses, from those who have volunteered to serve with aid agencies and stories of ordinary Australians caught up by circumstances and by duty, in wartime. These are their words.Killer Caldwell: Australia's Greatest Figher Pilot
By Jeffrey Watson. 2005
Clive 'Killer' Caldwell was a natural and brilliant pilot, a superb shot, and a born leader. He saw action against…
the Germans, Italians and Japanese, and remains Australia's greatest ever fighter pilot.Born and brought up in Sydney, it was obvious from an early age that nothing would stand in Caldwell's way. He bluffed his way into the RAAF, then made sure that he was posted to exactly where he thought he should be.His ability was unquestioned by all those around him, and he devised the vital 'shadow shooting' technique which contributed so much to Allied success in the air in the north African campaign, and in northern Australia. But he was never afraid of voicing his opinions to all those above and below him, be it about the training of pilots, or the equipping of Spitfires for use against the Japanese - and for trying to run the show his way...Caldwell ended his military career in the Morotai Mutiny in 1945, where he and a number of other Australian pilots tried to resign their commisions in protest at not being allowed by General MacArthur - and the RAAF - to take part in the main action. And then he was embroiled in the Barry inquiry into booze smuggling by him and other pilots...Killer Caldwell is a colourful portrait of a colourful Australian.The Legend of River Mahay: Story of love, survival and triumph over adversity
By Deborah Wood. 2007
Homesteaders wounding each other in a deadly shootout. Bear attacks. Surviving 60-below zero on the North Slope. Riverboating Class VI…
whitewater, considered impossible to run without risk of life and limb. Practical jokes. Moose Dropping festivals. Plane crashes. Drownings. Saving lives. Love and Passion. Divorce. Eccentric curmudgeons. All these describe the true-to-life people, stories and tales of high adventure that await you in The Legend of River Mahay. Read about the man, the legend, and the lifestyle that made his name a household word in Alaska. His story will keep you spellbound, laughing and crying from start to finish, and in the end, entice you to become a part of the allure that is Alaska. The Legend of River Mahay is a classic that reveals to us that being an Alaskan is not just a name, but rather, a celebration of an adventure lifestyle; a dream that all of us have within us. This book is also an allegorical tale of the struggle that all Alaska pioneers embrace. Take the adversities with bears and substitute fear, self doubt, isolationism, failure, and hardships that all pioneers combat to survive, succeed and evolve in the wilderness. This is a story about a man who wants to know what is always on the other side of the ridge, and who does what it takes to get there. Christopher Batin, Editor and Publisher, Alaska Angler/Alaska Hunter Publications. Although The Legend of River Mahay illustrates a man and his dream, it also presents life in an Alaska Bush community where the odds are good that the goods are odd. Deborah Cox Wood relates Steve Mahay's yen for adventure, his personal'Mahay Way' philosophy, adventures on the river, his personal life and family, as well as his relentless pursuit of living by God's rules--all amidst the history and local color of Talkeetna, Alaska, population 378 and one old grouch. Larry Kaniut, Author of Alaska Bear TalesL'impératrice Wu Zetian
By Laurel A. Rockefeller, Agnès Metanomski. 2016
La femme la plus haïe de l'histoire de la Chine ! Voyagez plus de mille ans en arrière dans le…
temps et rencontrez la première et unique femme empereur de la Chine. Née Wu Zhao et attribuée le titre de règne « Zetian » quelques semaines seulement avant sa mort en 705 CE, elle était la fille indésirable du chancelier Wu Shihuo -- trop intelligente, trop éduquée et trop intéressée par la politique pour être une bonne épouse, selon les interprétations contemporaines des Entretiens de Confucius. Est-il surprenant que jusqu'à ce jour elle demeure la femme la plus haïe de toute l'histoire de la Chine et une de ses plus controversées ? Explorez la vie de l'impératrice Wu et découvrez pourquoi le monde est un endroit bien plus différent parce qu'elle a osé faire ce qu'aucune femme en Chine, avant et depuis, n'a jamais rêvé de faire.American Aristocrats: A Family, a Fortune, and the Making of American Capitalism
By Harry S. Stout. 2017
The story of an ambitious family at the forefront of the great middle-class land grab that shaped early American capitalismAmerican…
Aristocrats is a multigenerational biography of the Andersons of Kentucky, a family of strivers who passionately believed in the promise of America. Beginning in 1773 with the family patriarch, a twice-wounded Revolutionary War hero, the Andersons amassed land throughout what was then the American west. As the eminent religious historian Harry S. Stout argues, the story of the Andersons is the story of America's experiment in republican capitalism. Congressmen, diplomats, and military generals, the Andersons enthusiastically embraced the emerging American gospel of land speculation. In the process, they became apologists for slavery and Indian removal, and worried anxiously that the volatility of the market might lead them to ruin.Drawing on a vast store of Anderson family records, Stout reconstructs their journey to great wealth as they rode out the cataclysms of their time, from financial panics to the Civil War and beyond. Through the Andersons we see how the lure of wealth shaped American capitalism and the nation's continental aspirations.Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi
By Thomas Weber. 2017
An award-winning historian charts Hitler's radical transformation after World War I from a directionless loner into a powerful National Socialist…
leaderIn Becoming Hitler, award-winning historian Thomas Weber examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement. The tragedy for Germany and the world was that Hitler found himself in Munich; had he not been in Bavaria in the wake of the war and the revolution, his transformation into a National Socialist may never have occurred. In Becoming Hitler, Weber brilliantly charts this tragic metamorphosis, dramatically expanding our knowledge of how Hitler became a lethal demagogue.At times, even his admirers seemed unsure of what to do with General Douglas MacArthur. Imperious, headstrong, and vain, MacArthur…
matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific--the first in the history of warfare--secured America’s triumph in World War II and changed the course of history. In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows, Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur’s subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater’s most celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas MacArthur’s success--and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible.The Shining Sea: David Porter and the Epic Voyage of the U.S.S. Essex during the War of 1812
By George C. Daughan. 2013
Shortly after the outbreak of the War of 1812, Captain David Porter set out at the helm of the USS…
Essex, intent on rounding Cape Horn and hunting British whaling and merchant ships in the Pacific Ocean. Porter’s odyssey took him to exotic isles and brought glory to the fledgling American navy, and in The Shining Sea, celebrated historian George C. Daughan tells the full story of this historic voyage for the first time. Porter’s cruise is now regarded as the greatest maritime adventure of the period, but his monomaniacal quest to capture a British man-of-war ultimately cost him his ship and the lives of over two-thirds of his crew--a disgraceful end to a daring journey. A thrilling narrative of risk and ruin on the high seas, The Shining Sea brings to life one of the war’s greatest tragedies, capturing Porter’s immense hubris and his cataclysmic failure.Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years
By Cameron Price. 2017
After returning from the Vietnam War, Cameron finds the United States has changed in ways he could not have imagined.…
He struggles to find his path through challenges in relationships, school, and employment. As an African American in the early 1970s, Cameron learns he must persevere a great deal more than the average person in order to achieve his goals and dreams. As one of the former highest ranking spies in the military, Cameron dares to share his view on how women know if it is “real love.” Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years is an amazing non-fiction book and an excellent read.Horizons of Heroes 2: The Next Twenty Years
By Cameron Price. 2017
After returning from the Vietnam War, Cameron finds the United States has changed in ways he could not have imagined.…
He struggles to find his path through challenges in relationships, school, and employment. As an African American in the early 1970s, Cameron learns he must persevere a great deal more than the average person in order to achieve his goals and dreams. As one of the former highest ranking spies in the military, Cameron dares to share his view on how women know if it is “real love.” Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years is an amazing non-fiction book and an excellent read.Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet
By Jonathan Schneer. 2014
In May 1940, with France on the verge of defeat, Britain alone stood in the path of the Nazi military…
juggernaut. Survival seemed to hinge on the leadership of Winston Churchill, whom the King reluctantly appointed Prime Minister as Germany invaded France. Churchill’s reputation as one of the great twentieth-century leaders would be forged during the coming months and years, as he worked tirelessly first to rally his country and then to defeat Hitler. But Churchill--regarded as the savior of his nation, and of the entire continent--could not have done it alone. As prize-winning historian Jonathan Schneer reveals inMinisters at War, Churchill depended on a team of powerful ministers to manage the war effort as he rallied a beleaguered nation. Selecting men from across the political spectrum--from fellow Conservative Anthony Eden to leader of the opposing socialist Labor Party Clement Attlee--Churchill assembled a War Cabinet that balanced competing interests and bolstered support for his national coalition government. The group possessed a potent blend of talent, ambition, and egotism. Led and encouraged by Churchill, the ministers largely set aside their differences, at least at first. As the war progressed, discord began to grow. It reached a peak in 1945: with victory seemingly assured, Churchill was forced by his Minsters at War to dissolve the Government and call a General Election, which, in a shocking upset, he lost to his rival Attlee. Authoritatively recasting our understanding of British high politics during World War II, Schneer shows that Churchill managed the war effort by managing his team of supremely able yet contentious cabinet members. The outcome of the war lay not only in Churchill’s individual brilliance but also in his skill as an executive, and in the collective ability of men who muted their personal interests to save the world from barbarism.Cambridge Classical Studies: M. I. Finley
By Daniel Jew, Robin Osborne, Michael Scott. 2016
M. I. Finley (1912-86) was the most famous ancient historian of his generation. He was admired by his peers, and…
was Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of the British Academy. His unmistakable voice was familiar to tens of thousands of radio listeners, his polemical reviews and other journalism were found all over the broadsheets and weeklies, and his scholarly as well as his popular works sold in very large numbers as Penguin paperbacks. Yet this was also a man dismissed from his job at Rutgers University when he refused to answer the question of whether he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party. This pioneering volume assesses Finley's achievements and analyses the nature of the impact of this charismatic individual and the means by which he changed the world of ancient history.Born to Battle: Grant and Forrest--Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga
By Jack Hurst. 2012
Born to Battleexamines the Civil War’s complex and decisive western theater through the exploits of its greatest figures, Ulysses S.…
Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest. These two opposing giants squared off in some of the most epic campaigns of the war, starting at Shiloh and continuing through Perryville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanoogabattles in which the Union would slowly but surely divide the western Confederacy, setting the stage for the final showdowns of the bloody, protracted conflict. Grant is widely regarded as the man most responsible for winning the war for the Union, Forrest as the Confederacy’s most fearsome defender in the West. Both men had risen through their respective hierarchies thanks to their cunning and military brilliance, and despite their checkered pasts. Grant and Forrest were both lower”-born officers who struggled to overcome particular, dubious reputations (Forrest’s as a semi-literate rustic and Grant’s as a doltish drunkard). In time, however each became renowned for his intelligence, resourcefulness, and grit. Indeed, as Hurst shows, their familiarity with hardship gave both men a back-against-the-wall mindset that would ultimately determine their successboth on the battlefield, and off it. Beginning with the Union victory at Tennessee’s Fort Donelson in February 1862 (when Grant handed the Union the largest force ever captured on American soil, refurbishing his reputation and earning himself the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant”), Hurst follows both men through the campaigns of the next twenty months, showing how this critical periodand these two unequaled leaderswould change the course of the war. Again and again, Grant’s hardscrabble tactics saved Federal forces from the disastrous decisions of his fellow commanders, who seemed unable to think outside of the West Point playbook. Just as often, Forrest’s hot temper and wily, frontier know-how would surprise his Federal adversaries and allow him to claim astonishing victories on behalf of the Confederacy. But as Grant pressed south and east over the course of these twenty months, routing Confederate forces at such critical strongholds as Corinth, Vicksburg (Gibraltar of the Mississippi”), and Chattanooga, the systemic differences between the North and South began to tell. The more inclusive, meritocratic Union allowed Grant to enter into the military’s halls of decision, whereas the proudly aristocratic Confederate high command barred Forrest from contributing his input. As Hurst vividly demonstrates, that disparity affected, and possibly dictated, the war’s outcome. Thoroughly disgusted with his disdainful superiors and their failure to save his home state of Tennessee from the clutches of the Union, Forrest eventually requested a transfer to a backwater theater of the war. Grant, by contrast, won command of the entire Union army following his troops’ stunning performance at Chattanooga, and would go on to lead the North to victory over the forces of another exceptional Southern general: Robert E. Lee. An utterly American tale about class, merit, and their role in one of the most formative wars in the nation’s history,Born to Battleoffers an impassioned account of two visionary Civil War leaders and the clashing cultures they foughtin some cases, quite ironicallyto protect. Hurst shows how Grant and Forrest brought to the battlefield the fabled virtues of the American working-class: hard work, ingenuity, and intense determination. Each man’s background contributed to his triumphs on the battlefield, but the open-mindedness of his fellow commanders proved just as important. When the North embraced Grant, it won a stalwart defender. When the South rejected Forrest, by contrast, it sealed its fate.The Strategy of Victory: How General George Washington Won the American Revolution
By Thomas Fleming. 2017
A sweeping and insightful grand strategic overview of the American Revolution, highlighting Washington's role in orchestrating victory and creating the…
US ArmyLed by the Continental Congress, the Americans almost lost the war for independence because their military thinking was badly muddled. Following the victory in 1775 at Bunker Hill, patriot leaders were convinced that the key to victory was the home-grown militia--local men defending their families and homes. But the flush of early victory soon turned into a bitter reality as the British routed Americans fleeing New York.General George Washington knew that having and maintaining an army of professional soldiers was the only way to win independence. As he fought bitterly with the leaders in Congress over the creation of a regular army, he patiently waited until his new army was ready for pitched battle. His first opportunity came late in 1776, following his surprise crossing of the Delaware River. In New Jersey, the strategy of victory was about to unfold.In The Strategy of Victory, preeminent historian Thomas Fleming examines the battles that created American independence, revealing how the creation of a professional army worked on the battlefield to secure victory, independence, and a lasting peace for the young nation.Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II
By Madhusree Mukerjee. 2010
A dogged enemy of Hitler, resolute ally of the Americans, and inspiring leader through World War II, Winston Churchill is…
venerated as one of the truly great statesmen of the last century. But while he has been widely extolled for his achievements, parts of Churchill's record have gone woefully unexamined. As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill's decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably led to the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of eastern Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe.Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative, and riveting accounts of personality and policy clashes within and without the British War Cabinet, Churchill's Secret War places this oft-overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II, India's fight for freedom, and Churchill's enduring legacy. Winston Churchill may have found victory in Europe, but, as this groundbreaking historical investigation reveals, his mismanagement--facilitated by dubious advice from scientist and eugenicist Lord Cherwell--devastated India and set the stage for the massive bloodletting that accompanied independence.