Islands by Steven Roger FischerWhen Lost's Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed, the survivors found themselves on a seemingly deserted island. In Defoe's novel, Robinson Crusoe spends twenty-eight years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, while in the movie Castaway Tom Hanks survives over four years on a South Pacific island. And Jurassic Park kept its dinosaur population confined to an island off the coast of Central America. Islands often find themselves at the center of imagined worlds, secluded and sometimes mystical locales filled with strange creatures and savage populations. The cannibals, raptors, and smoke monsters that exist on the islands of popular culture aside, the more than one million islands and islets on the planet are indeed small , geological, biological, and cultural laboratories. From Britain to Japan, from the Galapagos to Manhattan, this book roams the planet to provide the first global introduction to these waterlocked landforms. Longtime island dweller Steven Roger Fischer shows that, since time began, islands have been one of the primary birthplaces for plants, animals, and proto-humans. These eyots of stone and sand--whether in ocean, lake, or river--fostered the human race, and Fischer recounts how humanity then exploited these remarkable habitats as stepping stones to global dominion. He explores island economics, warfare, and politics, and he examines the role they have played in literature, art and psychology. At the same time, he sparks our imagination with visions of islands--from Atlantis to Tahiti, Treasure Island to Hawaii. Ultimately, he reveals, these isolated mini-worlds are a measure of humankind itself. An engaging account of the islets that have enriched, lured, terrified, and inspired us, Islands shines new light on these cradles of earth--and human--history.
Call Number: 909 FIS
ISBN: 9781780230320
Publication Date: 2012-12-15
The Travels of Ibn Battutah by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Editor)A gift to those who contemplate the marvels of travelling in the ancient world.Ibn Battuta was just 21 when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another 29 years, travelling instead through more than 40 countries on the modern map, covering 75,000 miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far East as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome. With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith, Travels of Ibn Buttutah takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.
Call Number: 910.4 IBN
ISBN: 9780330418799
Publication Date: 2003-06-01
The Travels of Ibn Battut by Ibn Battuta; Samuel Lee (Translator)He journeyed farther than his near contemporary Marco Polo, though Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta (1304-c. 1377) is barely remembered at all compared to that legendary traveler. But Battuta's story is just as fascinating, as this 1829 translation of his diaries, by British Orientalist REV. SAMUEL LEE (1783 -1852), demonstrates. Embarking upon what would eventually be a 27-year pilgrimage, Battuta traveled through East Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and beyond, bringing him to most of the 14th-century Islamic world. Rife with beautiful descriptions of the exotic peoples he met and landscapes he saw, this little--known classic of medieval literature will enthrall scholars of Islamic history and armchair travelers alike.
Call Number: 915.04 IBN
ISBN: 9781605206219
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Olive the Lionheart by Brad Ricca"Brad Ricca's Olive MacLeod is my favorite sort of woman from history--bold and unconventional, utterly unsinkable--and her story is so full of adventure and acts of courage, it's hard to believe she actually lived. And yet she did! Brad Ricca has found a heroine for the ages, and written her tale with a winning combination of accuracy and imagination."-- Paula McLain, author ofLove and Ruin andThe Paris Wife From the Edgar-nominated author of the bestsellingMrs. Sherlock Holmes comes the true story of a woman's quest to Africa in the 1900s to find her missing fiancé, and the adventure that ensues. In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a thirty-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. Olive the Lionheartis the thrilling true story of her astonishing journey. In jungles, swamps, cities, and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face-to-face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own. Making her way in a pair of ill-fitting boots, Olive awakens to the many forces around her, from shadowy colonial powers to an invisible Islamic warlord who may hold the key to Boyd'sdisappearance. As these secrets begin to unravel, all of Olive's assumptions prove wrong and she is forced to confront the darkest, most shocking secret of all: why she really came to Africa in the first place. Drawing on Olive's own letters and secret diaries,Olive the Lionheartis a love story that defies all boundaries, set against the backdrop of a beautiful, unconquerable Africa. This book is not for sale in the United Kingdom.
Call Number: 916.04 RIC
ISBN: 9781250796691
Publication Date: 2021-08-17
River of the Gods by Candice MillardNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy--from the New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic For millennia the location of the Nile River's headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe - and extend their colonial empires. Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton's opposite in temperament and beliefs. From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke's great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate,Speke shot himself. Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived. In River of the Gods Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.
Call Number: 916.204 MIL
ISBN: 9780385543101
Publication Date: 2022-05-17
South by Ernest Henry Shackleton; Frank Hurley (Photographer)Experience in the polar explorer's own words, Ernest Shackleton's thrilling yet ill-fated expedition on the ship Endurance, the wreck of which was discovered off the coast of Antarctica in March 2022. In 1914, Ernest Shackleton announced an ambitious plan to lead the first trek across Antarctica via the South Pole. The expedition would prove fraught with adventure--and peril. This handsome, breathtakingly illustrated edition, first published in 2016, is presented in paperback to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the original publication in 1919 and features: The remarkable tale of the treacherous expedition, told in Shackleton's own words Images by expedition photographer Frank Hurley Modern color photography of the fauna and vistas the men encountered Long-lost photos taken by the expedition's Ross Sea Party that were discovered in 2013 The expedition's story begins on the eve of World War I, when the ship Endurance departed England with Shackleton and his team of six men. The plan was to travel 1,800 miles across the icy continent from the Atlantic side, while a second team aboard the Aurora, would reach Antarctica's Pacific side and lay out supply depots for the advancing team. As the Endurance approached the continent, however, it became hopelessly locked in an ice floe, beginning a series of harrowing travails. Over a century later and despite extreme conditions, the wreck of the Endurance was found in the Weddell Sea by a mission dubbed Endurance22, launched by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and led by polar geographer Dr. John Shears. Though the discovery of the Endurance is not covered in this edition, Shackleton's account of the expedition and the photography within are a prerequisite for understanding the full story behind this famed shipwreck. Today considered an adventure survival classic, South is the true story of a thrilling polar expedition. Never before has Shackleton's lively prose been so extensively and stunningly illustrated.
Call Number: 919.8 SHA
ISBN: 9780760364826
Publication Date: 2019-03-19
Why We Fought by Jerry BorrowmanThe struggle to combat the Nazis during World War II encompassed front lines far beyond conventional battlefields. In a panoramic and compelling account, author Jerry Borrowman shares seven largely untold stories of people who undertook extraordinary efforts to defeat the Third Reich at enormous personal risk. Some were soldiers like the Ghost Army, an eclectic group of former artists, actors, and engineers who engaged in top-secret tactical deceptions by staging ingenious decoy armies. Using inflatable tanks, radio transmissions, and sound effects, they were able to trick the Germans throughout the course of the war, often working close to the front lines of the fiercest fighting. Some were ordinary citizens like William Sebold, a German immigrant and US citizen, who could have been a deadly foe, but instead chose the Allied cause. When he was coerced by the Gestapo into becoming a spy in America, he instead approached the FBI and offered to become a double agent. His efforts successfully helped bring down a dangerous German spy network that was dedicated to stealing industrial and wartime secrets and sabotaging America on home soil. These dramatic and inspiring personal stories shed light on some of the darkest days of World War II and one of the most perilous times in human history. As the Nazis swept through Europe, citizens around the world faced an individual and national complex moral question: How do you respond to the tyranny and bloodthirsty madness of the Nazis? These are stories of ordinary men and women who would not surrender or compromise. They resisted and fought with total commitment for freedom and democracy despite the personal cost.
Call Number: 920 BOR
ISBN: 9781629729343
Publication Date: 2021-10-05
Strongman by Kenneth C. DavisFrom the bestselling author of the Don't Know Much About® books comes a dramatic account of the origins of democracy, the history of authoritarianism, and the reigns of five of history's deadliest dictators. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year! A Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year! A YALSA 2021 Nonfiction Award Nominee! What makes a country fall to a dictator? How do authoritarian leaders--strongmen--capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again? By profiling five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history--Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein--Kenneth C. Davis seeks to answer these questions, examining the forces in these strongmen's personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they'd become. Meticulously researched and complete with photographs, Strongman provides insight into the lives of five leaders who callously transformed the world and serves as an invaluable resource in an era when democracy itself seems in peril. * "A fascinating, highly readable portrayal of infamous men that provides urgent lessons for democracy now." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "Strongman is a book that is both deeply researched and deeply felt, both an alarming warning and a galvanizing call to action, both daunting and necessary to read and discuss." --Cynthia Levinson, author of Fault Lines in the Constitution
Call Number: 920 DAV
ISBN: 9781250205643
Publication Date: 2020-10-06
The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason FagoneNational Bestseller NPR Best Book of the Year "Not all superheroes wear capes, and Elizebeth Smith Friedman should be the subject of a future Wonder Woman movie." --The New York Times Joining the ranks of Hidden Figures and In the Garden of Beasts, the incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II. In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told. In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation's history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizebeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler's Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma--and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life. Fagone unveils America's code-breaking history through the prism of Smith's life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. Blending the lively pace and compelling detail that are the hallmarks of Erik Larson's bestsellers with the atmosphere and intensity of The Imitation Game, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is page-turning popular history at its finest.
Call Number: 920 FAG
ISBN: 9780062430489
Publication Date: 2017-09-26
Against All Odds by Alex Kershaw*The instant New York Times bestseller* The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II-all Medal of Honor recipients-from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress, by the nationalbestselling author of The First Wave "Pitch-perfect."-The Wall Street Journal . "Riveting."-World War II magazine."Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action."-Martin Dugard As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be-and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?
The Medieval Papacy by Brett WhalenDuring the Middle Ages, the popes of Rome claimed both spiritual authority and worldly powers, vying with emperors for supremacy, ruling over the Papal States, and legislating the norms of Christian society. They also faced profound challenges to their proclaimed primacy over Christendom. The Medieval Papacy explores the unique role that the Roman Church and its papal leadership played in the historical development of medieval Europe. Brett Edward Whalen pays special attention to the religious, intellectual and political significance of the papacy from the first century through to the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Ideal for students, scholars and general readers alike, this approachable survey helps us to understand the origins of an idea and institution that continue to shape our modern world.
Land Beyond the River by Richard B. LyttleDescribes how the migrating Huns, barbarians, Moslems, Vikings, Mongols, and others changed the face of Europe between the 2nd and 9th centuries.
Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne by Pierre Riché; Jo Ann McNamara (Editor, Edited and Translated by); Ruth Mazo Karras (Series edited by)In the growth of towns and the revival of commerce, historians have seen the development of a bourgeois and capitalist Europe, but Pierre Riché reminds us that Carolingians saw a world of forest and wasteland, in which scattered castles and villages were outposts against the savagery of nature, bands of outlaws, and a myriad of pagan superstitions. Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne gives us a vivid and deeply textured picture of the fear and insecurity that drove people, great and humble alike, to draw together with one another, with their stronger neighbors, and with God and His saints, in search of protection and sustenance. Riché makes extensive use of modern social history techniques and the tools of new studies on nutrition, disease, demography, and climatology, as well as art history and archaeology, to comprehend the Carolingian mentality and reconstruct the material culture of the early European world.
Call Number: 940.1 RIC
ISBN: 0812210964
Publication Date: 1988-02-01
Nelson's Trafalgar by Roy AdkinsOn October 21, 1805, as Britains Royal Navy under the command of Horatio Nelson clashed with Napoleons forces in an epic sea battle off the coast of Spain, the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Though the cost was high-and Nelson himself was killed-the British victory prevented Napoleon from invading Britain and paved the way for the eventual defeat of the French emperor. Without Trafalgar there would have been no Waterloo. The Battle of Trafalgar set Britain on its vast imperial course.Now, on the battles 200th anniversary, Roy Adkins offers readers a brutally vivid, gunport-level account of the battle. For more than five hours the crews of the British, French, and Spanish ships struggled under the constant barrage of cannon and musket fire amid choking fumes, and ear- splitting explosions. While the men maneuvered the ships and kept the cannons firing, the women tended the sick and helped the boys carry gunpowder cartridges to the gun decks. Capturing as never before the harsh conditions in which sailors lived and died, the mechanics of nautical warfare, and the relentless violence of 19th century naval combat, Nelsons Trafalgaris a must read for fans of military history and Patrick OBrian.
World War One by Norman StoneIn 1914, a new kind of war came about, bringing with it a new kind of world. World War One began on horseback, with generals employing bayonet charges to gain ground, and ended with attacks resembling the Nazi blitzkriegs. The scale of devastation was unlike anything the world had seen before: Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, and four empires were destroyed. Even the victors’ empires were fatally damaged. An overwhelming disaster from which the world is still recovering, World War One can seem baffling in its complexity. But now Norman Stone, one of world’s greatest military historians, has composed a dazzlingly lucid and succinct history of the conflict. Stone has distilled a lifetime of teaching, arguing, and thinking into this brisk and opinionated account of the fundamental tragedy of the twentieth century.
Call Number: 940.3 STO
ISBN: 9780465013685
Publication Date: 2009-04-28
The Guns of August by Barbara W. TuchmanPULITZER PRIZE WINNER * "A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill's statement that the first month of World War I was 'a drama never surpassed.'"--Newsweek Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time In this landmark account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war's key players, Tuchman's magnum opus is a classic for the ages. The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmermann Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman's classic histories of the First World War era
Fire and Light by James MacGregor Burns"With this profound and magnificent book, drawing on his deep reservoir of thought and expertise in the humanities, James MacGregor Burns takes us into the fire's center. As a 21st-century philosopher, he brings to vivid life the incandescent personalities and ideas that embody the best in Western civilization and shows us how understanding them is essential for anyone who would seek to decipher the complex problems and potentialities of the world we will live in tomorrow." --Michael Beschloss,New York Times bestselling author ofPresidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 "James MacGregor Burns is a national treasure, andFire and Light is the elegiac capstone to a career devoted to understanding the seminal ideas that made America - for better and for worse - what it is." --Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning authorRevolutionary Summer Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian James MacGregor Burns explores the most daring and transformational intellectual movement in history, the European and American Enlightenment In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns brilliantly illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, overturning governments, and inspiring visionary political experiments.Fire and Light brings to vivid life the galaxy of revolutionary leaders of thought and action who, armed with a new sense of human possibility, driven by a hunger for change, created the modern world. Burns discovers the origins of a distinctive American Enlightenment in men like the Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and their early encounters with incendiary European ideas about liberty and equality. It was these thinker-activists who framed the UnitedStates as a grand and continuing experiment in Enlightenment principles. Today the same questions Enlightenment thinkers grappled with have taken on new urgency around the world: in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, in the former Soviet Union, and China, as well as in the United States itself. What should a nation be? What should citizens expect from their government? Who should lead and how can leadership be made both effective and accountable? What is happiness, and what can the state contribute to it? Burns's exploration of the ideals and arguments that formed the bedrock of our modern world shines a new light on these ever-important questions.
Call Number: 940.25 BUR
ISBN: 9781250024893
Publication Date: 2013-10-29
The Enlightenment by Ronald S. LoveOne of the few self-named historical movements, the Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe was a powerful intellectual reaction to the dominance of absolutist monarchies and religious authorities. Building upon the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment thinkers--philosophes--set out to improve humanity through reason, knowledge, and experience of the natural world rather than religious doctrine or moral absolutes. Their emphasis on truth through observable phenomena set the standard of thought for the modern age, deeply influencing the areas of government, the modern state, science, technology, religious tolerance and social structure. The Enlightenment's legacy is particularly visible in the United States, where its ideals inspired a revolution and served as the building blocks for the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution. Narrative chapters, photos, biographical sketches, primary document excerpts, and an extensive bibliography expand the readers' understanding of the event, providing a current perspective on this key turning point in Western ideology. Comprehensive narrative chapters explore the historical background of the movement, as well as its relationship to nature and natural philosophy, religious belief and church institutions, society and the state, and the French Revolution. Photos, biographical sketches of key figures, excerpts from important primary documents of the time, and an extensive bibliography expand the reader's understanding of the movement that ushered in the modern era.
Call Number: 940.25 LOV
ISBN: 9780313342431
Publication Date: 2008-10-30
Year Zero by Ian BurumaA marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it. In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political "reeducation" was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective. A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma's own father's story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war's end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into "normalcy" stand in many ways for his generation's experience. A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece.
