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Showing 1 - 20 of 5427 items
By Changiz Lahidji, Ralph Pezzullo. 2018
Over 100 combat missions, 24 years as a Green Beret—Full Battle Rattle tells the legend of a soldier who served…
America in every war since Vietnam.Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred combat missions in Afghanistan. Changiz is a Special Forces legend. He also happens to be the first Muslim Green Beret. Changiz served this country starting with Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when he entered Tehran on a one-man mission to spy on Iranian soldiers guarding the US Embassy where 52 US diplomats were being held hostage. Three years later, he was in Beirut, Lebanon when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of the US Embassy killing 83 people. Weeks after that, he was shot by Hezbollah terrorists on a night mission. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led a convoy that was ambushed on its way to Fallujah. He was clearing houses in Mogadishu, Somalia on October, 1993 when a US Black Hawk helicopter was shot down 50 feet away from him in the incident that inspired Black Hawk Down. In 2002, he dressed as a farmer and snuck into Eastern Afghanistan and located Osama Bin Laden for the CIA. Along the way, Changiz earned numerous commendations, including the Special Forces Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, and many others. Last year he was nominated for induction in Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and cited as “the finest noncommissioned officer to ever serve in Special Forces.” His story is an amazing tale of perseverance and courage, of combat and one man’s love of his adopted country.By Imogen Lloyd Webber. 2016
Have you ever been at a cocktail party when all of a sudden you feel like an outsider in the…
conversation because you have absolutely no idea what the person is talking about? You're standing around with a glass of wine and someone starts talking about how the stock market did that day leading to the career highs of Ben Bernanke and the best way to short a stock. You stand there completely silent because you know nothing about the stock market, let alone the history of economics. You're being pushed to the outside edge of the pack and there's no way to reach gracefully for your iPhone and Google. Fear not: Imogen Lloyd Webber is on a mission to make everyone as conversationally nimble as she has learned to be as a cable news pundit. Her solution: get a few cheat sheets and study up. Remember cheat sheets, those slips of paper filled with facts? As Imogen might say "Google is good, but a cheat sheet is forever..." In eight cheat sheets, Imogen takes you through the facts that come up in most conversations: the English language, math/economics, religion, history, politics, geography, biology and culture. From the history of money to who signed The Magna Carta, Imogen shows you how to get back in a conversation, win any argument and most importantly, how to pivot out of a tough conversational bind. Imogen Lloyd Webber's The Intelligent Conversationalist will help you talk with anyone about anything anytime.By Gregory L. Vistica. 2003
The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey is an incredible story and a modern morality tale about a man of compassion and…
promise trapped by a horrible secret.On the night of February 25, 1969, an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Bob Kerrey, led a commando raid on an isolated hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts, one thing is certain: around midnight, Kerrey and his men killed nearly two dozen unarmed women and children. What happened that night and why? It's a terrible secret that Kerrey has borne for more than thirty years. Kerrey went on to do heroic things in Vietnam and later as a politician. Since World War II, he is only Medal of Honor winner to sit as a member of Congress. In many ways, Kerrey's life following that tragic mission has been a struggle for redemption.So is Bob Kerrey a war hero or war criminal? Gregory L. Vistica, who uncovered the Thanh Phong atrocities in a widely-praised cover story for The New York Times Magazine, searches the entire span of Kerrey's life to answer that question.. From his rural boyhood in Nebraska, to his gut wrenching Navy SEAL training, to his aborted run for President, Kerrey's life will become a vehicle for understanding the Vietnam generation shaped in the 50s and sharpened by the tumultuous 60s.By Toni Turner. 2005
Short-Term Trading in the New Stock Market by Toni Turner is an essential guide for every money-minded trader. In an…
uncertain market, can traders and investors find profits in short-term stock movements?Bestselling author and trader Toni Turner teaches readers the techniques and strategies needed to trade in today's up-and-down stock market. The book begins with "Seven Steps to Trading Success," which outlines the logistics needed to establish a trading career. In an upbeat, clear, and lively style, Short-Term Trading in the New Stock Market covers: *The Seven Steps to Trading Success*What the new stock market looks like*How to lower risks and increase gains*How to formulate your own trading business plan*How to analyze market cycles and find profit opportunities*Key Charting fundamentals that reveal buy and sell signals using Trends and Trendlines, Candlesticks, Volume, Momentum Indicators, and other tools for success*Swing Trading, Position Trading, and Selling Short*Introduction to E-mini trading and Forex markets* "Center Points" to find balance and calm in a fast-moving marketOperation Dark Heart tells the story of what really went on—and what went wrong—in Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer led…
