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Showing 1 - 20 of 33533 items
By Mike Horn. 2005
In August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around…
the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation.Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive.Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions.This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.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 George W. Oakes, Alexandra Chapman. 1996
Originally published in 1961 and written by George W. Oakes, chief travel writer for the New York Times, this beloved…
walking guide has sold more than 100,000 copies in several editions. Now completely revised and updated by Alexandra Chapman, this latest edition features intimate walks through twenty-one of Europe's most celebrated cities, including an all-new chapter on Budapest, the Paris of the Danube. With this book as a guide, stroll through the winding cobblestone streets of Florence, gaze at the breath-takingly beautiful lawns of Cambridge, and explore the dark mysteries of Prague's architectural gems.Each walk is comfortably planned to take no more than a leisurely morning or afternoon, highlighting the not-to-be-missed museums, churches, and monuments as well as less conspicuous but equally charming sites. These tours offer explicit directions keyed to thirty-two easy-to-follow maps, concise descriptions of sights along the routes, and brief historical notes about buildings and other places of interest. From Amsterdam to Segovia, these expertly designed walking tours unveil the immense cultural treasures that these magical cities hold-treasures best enjoyed on foot.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.Operation 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 Jane Kramer. 2017
Jane Kramer started cooking when she started writing. Her first dish, a tinned-tuna curry, was assembled on a tiny stove…
in her graduate student apartment while she pondered her first writing assignment. From there, whether her travels took her to a tent settlement in the Sahara for an afternoon interview with an old Berber woman toiling over goat stew, or to the great London restaurateur and author Yotam Ottolenghi's Notting Hill apartment, where they assembled a buttered phylo-and-cheese tower called a mutabbaq, Jane always returned from the field with a new recipe, and usually, a friend. For the first time, Jane's beloved food pieces from The New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer since 1964, are arranged in one place--a collection of definitive chef profiles, personal essays, and gastronomic history that is at once deeply personal and humane. The Reporter's Kitchen follows Jane everywhere, and throughout her career--from her summer writing retreat in Umbria, where Jane and her anthropologist husband host memorable expat Thanksgivings--in July--to the Nordic coast, where Jane and acclaimed Danish chef Rene Redzepi, of Noma, forage for edible sea-grass. The Reporter’s Kitchen is an important record of culture distilled through food around the world. It's welcoming and inevitably surprising.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 James Stephenson. 2000
A rare adventure with the last Stone Age hunting and gathering tribe in Africa.In 1997 James Stephenson arranged to have…
almost a full year free, a year he wanted to spend among the Hadzabe in Tanzania. He had visited these people several times previously and with every trip his fascination with them deepened, for the Hadzabe are the last hunters and gatherers still living a traditional life in East Africa.At the age of 27, Stephenson intended to spend the year living among the Hadzabe, and, more importantly, living their life, hunting what they hunted, eating what they ate, participating in their dances and ceremonies, consulting with their medicine men and learning their myths and dreams.Armed only with his camera, his art supplies and the open-hearted courage of youth, he set out to visit with a people who have changed little since the Stone Age. He wanted to glimpse the world as they perceived it and learn the wisdom they had wrestled from the land. The Language of the Land, the account of his adventure and what he learned, is travel writing at its best.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 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 August Scherneckau. 2007
August Scherneckau’s diary is the most important firsthand account of the Civil War by a Nebraska soldier that has yet…
come to light. A German immigrant, Scherneckau served with the First Nebraska Volunteers from 1862 through 1865. Depicting the unit’s service in Missouri, Arkansas, and Nebraska Territory, he offers detail, insight, and literary quality matched by few other accounts of the Civil War in the West. His observations provide new perspective on campaigns, military strategy, leadership, politics, ethnicity, emancipation, and a host of other topics. Scherneckau takes readers on the march as he and his comrades plod through mud and snow during a grueling winter campaign in the Missouri Ozarks. He served as a provost guard in St. Louis, where he helped save a former slave from kidnappers and observed the construction of Union gunboats. He describes the process of transforming a regiment from infantry to cavalry, and his account of First Nebraska’s pursuit of Freeman’s Partisans in Arkansas is an exciting portrayal of mountain fighting. An annotated edition that brings to bear the editors’ and translator’s respective expertise in both the Civil War and the German language, Scherneckau’s account is an important addition to primary material on the war’s forgotten theater. It will be a valued resource for historian and Civil War enthusiast alike.By Karla Tatiana Vasquez. 2024
A beautifully photographed cookbook that celebrates the vibrant culture and community of El Salvador through 80 recipes and stories from…
