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A Soldier's Dream
By William Doyle. 2011
For six months in 2006, a charismatic young U. S. Army captain and Arab linguist named Travis Patriquin unleashed a…
diplomatic and cultural charm offensive upon the Sunni Arab sheiks of Anbar province, the heart of darkness of the Iraqi insurgency. He galvanized American support for the “Sunni Awakening,” the tribal revolt against Al Qaeda that spread through the province and eventually across Iraq, a turning point that led to dramatically lower levels of violence in the country. The Awakening may not have succeeded without Patriquin, who was so beloved by Iraqis that they adopted him into their tribes and loved him as a brother. This is the true story of a man who loved Iraq, and a soldier who helped engineer the turning point of the Iraq War. It is the story of America’s T. E. Lawrence—Travis Patriquin. .Partners in Command
By Mark Perry. 2007
A unique look at the complex relationship between two of America?s foremost World War II leaders The first book ever…
to explore the relationship between George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, Partners in Command eloquently tackles a subject that has eluded historians for years. As Mark Perry charts the crucial impact of this duo on victory in World War II and later as they lay the foundation for triumph in the Cold War, he shows us an unlikely, complex collaboration at the heart of decades of successful American foreign policy?and shatters many of the myths that have evolved about these two great men and the issues that tested their alliance. As exciting to read as it is vitally informative, this work is a signal accomplishment. .To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian
By Stephen E Ambrose. 2002
In To America, Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the country's most influential historians, reflects on his long career as an…
American historian and explains what an historian's job is all about. He celebrates America's spirit, which has carried us so far. He confronts its failures and struggles. As always in his much acclaimed work, Ambrose brings alive the men and women, famous and not, who have peopled our history and made the United States a model for the world. Taking a few swings at today's political correctness, as well as his own early biases, Ambrose grapples with the country's historic sins of racism, its neglect and ill treatment of Native Americans, and its tragic errors (such as the war in Vietnam, which he ardently opposed on campus, where he was a professor). He reflects on some of the country's early founders who were progressive thinkers while living a contradiction as slaveholders, great men such as Washington and Jefferson. He contemplates the genius of Andrew Jackson's defeat of a vastly superior British force with a ragtag army in the War of 1812. He describes the grueling journey that Lewis and Clark made to open up the country, and the building of the railroad that joined it and produced great riches for a few barons. Ambrose explains the misunderstood presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, records the country's assumption of world power under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, and extols its heroic victory of World War II. He writes about women's rights and civil rights and immigration, founding museums, and nation- building. He contrasts the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout, Ambrose celebrates the unflappable American spirit. Most important, Ambrose writes about writing history. "The last five letters of the word 'history' tell us that it is an account of the past that is about people and what they did, which is what makes it the most fascinating of subjects." To America is an instant classic for all those interested in history, patriotism, and the love of writing.Holocaust: An American Understanding
By Deborah E. Lipstadt. 2016
Immediately after World War II, there was little discussion of the Holocaust, but today the word has grown into a…
potent political and moral symbol, recognized by all. In Holocaust: An American Understanding, renowned historian Deborah E. Lipstadt explores this striking evolution in Holocaust consciousness, revealing how a broad array of Americans--from students in middle schools to presidents of the United States--tried to make sense of this inexplicable disaster, and how they came to use the Holocaust as a lens to interpret their own history. Lipstadt weaves a powerful narrative that touches on events as varied as the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Stonewall, and the women's movement, as well as controversies over Bitburg, the Rwandan genocide, and the bombing of Kosovo. Drawing upon extensive research on politics, popular culture, student protests, religious debates and various strains of Zionist ideologies, Lipstadt traces how the Holocaust became integral to the fabric of