Call Number: 940.53 BUR
ISBN: 9780143125976
Publication Date: 2014-09-30
A Rebel in Auschwitz: the True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Fought the Nazis' Greatest Crime from Inside the Camp (Scholastic Focus) by Jack FairweatherWith exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, critically acclaimed and award-winning journalist Jack Fairweather brilliantly portrays the remarkable man who volunteered to face the unknown in the name of truth and country. This extraordinary and eye-opening account of the Holocaust invites us all to bear witness. Occupied Warsaw, Summer 1940: Witold Pilecki, a Polish underground operative, accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands interned at a new concentration camp, report on Nazi crimes, raise a secret army, and stage an uprising. The name of the camp -- Auschwitz. Over the next two and half years, and under the cruellest of conditions, Pilecki's underground sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so meant attempting the impossible -- but first he would have to escape from Auschwitz itself...
Call Number: 940.53 FA
ISBN: 9781338686937
Publication Date: 2021-10-19
Flowers in the Gutter by K. R. GaddyThetrue story of the Edelweiss Pirates, working-class teenagers who fought the Nazisby whatever means they could. Fritz, Gertrud, and Jean were classic outsiders- their clothes were different, their music was rebellious, and they weren't afraid to fight. But they were also Germans living under Hitler, and any nonconformity could get them arrested or worse. As children in 1933, they saw their world change. Their earliest memories were of the Nazi rise to power and of their parents fighting Brownshirts in the streets, being sent to prison, or just disappearing. As Hitler's grip tightened, these three found themselves trapped in a nation whose government contradicted everything they believed in. And by the time they were teenagers, the Nazis expected them to be part of the war machine. Fritz, Gertrud, and Jean and hundreds like them said no. They grew bolder, painting anti-Nazi graffiti, distributing anti-war leaflets, and helping those persecuted by the Nazis. Their actions were always dangerous. The Gestapo pursued and arrested hundreds of Edelweiss Pirates. In World War II's desperate final year, some Pirates joined in sabotage and armed resistance, risking the Third Reich's ultimate punishment. This is their story.
Call Number: 940.53 GAD
ISBN: 9780525555414
Publication Date: 2020-01-07
Fateful Choices by Ian KershawA spellbinding re-creation of a dramatic sequence of ten decisions made by the leaders of the worlds six major powers--Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Mussolini, and Tojo--in the 19 months between May 1940 and December 1941 that reshaped human destiny.
Call Number: 940.53 KER
ISBN: 9781594201233
Publication Date: 2007-05-31
Yalta by Jean LaloyTells the inside story of the Yalta Conference, the historic meeting of Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt at the end of World War II
Call Number: 940.53 LAL
ISBN: 0060391057
Publication Date: 1990-02-01
Natural-Born Heroes by Christopher McdougallThe best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere. After running an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, Christopher McDougall finds his next great adventure on the razor-sharp mountains of Crete, where a band of Resistance fighters in World War II plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. How did a penniless artist, a young shepherd, and a playboy poet believe they could carry out such a remarkable feat of strength and endurance, smuggling the general past thousands of Nazi pursuers, with little more than their own wits and courage to guide them? McDougall makes his way to the island to find the answer and retrace their steps, experiencing firsthand the extreme physical challenges the Resistance fighters and their local allies faced. On Crete, the birthplace of the classical Greek heroism that spawned the likes of Herakles and Odysseus, McDougall discovers the tools of the hero--natural movement, extraordinary endurance, and efficient nutrition. All of these skills, McDougall learns, are still practiced in far-flung pockets throughout the world today. More than a mystery of remarkable people and cunning schemes, Natural Born Heroes is a fascinating investigation into the lost art of the hero, taking us from the streets of London at midnight to the beaches of Brazil at dawn, from the mountains of Colorado to McDougall's own backyard in Pennsylvania, all places where modern-day athletes are honing ancient skills so they're ready for anything. Just as Born to Run inspired readers to get off the treadmill, out of their shoes, and into the natural world, Natural Born Heroes will inspire them to leave the gym and take their fitness routine to nature--to climb, swim, skip, throw, and jump their way to their own heroic feats.
Call Number: 940.53 MCD
ISBN: 9780307594969
Publication Date: 2015-04-14
Killing the SS by Bill O'Reilly; Martin DugardThe Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller (October 2018) Confronting Nazi evil is the subject of the next installment in the mega-bestselling Killing series As the true horrors of the Third Reich began to be exposed immediately after World War II, the Nazi war criminals who committed genocide went on the run. A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the most awful Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann. Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world, tracking down the SS fugitives and bringing them to justice, which often meant death. Written in the fast-paced style of the Killing series, Killing the SS will educate and stun the reader. The final chapter is truly shocking.
Call Number: 940.53 ORE
ISBN: 9781250165541
Publication Date: 2018-10-09
Hidden Like Anne Frank by Marcel Prins; Peter Henk Steenhuis; Laura Watkinson (Illustrator, Translator)For readers of The Boy Who Dared and Prisoner B-3087, a collection of unforgettable true stories of children hidden away during World War II.Jaap Sitters was only eight years old when his mother cut the yellow stars off his clothes and sent him, alone, on a fifteen-mile walk to hide with relatives. It was a terrifying night, one he would never forget. Before the end of the war, he would hide in secret rooms and behind walls. He would suffer from hunger, sickness, and the looming threat of Nazi raids. But he would live.This is just one of the true stories told in Hidden Like Anne Frank, a collection of eye-opening first-person accounts that share the experience of going into hiding to escape the Holocaust. Some were just toddlers when they were hidden; some were teenagers. Some hid with neighbors or family, while many were with complete strangers. But all know the pain of losing their homes, their families, even their own names. They describe the secret network that kept them safe. And they share the coincidences and close calls that made all the difference.
Call Number: 940.53 PRI
ISBN: 0545543622
Publication Date: 2014-03-25
Women Heroes of World War II by Kathryn J. AtwoodA 2012 VOYA Nonfiction Honor List selection 2012 Selection for the Amelia Bloomer Project ​​Noor Inayat Khan was the first female radio operator sent into occupied France and transferred crucial messages. Johtje Vos, a Dutch housewife, hid Jews in her home and repeatedly outsmarted the Gestapo. Law student Hannie Schaft became involved in the most dangerous resistance work--sabotage, weapons transference, and assassinations. In these pages, young readers will meet these and many other similarly courageous women and girls who risked their lives to help defeat the Nazis. Twenty-six engaging and suspense-filled stories unfold from across Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, and the United States, providing an inspiring reminder of women and girls' refusal to sit on the sidelines around the world and throughout history. An overview of World War II and summaries of each country's entrance and involvement in the war provide a framework for better understanding each woman's unique circumstances, and resources for further learning follow each profile. Women Heroes of World War II is an invaluable addition to any student's or history buff's bookshelf.
Call Number: 940.54 ATW
ISBN: 1556529619
Publication Date: 2011-03-01
Sabotage by Neal BascombA stunning adventure involving Nazis, nukes, fighting, failure, and everyday heroes, from the author of the award-winning The Nazi Hunters.Neal Bascomb delivers another nail-biting work of nonfiction for young adults in this incredible true story of spies and survival.The invasion begins at night, with German cruisers slipping into harbor, and soon the Nazis occupy all of Norway. They station soldiers throughout the country. They institute martial rule. And at Vemork, an industrial fortress high above a dizzying gorge, they gain access to an essential ingredient for the weapon that could end World War II: Hitler's very own nuclear bomb. When the Allies discover the plans for the bomb, they agree Vemork must be destroyed. But after a British operation fails to stop the Nazis' deadly designs, the task falls to a band of young Norwegian commandos. Armed with little more than skis, explosives, and great courage, they will survive months in the snowy wilderness, elude a huge manhunt, and execute two dangerous missions. The result? The greatest act of sabotage in all of World War II.
Call Number: 940.54 BAS
ISBN: 9780545732437
Publication Date: 2016-05-31
X Troop by Leah Garrett"Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees--a top-secret band of brothers--who waged war on Hitler."--Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and TheLiberator The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain's most secretive special-forces unit--but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes--their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp--the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. "Garrett's detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge."--Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler's Furies
Call Number: 940.54 GAR
ISBN: 9780358172031
Publication Date: 2021-05-25
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik LarsonOn Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally--and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports--some released only recently--Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill's "Secret Circle," to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
Call Number: 940.54 LAR
ISBN: 9780385348713
Publication Date: 2020-02-25
A Higher Call by Adam Makos; Larry AlexanderTHE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: December, 1943: A badly damaged American bomber struggles to fly over wartime Germany. At the controls is twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown. Half his crew lay wounded or dead on this, their first mission. Suddenly, a Messerschmitt fighter pulls up on the bomber's tail. The pilot is German ace Franz Stigler--and he can destroy the young American crew with the squeeze of a trigger... What happened next would defy imagination and later be called "the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II." The U.S. 8th Air Force would later classify what happened between them as "top secret." It was an act that Franz could never mention for fear of facing a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search the world for each other, a last mission that could change their lives forever.
Call Number: 940.54 MAK
ISBN: 9780425252864
Publication Date: 2012-12-19
Spearhead by Adam MakosWhen Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter. At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division--"Spearhead"--thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit. After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater. But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the "Fortress City" of Germany. Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans. As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time. Praise for Spearhead "A detailed, gripping account . . . the remarkable story of two tank crewmen, from opposite sides of the conflict, who endure the grisly nature of tank warfare." --USA Today (four out of four stars) "Strong and dramatic . . . Makos established himself as a meticulous researcher who's equally adept at spinning a good old-fashioned yarn. . . . For a World War II aficionado, it will read like a dream." --Associated Press
Call Number: 940.54 MAK
ISBN: 9780804176729
Publication Date: 2019-02-19
The Secret War by James T. RogersFocuses on British and American espionage, counterespionage, and deceptive operations that were so crucial to the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan in the Second World War.
Call Number: 940.54 ROG
ISBN: 0816023956
Publication Date: 1991-11-01
D-Day Girls by Sarah RoseNATIONAL BESTSELLER The dramatic, untold history of ;women recruited by Britain's elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II "Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)--and all of it true."--Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To "set Europe ablaze," in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There's Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE's unflappable "queen." Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence--laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage--and the energy of politically animated women--can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high. Praise for D-Day Girls "Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book."--Refinery29 "Equal parts espionage-romance thriller and historical narrative, D-Day Girls traces the lives and secret activities of the 39 women who answered the call to infiltrate France. . . . While chronicling the James Bond-worthy missions and love affairs of these women, Rose vividly captures the broken landscape of war."--The Washington Post "Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Call Number: 940.54 ROS
ISBN: 9780451495082
Publication Date: 2019-04-23
Last Battle by Cornelius RyanThe classic account of the final offensive against Hitler's Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler's Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe's historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan's compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, "to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win." The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.
Call Number: 940.54 RYA
ISBN: 9780684803296
Publication Date: 1995-05-01
Bridge Too Far by Cornelius RyanThe classic account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan's masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshalled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-Day. In this compelling work of history, Ryan narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing on a vast cast of characters--from Dutch civilians to British and American strategists to common soldiers and commanders--Ryan brings to life one of the most daring and ill-fated operations of the war. A Bridge Too Far superbly recreates the terror and suspense, the heroism and tragedy of this epic operation, which ended in bitter defeat for the Allies.
Call Number: 940.54 RYA
ISBN: 0684803305
Publication Date: 1995-05-01
The Liberation of Paris by Jean Edward SmithPrize-winning and bestselling historian Jean Edward Smith tells the "rousing" (Jay Winik, author of 1944) story of the liberation of Paris during World War II--a triumph achieved only through the remarkable efforts of Americans, French, and Germans, racing to save the city from destruction. Following their breakout from Normandy in late June 1944, the Allies swept across northern France in pursuit of the German army. The Allies intended to bypass Paris and cross the Rhine into Germany, ending the war before winter set in. But as they advanced, local forces in Paris began their own liberation, defying the occupying German troops. Charles de Gaulle, the leading figure of the Free French government, urged General Dwight Eisenhower to divert forces to liberate Paris. Eisenhower's advisers recommended otherwise, but Ike wanted to help position de Gaulle to lead France after the war. And both men were concerned about partisan conflict in Paris that could leave the communists in control of the city and the national government. Neither man knew that the German commandant, Dietrich von Choltitz, convinced that the war was lost, schemed to surrender the city to the Allies intact, defying Hitler's orders to leave it a burning ruin. In The Liberation of Paris, Jean Edward Smith puts "one of the most moving moments in the history of the Second World War" (Michael Korda) in context, showing how the decision to free the city came at a heavy price: it slowed the Allied momentum and allowed the Germans to regroup. After the war German generals argued that Eisenhower's decision to enter Paris prolonged the war for another six months. Was Paris worth this price? Smith answers this question in a "brisk new recounting" that is "terse, authoritative, [and] unsentimental" (The Washington Post).
Call Number: 940.54 SMI
ISBN: 9781501164927
Publication Date: 2019-07-23
The Harrowing of Hell by Marcus J. SmithMarcus Smith was the sole medical officer attached to a small displaced person (DP) team that was sent to the Dachau concentration camp the day after it was liberated by Allied troops and several days before the shocking conditions of the camp were publicized throughout the world.
Several years after his experience at Dachau, believing that we must never forget what happened, Smith unearthed his notes and the daily letters he wrote to his wife and used them as source materials for Dachau: The Harrowing of Hell. From the perspective of a young physician, Smith describes his experiences, shedding light on the immense difficulties and complexities of the large-scale tasks the small DP team completed, against great odds, to combat epidemic diseases and starvation and repatriate the former prisoners. Smith also describes some of the people the team tried to help--men, women, and children from all walks of life, of many nationalities and religions. Smith tells his moving story objectively, with simplicity and grace.
Call Number: 940.54 SMI
ISBN: 0826302645
Publication Date: 1972-01-01
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History of the World Map by Map by DK; Smithsonian Institution (Contribution by)Explore the history of the world in unprecedented detail with this ultimate guide to history throughout the ages. Maps don't just show us where to go, but also where we've been. If you're interested in finding out more about the biggest events in world history, then this book all about history of the world is perfect for you! This stunning history book for adults starts with the evolution and migration of our oldest ancestors out of Africa. You can then look up maps about the Greece and Persian War, the Mongol Conquests, Medieval Europe's trade routes, and the rise of the Ottomans. Explore maps about the colonisation of North America, the scientific revolution, Napoleon's advances, and Britain's control of India. Then uncover the history of later centuries, such as the Age of Imperialism, the American Civil War, industrialised Europe and the transformation of Japan. Journey into past like never before as you uncover: - Easy-to-read text panels for a deeper understanding of history - A total of 140 maps alongside stunning pictures and informative timelines - Storytelling maps to bring history to life - Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution in the USA. Bursting with striking illustrations and full of fascinating detail, this history book is the ultimate gift for map lovers, history enthusiasts of all ages and those who enjoy visiting museums and other historical sites, whether as a present for dad, or handy reference guide for any other history lover in your life! History of the World Map by Map aims to help you gain a strong understanding of some of the forces and movements across continents that have shaped our world! Go on guided tour through time and explore: - Prehistory 7 MYA-3000 BCE - The Ancient World 3000 BCE - 500 CE - Middle Ages 500-1450 CE - The Early Modern World 1450-1700 - Revolution and Industry 1700-1850 - Progress and Empire 1850-1914 - The Modern World 1914-Present At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. So why stop there? The Map by Map series includes other titles such as History of the World Map by Map and World War II Map by Map, each detailing historical events and placing them in the context of geography. DK's luxurious Map by Map books are fantastic history gifts, packed with fascinating facts, high-quality photography, and detailed profiles and descriptions of people and events.