a black-ops team on the forefront of the military efforts to block the Taliban's resurgence.For a moment he saw us winning the war. Then the military brass got involved. He witnessed firsthand the tipping point, when what seemed like certain victory turned into failure.This wasn't the first time he had seen bureaucracy stand in the way of national security. He had participated in Able Danger, the aborted intelligence operation that identified many of the future 9/11 terrorists but failed to pursue them. His attempt to reveal the truth to the 9/11 Commission would not go over well with the higher-ups.Operation Dark Heart made headlines when the Department of Defense bought the entire unredacted first printing. The book's revised second printing includes redactions, which, according to The New York Times, "offer a rare glimpse behind the bureaucratic veil that clocks information the government considers too important for public airing." But most importantly, Operation Dark Heart remains a stirring indictment against military bureaucracy and a culture of cover-ups.By Dominic Streatfeild. 2007
Vivid and disturbing, Brainwash is essential insight into the modern practice of interrogation and torture. With access to formerly classified…
documentation and interviews from the CIA, U.S. Army, MI5, MI6, and British Intelligence Corps, Dominic Streatfeild traces the evolution of mind control from its origins in the Cold War to the height of today's war on terror. Behind the front lines of every war in the world, prisoners are forced to sit for interrogation: manipulated, coerced, and sometimes tortured--often without ever being touched. Brainwash is a history of the methods intended to destroy and reconstruct the minds of captives, to extract information, convert dissidents, and lead peaceful men to kill and be killed.The New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden is an explosive first-hand account of a Delta Force commando's hunt for…
the world's most wanted man. The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—an operation of such magnitude that it couldn't be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America's supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force. Told by senior ranking military officer Dalton Fury, this is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed account of these warriors in battle.By Ryan Dezember. 2020
Winner of the Bruss Real Estate Book AwardHis assignment was to write about a real-estate frenzy lighting up the Redneck…
Riviera. So Ryan Dezember settled in and bought a home nearby himself. Then the market crashed, and he became one of the millions of Americans who suddenly owed more on their homes than they were worth. A flood of foreclosures made it impossible to sell. It didn't help that his quaint neighborhood fell into disrepair and drug-induced despair. He had no choice but to become a reluctant and wildly unprofitable landlord to move on. Meanwhile, his reporting showed how the speculative mania that caused the crash opened the U.S. housing market to a much larger breed of investors. In this deeply personal story, Dezember shows how decisions on Wall Street and in Washington played out on his street in a corner of the Sunbelt that was convulsed by the foreclosure crisis. Readers will witness the housing market collapse from Dezember’s perch as a newspaper reporter. First he’s in the boom-to-bust South where a hot-air balloonist named Bob Shallow becomes one of the world’s top selling real-estate agents arranging condo flips, developers flop in spectacular fashion and the law catches up with a beach-town mayor on the take. Later he’s in New York, among financiers like Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman who are building rental empires out of foreclosures, staking claim to the bastion of middle-class wealth: the single-family home. Through it all, Dezember is an underwater homeowner caught up in the mess.A cautionary tale of Wall Street's push to turn homes into assets, Underwater is a powerful, incisive story that chronicles the crash and its aftermath from a fresh perspective—the forgotten, middle-class homeowner.By Richard M. Ketchum. 1974
Richard M. Ketchum recounts the early developments of the American Revolution in Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill.Boston, 1775:…
A town occupied by General Thomas Gage's redcoats and groaning with Tory refugees from the Massachusetts countryside. Besieged for two months by a rabble in arms, the British decided to break out of town. American spies discovered their plans, and on the night of June 16, 1775, a thousand rebels marched out onto Charlestown peninsula and began digging a redoubt (not on Bunker Hill, which they had been ordered to fortify, but on Breeds Hill, well within cannon shot of the British batteries and ships). At daybreak, HMS Lively began firing. It was the opening round of a battle that saw unbelievable heroism and tragic blunders on both sides (a battle that marked a point of no return for England and her colonies), the beginning of the Revolutionary War.By James Brady. 2005
A memoir from the New York Times bestselling author of Warning of War and Marines of Autumn, James Brady's The…
Scariest Place in the World. Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound taps for a generation. It's been years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times, which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was." In the spring of 2003, Brady and Pulitzer Prize–winning combat photographer Eddie Adams flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served. Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war," the Yanks who fought there long ago, or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world." The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heartbreaking, and this Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.By Gene Allen Smith. 2013
A sweeping and original look at American slavery in the early nineteenth century that reveals the gamble slaves had to…
take to surviveImages of American slavery conjure up cotton plantations and African American slaves locked in bondage until the Civil War. Yet early on in the nineteenth century the state of slavery was very different, and the political vicissitudes of the young nation offered diverse possibilities to slaves. In the century's first two decades, the nation waged war against Britain, Spain, and various Indian tribes. Slaves played a role in the military operations, and the different sides viewed them as a potential source of manpower. While surprising numbers did assist the Americans, the wars created opportunities for slaves to find freedom among the Redcoats, the Spaniards, or the Indians. Author Gene Allen Smith draws on a decade of original research and his curatorial work at the Fort Worth Museum in this fascinating and original narrative history. The way the young nation responded sealed the fate of slaves for the next half century until the Civil War. This drama sheds light on an extraordinary yet little known chapter in the dark saga of American history.By Patricia Pulliam Phillips, Jack J. Phillips, Klaas Toes. 2024