twenty-five Salvadoran women.&“A heartfelt tribute to heritage, a testament to the power of storytelling, and an invitation to savor the true essence of El Salvador, one delicious recipe at a time.&”—Hawa Hassan, James Beard Award–winning author of In Bibi&’s KitchenIn search of the recipes and traditions that made her feel at home, food historian and Salvadoran Karla Tatiana Vasquez took to the internet to find the dishes her mom made throughout her childhood. But when she couldn't find any, she decided to take matters into her own hands. What started as a desire to document recipes turned into sharing the joys, histories, and tribulations of the women in her life.In this collection of eighty recipes, Karla shares her conversations with moms, aunts, grandmothers, and friends to preserve their histories so that they do not go unheard. Here are recipes for Rellenos de Papa from Patricia, who remembers the Los Angeles earthquakes of the 1980s for more reasons than just fear; Flor de Izote con Huevos Revueltos, a favorite of Karla's father; as well as variations on the beloved Salvadoran Pupusa, a thick masa tortilla stuffed with different combinations of pork, cheese, and beans. Though their stories vary, the women have a shared experience of what it was like in El Salvador before the war, and what life was like as Salvadoran women surviving in their new home in the United States.By Amber Smith. 2024
Our Woke Military Could Lose the Next WarWokeness used to be an annoying distraction in the U.S. military. Now it…
is a major threat to national security.Faster than most of us thought possible, our military has become a woke, dysfunctional bureaucracy focused not on winning wars but on identity politics, gender ideology, climate change, and other favored causes of the leftist elite.Don&’t think that China isn&’t watching. Don&’t think that Russia, Iran, and North Korea haven&’t noticed.But so has Amber Smith, a former U.S. Army combat helicopter pilot and Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. In her riveting new book, Unfit to Fight, she sounds the alarm that our military and our nation are at grave risk.In Unfit to Fight, you&’ll learn:Why the military should not &“reflect American society,&” but be a select group of lethal professionalsHow the Pentagon rewards lowered standards for the sake of &“diversity&”Why failure often leads to promotion—if you have the right friendsWhy a return to combat merit, battlefield mission, and trust in leadership are essential—or we will lose our next warElections, as they say, have consequences, and catastrophic damage to national security is among the most important. Amber Smith&’s Unfit to Fight needs to be in the hands of everyone who cares about our military and our survival as a nation.By Heidi Beierle. 2024
A memoir of homecoming – Heidi Across America is a gritty story of how opening our hearts to others enables…
us to open our hearts to ourselves and love what we find there.In the summer of 2010, Heidi Beierle had just finished her first year of graduate studies in community and regional planning and decided to pedal her bicycle solo from her home on the west coast across rural America to the Preserving the Historic Road conference in Washington, D.C. What started as a research trip turned into an intimately physical and psychological encounter with self and nationhood. Heidi was 35 at the time and didn&’t love much about herself except her ability to endure grueling physical undertakings. She viewed her journey as an opportunity to fix her failures and insufficiencies. There were also some research questions she wanted to explore: Why do people live in small towns and what do they like about it? Did a bicyclist like herself bring economic benefit to the small towns she visited? What could communities do to support or invite cyclists to stay in their towns? What could cyclists do to support the communities? Along the way, she was surprised by the kindness of strangers and the emotional pinch of traveling through Wyoming where she grew up. Her journey led her through the Plains and into the Ozarks where the heat climbed to agonizing temperatures and every pedal stroke in the heat felt one closer to death. By the time she completed the trip, Heidi discovered a newfound compassion for herself and a growing love for her country. Strangers opened their hearts to her and in turn, she opened her heart to herself. And her questions began to change and mirror things many Americans are asking themselves today: How can I be okay in my own skin? What does it mean to be enough? How do I satisfy my desire to travel without harming the planet? What does it mean to love America? For many young people, it is a rite of passage to light out on an adventure to see the world and expose themselves to new experiences, but we don&’t often talk about how Americans seeing America can open us to the diversity, awe, and wonder available right here in our nation. Heidi Across America offers a journey to self-love, empathy, consideration for others, and respect for the spirit of place as pathways to find connection and home.By Emily Oster, Nathan Fox. 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of Expecting Better, a guide to navigating a second pregnancy when the first…
did not go as planned—with Dr. Nathan Fox, maternal fetal medicine specialistIn Expecting Better, Emily Oster revolutionized the pregnancy landscape with her data-driven approach. In the years since, she kept hearing questions from readers on how to approach a second pregnancy when the first has not gone as planned.While The Unexpected is a book that Oster hopes no one needs, the reality is that 50 percent of pregnancies include complications, a fact we don&’t talk about. Preeclampsia, miscarriage, hyperemesis gravidarum, preterm birth, postpartum depression: these are lonely experiences, and that isolation makes treatment harder to access—and crucial research and policy change less likely to happen.The Unexpected lays out the data on recurrence and treatments shown to lower or mitigate risk for these conditions in subsequent pregnancies. It also provides readers road maps to facilitate productive conversations with their providers, with insights from lauded maternal fetal medicine specialist Dr. Nathan Fox.By bridging the knowledge gap and making space for difficult conversations, The Unexpected promises to make the hardest parts of pregnancy a little bit less so.