Call Number: 909 HIS
ISBN: 9781465475855
Publication Date: 2018-10-23
Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters by Jared KnottThe small things that had great historical consequences... "Heart-stopping, compelling, and fun " Win Blevins, New York Times Bestselling Author How often does it happen that a single tiny mistake causes an entire civilization to collapse? More often than you think Readers of Jared Knott's book, Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters, will be amazed at the little things that changed history in a big way. Here are a few examples: A single document poorly designed by one single clerk in one single county changed the outcome of a presidential election and led directly to a major war. A soldier accidentally kicks a helmet off of the top of a wall and causes an empire to collapse. A small mechanical device several inches long fails to function, which changes the outcome of WWII and leads to the death of millions of people. A man fails to gather his army in time to defend against an attack because of the temptation of opium and a young slave woman. And many more Hypnotic and addictive, these well-researched, factual stories will keep you turning pages far past your bedtime. Human weakness at it very worst at critical moments. This book is the "Butterfly Effect" in human history reviewed.
Call Number: 909 KNO
ISBN: 9781735972909
Publication Date: 2020-10-20
Judenrat by Isaiah TrunkDuring World War II, more than five million Jews lived under Nazi rule in Eastern Europe. In occupied Poland, the Baltic countries, Byelorussia, and Ukraine, they were stripped of property and “resettled” in ghettos. The German authorities established in each ghetto a Jewish Council, or Judenrat, to maintain minimal living standards. The Judenrat was required to carry out Nazi directives against other Jews, to supply forced labor, and eventually to cooperate in the Final Solution. Did the Jewish leaders of the ghettos, who were also victims, assist their murderers? If cooperation with the Nazi oppressors was morally defensible during the first stage in organizing the ghettos, what about later, when deportations to death camps began? Trunk analyzes situations where the Councils and ghetto police were forced to send their own communities to death. Some Council members chose suicide rather than supply lists to the Nazis; others used delaying tactics. Some handed over the lists. Some joined their families in the gas chamber. In assessing guilt and innocence, Trunk never allows the reader to forget that the impossible choices facing the Jewish leaders were created by the Nazis.
Call Number: 940.54 TRU
ISBN: 9780812821703
Publication Date: 1977-11-01
The Sacred Warriors by Denis Ashton Warner; Peggy Warner; Sadao SenooMany books about the kamikaze attacks on American ships relate the history from a particular viewpoint or focus on a small piece of the total story. Denis and Peggy Warner succeed in their goal to give a more comprehensive perspective of the kamikaze phenomenon by relating the actions and reactions of Japan and the U.S. and by examining the reasons for Japan's suicide attacks.
Australian Denis Warner worked as a war correspondent for the American forces in the central Pacific in 1944 and 1945. The direct journalistic style used in The Sacred Warriors places the reader in the middle of the action when the kamikaze forces attack. The book's many quotes by eyewitnesses provide fascinating individual viewpoints and help bring the terrifying events to life. Warner himself experienced kamikaze attacks, and he describes the aftermath of one of them when a Japanese plane crashed into the British aircraft carrier Formidable, where he was working as a correspondent.
Call Number: 940.54 WAR
ISBN: 0442254180
Publication Date: 1982-01-01
A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth WeinExcellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist! The gripping true story of the only women to fly in combat in World War II--from Elizabeth Wein, award-winning author of Code Name Verity In the early years of World War II, Josef Stalin issued an order that made the Soviet Union the first country in the world to allow female pilots to fly in combat. Led by Marina Raskova, these three regiments, including the 588th Night Bomber Regiment--nicknamed the "night witches"--faced intense pressure and obstacles both in the sky and on the ground. Some of these young women perished in flames. Many of them were in their teens when they went to war. This is the story of Raskova's three regiments, women who enlisted and were deployed on the front lines of battle as navigators, pilots, and mechanics. It is the story of a thousand young women who wanted to take flight to defend their country, and the woman who brought them together in the sky. Packed with black-and-white photographs, fascinating sidebars, and thoroughly researched details, A Thousand Sisters is the inspiring true story of a group of women who set out to change the world, and the sisterhood they formed even amid the destruction of war.
Call Number: 940.54 WEI
ISBN: 9780062453013
Publication Date: 2019-01-22
Dead Wake by Erik LarsonOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds"--the fastest liner then in service--and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small--hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. Finalist for the Washington State Book Award * One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo
Call Number: 940.451 LAR
ISBN: 9780307408860
Publication Date: 2015-03-10
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane AckermanThe New York Times bestseller soon to be a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain. A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw--and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants--otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.
Call Number: 940.531 ACK
ISBN: 9780393061727
Publication Date: 2007-09-17
Beyond Courage by Doreen RappaportIn a stirring chronicle, Doreen Rappaport brings to light the courage of countless Jews who organized to sabotage the Nazis and help other Jews during the Holocaust. Under the noses of the military, Georges Loinger smuggles thousands of children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, three resisters ambush a train, allowing scores of Jews to flee from the cattle cars. In Poland, four brothers lead more than 1,200 ghetto refugees into the forest to build a guerilla force and self-sufficient village. And twelve-year-old Motele Shlayan entertains German officers with his violin moments before setting off a bomb. Through twenty-one meticulously researched accounts -- some chronicled in book form for the first time -- Doreen Rappaport illuminates the defiance of tens of thousands of Jews across eleven Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. In answer to the genocidal madness that was Hitler's Holocaust, the only response they could abide was resistance, and their greatest weapons were courage, ingenuity, the will to survive, and the resolve to save others or to die trying. Back matter includes a pronunciation guide, a list of important dates, source notes, a bibliography, a bibliography by chapter, and an index.
Call Number: 940.531 RAP
ISBN: 0763629766
Publication Date: 2012-09-11
Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken SetteringtonA history of the persecution of gay men by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. When the Nazis came to power in Europe, the lives of homosexuals came to be ruled by fear as raids, arrests, prison sentences and expulsions became the daily reality. When the concentration camps were built, homosexuals were imprisoned along with Jews. The pink triangle, sewn onto prison uniforms, became the symbol of their persecution. This book combines historical research with first-person accounts and individual stories to bring this time to life for readers. From the first chapter, with its story of a young Jewish girl who was rescued from the depths of despair and starvation in the camps by a fellow prisoner who wore the pink triangle, to the last, entitled It Gets Better, which outlines the strides forward in gay rights made in the decades since the war, the feeling of bravery and perseverance in the face of inhuman cruelty shines through.
Day of Infamy, 60th Anniversary by Walter LordA special 60th anniversary edition of the bestselling re-creation of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, by the author of A Night to Remember. Sunday, December 7, 1941, was, as President Roosevelt said, "a date which will live in infamy." Day of Infamy is a fascinating account of that unforgettable day's events. In brilliant detail Walter Lord traces the human drama of the great attack: the spies behind it; the Japanese pilots; the crews on the stricken warships; the men at the airfields and the bases; the Japanese pilot who captured an island single-handedly when he could not get back to his carrier; the generals, the sailors, the housewives, and the children who responded to the attack with anger, numbness, and magnificent courage. In piecing together the saga of Pearl Harbor, Lord traveled over fourteen thousand miles and spoke or corresponded with over five hundred individuals who were there. He obtained exclusive interviews with members of the Japanese attacking force and spent hundreds of hours with the Americans who received the blow -- not just the admirals and generals, but enlisted men and families as well. He visited each of the Hawaiian bases attacked and pored over maps, charts, letters, diaries, official files, newspapers, and some twenty-five thousand pages of testimony, discovering a wealth of information that had never before been revealed. Day of Infamy is an inspiring human document and the best account we have of one of the epic events in American history.
Call Number: 940.542 LOR
ISBN: 9780805068030
Publication Date: 2001-05-01
The Battle of Britain by K. E. Flintham; Kate Moore; Imperial War Museum Staff (Contribution by)Published in association with the Imperial War Museum in London to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, this book brings one of the most important battles of World War II to life. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, contemporary art and propaganda posters, and accompanied by numerous first-hand accounts, The Battle of Britain captures the reality and the romance of a defining chapter in British history. Moreover, it offers a detailed analysis of the events immediately preceding the battle, the key strategic decisions by opposing commanders that altered the course of the battle, as well as the development of criticial weaponry and defenses that dramatically changed the way aerial combat was fought. Moore's book pays tribute to visionaries such as R. J. Mitchell and Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, who ensured that, rather than simply a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, this was a battle for which Britain's Fighter Command was uniquely prepared. Such preparation nearly guaranteed that although the British were vastly outnumbered, they could confidently counter the German fighter planes and bombers that darkened the skies throughout the summer of 1940. It was this small band of men and women, covered in detail in this title, that were the first to successfully oppose the seemingly unstoppable tide of the Nazi war machine, irrevocably altering the course of the rest of the war.
Call Number: 940.542 MOO
ISBN: 9781846034749
Publication Date: 2010-05-25
Nagasaki by Susan SouthardOn August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a small port city on Japan's southernmost island. An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were injured. Published on the seventieth anniversary of the bombing, Nagasaki takes readers from the morning of the bombing to the city today, telling the first-hand experiences of five survivors, all of whom were teenagers at the time of the devastation.
Call Number: 940.548 SOU
ISBN: 9780670025626
Publication Date: 2015-07-28
The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm GladwellThis New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the "Bomber Mafia," asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, "Was it worth it?" Things might have gone differently had LeMay's predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.
Call Number: 940.5449 GLA
ISBN: 9780316296618
Publication Date: 2021-04-27
The English: A Social History, 1066-1945 by Christopher HibbertIn this vivid and compelling book, Christopher Hibbert records the daily life of the English people from the days of the Norman Conquest until our own. Based on diaries, letters, memoirs, official reports, the works of modern social historians and the literature of every period, The English traces the development of English society over nine hundred years.
The chapters range far and wide over life in castles, palaces and monasteries, in the homes of rich merchants and in the hovels of peasants, describing the work and play of the inhabitants, their clothes and food and possessions, their servants and animals, their pleasures and suffering, their beliefs and attitudes, their schools, fairs, shops and markets, hospitals and prisons, theatres and churches, farms and factories, taverns and brothels. Every aspect of medieval and modern life is covered in detail.
We learn about medieval meals and games, poachers and priests, tournaments and pageants; fifteenth-century universities; sixteenth-century plagues and seventeenth-century libraries, music rooms, nurseries, and witch-hunts; eighteenth-century parsons, coachmen and doctors; nineteenth-century noblemen, factory girls and cricketers; twentieth-century maidservants, landladies and motorists
Call Number: 941 HIB
ISBN: 9780246121813
Publication Date: 1987
National Geographic the British World by Tim JepsonSpanning wars, religious controversies, revolutions, and more, The British World is a visual jewel illuminating the history of this fascinating land-and an essential reference to be treasured by history lovers young and old. The authoritative content, unearthed across thousands of years, immerses you in the full sweep of British history-from prehistory to the Romans, Saxons and Normans, the Medieval Age, Tudor Britain, the Stuarts, the Georgian and Victorian eras, and the modern age. The lush reference is interwoven with intriguing facts and insights into the fabric of British life, from literary highlights to social amusements to trends of the day. Sidebars examine significant people, as well as key cultural and artistic events. Featured quotes give voice to unforgettable characters such as Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher. You'll discover time lines of key events in each chapter, and family trees trace the line of descent of the monarchy to the present. Blending compelling narrative, stunning photographs and artwork, and dozens of specially commissioned maps, The British World takes you on a fascinating journey through time and place to tell the story of the British Isles.
Call Number: 941 JEP
ISBN: 9781426215537
Publication Date: 2015-11-03
The Anglo-Saxons by James Campbell (Editor); Eric John (Editor); Patrick Wormald (Editor)This survey, an introduction to the history of Anglo-Saxon England looks at political history, and religious, cultural, social, legal and economic themes are woven in. Throughout the book the authors make use of original sources such as chronicles, charters, manuscripts and coins, works of art, archaelogical remains and surviving buildings.The nature of power and kingship, role of wealth, rewards, conquest and blood-feud in the perennial struggle for power, structure of society, the development of Christianity and the relations between church and secular authority are discussed at length, while particular topics are explored in 19 "picture essays".
Call Number: 941.01 CAM
ISBN: 9780140143959
Publication Date: 1991-08-06
Rebellion by Peter AckroydPeter Ackroyd has been praised as one of the greatest living chroniclers of Britain and its people. InRebellion,he continues his dazzling account of the history of England, beginning with the progress south of the Scottish king, James VI, who on the death of Elizabeth I became the first Stuart king of England, and ending with the deposition and flight into exile of his grandson, James II. The Stuart monarchy brought together the two nations of England and Scotland into one realm, albeit a realm still marked by political divisions that echo to this day. More importantly, perhaps, the Stuart era was marked by the cruel depredations of civil war, and the killing of a king. Shrewd and opinionated, James I was eloquent on matters as diverse as theology, witchcraft, and the abuses of tobacco, but his attitude to the English parliament sowed the seeds of the division that would splitthe country during the reign of his hapless heir, Charles I. Ackroyd offers a brilliant, warts-and-all portrayal of Charles's nemesis, Oliver Cromwell, Parliament's great military leader and England's only dictator, who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as "that man of blood," the king he executed. England's turbulent seventeenth century is vividly laid out before us, but so too is the cultural and social life of the period, notable for its extraordinarily rich literature, including Shakespeare's late masterpieces, Jacobean tragedy, the poetry of John Donne and Milton and Thomas Hobbes's great philosophical treatise,Leviathan. In addition to its account of England's royalty,Rebellionalso gives us a very real sense of the lives of ordinary English men and women, lived out against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.
Call Number: 941.06 ACK
ISBN: 9781250003638
Publication Date: 2014-10-21
The Royal Stuarts by Allan Massie"Compelling...A masterly feat...A magnificent, sweeping, authoritative, warm yet wry history." --The Wall Street Journal In this fascinating and intimate portrait of the Stuarts, author Allan Massie takes us deep into one of history's bloodiest and most tumultuous reigns. Exploring the family's lineage from the first Stuart king to the last, The Royal Stuarts is a panoramic history of the family that acted as a major player in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Union of the Crowns, the English Civil War, the Restoration, and more. Drawing on the accounts of historians past and present, novels, and plays, this is the complete story of the Stuart family, documenting their path from the salt marshes of Brittany to the thrones of Scotland and England and eventually to exile. The Royal Stuarts brings to life figures like Mary, Queens of Scots, Charles I, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, uncovering a family of strong affections and fierce rivalries. Told with panache, this is the gripping true story of backstabbing, betrayal, andambition gone awry.
Call Number: 941.06 MAS
ISBN: 0312581750
Publication Date: 2011-12-20
How to Be a Victorian by Ruth GoodmanRuth Goodman believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her ownadventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves asour bustling and fanciful guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding fromdaybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives ofthe most perennially fascinating era of British history. From waking up to the rappingof a "knocker-upper man" on the window pane to lacing into a corset after a round ofcalisthenics, from slipping opium to the little ones to finally retiring to the bedroomfor the ideal combination of "love, consideration, control and pleasure," the weird,wonderful, and somewhat gruesome intricacies of Victorian life are vividly renderedhere. How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious.
Call Number: 941.08 GOO
ISBN: 9780871404855
Publication Date: 2014-10-06
The Graves Are Walking by John KellyA magisterial account of one of the worst disasters to strike humankind--the Great Irish Potato Famine--conveyed as lyrical narrative history from the acclaimed author of The Great Mortality In this masterful, comprehensive account of the Irish Potato Famine, delivered with novelistic flair, Kelly gives us not only the startling facts of this disaster--one of the worst to strike mankind, killing twice as many lives as the American Civil War--but examines the intersection of political greed, bacterial infection, religious intolerance, and racism that made it possible. Kelly brings new material to his analysis of relevant political factors during the years leading up to the famine, and the extent to which Britain's nation-building policies exacerbated the mounting crisis. Despite the shocking, infuriating implications of his findings, The Graves Are Walking is ultimately a story of triumph--of one people's ability to remake themselves in a new land in the face of the unthinkable.
Call Number: 941.5 KEL
ISBN: 9781250032171
Publication Date: 2013-07-23
How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas CahillThe perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars" -- and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.
Call Number: 941.501 CAH
ISBN: 0385418485
Publication Date: 1995-02-15
Foundation by Peter AckroydPeter Ackroyd, whose work has always been underpinned by a profound interest in and understanding of England's history, now tells the epic story of England itself. InFoundation,the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death, in 1509, of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past--a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house--and describes in rich prose the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French. With his extraordinary skill for evoking time and place and his acute eye for the telling detail, Ackroyd recounts the story of warring kings, of civil strife, and foreign wars. But he also gives us a vivid sense of how England's early people lived: the homes they built, the clothes the wore, the food they ate, even the jokes they told. All are brought vividly to life in this history of England through the narrative mastery of one of Britain's finest writers.
