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Showing 1 - 20 of 10392 items
By Nicholson Baker. 2008
Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in America today, has created a…
compelling work of nonfiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy -- a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II. Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources -- including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries -- the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust. Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively. This is an unforgettable book that makes a profound impact on our perceptions of historical events and mourns the unthinkable loss humanity has borne at its own hand.By Alan C. Greenberg, Mark Singer. 2010
Former CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Greenberg, sheds light on his life as one of Wall Street&’s most respected figures…
in this candid and fascinating account of a storied career and its stunning conclusion. On March 16, 2008, Alan Greenberg, former CEO and current chairman of the executive committee of Bear Stearns, found himself in the company&’s offices on a Sunday. More remarkable by far than the fact that he was in the office on a Sunday is what he was doing: participating in a meeting of the board of directors to discuss selling the company he had worked decades to build for a fraction of what it had been worth as little as ten days earlier. In less than a week the value of Bear Stearns had diminished by tens of billions of dollars.As Greenberg recalls, "our most unassailable assumption—that Bear Stearns, an independent investment firm with a proud eighty-five-year history, would be in business tomorrow—had been extinguished. . . . What was it, exactly, that had happened, and how, and why?" This book provides answers to those questions from one of Wall Street&’s most respected figures, the man most closely identified with Bear Stearns&’ decades of success.The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns is Alan Greenberg&’s remarkable story of ascending to the top of one of Wall Street&’s venerable powerhouse financial institutions. After joining Bear Stearns in 1949, Greenberg rose to become formally head of the firm in 1978.No one knows the history of Bear Stearns as he does; no one participated in more key decisions, right into the company&’s final days. Greenberg offers an honest, clear-eyed assessment of how the collapse of the company surprised him and other top executives, and he explains who he thinks was responsible.By Donald L. Miller, Henry Steele Commager. 1945
Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the…
most powerful accounts of warfare ever published.Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought—and whose outcome was in greater doubt—than readers might imagine. This is the war that Americans at the home front would have read about had they had access to the previously censored testimony of the soldiers on which Miller builds his gripping narrative.Miller covers the entire war—on land, at sea, and in the air—and provides new coverage of the brutal island fighting in the Pacific, the bomber war over Europe, the liberation of the death camps, and the contributions of African Americans and other minorities. He concludes with a suspenseful, never-before-told story of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, based on interviews with the men who flew the mission that ended the war.By James Tobin. 1997
When a machine-gun bullet ended the life of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in the final days of World War II,…
Americans mourned him in the same breath as they mourned Franklin Roosevelt. To millions, the loss of this American folk hero seemed nearly as great as the loss of the wartime president.If the hidden horrors and valor of combat persist at all in the public mind, it is because of those writers who watched it and recorded it in the faith that war is too important to be confined to the private memories of the warriors. Above all these writers, Ernie Pyle towered as a giant. Through his words and his compassion, Americans everywhere gleaned their understanding of what they came to call “The Good War.”Pyle walked a troubled path to fame. Though insecure and anxious, he created a carefree and kindly public image in his popular prewar column—all the while struggling with inner demons and a tortured marriage. War, in fact, offered Pyle an escape hatch from his own personal hell.It also offered him a subject precisely suited to his talent—a shrewd understanding of human nature, an unmatched eye for detail, a profound capacity to identify with the suffering soldiers whom he adopted as his own, and a plain yet poetic style reminiscent of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. These he brought to bear on the Battle of Britain and all the great American campaigns of the war—North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day and Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and finally Okinawa, where he felt compelled to go because of his enormous public stature despite premonitions of death.In this immensely engrossing biography, affectionate yet critical, journalist and historian James Tobin does an Ernie Pyle job on Ernie Pyle, evoking perfectly the life and labors of this strange, frail, bald little man whose love/hate relationship to war mirrors our own. Based on dozens of interviews and copious research in little-known archives, Ernie Pyle's War is a self-effacing tour de force. To read it is to know Ernie Pyle, and most of all, to know his war.By Deborah Lipstadt. 1980