The third edition of this bestselling book guides you through a proven, results-based approach to calculating the return on investment…
in training and performance improvement programs. The ROI Methodology described in the book has evolved into the most used evaluation system in the world.Patricia Pulliam Phillips, Jack J. Phillips, and Klaas Toes present the ROI Methodology, a user-friendly approach to showing and proving the value of programs, projects, and initiatives. Based on over 40 years of development and refinement, it is a process that meets the demands currently facing training and performance improvement functions. This third edition includes chapters thoroughly detailing the application of the ROI Methodology and new and innovative developments. The book provides examples, case studies and worksheets, and solutions to implementation issues. A case study spans the book and takes the reader through each part of the ROI Methodology. Readers can work through the case, step-by-step, exploring the issues uncovered in the chapter and learn how to apply the process in their own organizations. This book continues to be a primary reference for learning how to utilize ROI to show the contribution of training, education, learning systems, performance improvement, human resources, and change initiatives throughout organizations.Proven to work as a guide for practitioners, managers, and leaders, the book is also ideal for students of learning and development and performance improvement at graduate and postgraduate levels and individuals involved in executive and professional development programs. A complimentary 500-page book with 25 detailed case studies is available to book purchasers. See the offer on page 384 at the back of the book.By Paolo Boccardelli, Federica Brunetta. 2024
Managers are facing unprecedented complexity, volatility, and ambiguity, quickly adapting their decision-making, leadership, vision, and strategies. Megatrends and forces of…
change have profound implications for business models, processes, and organizational structures, calling into question current paradigms and designing future change. Additionally, unprecedented disruptions, unforecastable in their nature, have increased the need for resilience and strategic flexibility.The book aims at tackling the potential interrelations among environmental transformations, strategic decisions, and leadership to better understand the role of external and internal factors on the effectiveness of managers. The book defines “change”: its extent, nature, and characteristics. Then, it focuses on decision-making, the role of potential cognitive biases, and how the interaction with the perception of determined environmental events affects the way in which decision-makers decide to implement specific strategies. Finally, in the light of waves of strategic change, it reviews theories on leadership and transformation by looking at the role and traits of leaders.Since environmental transformations have the potential to “disrupt” not only strategies but also decision-making processes and leadership, the book provides a review on the issue and propose an integrative framework which can be useful for both scholars and managers, especially in the fields of decision-making and strategy.By Tadeusz A. Grzeszczyk. 2024
Although some people had doubts about the usefulness of such solutions in the past, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a growing…
role in modern business. It can be expected that the interest in it will also lead to an increase in support for the planning, evaluation, and implementation of projects. In particular, the proper functioning of multifaceted evaluation methods has a crucial impact on the appropriate planning and execution of various projects, as well as the effective achievement of the organization’s goals. This book offers a presentation of the complex problems and challenges related to the development of AI in project management, proposes an integrated approach to knowledge-based evaluation, and indicates the possibilities of improving professional practical knowledge in this field.The unique contribution of this book is to draw attention to the possibilities resulting from conducting transdisciplinary research and drawing on the rich achievements in the field of research development on knowledge-based systems that can be used to holistically support the processes of planning, evaluation, and project management. The concept of the integrated approach to knowledge-based evaluation is presented and developed as a result of drawing inspiration mainly from the systems approach, generative AI, and selected mathematical models.Presented in a highly accessible manner, the book discusses mathematical tools in a simple way, which enables understanding of the content by readers across broad subject areas who may be not only participants in specialist training and university students but also practitioners, consultants, or evaluators. This book will be a valuable resource for academics and upper-level students, in particular, across project management-related fields, and of great interest to all those looking to understand the challenges and effectiveness of AI in business.By Gordon Cucullu, Chris Fontana. 2011
For the first time ever, author Gordon Cucullu gives readers an explosive inside look at modern military police units and…