Call Number: 942 ACK
ISBN: 9781250003614
Publication Date: 2012-10-16
Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Henry Steele Commager"Here is one of the great books of our age, Winston Churchill's most ambitious work and the crowning achievement of his career. His theme is a noble one, worthy of the great purpose and imaginative scope of its author:
'Back in the mists of time on that little Anglo-Saxon island there was kindled the flame of freedom and equality for the individual. This idea grew and was spread over the earth by the English-speaking peoples, and has now brought democracy to the whole free world, and become the shining hope of the future of mankind.'
He tells of the struggles and setbacks of the great men and the little men who carried the banner forward and the selfish men who dragged it back. But there is no mistaking the drive of the swelling tide.
This is naturally a British history, but it is also very much an American, Canadian, New Zealand, Australian, Indian, South African history, the greatest story of our centuries told by the master storyteller of our time."
Call Number: 942 COM
ISBN: 0517422832
Publication Date: 1987-10-21
Magna Carta by J. C. HoltThis is a fully revised and extended edition of J. C. Holt's study of Magna Carta, the Great Charter, which sets the events of 1215 and the Charter itself in the context of the law, politics and administration of England and Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The author has added to the first edition (1965) further comment on the development of local liberties, the significance of the famous provision nullus liber homo, the political manoeuvres of 1215, and the later history of the Charter, and many other matters. The book is broadened by the addition of an extensive chapter on justice and jurisdiction which embodies an entirely new approach to some of the most crucial and longest-lasting provisions of the Charter. New appendices have been added. Some of these are concerned with the political crisis of 1213-15, for example the alleged meeting at Bury St Edmunds; others examine the Anglo-Norman translations of the Charter and related documents, or the development of perpetual liberties. References are brought up to date throughout, and there is an entirely new index.
Call Number: 942 SWI
ISBN: 9780521277785
Publication Date: 1992-05-07
Ten Sixty-Six by David HowarthIt is one of the most important dates in the history of the Western world: 1066, the year William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings and changed England and the English forever. Yet the events leading to-and following-this turning point in history are shrouded in mystery and distorted by the biased accounts written by a subjugated people, and many believe it was the English who ultimately won, since the Normans became assimilated into the English way of life. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources, David Howarth gives us memorable portraits of the leading characters and their motivations. At the same time he enables us to see the events of that year from the viewpoint of common Englishmen, and along the way we learn how they lived, worked, fought, and died-and how they perceived from their isolated shires the overthrow of their world. Book jacket.
Call Number: 942.02 HOW
ISBN: 0670696013
Publication Date: 1978-01-25
The Plantagenets by Dan JonesThe first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights. This is the era of chivalry, of Robin Hood and the Knights Templar, the Black Death, the founding of Parliament, the Black Prince, and the Hundred Year's War. It will appeal as much to readers of Tudor history as to fans of Game of Thrones.
Call Number: 942.03 JON
ISBN: 9780670026654
Publication Date: 2013-04-18
Clash of Crowns by Mary McAuliffeConflict between England and France was a fact of life for centuries, but few realize that its origins date from the time of the Vikings, when a Norse chieftain named Rollo established himself and his progeny in Normandy. In this compelling and entertaining history, Mary McAuliffe takes the reader back to those dark and turbulent times when Rollo's descendants, the dukes of Normandy, asserted their dominance over the weak French monarchy--a dominance that became especially threatening after Duke William conquered England in 1066, giving him a royal crown. Despite this crown, William the Conqueror and his royal successors remained dukes of Normandy, with feudal obligations to their overlord, the king of France. This naturally fostered an ongoing hostility between the French and English crowns that, as McAuliffe convincingly shows, became ever more explosive as the strength and territorial holdings of the English monarchs grew. Conflict erupted regularly over the years, and Eleanor of Aquitaine's desertion of one camp for the other only added fuel to the long-simmering feud. McAuliffe takes the reader back to this dramatic era, providing the fascinating background and context for this "clash of crowns." She offers colorful insights into Richard Lionheart and Eleanor of Aquitaine as well as lesser-known French and English monarchs, especially Philip II of France. Philip proved a determined opponent of Richard Lionheart, and their cutthroat rivalry not only created fatal divisions within the Third Crusade but also culminated in an incendiary faceoff at Richard's newly built Chateau-Gaillard, the seemingly impregnable gateway to empire. The outcome would shape the course of English and French history throughout the centuries that followed.
Call Number: 942.03 MCA
ISBN: 9781442214712
Publication Date: 2012-03-16
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian MortimerThe past is a foreign country. This is your guidebook. A time machine has just transported you back to the fourteenth century. What do you see? How do you dress? How do you earn a living and how much are you paid? What sort of food will you be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? And more important, where will you stay? The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is not your typical look at a historical period. This radical new approach shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. All facets of everyday life in this fascinating period are revealed, from the horrors of the plague and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and medieval haute couture. Through the use of daily chronicles, letters, household accounts, and poems of the day, Mortimer transports you back in time, providing answers to questions typically ignored by traditional historians. You will learn how to greet people on the street, what to use as toilet paper, why a physician might want to taste your blood, and how to know whether you are coming down with leprosy. From the first step on the road to the medieval city of Exeter, through meals of roast beaver and puffin, Mortimer re-creates this strange and complex period of history. Here, the lives of serf, merchant, and aristocrat are illuminated with re-markable detail in this engaging literary journey. The result is the most astonishing social history book you're ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance, and fear.
Call Number: 942.03 MOR
ISBN: 9781439112892
Publication Date: 2009-12-29
Warriors of God by James Reston; James RestonAcclaimed author James Reston, Jr.'s Warriors of God is the rich and engaging account of the Third Crusade (1187-1192), a conflict that would shape world history for centuries and which can still be felt in the Middle East and throughout the world today. James Reston, Jr. offers a gripping narrative of the epic battle that left Jerusalem in Muslim hands until the twentieth century, bringing an objective perspective to the gallantry, greed, and religious fervor that fueled the bloody clash between Christians and Muslims. As he recounts this rousing story, Reston brings to life the two legendary figures who led their armies against each other. He offers compelling portraits of Saladin, the wise and highly cultured leader who created a united empire, and Richard the Lionheart, the romantic personification of chivalry who emerges here in his full complexity and contradictions. From its riveting scenes of blood-soaked battles to its pageant of fascinating, larger-than-life characters, Warriors of God is essential history, history that helps us understand today's world.
Call Number: 942.03 RES
ISBN: 9780385495622
Publication Date: 2002-05-14
Tudors: the History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I by Peter AckroydPeter Ackroyd, one of Britain's most acclaimed writers, brings the age of the Tudors to vivid life in this monumental book in his The History of England series, charting the course of English history from Henry VIII's cataclysmic break with Rome to the epic rule of Elizabeth I. Rich in detail and atmosphere,Tudors is the story of Henry VIII's relentless pursuit of both the perfect wife and the perfect heir; of how the brief royal reign of the teenage king, Edward VI, gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism and the stench of bonfires under "Bloody Mary." It tells, too, of the long reign of Elizabeth I, which, though marked by civil strife, plots against her, and even an invasion force, finally brought stability. Above all, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, England was still largely feudal and looked to Rome for direction; at its end, it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.
Call Number: 942.05 ACK
ISBN: 9781250003621
Publication Date: 2013-10-08
How to Be a Tudor by Ruth GoodmanOn the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions, Goodman serves as our intrepid guide to sixteenth-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of those who labored through the era. From sounding the "hue and cry" to alert a village to danger to malting grain for homemade ale, from the gruesome sport of bear-baiting to cuckolding and cross-dressing--the madcap habits and revealing intimacies of life in the time of Shakespeare are vividly rendered for the insatiably curious.
Call Number: 942.05 GOO
ISBN: 9781631491399
Publication Date: 2016-02-15
The Confident Hope of a Miracle by Neil HansonThe story of the Spanish Armada is one of the great epics, with a cast of characters as rich and varied as any in history and results that shaped Europe for centuries to come. Neil Hanson — acclaimed author of The Great Fire of London — traces the origins of the conflict from the Old World to the New, delineating the Armada campaign in rousing prose. He illuminates the lives of kings and popes, spymasters and assassins, military commanders and common sailors, and the ordinary men and women caught up in this great event when the fate of nations hung in the balance. The Confident Hope of a Miracle is authentic and original history written with the pace and drama of a novel.
Call Number: 942.055 HAN
ISBN: 9781400078172
Publication Date: 2006-02-14
The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian MortimerThe author of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England takes you through the world of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I From the author of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, this popular history explores daily life in Queen Elizabeth's England, taking us inside the homes and minds of ordinary citizens as well as luminaries of the period, including Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake. Organized as a travel guide for the time-hopping tourist, Mortimer relates in delightful (and occasionally disturbing) detail everything from the sounds and smells of sixteenth-century England to the complex and contradictory Elizabethan attitudes toward violence, class, sex, and religion. Original enough to interest those with previous knowledge of Elizabethan England and accessible enough to entertain those without, The Time Traveler's Guide is a book for Elizabethan enthusiasts and history buffs alike.
Love in the Blitz by Eileen AlexanderOn July 17th 1939, Eileen Alexander, a bright young woman recently graduated from Girton College, Cambridge, begins a brilliant correspondence with fellow Cambridge student Gershon Ellenbogen that lasts five years and spans many hundreds of letters. But as Eileen and Gershon's relationship flourishes from friendship and admiration into passion and love, the tensions between Germany, Russia, and the rest of Europe reach a crescendo. When war is declared, Gershon heads for Cairo and Eileen forgoes her studies to work in the Air Ministry. As cinematic as Atonement, written with the intimacy of the Neapolitan quartet, Love in the Blitz is an extraordinary glimpse of life in London during World War II and an illuminating portrait of an ordinary young woman trying to carve a place for herself in a time of uncertainty. As the Luftwaffe begins its bombardment of England, Eileen, like her fellow Britons, carries on while her loved ones are called up to fight, some never to return home. Written over the course of the conflict, Eileen's letters provide a vivid and personal glimpse of this historic era. Yet throughout the turmoil and bloodshed, one thing remains constant: her beloved Gershon, who remains a source of strength and support, even after he, too, joins the fighting. Though his letters have been lost to time, the bolstering force of his love for Eileen is illuminated in her responses to him. Equal parts heartrending and heartwarming, Love in the Blitz is a timeless romance and a deeply personal story of life and resilience amid the violence and terror of war.
Tower by Nigel JonesA dazzling history of the Tower of London, one of the world's busiest tourist attractions, and the people who populated it Castle, royal palace, prison, torture chamber, execution site, zoo, mint, home to the crown jewels, armory, record office, observatory, and the most visited tourist attraction in the UK: The Tower of London has been all these things and more. No building in Britain has been more intimately involved in the island's story than this mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital, a place which has stood at the epicenter of dramatic, bloody and frequently cruel events for almost a thousand years. Now historian Nigel Jones sets this dramatic story firmly in the context of national--and international--events. In a gripping account drawn from primary sources and lavishly illustrated with sixteen pages of stunning photographs, he captures the Tower in its many changing moods and its many diverse functions. Here, for the first time, is a thematic portrayal of the Tower of london not just as an ancient structure, but as a living symbol of the nation of Great Britain.
Call Number: 942.15 JON
ISBN: 9780312622961
Publication Date: 2012-10-02
Elizabeth's London by Liza Picard'Reading this book is like taking a ride on a marvellously exhilarating time-machine, alive with colour, surprise and sheer merriment' Jan Morris Elizabethan London reveals the practical details of everyday life so often ignored in conventional history books. It begins with the River Thames, the lifeblood of Elizabethan London, before turning to the streets and the traffic in them. Liza Picard surveys building methods and shows us the interior decor of the rich and the not-so-rich, and what they were likely to be growing in their gardens. Then the Londoners of the time take the stage, in all their amazing finery. Plague, smallpox and other diseases afflicted them. But food and drink, sex and marriage and family life provided comfort. Cares could be forgotten in a playhouse or the bull-baiting of bear-baiting rings, or watching a good cockfight. Liza Picard's wonderfully skilful and vivid evocation of the London of Elizabeth I enables us to share the delights, as well as the horrors, of the everyday lives of our sixteenth-century ancestors.
Call Number: 942.105 PIC
ISBN: 9780753817575
Publication Date: 2004-05-06
Prussia's Glory by S. Fischer-FabianStudies the political and social development of Prussia from 1701 to 1786 and profiles the lives of its kings
Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell BartolettiRobert F. Sibert Award-winner Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups. In her first full-length nonfiction title since winning the Robert F. Sibert Award, Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups. "I begin with the young. We older ones are used up . . . But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world." --Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933 By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.
Call Number: 943.086 BAR
ISBN: 9780439353793
Publication Date: 2005-04-01
The Third Reich by Thomas ChildersThe dramatic story of the Third Reich--how Adolf Hitler and a core group of Nazis rose to power and plunged the world into a horrific war, perpetrating the genocidal Holocaust while sacrificing the lives of millions of ordinary Germans. In The Third Reich, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the Great War, he found his voice and drew a following. As his views developed, Hitler attracted like-minded colleagues who formed the nucleus of the nascent Nazi party. The failed Munich putsch of 1923 and subsequent trial gave Hitler a platform for his views, which he skillfully exploited. Between 1924 and 1929 Hitler and his party languished in obscurity on the radical fringes of German politics, but the onset of the Great Depression provided Hitler the issues he needed to move into the mainstream of German political life. He seized the opportunity to blame Germany's misery on the victorious allies, the Marxists, the Jews, and big business--and the political parties that represented them. By 1932 the Nazis had become the largest political party in Germany. Although Hitler became chancellor in 1933, his party had never achieved a majority in free elections. Within six months the Nazis transformed a dysfunctional democracy into a totalitarian state and began the inexorable march to World War II and the Holocaust. It is these fraught times that Childers brings to life: the Nazis' rise to power and their use and abuse of power once they achieved it. Based in part on German documents seldom used by previous historians, The Third Reich charts the dramatic, improbable rise of the Nazis; the suffering of ordinary Germans under Nazi rule; and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. This is the most comprehensive and readable one-volume history of Nazi Germany since the classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Call Number: 943.086 CHI
ISBN: 9781451651133
Publication Date: 2017-10-10
Hitler and the Nazis by David F. CrewPresents a history of the rise and fall of Hitler and Nazism through original source documents, including Nazi party records and propaganda and documents from witnesses, Holocaust survivors, and individuals who resisted the Nazi regime. Each chapter has a general introduction as well as commentary about the individual documents.The excerpts are drawn from government papers, Nazi propaganda, letters, diaries, articles, reminiscences, and trial and hearings testimony. The text is supplemented with black-and-white period photos, art, and documents, including reproductions that show how the Nazis used propaganda to create a mythical Hitler who became the all-powerful embodiment of the German nation.
Call Number: 943.086 CRE
ISBN: 9780195152852
Publication Date: 2006-01-19
A Brief History of Ukraine by Dominic HaynesIt's the second largest country in Europe, and it's dominating the headlines... but how much do you really know about Ukraine's fascinating history? Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe, yet we hear little about it until disaster strikes. But with its lush, fertile fields and fast-flowing rivers, it's a place of beauty and history that deserves to be understood. We often hear about conflict in the region, but did you know that there's a logical reason for that? Ukraine has few geographical barriers, and as such, its history is scattered with stories of conflict caused by clashing civilizations. But despite its tumultuous history, the country has a depth of resilience that has allowed it to thrive and carve out a unique identity... no matter what has happened around it. As Ukraine has served as a crossroads for different cultures, it has absorbed a diverse array of languages, cuisines, laws, and fashions, making it a country with a clear and distinct voice of its own. If you've ever wondered what separates Ukraine from Russia and makes it stand out as a unique culture, now is the time to delve into one of the most fascinating histories in Europe... and you're in just the right place to do exactly that. Inside this comprehensive potted history, you'll discover: The first civilization known to have occupied Ukraine - and how it influenced the story that would unravel over years to come Where the terms 'Left-Bank Ukraine' and 'Right-Bank Ukraine' come from... and why they're still relevant today The role Attila the Hun played in Ukraine's history (plus why everything you've been told about him is wrong) 'The Golden Horde' - plus what gave them their name and how they influenced the country The role of religion in developing the Ukraine we know today The true significance of the Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654 - and the astounding effect it had on the country's culture A complete understanding of the influence of the Tsar reign The role of literature and how it affected Ukrainian culture and politics The full story of growth and industrialization in Ukraine that brought it to where it is today And much more. Ukraine is in our consciousness for a range of specific reasons... But there's a huge depth to its past that brings it to where it is now. Deepen your understanding, broaden your horizons, and see the picture in full color... Delve into Ukraine's past and discover what most history books leave out. Discover the full story behind a truly remarkable country: Scroll up and click "Add to Cart" right now.