The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat. Yet there are…
those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. Sixty years ago, such notions were the province of pseudohistorians who argued that Hitler never meant to kill the Jews, and that only a few hundred thousand died in the camps from disease; they also argued that the Allied bombings of Dresden and other cities were worse than any Nazi offense, and that the Germans were the “true victims” of World War II.For years, those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But as time goes on, they have begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas, and now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how—despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence—this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with organized chapters, “independent” research centers, and official publications that promote a “revisionist” view of recent history.Lipstadt shows how Holocaust denial thrives in the current atmosphere of value-relativism, and argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but undermines the very tenets of objective scholarship that support our faith in historical knowledge. Thus the movement has an unsuspected power to dramatically alter the way that truth and meaning are transmitted from one generation to another.Bigger, Fancier, and more cutthorat than ever!When Freeman Hall left The Big Fancy to pursue his screenwriting dreams, he thought…
the horrors of working in a handbag department were finally over. But instead of fame and fortune, he found himself stuck behind a wall of script-killing rewrites, unable to make a living.In Return to the Big Fancy, Freeman shares his wildly entertaining journey back through the fiery gates of Retail Hell. He thought he had seen it all in his day, but with the bar set higher than ever before, employees are now graciously bowing before Corporate as they climb over fellow salespeople, and even friends, to earn enough transactions and commissions to actually survive. As he learns more of the wretchedness that has befallen the sales floor, he realizes that The Big Fancy has its customers and its employees on a short leash. But leave it to Freeman and the threat of disappearing commissions to rally the retail slaves and show Corporate who's really in charge!By Suzanne Evans. 2020
Half a world away from her home in Manitoulin Island, Ethel Mulvany is starving in Singapore’s infamous Changi Prison, along…
with hundreds of other women jailed there as POWs during the Second World War. They beat back pangs of hunger by playing decadent games of make-believe and writing down recipes filled with cream, raisins, chocolate, butter, cinnamon, ripe fruit – the unattainable ingredients of peacetime, of home, of memory. In this novelistic, immersive biography, Suzanne Evans presents a truly individual account of WWII through the eyes of Ethel – mercurial, enterprising, combative, stubborn, and wholly herself. The Taste of Longing follows Ethel through the fall of Singapore in 1942, the years of her internment, and beyond. As a prisoner, she devours dog biscuits and book spines, befriends spiders and smugglers, and endures torture and solitary confinement. As a free woman back in Canada, she fights to build a life for herself in the midst of trauma and burgeoning mental illness. Woven with vintage recipes and transcribed tape recordings, the story of Ethel and her fantastical POW Cookbook is a testament to the often-overlooked strength of women in wartime. It’s a story of the unbreakable power of imagination, generosity, and pure heart.By Zelda Abramson, John Lynch. 2019
As the Holocaust is memorialized worldwide through education programs and commemoration days, the common perception is that after survivors arrived…
and settled in their new homes they continued on a successful journey from rags to riches. While this story is comforting, a closer look at the experience of Holocaust survivors in North America shows it to be untrue. The arrival of tens of thousands of Jewish refugees was palpable in the streets of Montreal and their impact on the existing Jewish community is well-recognized. But what do we really know about how survivors’ experienced their new community? Drawing on more than 60 interviews with survivors, hundreds of case files from Jewish Immigrant Aid Services, and other archival documents, The Montreal Shtetl presents a portrait of the daily struggles of Holocaust survivors who settled in Montreal, where they encountered difficulties with work, language, culture, health care, and a Jewish community that was not always welcoming to survivors. By reflecting on how institutional supports, gender, and community relationships shaped the survivors’ settlement experiences, Abramson and Lynch show the relevance of these stories to current state policies on refugee immigration.The previously classified story of the eccentric researchers who invented cutting-edge underwater science to lead the Allies to D-Day victoryIn…