American life. Even popular culture, including such films as Dr. Strangelove and such books as John Hershey's The Wall, was influenced by and in turn influenced thinking about the Holocaust. Equally important, the book shows how Americans used the Holocaust to make sense of what was happening in the United States. Many Americans saw the civil rights movement in light of Nazi oppression, for example, while others feared that American soldiers in Vietnam were destroying a people identified by the government as the enemy. Lipstadt demonstrates that the Holocaust became not just a tragedy to be understood but also a tool for interpreting America and its place in the world. Ultimately Holocaust: An American Understanding tells us as much about America in the years since the end of World War II as it does about the Holocaust itself.A Hidden Life: A Memoir of August 1969
By Johanna Reiss. 2009
In 1969, Reiss made the trip to Holland to chronicle the two years, seven months, and one day she had…
spent hiding from the Nazis. Subtle and disturbing, the book is a powerful consideration of memory, violence, and loss, told in a stunning and sparse narrative style.The resilience of the lotus
By Eugen Fischer. 2015
This story tells the sad truth about a young, displaced woman from Manchuria, her life during the Japanese invasion 1931-1945…
and some years thereafter. Told to the author in Singapore in the late seventies, it is a harrowing tale of humanity's cruelty and the horrors of war, but also a testament that life always finds a way to survive. Her strength and courage in the horrendous circumstances of war and occupation are inspirational. Like the lotus flower, the human spirit has the potential to grow in the worst environment, and emerge from the muck to bloom again as a beautiful flower. There are so many victims in a war, and once the war is over, one doesn't know their names nor find their graves. The stench of war wilts all flowers. The stench of peace lets them bloom again.Churchill's Channel War
By Robert Jackson. 2013
From the beaches of Dunkirk to the launch of Operation Overlord the Channel saw continuous action during World…
War II and was the world s most fought-over waterway In this fascinating account Robert Jackson offers a study of the Channel War from 1939-45 detailing the German threats to British shipping the use of convoys and the extensive minelaying operations as well as the Battle of Britain the use of long-range artillery and everything in between As well as offering a study of the furious Channel War battles Jackson also reveals how the Channel was essential for the launch of Churchill s famed special forces Commandos who under the cover of darkness launched raids on Occupied France as well as the Channel Islands The Channel War bought together the Royal Navy and Air Force as they both battled to defend England and prevent a much feared German invasionOnward We Charge
By H. Paul Jeffers. 2007
The true story of one of the most charismatic commanders of World War II. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and…
the Purple Heart, and posthumously promoted to Brigadier General by President Truman, Colonel William Darby was an indisputable hero. His elite battalion of Army Rangers paved the way for Ranger success in subsequent wars-and left an unforgettable legacy in its wake. Onward We Charge takes readers from the beachheads of North Africa to the bloody campaigns of southern Italy, and to Darby's tragic death by German shrapnel just eight days before V-E Day. This is the true story of a man who held his own beside the greatest military figures in history.Panzer III vs Somua S 35
By Steven Zaloga, Richard Chasemore. 2014
This fully illustrated study pits Germany's PzKpfw III tank against France's Somua S 35 in the vast armored battles that…
opened the campaign.The armor clashes in May 1940 were the biggest the world had yet seen, as the German advances of that period came to epitomize Blitzkrieg. Nonetheless the Wehrmacht's Panzer III was well matched by the French Somua S35; the two representing very different design philosophies and yet ranking among the best designs in the world at the time.Nothing Makes You Free: Writings by Descendants of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
By Melvin Jules Bukiet. 2002
A groundbreaking collection of Holocaust literature by the heirs to the greatest evil of our time. History is preserved in…
the memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the imaginations of their children, the so-called Second Generation. Nothing Makes You Free considers the heritage of the descendants of those who faced the horrific lie that adorned the gates of many German concentration camps: "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes You Free"). In the words of this groundbreaking anthology's introduction: "Other kids' parents didn't have numbers on their arms. Other kids' parents didn't talk about massacres as easily as baseball. Other kids' parents loved them, but never gazed at their offspring as miracles in the flesh....How do you deal with this responsibility? Well, if you were a writer, you wrote." Gathered here are writings of both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from farce to fantasy to brutal realism, from an international selection of writers, including Art Spiegelman, Eva Hoffman, Peter Singer, and Carl Friedman. Contributors: Lea Aini, David Albahari, Tammie Bob, Lilly Brett, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Leon De Winter, Esther Dischereit, Barbara Finkelstein, Alain Finkielkraut, Carl Friedman, Eva Hoffman, Helena Janaczek, Anne Karpf, Alan Kaufman, Ruth Knafo Setton, Mihaly Kornis, Savyon Liebrecht, Alcina Lubitch Domecq, Gila Lustiger, Sonia Pilcer, Doron Rabinovici, Henri Raczymov, Victoria Redel, Thane Rosenbaum, Goran Rosenberg, Peter Singer, Joseph Skibell, Art Spiegelman, J. J. Steinfeld, Val Vinokurov "Nothing Makes You Free is a wide-ranging, exuberant, and altogether powerful collection. A necessary reminder of the lingering effects of the Holocaust and of all the embers--in each generation--saved from the fire."--Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The Illuminated Soul "What happens to a generation of writers born after but indelibly shaped by the Holocaust? From the bitterly sardonic title of Bukiet's clear-eyed and refreshingly unsentimental collection to its last words, this volume will cause all to see this past in startlingly new and unexpected ways. This is certainly not their parent's Holocaust. But in all their immense variety, dexterity, oppressed imaginativeness, pain, and wonder, these writings show how even as a 'vicarious past,' the Holocaust continues to shape both inner and outer worlds of the survivors' offspring and now, by extension, our own as well."--James E. Young, author of At Memory's Edge and The Texture of Memory "A superb anthology...tenderness mixes with rage, sorrow with bitterness, in this first-rate gathering of pieces by those who refuse to forget."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "A trenchant array...convincingly demonstrate[s] that the Second-Generation experience and the artistic vision growing from it is not merely a diluted version of the survivors' experience, but a distinct phenomenon and ethos of its own."--Miami Herald "An important book."--BooklistHuman Game
By Simon Read. 2012
In March and April of 1944, Gestapo gunmen killed fifty POWs--a brutal act in defiance of international law and the…
Geneva Conventions. This is the true story of the men who hunted them down. The mass breakout of seventy-six Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III became one of the greatest tales of World War II, immortalized in the film The Great Escape. But where Hollywood's depiction fades to black, another incredible story begins . . . Not long after the escape, fifty of the recaptured airmen were taken to killing fields throughout Germany and shot on the direct orders of Hitler. When the nature of these killings came to light, Churchill's government swore to pursue justice at any cost. A revolving team of military police, led by squadron leader Francis P. McKenna, was dispatched to pick up a trail long gone cold. Amid the chaos of postwar Germany, divided between American, British, French, and Russian occupiers, McKenna led a three-year manhunt that brought twenty-one Gestapo killers to justice. In Human Game, Simon Read delivers a clear-eyed and meticulously researched account of this often overlooked saga of hard-won justice. INCLUDES PHOTOSThe Marines in World War II
By Michael E. Haskew. 2016
2016 will mark the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that pushed the United States into World War…
II and sent thousands of US Marines to fight and die on tiny islands half a world away. Today, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Tarawa are household names that hold legendary status on the Marines’ roll of honor. But in 1941, the Marine Corps was a small expeditionary force with outdated equipment and an unproven new mission—amphibious assault. Michael E. Haskew's The Marines in World War II charts the rapid development of this famous fighting force from two brigades, totaling fewer than 20,000 servicemen, to two full corps with six divisions, five air wings, 21 battalions and as many as 475,000 Marines. In addition to chronicling the hard fought battles at places like Midway, Guadalcanal and Guam, the book also addresses the important role played by Navajo code talkers during combat, as well as the changes that took place within the Marines during the war, such as the admission of its first black members and the gradual desegregation of the Corps.An updated and expanded photographic history of the famed military aircraft and the men who flew them …