Call Number: 947.7 HAY
ISBN: 9798846871007
Publication Date: 2022-04-13
Genocide in Darfur by Janey LevyA close-up look at the crisis in the western Sudan region of Darfur that has claimed 500,000 lives and has left over two million people homeless. And violence is ongoing; the people of Darfur continue to be systematically attacked, raped, and murdered by the Sudanese army and by the Janjaweed militia controlled by the Sudanese government.
Call Number: 962.404 LEV
ISBN: 1404218246
Publication Date: 2008-08-01
Fire Road by Kim Phuc Phan Thi; Ashley Wiersma (As told to)Get out! Run! We must leave this place! They are going to destroy this whole place! Go, children, run first! Go now!These were the final shouts nine year-old Kim Phuc heard before her world dissolved into flames--before napalm bombs fell from the sky, burning away her clothing and searing deep into her skin. It's a moment forever captured, an iconic image that has come to define the horror and violence of the Vietnam War. Kim was left for dead in a morgue; no one expected her to survive the attack. Napalm meant fire, and fire meant death.Against all odds, Kim lived--but her journey toward healing was only beginning. When the napalm bombs dropped, everything Kim knew and relied on exploded along with them: her home, her country's freedom, her childhood innocence and happiness. The coming years would be marked by excruciating treatments for her burns and unrelenting physical pain throughout her body, which were constant reminders of that terrible day. Kim survived the pain of her body ablaze, but how could she possibly survive the pain of her devastated soul?Fire Roadis the true story of how she found the answer in a God who suffered Himself; a Savior who truly understood and cared about the depths of her pain. Fire Roadis a story of horror and hope, a harrowing tale of a life changed in an instant--and the power and resilience that can only be found in the power of God's mercy and love.
ISBN: 9781496424303
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
900s
Beyond the Map by Alastair BonnettNew islands are under construction or emerging because of climate change. Eccentric enclaves and fantastic utopian experiments are multiplying. Once-secret fantasy gardens are cracking open their doors to outsiders. Our world is becoming stranger by the day--and Alastair Bonnett observes and captures every fascinating change. In Beyond the Map, Bonnett presents stories of the world's most extraordinary spaces--many unmarked on any official map--all of which challenge our assumptions about what we know--or think we know--about our world. As cultural, religious and political boundaries ebb and flow with each passing day, traditional maps unravel and fragment. With the same adventurous spirit he effused in the acclaimed Unruly Places, Bonnett takes us to thirty-nine incredible spots around the globe to explore these changing boundaries and stimulate our geographical imagination. Some are tied to disruptive contemporary political turbulence, such as the rise of ISIL, Russia's incursions into Ukraine and the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. Others explore the secret places not shown on Google Earth or reflect fast-changing landscapes. Beyond the Map journeys out into a world of mysterious, daunting and magical spaces. It is a world of hidden cultures and ghostly memories, of uncountable new islands and curious stabs at paradise. From the phantom tunnels of the Tokyo subway to a stunning movie-set re-creation of 1950s-era Moscow; from the caliphate of the Islamic State to virtual cybertopias--this book serves as an imaginative guide to the farthest fringes of geography.
Call Number: 910 BON
ISBN: 9780226513843
Publication Date: 2018-04-11
We Came, We Saw, We Left by Charles WheelanWhat would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre-COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to"--and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic--We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family's gap-year experiment.Wheelan paints a picture of adventure and connectivity, juggling themes of local politics, global economics, and family dynamics while exploring answers to questions like: How do you sneak out of a Peruvian town that has been barricaded by the local army? And where can you get treatment for a flesh-eating bacteria your daughter picked up two continents ago? From Colombia to Cambodia, We Came, We Saw, We Left chronicles nine months across six continents with three teenagers. What could go wrong?
Call Number: 910.4 WHE
ISBN: 9780393633955
Publication Date: 2021-01-26
The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland"A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information--and misinformation. Is it possible to stop mass murder by telling the truth?" -- Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow A complex hero. A forgotten story. The first witness to reveal the full truth of the Holocaust . . . Award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland tells the astonishing true story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear. In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom--among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world--and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen--a forensically detailed report that eventually reached Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Pope. And yet too few heeded the warning that Vrba had risked everything to deliver. Though Vrba helped save two hundred thousand Jewish lives, he never stopped believing it could have been so many more. This is the story of a brilliant yet troubled man--a gifted "escape artist" who, even as a teenager, understood that the difference between truth and lies can be the difference between life and death. Rudolf Vrba deserves to take his place alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler, and Primo Levi as one of the handful of individuals whose stories define our understanding of the Holocaust.
Call Number: 940.53 FRE
ISBN: 9780063112339
Publication Date: 2022-10-18
Geniuses at War by David A. PriceThe dramatic, untold story of the brilliant team whose feats of innovation and engineering created the world's first digital electronic computer--decrypting the Nazis' toughest code, helping bring an end to WWII, and ushering in the information age. Planning the invasion of Normandy, the Allies knew that decoding the communications of the Nazi high command was imperative for its success. But standing in their way was an encryption machine they called Tunny (British English for "tuna"), which was vastly more difficult to crack than the infamous Enigma cipher. To surmount this seemingly impossible challenge, Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker, brought in a maverick English working-class engineer named Tommy Flowers who devised the ingenious, daring, and controversial plan to build a machine that would calculate at breathtaking speed and break the code in nearly real time. Together with the pioneering mathematician Max Newman, Flowers and his team produced--against the odds, the clock, and a resistant leadership--Colossus, the world's first digital electronic computer, the machine that would help bring the war to an end. Drawing upon recently declassified sources, David A. Price's Geniuses at War tells, for the first time, the full mesmerizing story of the great minds behind Colossus and chronicles the remarkable feats of engineering genius that marked the dawn of the digital age.
Call Number: 940.54 PRI
ISBN: 9780525521549
Publication Date: 2021-06-22
Valkyrie by Hans Bernd GiseviusWhen on July 20, 1944, a bomb-boldly placed inside Hitler's headquarters by Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg- exploded without killing the Führer, the subsequent coup d'état against the Third Reich collapsed. The conspirators were summarily shot or condemned in show trials and sadistically hanged. One of the few survivors of the conspiracy was Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had used his positions in the Gestapo and the Abwehr (military intelligence) to further the anti-Nazi plot. Valkyrie, an abridgment of Gisevius's classic insider's account To the Bitter End, is an intimate memoir as riveting as it is exceptional.
Call Number: 943.086 GIS
ISBN: 9780306817717
Publication Date: 2008-12-02
Mein Kampf by Adolpf HitlerProceeds donated to Jewish Charities & Organizations "In the pages of Mein Kampf Hitler presented the world with his dark vision for the future. Years would pass before he attained the power to realize that vision, but Mein Kampf's existence denies the free world the excuse of ignorance. We dismissed him as a madman and we ignored his wretched book; the result was a tragedy of unprecedented proportions. This is yet another lesson to take from Mein Kampf: the lesson of vigilance and responsibility, of not closing our eyes to the evil around us."--From the introduction by Abraham Foxman
Call Number: 943.086 HIT
ISBN: 9780395925034
Publication Date: 1998-09-15
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik LarsonErik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler's rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the "New Germany," she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance--and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
Call Number: 943.086 LAR
ISBN: 0307408841
Publication Date: 2011-05-10
The Berlin Wall by Norman GelbGelb presents a fairly complete history and description of the wall, from its geographical parameters to its geopolitical significance, from its philosophical and functional architects to its detractors and apologists. The book is at its breathless best in recounting the stringing of the first strands of barbed wire in August 1961, and in describing the innovative attempts of East Germans to escape . Gelb was a correspondent for the Mutual Broadcasting Network in Berlin during the wall's construction. His writing style is very much popular journalism, and one almost expects to read comic book-like expletives. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. Gelb does raise an interesting question, though he does not pursue it far enough. Can the wall be seen, in all its scarred ugliness, as a positive force for world peace?
Call Number: 943.1 GEL
ISBN: 0880294965
Publication Date: 1988-02-01
The Tunnels by Greg MitchellA thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, "A wall is better than a war," and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "We don't care about East Berlin." JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions. As Greg Mitchell's riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany's top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the "CBS tunnel"; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; and the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. The Tunnels captures the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police as U.S. networks prepared to "pay for play" but were willing to cave to official pressure, the White House was eager to suppress historic coverage, and ordinary people in dire circumstances became subversive. The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.
Call Number: 943.155
ISBN: 9781101903872
Publication Date: 2017-10-17
Daring Young Men by Richard ReevesIn the early hours of June 26, 1948, phones began ringing across America, waking up the airmen of World War II—pilots, navigators, and mechanics—who were finally beginning normal lives with new houses, new jobs, new wives, and new babies. Some were given just forty-eight hours to report to local military bases. The president, Harry S. Truman, was recalling them to active duty to try to save the desperate people of the western sectors of Berlin, the enemy capital many of them had bombed to rubble only three years before.Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had ordered a blockade of the city, isolating the people of West Berlin, using hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers to close off all land and water access to the city. He was gambling that he could drive out the small detachments of American, British, and French occupation troops, because their only option was to stay and watch Berliners starve—or retaliate by starting World War III. The situation was impossible, Truman was told by his national security advisers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His answer: "We stay in Berlin. Period." That was when the phones started ringing and local police began banging on doors to deliver telegrams to the vets.Drawing on service records and hundreds of interviews in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, Reeves tells the stories of these civilian airmen, the successors to Stephen Ambrose’s "Citizen Soldiers," ordinary Americans again called to extraordinary tasks. They did the impossible, living in barns and muddy tents, flying over Soviet-occupied territory day and night, trying to stay awake, making it up as they went along and ignoring Russian fighters and occasional anti-aircraft fire trying to drive them to hostile ground.The Berlin Airlift changed the world. It ended when Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade, but only after the bravery and sense of duty of those young heroes had bought the Allies enough time to create a new West Germany and sign the mutual defense agreement that created NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.And then they went home again. Some of them forgot where they had parked their cars after they got the call.
Call Number: 943.155 REE
ISBN: 9781416541196
Publication Date: 2010-01-05
The last Habsburg by Gordon Brooke-ShepperdBROOK-SHEPHERD'S HISTORY OF THE LAST HAPSBURG EMPEROR MAY BE A BIT DATED BUT IS STILL A SOLID HISTORY OF THE TRAGIC FATE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES I. THE AUTHOR EXAMINES THE "SIXTUS AFFAIR" IN DETAIL, THAT ULTIMATELY DISCREDITED THE EMPEROR IN THE EYES OF HIS ALLY KAISER WILHELM II, THE MEDICORE BUREAUCRATS THAT SERVED THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN KINGDOM, THE BETRAYAL OF THE HUNGARIAN REGENT HOROTHY THAT PLEDGED LOYALTY TO HIS HUNGARIAN CROWN, AND CHARLES' UNTIMELY DEATH AT THE AGE OF 35 IN EXILE. EXTENSIVE INDEX.
The course of French History by Pierre GoubertThis stimulating one-volume history traces the social and economic evolution of France as a nation from the founding of the monarchy in 987, to the present day.
Against a background of structural change, Goubert etches a vivid account of key events and personalities. His perspective is a popular one, and his main interest is in how political events and famous people affect the nation as a whole. The book incorporates the findings and perspectives of recent monographic studies with clarity and precision, but it is Goubert's own judgements, direct, forceful and iconoclastic, which make this an invaluable text.
Call Number: 944 GOU
Publication Date: 1988
The Seine by Elaine SciolinoBlending memoir, travelogue, and history, The Seine is a love letter to Paris and the river that determined its destiny. Master storyteller and longtime New York Times foreign correspondent Elaine Sciolino explores the Seine through its lively characters?a bargewoman, a riverbank bookseller, a houseboat dweller, a famous cinematographer?and follows it from the remote plateaus of Burgundy, through Paris, and to the sea. The Seine is a vivid, enchanting portrait of the world's most irresistible river.
Call Number: 944 SCI
ISBN: 9780393609356
Publication Date: 2019-10-29
The Hundred Years War by SewardFrom 1337 to 1453 England repeatedly invaded France on the pretext that her kings had a right to the French throne. Though it was a small, poor country, England for most of those "hundred years" won the battles, sacked the towns and castles, and dominated the war. The protagonists of the Hundred Years War are among the most colorful in European history: Edward III, the Black Prince; Henry V, who was later immortalized by Shakespeare; the splendid but inept John II, who died a prisoner in London; Charles V, who very nearly overcame England; and the enigmatic Charles VII, who at last drove the English out. Desmond Seward's critically-acclaimed account of the Hundred Years War brings to life all of the intrigue, beauty, and royal to-the-death-fighting of that legendary century-long conflict.
The Great Fear of 1789; rural panic in revolutionary France by Georges LefebvreThis major work, graphically describes the panic, paranoia, and social chaos that sparked the Revolution. One of France's great historians analyzes the causes of the mass hysteria that overcame rural France during the summer of 1789, as hungry villagers flocked into towns to look for work or to beg for charity, and as vagrants and beggars choked the rural roads, threatening reprisals against householders who refused to give them shelter or a crust of bread.
Call Number: 944.04 LEF
Publication Date: 1973
Liberty or Death by Peter McPheeA strikingly new account of the impact of the French Revolution in Paris, across the French countryside, and around the globe The French Revolution has fascinated, perplexed, and inspired for more than two centuries. It was a seismic event that radically transformed France and launched shock waves across the world. In this provocative new history, Peter McPhee draws on a lifetime's study of eighteenth-century France and Europe to create an entirely fresh account of the world's first great modern revolution--its origins, drama, complexity, and significance. Was the Revolution a major turning point in French--even world--history, or was it instead a protracted period of violent upheaval and warfare that wrecked millions of lives? McPhee evaluates the Revolution within a genuinely global context: Europe, the Atlantic region, and even farther. He acknowledges the key revolutionary events that unfolded in Paris, yet also uncovers the varying experiences of French citizens outside the gates of the city: the provincial men and women whose daily lives were altered--or not--by developments in the capital. Enhanced with evocative stories of those who struggled to cope in unpredictable times, McPhee's deeply researched book investigates the changing personal, social, and cultural world of the eighteenth century. His startling conclusions redefine and illuminate both the experience and the legacy of France's transformative age of revolution.
Call Number: 944.04 MCP
ISBN: 9780300189933
Publication Date: 2016-05-24
Twelve Who Ruled by R. R. Palmer; Isser Woloch (Foreword by)The Reign of Terror continues to fascinate scholars as one of the bloodiest periods in French history, when the Committee of Public Safety strove to defend the first Republic from its many enemies, creating a climate of fear and suspicion in revolutionary France. R. R. Palmer's fascinating narrative follows the Committee's deputies individually and collectively, recounting and assessing their tumultuous struggles in Paris and their repressive missions in the provinces. A foreword by Isser Woloch explains why this book remains an enduring classic in French revolutionary studies.
The Age of Napoleon by Alistair HorneAn account of the reign and legacy of Napoleon covers his rise to prominence after the French Revolution, military prowess, and twenty-year rule, during which he made significant changes in such areas as law, society, and culture.