August 1942, more than 7,000 Allied troops rushed the beaches of Normandy, France, in an all but-forgotten landing. Only a small fraction survived unscathed. It was two summers before D-Day, and the Allies realized that they were in dire need of underwater intelligence if they wanted to stand a chance of launching another beach invasion and of winning the war.Led by the controversial biologists J. B. S. Haldane and Dr. Helen Spurway, an ingenious team of ragtag scientists worked out of homemade labs during the London Blitz. Beneath a rain of bombs, they pioneered thrilling advances in underwater reconnaissance through tests done on themselves in painful and potentially fatal experiments. Their discoveries led to the safe use of miniature submarines and breathing apparatuses, which ultimately let the Allies take the beaches of Normandy.Blast injury specialist Dr. Rachel Lance unpacks the harrowing narratives of these experiments while bringing to life the men and women whose brilliance and self-sacrifice shaped the outcome of the war, including their personal relationships with one another and the ways they faced skepticism and danger in their quest to enable Allied troops to breathe underwater.The riveting science leading up to D-Day has been classified for generations, but Chamber Divers finally brings these scientists&’ stories—and their heroism—to light.The story of the origin of Vatican Radio provides a unique look at the history of World War IIThe book…
offers the first wide-ranging study on the history of Vatican Radio from its origins (1931) to the end of Pius XII’s pontificate (1958) based on unpublished sources. The opening of the Secret Vatican Archives on the records regarding Pius XII will shed light on the most controversial pontificate of the 20th century. Moreover, the recent rearrangement of the Vatican media provided the creation of a multimedia archive that is still in Fieri.This research is an original point of view on the most relevant questions concerning these decades: the relation of the Catholic Church with the Fascist regimes and Western democracies; the attitude toward anti-Semitism and the Shoah in Europe, and in general toward the total war; the relationship of the Holy See with the new media in the mass society; the questions arisen in the after-war period such as the Christian Democratic Party in Italy; the new role of women; and anti-communism and the competition for the consensus in the social and moral order in a secularized society.By Jim Zub, Stacy King, Official Dungeons & Dragons Licensed. 2024
An immersive, one-of-a-kind guide to the wondrous magical items and creatures of Dungeons & Dragons, the world&’s most beloved tabletop…
role-playing gameFeaturing amazing illustrations and expert insights, Artificers & Alchemy explores peculiar phenomena, sentient weapons, guardian gear, and the artificers who create these enchanted objects. If you&’re eager to start your own D&D adventures, this guidebook provides the perfect starting point to creating worlds of fantasy and weaving an epic story all your own.By Flavia Frigeri. 2021
This book maps key moments in the history of postwar art from a global perspective. The reader is introduced to…
a new globally oriented approach to art, artists, museums and movements of the postwar era (1945–70). Specifically, this book bridges the gap between historical artistic centers, such as Paris and New York, and peripheral loci. Through case studies, previously unknown networks, circulations, divides and controversies are brought to light. From the development of Ethiopian modernism, to the showcase of Brazilian modernity, this book provides readers with a new set of coordinates and a reassessment of well-trodden art historical narratives around modernism. This book will be of interest to scholars in art historiography, art history, exhibition and curatorial studies, modern art and globalization.This is the first book- length academic study of the portrayal in contemporary historical crime fiction of Nazi Germany and…
the Holocaust and their legacies. It discusses novels written by five authors: David Downing, Philip Kerr, Luke McCallin, Joseph Kanon and David Thomas. Their work belongs to a subgenre of the historical crime novel that has emerged since the late 1980s to become a significant body of writing located at the intersection of crime fiction and Holocaust literature. The readings of these novels explore questions of form and genre to ask how popular fiction might approach the Holocaust. Themes of resistance and complicity and the relationship between them, and problems of guilt and responsibility are also discussed. This book also explores questions of justice to show how these novels explore social and moral justice, and vengeance and revenge, as alternatives to ordinary legal justice after the Holocaust.By David H. Haney. 2023