their role in defending our freedom.America has been at war on several fronts since the 9/11 attack. While public attention has focused on Marines, conventional Army units, and Special Operations Forces, a lion's share of the war-fighting has been done, under media radar, by Military Police units. These squad and platoon-sized units patrol dangerous urban streets, build up local police units to improve neighborhood stability, and conduct civic action missions. On many occasions they have rushed into a vicious firefight to come to the assistance of infantry units in desperate straits. They keep villages Taliban-free, monitor balloting sites, and interdict drug shipments. In detention centers at Camp Bucha, Iraq, Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, Cuba they guard some of the most dangerous terrorists in history.The story is told by the soldiers themselves, recounting what they have seen and experienced, along with historical context and first-hand field observations by the author team who were provided with unique inside access. Warrior Police takes readers into the bloody streets of Iraq, the dangerous back-country of Afghanistan, and wherever our Military Police are needed.By Richard M. Ketchum. 1973
The Winter Soldiers is the story of a small band of men held together by George Washington in the face…
of disaster and hopelessness, desperately needing at least one victory to salvage both cause and country. In the fall of 1776 the British delivered a crushing blow to the Revolutionary War efforts. New York fell and the anguished retreat through New Jersey followed. Winter came with a vengeance, bringing what Thomas Paine called "the times that try men's souls."Richard M. Ketchum tells the tale of unimaginable hardship and suffering that culminated in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Without these triumphs, the American Revolution that had begun so bravely could not have gone on.By Francesco De Pascalis, Alan Brener. 2024
Open banking ends the proprietary control of customer information by banks and allows customers to share their banking financial data…
with third parties as a matter of right. It can also permit customers to allow others to remove funds directly from their bank accounts in return for goods and services. All of this is done securely with standardised ‘application programming interfaces’ (APIs). Open banking has developed in different ways and with different objectives across the globe. Open Banking: Global Development and Regulation examines the empowering and enabling regulations that facilitate all of this.This book compares a number of different open banking national strategies. These range from the focus of the UK and EU on enhanced competition to the more collaborative approaches in many East Asian jurisdictions. It also looks at the use of open banking for socio-economic purpose in Brazil and India. Here open banking forms part of a wider government programme to increase financial inclusion coupled with encouraging economic growth.This text will be valuable for fintech companies, policymakers and financial services regulators Its overarching aim is to demonstrate the possibilities and challenges of open banking and how it is changing lives across the world.By James A. Warren. 2013
An in-depth look at the strategy and tactics of the visionary commander who beat the United States in the Vietnam…
War.General Vo Nguyen Giap was the commander in chief of the communist armed forces during two of his country's most difficult conflicts—the first against Vietnam's colonial masters, the French, and the second against the most powerful nation on earth, the United States. After long and bloody conflicts, he defeated both Western powers and their Vietnamese allies, forever changing modern warfare. In Giap, military historian James A. Warren dives deep into the conflict to bring to life a revolutionary general and reveal the groundbreaking strategies that defeated world powers against incredible odds. Synthesizing ideas and tactics from an extraordinary range of sources, Giap was one of the first to realize that war is more than a series of battles between two armies and that victory can be won through the strength of a society's social fabric. As America's wars in the Middle East rage on, this is an important and timely look at a man who was a master at defeating his enemies even as they thought they were winning.By J O Onyemelukwe. 1984
First published in 1984, Industrialization in West Africa is an authoritative text on the industrial development efforts, spatial characteristics and…
related problems of countries comprising the West African region. The book commences with a detailed description of the political and economic background against which the slow and unsteady pace of industrialization in each country can be appreciated. The analysis outlines the resource potential and historical evolution and structural characteristics of modern manufacturing in the region. The final section assesses the spatial characteristics of West African industrialization, the major problems inhibiting industrial development and frustrating efforts towards economic independence by each country. In conclusion the author considers remedial policy options open to West African countries, both individually and in a common market framework. This book is a valuable source material for all students of social science, geography, economics and regional planning.By Karen Plunkett-Powell. 1999
Remembering Woolworth's brings back to life all the nostalgia and magic of the famous five-and-dime that captured the hearts of…
Americans for over a centuryMillions of Americans have fond memories of shopping at Woolworth's, wandering the aisles in search of a humble spool of Woolco thread, festive Christmas decorations, a goldfish or parakeet, or a blue bottle of Evening in Paris perfume. And who could forget the special treat of a grilled-cheese sandwich or ice-cream sundae at the famous lunch counter?These and countless other memories are celebrated in Karen Plunkett-Powell's Remembering Woolworth's. Packed with photos, first-hand remembrances, vivid anecdotes, and a lively, well-researched narrative, the book tells the story of how a poor potato farmer named Frank Woolworth created a merchandising empire that touched the lives of Americans in small towns, big cities, and everywhere in between. Chapters cover the store's humble beginnings, surviving the Great Depression, the civil rights sit-ins, Woolworth's around the globe, the popularity of Woolworth's collectibles, and much more.