Vichy France by Robert PaxtonRobert O. Paxton's classic study of the aftermath of France's sudden collapse under Nazi invasion utilizes captured German archives and other contemporary materials to construct a strong and disturbing account of the Vichy period in France. With a new introduction and updated bibliography, Vichy France demonstrates that the collaborationist government of Marshal Pétain did far more than merely react to German pressures. The Vichy leaders actively pursued their own double agenda--internally, the authoritarian and racist "national revolution," and, externally, an attempt to persuade Hitler to accept this new France as a partner in his new Europe.
Call Number: 944.081 PAX
ISBN: 9780231124690
Publication Date: 2001-06-22
Paris from the Ground Up by James H. S. McGregorParis is the most personal of cities. There is a Paris for the medievalist, and another for the modernist--a Paris for expatriates, philosophers, artists, romantics, and revolutionaries of every stripe. James H. S. McGregor brings these multiple perspectives into focus throughout this concise, unique history of the City of Light.
His panorama begins with an ancient Gallic fortress on the Seine, burned to the ground by its own defenders in a vain effort to starve out Caesar's legions. After ninth-century raids by the Vikings ended, Parisians expanded the walls of their tiny sanctuary on the Ile de la Cité, turning the river's right bank into a thriving commercial district and the Rive Gauche into a college town. Gothic spires expressed a taste for architectural novelty, matched only by the palaces and pleasure gardens of successive monarchs whose ingenuity made Paris the epitome of everything French. The fires of Revolution threatened all that had come before, but Baron Haussmann saw opportunity in the wreckage. No planned city in the world is more famous than his.
Paris from the Ground Up allows readers to trace the city's evolution in its architecture and art-from the Roman arena to the Musée d'Orsay, from the Louvre's defensive foundations to I. M. Pei's transparent pyramids. Color maps, along with identifying illustrations, make the city accessible to visitors by foot, Metro, or riverboat.
A Concise History of Spain by William D. Phillips; Carla Rahn PhillipsThe rich cultural and political life of Spain has emerged from its complex history, from the diversity of its peoples, and from continual contact with outside influences. This book traces that history from prehistoric times to the present, focusing particularly on culture, society, politics, and personalities. Written in an engaging style, it introduces readers to the key themes that have shaped Spain's history and culture. These include its varied landscapes and climates; the impact of waves of diverse human migrations; the importance of its location as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and Europe and Africa; and religion, particularly militant Catholic Christianity and its centuries of conflict with Islam and Protestantism, as well as debates over the place of the Church in modern Spain. Illustrations, maps, and a guide to further reading, major cultural figures, and places to see, make the history of this fascinating country come alive.
Call Number: 946 PHI
ISBN: 9780521607216
Publication Date: 2010-07-01
The Voyage of the Armada by David HowarthIn May of 1588, on the order of Spain's King Philip, 30,000 soldiers and sailors armed with arquebus and musket set out to sea. A larger fleet had never before been assembled. In the Voyage of the Armada, David Howarth brilliantly conveys the drama of the Spanish Armada's progress and brings to life the personalities of the men who influenced its course, from the dogmatic and irrational Philip II to Don Juan Martinez de Recalde to Don Pedro and Don Diego de Valdes, who were cousins but also bitter enemies, to the Spanish soldiers and sailors who unquestioningly ventured into unknown seas to confront their fates. Basing his narrative on previously unexplored Spanish sources, David Howarth shows that there is always another side to every conflict. The Voyage of the Armada recounts the adventures of these brave men as they go from battles to storms to wrecks and then finally - for the lucky ones - return home. (5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 256 pages, map)
Call Number: 946.04 HOW
ISBN: 0670748285
Publication Date: 1981-10-19
Spain in Our Hearts by Adam HochschildFrom the acclaimed, best-selling author Adam Hochschild, a sweeping history of the Spanish Civil War, told through a dozen characters, including Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell: a tale of idealism, heartbreaking suffering, and a noble cause that failed For three crucial years in the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War dominated headlines in America and around the world, as volunteers flooded to Spain to help its democratic government fight off a fascist uprising led by Francisco Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini. Today we're accustomed to remembering the war through Hemingway'sFor Whom the Bell Tolls and Robert Capa's photographs. But Adam Hochschild has discovered some less familiar yet far more compelling characters who reveal the full tragedy and importance of the war: a fiery nineteen-year-old Kentucky woman who went to wartime Spain on her honeymoon, a Swarthmore College senior who was the first American casualty in the battle for Madrid, a pair of fiercely partisan, rivalrous New York Timesreporters who covered the war from opposites sides, and a swashbuckling Texas oilman with Nazi sympathies who sold Franco almost all his oil -- at reduced prices, and on credit. It was in many ways the opening battle of World War II, and we still have much to learn from it.Spain in Our Heartsis Adam Hochschild at his very best.
Russia by Derek C. Maus (Editor)Russia is a nation with a long and tumultuous history. It has been constantly reshaped by the often-violent intersection of competing factions. From the clashes of Nordic and Asiatic nomads in the early medieval period, through the struggle between czarists and revolutionaries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and up to the current competition for power in the post-Soviet period, this volume examines Russia as a nation defined by ethnic, political, and cultural rivalries.
Call Number: 947 RUS
ISBN: 0737712007
Publication Date: 2003-04-09
The Last Days of the Romanovs by Helen RappaportFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters and Caught in the Revolution, The Last Days of the Romanovs is Helen Rappaport's riveting, moment-by-moment account of the last fourteen days of the Russian Imperial family. "The brutal 1918 massacre of the Romanov family may be familiar, but in Russian scholar Rappaport's hands, the tale becomes as shocking and immediate as a thriller. . . . A gripping read." --People magazine This is the story of the murders that ended three hundred years of Romanov rule and set their stamp on an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression. Counting down to the last, tense hours of the Imperial family's lives, Rappaport strips away the over-romanticized versions of previous accounts. The story focuses on the family inside the Ipatiev House, capturing the oppressive atmosphere and the dynamics of a group--the Romanovs, their servants, and guards--thrown together by extraordinary events. Marshaling overlooked evidence from key witnesses such as the British consul to Ekaterinburg, Sir Thomas Preston, American and British travelers in Siberia, and the now-forgotten American journalist Herman Bernstein, Helen Rappaport gives a brilliant account of the political forces swirling through the remote Urals town. She conveys the tension of the watching world: the Kaiser of Germany and George V, King of England--both, like Alexandra, grandchildren of Queen Victoria--their nations locked in combat as the First World War drew to its bitter end. And she draws on recent releases from the Russian archives to challenge the view that the deaths were a unilateral act by a maverick group of the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks, identifying a chain of command that stretches directly, she believes, to Moscow--and to Lenin himself. Telling the story in a compellingly new and dramatic way, The Last Days of the Romanovs brings those final tragic days vividly alive against the backdrop of Russia in turmoil, on the brink of a devastating civil war.
Call Number: 947.08 RAP
ISBN: 9780312603472
Publication Date: 2010-01-19
1905 by Leon TrotskyRussia’s Social Development and Tsarism Russian Capitalism
Russian Capitalism
The Peasantry and the Agrarian Question
The Driving Forces of the Russian Revolution
The Spring
January Ninth
The Strike in October
The Creation of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies
October Eighteenth
Witte’s Ministry
The first Days of the “Freedoms”
The Tsar’s Men at Work
Storming the Censorship Bastilies
Opposition and Revolution
The November Strike
Eight Hours and a Gun
The Peasant Riots
The Red Fleet
On the Threshold of Counter-Revolution
The Last Days of the Soviet
December
Summing Up
Annexes
The Proletariat & the Russian Revolution
Our Differences
The Struggle for Power
On the Special Features of Russia’s Historical Development
Call Number: 947.08 TRO
ISBN: 9780394715155
Publication Date: 1922
The Time of Stalin by A. V. Antonov-OvseyenkoThe Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny is an extraordinary book of historical revelation, a searing criminal indictment as told from the inside of Soviet society. Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko was a child of the Bolshevik Revolution. His father, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, led the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace in October 1917 and went on the become a leading Soviet military figure, political operative, and diplomat. He was a victim of judicial murder during Stalin's purges of the late thirties. Vladimir Antonov-Oveyenko's official rehabilitation in 1956 was one of the first acts of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization program. His son, Anton, almost totally blind and a survivor of many years in Stalin's prisons and concentration camps, told the story of Stalin from personal experience. The fate of the Soviet Union under Stalin - as well as the official silence that again enshrouds the man Anton denounced as a gangster - led him to write a remarkable and damning book.
Call Number: 947.084 ANT
ISBN: 0060101482
Publication Date: 1981-09-01
The Aftermath of the Russian Revolution by Kathlyn Gay'situation serious. Anarchy in the capital. Government paralyzed,'' read a telegram to Russian Czar Nicholas II, 1917. This telegram came too late for Nicholas to prevent the massive revolution that overthrew his dynasty that established the rule of the Communist Soviets in Russia. Under its leaders, Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin, the Communist government was repressive and violent. the government forced people out of their homes, created famines when it confiscated crops to pay for industrialization, and controlled all aspects of Russian life. Millions were executed or sent to work and die in forced labor camps. the Soviet Union supported the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, engaged in a Cold War (1945-1991) against the United States and Western Europe, and changed world politics forever.
Call Number: 947.084 GAY
ISBN: 0822590921
Publication Date: 2009-01-03
Stalin, Hitler, and Europe, Volume One by James McSherry
Call Number: 947.084 MCS
Publication Date: 1968
Peace, Land, Bread! by John J. VailDrawing on the latest scholarship, each volume in the World History Library set explores important eras and events, explaining not only what happened but why. Coverage begins by presenting the political, economic, and social background of the country or region at the start of the period. The engaging, clearly written narrative then goes on to describe critical events and themes. This volume examines the turbulent and destructive period between the revolt against the autocracy of the tsar and the rise to power of Joseph Stalin. It details why peaceful reform in the country became impossible and revolution inevitable.
Call Number: 947.084 VAI
ISBN: 0816028184
Publication Date: 1995-06-01
Revolution 1989 by Victor SebestyenFrom the author ofTwelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolutioncomes a revealing new account of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s European empire during months of largely peaceful revolution that profoundly changed the world. At the start of 1989, six European nations were Soviet vassal states. By year’s end, they had all declared national independence, embarking on the road to democracy. How did it happen so quickly? Why did the USSR capitulate so readily? Victor Sebestyen, who was on the scene reporting for the LondonEvening Standardat the time, draws on his firsthand knowledge of the events of 1989, on scores of interviews with other witnesses and participants, and on newly uncovered archival material to answer these questions in unprecedented depth. Sebestyen tells the story through the eyes of ordinary men and women, some of whom found themselves almost miraculously transformed: the furnace stoker who became the Czech foreign minister; the Romanian poet who, just freed from jail, was made vice president of the newly liberated nation. He shows how power was wielded or ceded by Mikhail Gorbachev, George H. W. Bush, Lech Walesa, Václav Havel, and Margaret Thatcher, among others; how the KGB helped bring down former allied regimes; how the United States tried to slow the process; and why the collapse of the Iron Curtain was the catalyst for the fall of the entire Soviet empire. Authoritative, riveting in both its broad political sweep and its abundance of personal detail, this is an essential addition to the annals of contemporary history.
Call Number: 947.085 SEB
ISBN: 9780375425325
Publication Date: 2009-10-27
A History of the Swedish People by Vilhelm Moberg; Gunnar Myrdal (Foreword by); Paul Britten Austin (Translator)Beginning in prehistoric times and culminating with the Dacke rebellion of 1542, renowned novelist Vilhelm Moberg's two-volume popular history of the Swedish people approaches its subject from the viewpoint of the common people, documenting peasants' lives as well as those of the royal families. In this first volume Moberg examines Viking raids, the coming of Christianity, and the Folkungs royal dynasty, whose tyrannical reign lasted from 1250 to the 1360s. He vividly describes the arrival of the Black Death from a ship that docked carrying only dead passengers, and he recounts the reign of Queen Margareta who founded the Kalmar Union, comprising all of Scandinavia. In every chapter, Moberg faithfully imparts how history affected "the whole people" of Sweden.
Call Number: 948.5 MOB
ISBN: 9780816646562
Publication Date: 2005-02-07
Amsterdam by Russell ShortoAn endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.
Call Number: 949.2 SHO
ISBN: 9780307743756
Publication Date: 2014-08-12
The Swiss; a cultural panorama of Switzerland by Walter Sorrell
Call Number: 949.4 SOR
Publication Date: 1972
Life along the Silk Road by Susan WhitfieldIn this long-awaited second edition, Susan Whitfield broadens her exploration of the Silk Road and expands her rich and varied portrait of life along the great pre-modern trade routes of Eurasia. This new edition is comprehensively updated to support further understanding of themes relevant to global and comparative history and remains the only history of the Silk Road to reconstruct the route through the personal experiences of travelers. In the first 1,000 years after Christ, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants, and military men traveled the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Whitfield recounts the lives of twelve individuals who lived at different times during this period, including two characters new to this edition: an African shipmaster and a Persian traveler and writer during the Arab caliphate. With these additional tales, Whitfield extends both geographical and chronological scope, bringing into view the maritime links across the Indian Ocean and depicting the network of north-south routes from the Baltic to the Gulf. Throughout the narrative, Whitfield conveys a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary men and women on the Silk Road, the individuals usually forgotten to history. A work of great scholarship, Life along the Silk Road continues to be both accessible and entertaining.
Call Number: 950 WHI
ISBN: 9780520280595
Publication Date: 2015-03-25
Genghis Khan and Mongol Rule by George LaneThe Mongols are often associated with the arts of warfare and annals of horror, but a more realistic association would be their contribution to international trade and cultural exchange during the medieval age. Thematic chapters, biographical sketches, a glossary, maps, illustrations, and selected primary documents provide fresh insight on a regretfully underexamined period. The legacy of the Mongols has often been associated with their contributions to the arts of warfare and annals of horror. A more realistic association would be their contribution to international trade and cultural exchange. Spawning an empire ranging from Persia to China, Genghis Khan united a nomadic warrior culture that had lived with their agrarian neighbors through controlled and limited extortion. It was a society whose leaders waged successful war and increased the tribe's prosperity. But the Mongols also understood it would serve their purposes to maintain commerce and agriculture, and to cultivate the arts in order that the luxuries they coveted would be all the more readily available. It was to this end that, after the first decades of destruction and rampage, the Mongols' policy changed to one of cooption and governance. The Mongols became effective cultural brokers as they forced, urged, bribed and coerced the movement of artists and artisans, scientists and scholars around their empire. Thematic chapters provide an accessible overview of the Steppe people from which Genghis Khan emerged, and chronicle his ascent as the Great Khan, as he subdued enemies and then conquered lands to the east and west. Following are excellent overviews of the founding and cementing of Mongol rule in China--the Yuan Dynasty--and Persia, centered in Iran. A concluding chapter provides a fresh perspective of the Mongol empire and makes clear the relevance of this vast and influential period to the contemporary world. Useful endmatter for students and researchers includes sixteen biographical sketches of figures ranging from Yuan Dynasty founder Qubilai Khan to famed Italian merchant and traveler Marco Polo. A score of annotated primary documents provide immediate access to the issues of the period through the eyes of the people living through them. Five maps, an annotated timeline, a glossary and annotated bibliography and several illustrations round out this engaging and valuable resource.
Call Number: 950.092 LAN
ISBN: 0313325286
Publication Date: 2004-09-30
The Chinese Opium Wars by Jack BeechingAn enlightening account of a notorious period in nineteenth-century imperialism, when an effort by the Chinese government to stamp out the country's profitable opium trade resulted in a series of conflicts known as the Opium Wars. Index; illustrations and map.
Call Number: 951 BEE
ISBN: 0151176507
Publication Date: 1976-01-01
Library of World Biography Series: Zheng He - China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 by DreyerThis new biography, part of Longman's World Biography series, of the Chinese explorer Zheng He sheds new light on one of the most important "what if" questions of early modern history: why a technically advanced China did not follow the same path of development as the major European powers. Written by China scholar Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He outlines what is known of the eunuch Zheng He's life and describes and analyzes the early 15th century voyages on the basis of the Chinese evidence. Locating the voyages firmly within the context of early Ming history, itaddresses the political motives of Zheng He's voyages and how they affected China's exclusive attitude to the outside world in subsequent centuries.