This book traces cultural landscape as the manifestation of the state and national community under the Nazi regime, and how…
the Nazi era produced what could be referred to as a totalitarian cultural landscape.For the Nazi regime, cultural landscape was indeed a heritage resource, but it was much more than that: cultural landscape was the nation. The project of Nazi racial purification and cultural renewal demanded the physical reshaping and reconceptualization of the existing environment to create the so-called "new Nazi cultural landscape." One of the most important components of this was a set of monumental sites thought to embody blood and soil beliefs through the harmonious synthesis of architecture and landscape. This special group of "landscape-bound" architectural complexes was interconnected by the new autobahn highway system, itself thought to be a monumental work embedded in nature. Behind this intentionally aestheticized view of the nation as cultural landscape lay the all-pervasive system of deception and violence that characterized the emerging totalitarian state.This is the first historical study to consider the importance of these monumental sites together with the autobahn as evidence of key Nazi cultural and geographic strategies during the pre-war years. This book concludes by examining racial and nationalistic themes underlying cultural landscape concepts today, against this historic background.By Russell Drumm. 2001
The &“remarkable story&” of a tall ship&’s history in WWII and beyond—and the sailors who have inhabited it, both German…
and American (Booklist). Hamburg, 1936: A splendid three-masted sailing ship is christened Horst Wessel in the presence of Adolf Hitler and thousands of cheering Nazis. It would become a training vessel for naval officers during World War II—but after Germany&’s defeat, the US Coast Guard found its young crew terrified and half starved. The Coast Guardsmen brought the Germans, so recently their mortal enemies, back to life; the Germans, in return, taught them the ways of the beautiful square-rigged ship, rechristened Eagle. In time, Eagle would become the Coast Guard&’s elite school ship—the barque of saviors. Uncannily linking Eagle&’s malign past and its American present is a coast guardsman named Karl Dillmann, who believes the spirit of a young German sailor drowned in a U-boat explosion inhabits his soul. The voices of Dillmann and other crew members are heard throughout the book, as are the voices of young sailors on the Horst Wessel. Russell Drumm has obtained never-before-published logbooks from its war years, affording fascinating new insights into both the ship&’s everyday life and its moments of high drama. This unique piece of maritime history captures the feeling of life at sea, and shows how the courage and sacrifice of the &“greatest generation&” are alive and well today in the dedicated members of the US Coast Guard. &“Tall ships cast spells, and Drumm catches the witchery of the Eagle&’s overpowering presence.&” —Kirkus Reviews &“The reader becomes familiar with the cadets of various eras . . . The book also offers a rare look at postwar military cooperation and at the integration of female cadets beginning in the 1970s.&” —Publishers WeeklyBy Valeriy Zamulin. 2018
&“Comprehensive scholarship and convincing reasoning, enhanced by an excellent translation, place this work on a level with the best of…
David Glantz&” (Dennis Showalter, award-winning author of Patton and Rommel). This groundbreaking book examines the battle of Kursk between the Red Army and Wehrmacht, with a particular emphasis on its beginning on July 12, as the author works to clarify the relative size of the contending forces, the actual area of this battle, and the costs suffered by both sides. Valeriy Zamulin&’s study of the crucible of combat during the titanic clash at Kursk—the fighting at Prokhorovka—is now available in English. A former staff member of the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum, Zamulin has dedicated years of his life to the study of the battle of Kursk, and especially the fighting on its southern flank involving the famous attack of the II SS Panzer Corps into the teeth of deeply echeloned Red Army defenses. A product of five years of intense research into the once-secret Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, this book lays out in enormous detail the plans and tactics of both sides, culminating in the famous and controversial clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943. Zamulin skillfully weaves reminiscences of Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers and officers into the narrative of the fighting, using in part files belonging to the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum. Zamulin has the advantage of living in Prokhorovka, so he has walked the ground of the battlefield many times and has an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Examining the battle primarily