Aviation historian Norman Franks updates his classic book The Lancaster with new information and photos The Avro Lancaster was a four-engine heavy bomber that played a crucial role in World War II and this illustrated volume records the history of thirty-five of them supported by stories from aircrew members The most famous of the bombers is Queenie W5868 the only one of these Lancasters that survives now in the Bomber Command Hall at the Royal Air Force Museum in London Ton-Up Lancs delves into some of the controversies surrounding Queenie and other Lancasters and also includes detailed listings of each raid these thirty-five Lancasters flew during from 1942 through 1945 together with the names of the pilot and crew that took them on sorties all over Hitler s Third Reich and Northern Italy on support missions before and after D-Day in June 1944 and attacks on V1 rocket launch sites situated in Northern France The book also offers a view from one of the Lancaster s former skippers on what it was like to fly a bomber tour of operations in Bomber CommandThe suspenseful true story of a love that defied Nazi oppression, and a harrowing journey to freedom. In 1945, Ditha…
Bruncel was living with her parents in the small town of Lossen, in Upper Silesia. Close Jewish friends had vanished, swastikas hung from every building, and neighbors were disappearing in the middle of the night. At the same time more than fifteen hundred British and Commonwealth airmen were being marched out of Stalag Luft VII, a POW camp in the same region. Twenty-three of these prisoners managed to escape from the marching column—and by chance hobbled into Lossen. One among them, Warrant Officer Gordon Slowey, was the man Ditha was destined to meet and fall in love with. Into Enemy Arms tells the extraordinary story of Ditha and the escaped POWs she helped save. Together, they embarked on a dangerous and daring flight out of Germany. As they faced exhaustion, hunger, extreme cold, and the constant risk of discovery, Ditha and Gordon’s love for one another intensified, and so did their determination to survive and escape.Never Let The Meat Touch The Metal
By Robert Cooper. 2014
What makes a hero? Is it an individual who does things above and beyond the call of duty or is…
it someone who just keeps sticking his big fat nose into all the wrong places at the wrong time. Max is a young man in Poland who finds himself conscripted into the military prior to World War Two. His ability to speak a number of foreign languages and cook bring him to the attention of the High Command. A number of this elite group take a liking to him and he winds up learning things that most soldiers cannot even phantom, amongst them is the skills of a spy. When the war breaks out, Max uses these skills against the Germans; but in his travels, he discovers that they are not his only adversaries. Max begins to ask questions that no one wants to answer. In his quest to find these answers, he uncovers the true secrets of the war. The question then becomes who he can trust. Especially when it seems like everyone is trying to kill him to keep there dirty little secrets.Vanished
By Wil S. Hylton. 2013
In the fall of 1944, a massive American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the Pacific islands of Palau, leaving a…
trail of mysteries. According to mission reports from the Army Air Forces, the plane crashed in shallow waterbut when investigators went to find it, the wreckage wasn't there. Witnesses saw the crew parachute to safety, yet the airmen were never seen again. Some of their relatives whispered that they had returned to the United States in secret and lived in hiding. But they never explained why. For sixty years, the U. S. government, the children of the missing airmen, and a maverick team of scientists and scuba divers searched the islands for clues. They trolled the water with side-scan sonar, conducted grid searches on the seafloor, crawled through thickets of mangrove and poison trees, and flew over the islands in small planes to shoot infrared photography. With every clue they found, the mystery only deepened. Now, in a spellbinding narrative, Wil S. Hylton weaves together the true story of the missing men, their final mission, the families they left behind, and the real reason their disappearance remained shrouded in secrecy for so long. This is a story of love, loss, sacrifice, and faith of the undying hope among the families of the missing, and the relentless determination of scientists, explorers, archaeologists, and deep-sea divers to solve one of the enduring mysteries of World War II. .Bloody Roads to Germany
By William F. Meller. 2012
He never planned on becoming a leader--or a hero . . . In early October of 1944 Private William Meller…