Call Number: 951 DRE
ISBN: 9780321084439
Publication Date: 2019-09-19
The Age of Confucian Rule by Dieter Kuhn; Timothy Brook (General Editor)Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed. With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials-products of a meritocratic examination system-took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist's eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes-which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors-redefined China's understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese. The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era. "A scholar should congratulate himself that he has been born in such a time" (Zhao Ruyu, 1194).
Call Number: 951 KUH
ISBN: 9780674031463
Publication Date: 2009-03-16
900s
Accidentally Wes Anderson by Wally Koval; Wes Anderson (Foreword by)THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A visual adventure of Wes Anderson proportions, authorized by the legendary filmmaker himself: stunning photographs of real-life places that seem plucked from the just-so world of his films, presented with fascinating human stories behind each façade. Accidentally Wes Anderson began as a personal travel bucket list, a catalog of visually striking and historically unique destinations that capture the imagined worlds of Wes Anderson. Now, inspired by a community of more than one million Adventurers, Accidentally Wes Anderson tells the stories behind more than 200 of the most beautiful, idiosyncratic, and interesting places on Earth. This book, authorized by Wes Anderson himself, travels to every continent and into your own backyard to identify quirky landmarks and undiscovered gems: places you may have passed by, some you always wanted to explore, and many you never knew existed. Fueled by a vision for distinctive design, stunning photography, and unexpected narratives, Accidentally Wes Anderson is a passport to inspiration and adventure. Perfect for modern travelers and fans of Wes Anderson's distinctive aesthetic, this is an invitation to look at your world through a different lens.
Call Number: 910.2 KOV
ISBN: 9780316492737
Publication Date: 2020-10-20
The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak"A well-researched and well-told epic history. The Dark Queens brings these courageous, flawed, and ruthless rulers and their distant times back to life."--Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times-bestselling author of Hidden Figures The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule. Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet-in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport-these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe. The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a decades-long civil war-against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne's empire. Yet after the queens' deaths-one gentle, the other horrific-their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend. In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking at the roots of some of our culture's stubbornest myths about female power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between women can transform the world.
Call Number: 920 PUH
ISBN: 9781635574913
Publication Date: 2022-02-22
China by Adeline Yen MahA fascinating book about the history and culture of China. The history of China spans thousands of years. Journey through China in this fascinating and absorbing book: discover the land of dragons and emperors, and learn about the significance of its ancient dynasties. Countless tools and materials that people have used every day for centuries—paper, gunpowder, cast iron, matches, and silk, to name just a few—were first made in China. Chinese society has progressed through major changes, but lucky numbers, festivals, beliefs about colors, the practic of footbinding, the building of the Great Wall, and the larger-than-life people of China are all integral parts of this ancient civilization and still have an impact on life today. Bestselling author Adeline Yen Mah explores an extraordinary view of the great story of China over the last two millennia in this nonfiction work, which also includes black-and-white photographs. From the Hardcover edition.
Call Number: 951 MAH
ISBN: 9780385906692
Publication Date: 2009-06-09
The Great Chinese travelers by Jeanette Mirsky
Call Number: 951 MIR
Publication Date: 1964
From Moon Cakes to Mao to Modern China by Zhu Fayuan; Wu Qixin; Xia Hanning; Gao HanTo understand China, we need to step into the palace of her culture and explore her rich history. With this in mind, a group of scholars from China and America have put this book together as a kind of primer on all things China, from art and science to religion and society. They have tried to offer here a panoramic view of the totality of Chinese culture, using only the most representative material, to introduce to the West the most typical aspects of Chinese civilization and life.
Call Number: 951 ZHU
ISBN: 1627740023
Publication Date: 2014-01-31
The Rape of Nanking by Iris ChangThe New York Times bestselling account of one of history's most brutal -- and forgotten -- massacres, when the Japanese army destroyed China's capital city on the eve of World War II In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers, that of the Chinese, and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety zone, which saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode. "Chang vividly, methodically, records what happened, piecing together the abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror." - Adam Hochschild, Salon
Call Number: 951.042 CHA
ISBN: 9780465068364
Publication Date: 2012-01-10
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien ChengIn August 1966 a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kaishek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts that few of her compatriots could afford. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years. Life and Death in Shanghai is the powerful story of Nien Cheng's imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. It is the story, too, of a country torn apart by the savage fight for power Mao Tse-tung launched in his campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, rare personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, Life and Death in Shanghai is also an astounding portrait of one woman's courage. Book jacket.
Call Number: 951.05 CHE
ISBN: 014010870X
Publication Date: 1988-05-03
Mao Zedong's China by Kathlyn GayIn 1949, Mao Zedong came to power in China after a long and brutal civil war. He and his Chinese Communist Party immediately set out to transform their nation into a Communist state. They seized land from wealthy and middle-class farmers and distributed it to poor peasant farmers. The government also took over ownership of all industries. Citizens who resisted these changes were branded "counterrevolutionaries," and thousands were imprisoned or executed. Within a few years, Mao had turned China into a totalitarian state, controlling all aspects of his citizens' daily lives. In the 1960s, he sought to wipe out what remained of traditional Chinese society by launching the Cultural Revolution. Millions died as the country erupted into spasms of mob violence. Yet, despite the tumult, Chairman Mao remained a revered, almost godlike figure, worshiped by his people. How did he do it? Learn more about one of the most powerful and controversial figures of the 20th century.
Call Number: 951.05 GAY
ISBN: 9780822572855
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
History of Korea by Djun Kil KimThis revised edition examines North and South Korea's political, socio-economic, and cultural history from the Neolithic period to the early 21st century, including issues of recent political unrest and preparations for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Korea continues to be featured in the news, especially after the succession of Kim Jong-un as leader of North Korea and his threats of nuclear attack. Yet the reported instability of the North is contrasted by the rapid modernization revolution of the South. Author Djun Kil Kim analyzes how tragic experiences in the regions' collective history--particularly Japanese colonial rule and the division of the country--have contributed to the dichotomous state of affairs in the Koreas. This comprehensive overview traces the development of two contradistinctive nations--North and South Korea--with communism in the north and democracy and industrialization in the south transforming the geopolitical and geo-economic condition of each area. Author Kim explores specific doctrines that revolutionized Korea: Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism in the mid-7th and the late 14th centuries; and communism and American functionalism in the 20th century. The second edition includes an updated timeline, new biographical sketches of notable people, and an additional chapter covering the events of 2004 through the present day. Includes an expanded bibliography with additional print and electronic sources Provides updated accounts of both North and South Korea's more recent events that enable readers to grasp the global significance and power of both nations
Call Number: 951.9 KIM
ISBN: 9781610695817
Publication Date: 2014-05-30
Kim Jong il's North Korea by Alison BehnkeKim Jong Il, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in the mid-1990s in the small East Asian country of North Korea. He succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, as that nation's leader. Kim Il Sung took power in North Korea--also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK--in 1948, and eventually established a state governed by his own version of Communism. Today Kim Jong Il continues his father's tactics of building a powerful cult of personality around himself, while crushing criticism and opposition to his rule. These practices by both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il have largely cut off the DPRK from the outside world. the Kim leaders' harsh policies have led to tragedy within the nation, contributing to devastating famine and creating a network of labor camps in which many North Koreans are tortured and killed annually. Kim's secrecy and his strict control of information entering or leaving North Korea have also made the nation a largely mysterious place. In Kim Jong Il's North Korea, learn more about this inscrutable nation and its dictator.
The Fox Hunt by Mohammed Al Samawi"A gripping account of terror and escape." -- New York Times Book Review The Fox Hunt tells one young man's unforgettable story of his harrowing escape from Yemen's brutal civil war with the help of a daring plan engineered on social media by a small group of interfaith activists in the West. WINNER: 2019 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS * A 2019 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST Born in the Old City of Sana'a, Yemen, to a pair of middle-class doctors, Mohammed Al Samawi was a devout Muslim raised to think of Christians and Jews as his enemy. But when Mohammed was twenty-three, he secretly received a copy of the Bible, and what he read cast doubt on everything he'd previously believed. After connecting with Jews and Christians on social media, and at various international interfaith conferences, Mohammed became an activist, making it his mission to promote dialogue and cooperation in Yemen. Then came the death threats: first on Facebook, then through terrifying anonymous phone calls. To protect himself and his family, Mohammed fled to the southern port city of Aden. He had no way of knowing that Aden was about to become the heart of a north-south civil war, and the battleground for a well-funded proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. As gunfire and grenades exploded throughout the city, Mohammed hid in the bathroom of his apartment and desperately appealed to his contacts on Facebook. Miraculously, a handful of people he barely knew responded. Over thirteen days, four ordinary young people with zero experience in diplomacy or military exfiltration worked across six technology platforms and ten time zones to save this innocent young man trapped between deadly forces-- rebel fighters from the north and Al Qaeda operatives from the south. The story of an improbable escape as riveting as the best page-turning thrillers, The Fox Hunt reminds us that goodness and decency can triumph in the darkest circumstances.
Call Number: 953.305 AL
ISBN: 9780062678195
Publication Date: 2018-04-10
Sources of Indian Tradition by William Theodore Bary
Call Number: 954 BAR
Publication Date: 1966
Shah Jahan by Fergus NicollShah Jahan was the ruler of the Mughal empire, his name translating literally from the Persian as 'King of the World'. After ruthlessly suppressing his rivals, he went on to promote Mughal artistic and architectural achievements to the zenith of their creativity. He is responsible not only for the Taj Mahal - the tomb to his beloved wife Mumtaz - but also for the Pearl Mosque, the Red Fort, Jama Masid in Delhi, the Shalimar Gardens of Kashmir and the priceless Peacock Throne.
Call Number: 954.02 NIC
ISBN: 9781906598181
Publication Date: 2009-06-01
Birth of Modern India by Greenhaven Press Editors (Editor); John M. DunnThis book tells the story of how the modern country of India came into existence. Readers will fascinatingly trace the ancient political struggles, along with the more recent struggles that lead to India becoming a colony of Great Britain and eventually an independent country. Readers will also learn about the people and cultures who impacted the country's development.
Call Number: 954.03 DUN
ISBN: 9781420508970
Publication Date: 2014-06-06
Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre; Frederick Davidson (Read by)This is the story of the eclipse of the British Raj and the birth of an independent India. At the center of this dramatic narrative are Nehru, Jinnah, Mountbatten, and of course, Gandhi, the gentle prophet of a revolution, who stirred the masses of the most populous area on earth without raising his voice.
Call Number: 954.04 COL
ISBN: 9781441746375
Publication Date: 2013-04-01
Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto"It is impossible to understand today's world without knowing Pakistan; and impossible to understand Pakistan without reading this book. A courageous woman--tragically killed--speaks to us of reconciliation. We owe it to her--and to ourselves--to listen, comprehend, and act." -- Madeleine Albright "One of the most gripping and important books of our era." -- Walter Isaacson Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, after eight years of exile, hopeful that she could be a catalyst for change. Upon a tumultuous reception, she survived a suicide-bomb attack that killed nearly two hundred of her compatriots. But she continued to forge ahead, with more courage and conviction than ever, since she knew that time was running out--for the future of her nation and for her life. In Reconciliation, Bhutto recounts in gripping detail her final months in Pakistan and offers a bold new agenda for how to stem the tide of Islamic radicalism and to rediscover the values of tolerance and justice that lie at the heart of her religion. She speaks out not just to the West but also to the Muslims across the globe. Bhutto presents an image of modern Islam that defies the negative caricatures often seen in the West. After reading this book, it will become even clearer what the world has lost by her assassination
Call Number: 954.91 BHU
ISBN: 9780061567599
Publication Date: 2008-12-23
The Most Dangerous Place by Imtiaz GulThe story of the dark side of the Afghan war - and how Pakistan degenerated into a nuclear-armed powder keg Eight years ago we chased the Taliban from Kabul and forced Al Qaeda to find a new home. One by one the militants crossed the border into Pakistan and settled in its tribal areas, building alliances with locals and terrorizing or bribing their way to power. This place - Pakistan's lawless frontier - is now the epicenter of global terrorism. It is where young American and British jihadists go to be trained, where the kidnapped are stowed away, and where plots are hatched for deadly attacks all over the world. It has become, in President Obama's words, "the most dangerous place" - a hornet's nest of violent extremists, many of whom now target their own state in vicious suicide- bombing campaigns. Imtiaz Gul, who knows the ins and outs of these groups and their leaders, tackles the toughest questions about the current situation: What can be done to bring the Pakistani Taliban under control? Who funds these militants and what are their links to Al Qaeda? Are they still supported by the ISI, Pakistan's all-powerful intelligence agency? Based on dozens of exclusive interviews with high-ranking Pakistani intelligence, government and military officers and extensive first-hand reporting, The Most Dangerous Place is a gripping and definitive exposé of a region that Americans need urgently to understand.
Call Number: 954.91 GUL
ISBN: 9780670022250
Publication Date: 2010-06-10
The Iranian Revolution by Noah Berlatsky (Editor)This book explores the historical and cultural events leading up to and following the Iranian uprising of 1978-1979. Readers will learn about issues surrounding the Iranian Revolution, such as the role of United States policy in fueling the unrest, the impact of the western press on anti-Khomeini sentiment, and parallels to the Green Revolution of 2009-2010. Personal narratives from people impacted by the Revolution, including a British diplomat eyewitness and an arrested Iranian feminist, are featured.
Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire by Mehrdad KiaThis book provides a general overview of the daily life in a vast empire which contained numerous ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities. The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic imperial monarchy that existed for over 600 years. At the height of its power in the 16th and 17th centuries, it encompassed three continents and served as the core of global interactions between the east and the west. And while the Empire was defeated after World War I and dissolved in 1920, the far-reaching effects and influences of the Ottoman Empire are still clearly visible in today's world cultures. Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire allows readers to gain critical insight into the pluralistic social and cultural history of an empire that ruled a vast region extending from Budapest in Hungary to Mecca in Arabia. Each chapter presents an in-depth analysis of a particular aspect of daily life in the Ottoman Empire. The extensive bibliography provides rich and diverse sources of further reading An index provides quick reference to the individuals and places mentioned in the text
Call Number: 956.015 KIA
ISBN: 9780313336928
Publication Date: 2011-08-17
From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. FriedmanWinner of the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction, this extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of theNew York Times, drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book thatThe Wall Street Journalcalled "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it." -- Seymour Hersh."From Beirut To Jerusalemis the most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read." --New York Times Book Review.
Call Number: 956.04 FRI
ISBN: 9780385413725
Publication Date: 1990-07-15
The Arab-Israeli Conflict by Noah Berlatsky (Editor)This edition explores the Arab-Israeli conflict, and provides readers with a global perspective, rather than a localized understanding. Articles included explore the regional issues impacting the conflict, and Israel's history with the Gaza Strip. Readers will learn about various issues related to settlements on the West Bank, including whether Israel's settlement efforts should cease, and whether the Fayyad Plan is feasible. They will also examine the role of the international community. Essay sources include the Agence France-Presse, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, International Federation for Human Rights, and Amnesty International.
Call Number: 956.05 ARA
ISBN: 9780737756449
Publication Date: 2012-03-02
Black Flags by Joby WarrickWINNER OF THE 2016 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTION. When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented character-driven account of the rise of ISIS, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq. Zarqawi began by directing terror attacks from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By falsely identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, U.S. officials inadvertently spurred like-minded radicals to rally to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until American and Jordanian intelligence discovered clues that led to a lethal airstrike on Zarqawi's hideout in 2006. His movement, however, endured. First calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq, then Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, his followers sought refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, and as the U.S. largely stood by, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of an ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate. Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of diplomats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Black Flags is a brilliant and definitive history that reveals the long arc of today's most dangerous extremist threat.