from the Soviet side, Zamulin reveals the real costs and real achievements of the Red Army at Kursk, and especially Prokhorovka. He examines mistaken deployments and faulty decisions that hampered the Voronezh Front&’s efforts to contain the Fourth Panzer Army&’s assault, and the valiant, self-sacrificial fighting of the Red Army&’s soldiers and junior officers as they sought to slow the German advance and crush the II SS Panzer Corps with a heavy counterattack at Prokhorovka. Illustrated with numerous maps and photographs (including present-day views of the battlefield), and supplemented with extensive tables of data, Zamulin&’s book is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature on the battle of Kursk, and further demolishes many of the myths and legends that grew up around it.By Air Commodore John Mitchell, Sean Feast. 2010
An RAF pilot who flew around the world with Winston Churchill during World War II tells his story. An…
RAF Volunteer Reserve officer, John Mitchell was mobilized on the outbreak of war—and just missed going to join a Battle Squadron in France where he would have undoubtedly been killed. Instead, he was posted to No. 58 Squadron flying Whitleys, surviving a tour of operations in 1940–41 that included ditching in the North Sea. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he was sent to the US, becoming involved in the development of the first navigation training simulators with the famous Link Trainer factory. There, he was awarded the US Legion of Merit, signed by Harry S. Truman. Then, returning to the UK in 1942, he was personally selected to join the crew of Winston Churchill&’s private aircraft, one of the early prototype Avro Yorks called Ascalon. For two years he navigated Churchill to conferences around the world—from North Africa to Italy, the Middle East to Moscow, including the famous Teheran and Yalta conferences. He also flew &“General Lyon&” (aka His Majesty George VI) on several occasions. After the war, he enjoyed an eventful career as an air attaché, including an intelligence posting to Moscow, and was senior navigation officer for the long range exercises over the Pole in the converted Lincoln, Aries III. His is an exceptional story, told with wit and verve to military aviation historian Sean Feast, who adds authoritative and informed insights.By Robert Pike. 2022
'Based on eye-witness accounts, Robert Pike’s moving book vividly depicts the lives of the villagers who were caught up in…
the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane and brings their experiences to our attention for the first time.' - Hanna Diamond, author of Fleeing HitlerOn 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer division. Six hundred and forty-three men, women and children were murdered in the nation’s worst wartime atrocity. Today, Oradour is remembered as a ‘martyred village’ and its ruins preserved, but the stories of its inhabitants lie buried under the rubble of the intervening decades. Silent Village gathers the powerful testimonies of survivors in the first account of Oradour as it was both before the tragedy and in its aftermath. Why this peaceful community was chosen for extermination has remained a mystery. Putting aside contemporary hearsay, Nazi rhetoric and revisionist theories, Robert Pike returns to the archival evidence to narrate the tragedy as it truly happened – and give voice to the anguish of those left behind.By Sinclair McKay. 2023
This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political moments, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout…
his life.From Bletchley Park codebreakers and Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin, through writers as varied as H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse, to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend.We meet Churchill the exuberant schoolboy thug with an early mania for bull-dogs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill’s borrowed nightshirt.The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill’s lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli’s premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Route 66’, and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.By Evelyn Prentis. 1981
'When do you have a bath?' I asked Mrs Turgoose. 'I hope you're not suggesting that I don't look after…
meself properly,' she said crossly. 'There was a woman who used to use it, but that was because she was a bit stuck up. She soon went off the idea when it started to get cold.'After working as a nurse for thirty years, Evelyn left the hospital to become a full-time Matron at The Lodge - a home for elderly ladies of reduced circumstances. Evelyn was nothing like the matrons she had known and feared in the past. In spite of broken nights and hot dinners left to get cold, Mrs Peters with her temper and Mrs Harrison with her 24-hour piano playing, her new role offered a chance to make a difference to her ladies' lives. Even though it did mean she was on call twenty-four hours a day, this is Evelyn's funny and affectionate memoir of her years - at last! - as a Matron.