was 20 years old. Joining I Company, 28th Divison as a rifleman, he was indoctrinated on the front line to the horrors of fighting the battle-hardened German Wehrmacht in the wet freezing cold of the Huertgen Forest. In early November, fighting with only rifles and grenades for three days and without food, water or medical supplies two hundred men of I Company were surrounded, killed, wounded or captured. This created the only Cease Fire in WWII. Meller and two GIs escaped to the American lines with the guidance of a German Corporal. In early November I Company was re-formed, with Meller as Sergeant-squad leader, second Platoon and moved to the Ardennes; installed their Outpost one half mile facing the Siegfried Line on the German-Luxembourg border next to Walthausen. At 6:30 AM December 16 the Panzer Lehr German Division crossed the Our River: With Staff Sergeant Meller, now the Platoon Leader, 12 men stopped the German Armored Infantry offensive until they ran out of ammunition and the Panther Tanks arrived at 4:30 PM. This was beginning of The Battle of the Bulge. INCLUDES PHOTOSThe Bombers and the Bombed
By Richard Overy. 2013
The ultimate history of the Allied bombing campaigns in World War II Technology shapes the nature of all wars, and…
the Second World War hinged on a most unpredictable weapon: the bomb. Day and night, Britain and the United States unleashed massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize occupied Europe, destroying its cities. The grisly consequences call into question how moral” a war the Allies fought. The Bombers and the Bombed radically overhauls our understanding of World War II. It pairs the story of the civilian front line in the Allied air war alongside the political context that shaped their strategic bombing campaigns, examining the responses to bombing and being bombed with renewed clarity. The first book to examine seriously not only the well-known attacks on Dresden and Hamburg but also the significance of the firebombing on other fronts, including Italy, where the crisis was far more severe than anything experienced in Germany, this is Richard Overy’s finest work yet. It is a rich reminder of the terrible military, technological, and ethical issues that relentlessly drove all the war’s participants into an abyss. .Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, Place, and Holocaust Testimony
By Hannah Pollin. 2018
An innovative reassessment of Holocaust testimony revealing the dramatic ways in which the languages and places of postwar life…
inform survivor memory This groundbreaking work rethinks conventional wisdom about Holocaust testimony focusing on the power of language and place to shape personal narrative Oral histories of Lithuanian Jews serve as the textual base for this exploration Comparing the remembrances of Holocaust victims who remained in Lithuania with those who resettled in Israel and North America after World War II Pollin-Galay reveals meaningful differences based on where survivors chose to live out their postwar lives and whether their language of testimony was Yiddish English or Hebrew The differences between their testimonies relate to notions of love justice community and how the Holocaust did violence to these aspects of the self More than an original presentation of yet-unheard stories this book challenges the assumption of a universal vocabulary for describing and healing human painAmerican Daughter
By Elizabeth Kendall. 2000
In this beautifully crafted book, Elizabeth Kendall tells the story of a family, of a passionate attachment between a mother…
and a daughter and the sudden tragedy that tears it apart. American Daughter is also a brilliant portrait of wellborn women's lives in cities and towns in the post-World War II era, as Kendall evokes how difficult it was to become anything other than an American daughter, which meant being a dependent woman. Occupying a coveted place in St. Louis's privileged high society, Henry and Betty Kendall seemed to be the American dream come true: six children, a sprawling house, a legacy of higher education at Harvard and Vassar. Yet underneath lay the flawed marriage of an idealistic young woman who made her eldest daughter her best friend and turned civil rights into her salvation. Elizabeth maintained the family silence as eccentricities began to appear in her father's behavior, along with whispers of financial difficulties. She accompanied her mother back to Vassar for a summer program on the home and family, then came into her own, away from her family, at the haven of a girls' summer camp and at Radcliffe. From the war-torn 1940s, when young men in uniform, home on leave, went to debutante parties, through the seismic social changes of the 1960s, Kendall tells the intertwined story of her mother and herself, of their powerful bond and how both shaped their lives in response to it. Unrelentingly honest, rich with humor and insights into families and women's lives, American Daughter is both a poignant portrait of American life at the middle of the twentieth century, and a dual coming-of-age story of a mother and a daughter, united by commitment and love, separated by a fatal accident-and by the vastly different birthrights of their generations.From the Hardcover edition.