Call Number: 956.91 WAR
ISBN: 9780385538213
Publication Date: 2015-09-29
The Assads' Syria by Kathy A. ZahlerHafez al-Assad became president of Syria in 1971, following a long line of military leaders. At first, his goals included achieving pan-Arabism, more evenly distributing the nation's oil wealth, and extending the party's power by reaching into every aspect of Syrians' lives. However, through a series of poorly planned economic programs, censorship, and old-fashioned greed and corruption, Assad and his government brought intimidation and the loss of freedom to the nation's people. After his death in 2000, the nation's ruling party elected his son, Bashar, as president. Bashar has continued many of his father's policies, enforcing his own will on the nation and stripping people of their freedoms and economic prosperity. In the Assads' Syria, learn more about the internal workings of one of the world's most devastating dictatorships.
Call Number: 956.91 ZAH
ISBN: 9780822590958
Publication Date: 2009-01-09
The Creation of the State of Israel by Myra Immell (Editor)Tensions in the Middle East are due to a number of reasons, with the creation of Israel being among them. Give readers a much-needed survey of several lively debates relating to the creation of the state of Israel. Essay sources include The Times of London, The Jerusalem Post, and The Higher Arab Committee. While essayist Jamal el-Husseini argues that Palestine should not be partitioned, Abba Hillel Silver argues that Palestine should be partitioned. Sequenced in the pro versus con format, these essays will activate your readers' critical thinking skills. Once seating reader's deeply in the debates, personal narratives are then shared, by those living with the issues of disharmony between Palestine and Israel. Narratives include a student celebrating the dawn of the Jewish state, and a young immigrant who joins the Haganah.
Call Number: 956.94 CRE
ISBN: 9780737745566
Publication Date: 2009-10-16
No Turning Back by Rania AbouzeidA New York Times Notable Book of 2018 This astonishing book by the prize-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid tells the tragedy of the Syrian War through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Extending back to the first demonstrations of 2011, No Turning Back dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict. As protests ignited in Daraa, some citizens were brimming with a sense of possibility. A privileged young man named Suleiman posted videos of the protests online, full of hope for justice and democracy. A father of two named Mohammad, secretly radicalized and newly released from prison, saw a darker opportunity in the unrest. When violence broke out in Homs, a poet named Abu Azzam became an unlikely commander in a Free Syrian Army militia. The regime's brutal response disrupted a family in Idlib province, where a nine-year-old girl opened the door to a military raid that caused her father to flee. As the bombings increased and roads grew more dangerous, these people's lives intertwined in unexpected ways. Rania Abouzeid brings readers deep inside Assad's prisons, to covert meetings where foreign states and organizations manipulated the rebels, and to the highest levels of Islamic militancy and the formation of ISIS. Based on more than five years of clandestine reporting on the front lines, No Turning Back is an utterly engrossing human drama full of vivid, indelible characters that shows how hope can flourish even amid one of the twenty-first century's greatest humanitarian disasters.
Call Number: 956.9104 ABO
ISBN: 9780393609493
Publication Date: 2018-03-13
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming"Urgently required reading." --People "Deeply affecting... Fleming brings a moral urgency to the narrative." --The New Yorker "Fleming deftly illustrates the pain of those who choose to leave Syria...and her book is ultimately a story of hope." --Newsweek The stunning story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Adrift in a frigid sea, no land in sight, just debris from the ship's wreckage and floating corpses all around, nineteen-year-old Doaa Al Zamel stays afloat on a small inflatable ring and clutches two little girls--barely toddlers--to her body. The children had been thrust into Doaa's arms by their drowning relatives, all refugees who boarded a dangerously overcrowded ship bound for Italy and a new life. For days as Doaa drifts, she prays for rescue and sings to the babies in her arms. She must stay alive for them. She must not lose hope. A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea chronicles the life of Doaa, a Syrian girl whose life was upended in 2011 by the onset of her country's brutal civil war. Doaa and her fiance, Bassem, decide to flee to Europe to seek safety and an education, but four days after setting sail on a smuggler's dilapidated fishing vessel along with five hundred other refugees, their boat is struck and begins to sink. This is the moment when Doaa's struggle for survival really begins. This emotionally charged, eye-opening true story that represents the millions of unheard voices of refugees who risk everything in a desperate search for the promise of a safe future. In the midst of the most pressing international humanitarian crisis of our time, Melissa Fleming paints a vivid, unforgettable portrait of the triumph of the human spirit.
Call Number: 956.9104 FLE
ISBN: 9781250105998
Publication Date: 2017-01-24
Brothers of the Gun by Marwan Hisham; Molly Crabapple (Illustrator)In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends--fellow working-class college students--Nael and Tareq, joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm-in-arm they marched, poured Coke into each other's eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country's president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent. Five years later, the three young friends were scattered- one now an Islamist revolutionary; another dead at the hands of government soldiers; and the last, Marwan, now a journalist in Turkish exile, trying to find a way back to a homeland reduced to rubble. Brothers of the Gun is the story of young man coming of age during the Syrian war from its inception to the present. Marwan watched from the rooftops as regime warplanes bombed rebels; as revolutionary activist groups, for a few dreamy days, spray-painted hope on Raqqa; as his friends died or threw in their lot with Islamist fighters. He became a journalist by courageously tweeting out news from a city under siege by ISIS, the Russians, and the Americans, all at once. He watched the country that ran through his veins--the country that held his hopes, dreams, and fears--be destroyed in front of him, and eventually joined the relentless stream of refugees risking their lives to escape. With vivid illustrations that bring to life the beauty and chaos, Brothers of the Gun offers a ground-level reflection on the Syrian revolution--and how it bled into international catastrophe and global war. This is a story of pragmatism and idealism, impossible violence and repression, and, even in the midst of war, profound acts of courage, creativity, and hope.
Call Number: 956.9104 HIS
ISBN: 9780399590627
Publication Date: 2018-05-15
The Book Collectors by Delphine Minoui; Lara Vergnaud (Translator)A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR "An urgent and compelling account of great bravery and passion." --Susan Orlean Award-winning journalist Delphine Minoui recounts the true story of a band of young rebels, a besieged Syrian town, and an underground library built from the rubble of war Reading is an act of resistance. Daraya is a town outside Damascus, the very spot where the Syrian Civil War began. Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya fell under siege in 2012. For four years, no one entered or left, and aid was blocked. Every single day, bombs fell on this place--a place of homes and families, schools and children, now emptied and broken into bits. And then a group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books in the rubble. In a week, they had six thousand volumes; in a month, fifteen thousand. A sanctuary was born: a library where people could escape the blockade, a paper fortress to protect their humanity. The library offered a marvelous range of books--from Arabic poetry to American self-help, Shakespearean plays to stories of war in other times and places. The visitors shared photos and tales of their lives before the war, planned how to build a democracy, and tended the roots of their community despite shell-shocked soil. In the midst of the siege, the journalist Delphine Minoui tracked down one of the library's founders, twenty-three-year-old Ahmad. Over text messages, WhatsApp, and Facebook, Minoui came to know the young men who gathered in the library, exchanged ideas, learned English, and imagined how to shape the future, even as bombs kept falling from above. By telling their stories, Minoui makes a far-off, complicated war immediate and reveals these young men to be everyday heroes as inspiring as the books they read. The Book Collectors is a testament to their bravery and a celebration of the power of words.
Call Number: 956.9104 MIN
ISBN: 9780374115166
Publication Date: 2020-11-03
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein HaleviNew York Times bestseller "A profound and original book, the work of a gifted thinker."--Daphne Merkin, The Wall Street Journal Attempting to break the agonizing impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli commentator and award-winning author of Like Dreamers directly addresses his Palestinian neighbors in this taut and provocative book, empathizing with Palestinian suffering and longing for reconciliation as he explores how the conflict looks through Israeli eyes. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is one Israeli's powerful attempt to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians and into the hearts of "the enemy." In a series of letters, Yossi Klein Halevi explains what motivated him to leave his native New York in his twenties and move to Israel to participate in the drama of the renewal of a Jewish homeland, which he is committed to see succeed as a morally responsible, democratic state in the Middle East. This is the first attempt by an Israeli author to directly address his Palestinian neighbors and describe how the conflict appears through Israeli eyes. Halevi untangles the ideological and emotional knot that has defined the conflict for nearly a century. In lyrical, evocative language, he unravels the complex strands of faith, pride, anger and anguish he feels as a Jew living in Israel, using history and personal experience as his guide. Halevi's letters speak not only to his Palestinian neighbor, but to all concerned global citizens, helping us understand the painful choices confronting Israelis and Palestinians that will ultimately help determine the fate of the region.
Call Number: 956.9405 KLE
ISBN: 9780062844910
Publication Date: 2018-05-15
A Brief History of Afghanistan by Shaista Wahab; Barry YoungermanAfghanistan has long been considered a remote and uninviting country to all but its closest neighbors. This lightly populated agricultural and pastoral nation has guarded its independence in the age of European imperialism thanks in large part to its limited perceived value. Political isolation - reinforced by a conservative tribal culture - kept most of the cultural and economic changes of the modern world at bay. Slowly, however, modern ways and values began to penetrate into the capital city of Kabul. A Brief History of Afghanistan, Second Edition examines this country's isolation and how it found itself involved in 30 years of war and anarchy. This updated resource provides extensive background information so readers can understand the issues and make informed judgments of their own. Offering a clear, concise account of this country's historical and cultural heritage, from 3000 BCE to the present, this insightful book explores the culture and politics of the Pashtun tribes whose homeland extends across much of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, as well as the Taliban insurgency and the relationship between local leaders and the central government in Kabul. Coverage includes: The rise of Islam to the establishment of the Afghan state The birth of modern Afghanistan The 20th-century monarchy Two revolutions Soviet Afghanistan Afghanistan in rebellion Mujahideen rule The Taliban era Afghanistan under Karzai The Taliban resurgence.
Call Number: 958.1 WAH
ISBN: 9780816082186
Publication Date: 2010-09-30
Than Shwe's Burma by Diane ZahlerThan Shwe was part of a military coup that took over Burma in the 1960s. The British had granted Burma independence in 1948, but the country, with its many ethnic groups, had trouble building a democratic government. Than Shwe rose through the military ranks, and after the army stepped in to quell demonstrations and riots that began on August 8, 1988, he emerged as head of the military council. He became one of the most secretive and repressive leaders in the world. Than Shwe uses Burma's resources to finance a strong military. To suppress dissent, his soldiers destroy the countryside, sending people into hiding, refugee camps, or slavery. His control has isolated the country from international observers. In 2007, Internet images of monks being beaten during a protest rally reached the rest of the world. This was followed by reports in 2008 of a devastating cyclone, when Than Shwe banned outside aid for weeks. Both events helped to raise global awareness about the human rights abuses suffered by the Burmese people. In Than Shwe's Burma, learn more about this dictatorship and about Burma's long struggle to become a free nation.
Call Number: 959.105 ZAH
ISBN: 9780822590972
Publication Date: 2009-08-01
First They Killed My Father Movie Tie-In by Loung UngFrom a childhood survivor of the Camdodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit--now a Netflix film by Angelina Jolie. Repackaged in a new tie-in edition to coincide with the Netflix film produced and directed by Angelina Jolie, a moving story of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her triumphant spirit as she survived the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot's brutal regime. Until the age of five, Loung Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights, and sassing her parents. While her beautiful mother worried that Loung was a troublemaker--that she stomped around like a thirsty cow--her beloved father knew Loung was a clever girl. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Ung's family fled their home and moved from village to village to hide their identity, their education, their former life of privilege. Eventually, the family dispersed in order to survive. Loung trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, while other siblings were sent to labor camps. As the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia, destroying the Khmer Rouge, Loung and her surviving siblings were slowly reunited. Bolstered by the shocking bravery of one brother, the courage and sacrifices of the rest of her family--and sustained by her sister's gentle kindness amid brutality--Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life. Harrowing yet hopeful, insightful and compelling, this story is truly unforgettable.
Call Number: 959.604 UNG
ISBN: 9780062561305
Publication Date: 2017-08-22
Omar Al-Bashir's Sudan by Diana ChildressOmar al-Bashir came into power in 1989. Sudan was gripped by famine caused by drought as well as a devastating civil war between the north and south. Its economy was in shambles. Bashir headed a coup to overthrow Sudan's democratic government, and many hoped it would finally bring order to the country. After the coup, Bashir suspended the constitution and appointed himself head of state, prime minister, defense minister, and commander in chief of the army. It soon became clear that his objective was to turn Sudan into a strict Islamic state, even though most people in South Sudan are not Muslim. He dismissed, imprisoned, and even executed those who disagreed with his measures and continued the war in the south, destroying entire villages and scattering their populations. Then in 2003, a crisis arose in the western area of Darfur. Drought had brought farmers and herders into conflict over the land. Bashir armed pro-Arab militia, who worked with the military to bring the same destruction of villages to Darfur. In 2008 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir for crimes against humanity. In Omar al-Bashir's Sudan, learn more about this ruthless dictator and how the international spotlight might help bring an end to his repressive rule.
Call Number: 962.4 CHI
ISBN: 9780822590965
Publication Date: 2009-01-09
The Sword and the Cross by Fergus Fleming"The Daily Telegraph (U.K.) called The Sword and the Cross. ""an extremely enjoyable and illuminating read, full of crazed schemes and desperate acts. There can be no doubting Fleming's passion or his diligence, while his lucid style keeps driving the story forward."" At the end of the nineteenth century, the Sahara Desert remained largely unexplored by Europeans. The Sword and the Cross is the story of two friends who set out to tame the desert-Charles de Foucauld, a layabout sensualist and womanizer turned monastic saint; and Henri Laperrine, a stern career soldier whose exploits in the desert became legendary. This is a haunting narrative of a forgotten period in Europe's colonial crusade, a story of selfsacrifice and cruelty, hatred and friendship, discovery and delusion."
Call Number: 966 FLE
ISBN: 080211752X
Publication Date: 2003-10-06
Blood Diamonds, Revised Edition by Greg CampbellFirst discovered in 1930, the diamonds of Sierra Leone have funded one of the most savage rebel campaigns in modern history. These "blood diamonds" are smuggled out of West Africa and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp, and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces and brides and spouses the world over. Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamonds industry--institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel--have allowed it to happen. Award-winning journalist Greg Campbell traces the deadly trail of these diamonds, many of which are brought to the world market by fanatical enemies. These repercussions of diamond smuggling are felt far beyond the borders of the poor and war-ridden country of Sierra Leone, and the consequences of overlooking this African tragedy are both shockingly deadly and unquestionably global. In this newly revised and expanded edition, investigative journalist Greg Campbell returns to West Africa ten years later to reveal how despite widespread exposure to the corruption and greed of the diamond trade, it continues unabated as the region struggles politically, ecologically, and economically.
Call Number: 966.404 CAM
ISBN: 9780465029914
Publication Date: 2012-04-03
Blood Diamonds by Greg CampbellJournalist Greg Campbell leads the reader down the international diamond trail of brutality, horror, and profit - providing an on-the-ground and in-the-mines story of global consequenceFirst discovered in 1930, the diamonds of Sierra Leone have funded one of the most savage rebel campaigns in modern history. These "blood diamonds” are smuggled out of West Africa and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp, and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces of brides and spouses the world over. Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how the diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamond industry - institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel - have allowed it to happen. Award-winning journalist Greg Campbell traces the deadly trail of these diamonds, many of which are brought to the world market by fanatical enemies, including the Al Qaeda network. These repercussions of diamond smuggling are felt far beyond the borders of the poor and war-ridden country of Sierra Leone, and the consequences of overlooking this African tragedy, as the world has seen, are both shockingly deadly and unquestionably global.
Call Number: 967.51 HOC
ISBN: 9780813339399
Publication Date: 2002-09-03
Hero of the Empire by Candice MillardFrom New York Times bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt, a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill's extraordinary and little-known exploits during the Boer War At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him. Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, there to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels. But just two weeks after his arrival, the soldiers he was accompanying on an armored train were ambushed, and Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape--but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. The story of his escape is incredible enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles, and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned. Churchill would later remark that this period, "could I have seen my future, was to lay the foundations of my later life." Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters--including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi--with whom he would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect 20th century history.
Call Number: 968.04 MIL
ISBN: 9780385535731
Publication Date: 2016-09-20
The Boer War by Louise SlavicekWhen the Boer War between the British Empire and the white-controlled South African republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State erupted in October 1899 over independence and mining rights, both sides expected that the fighting would be over by Christmas. Little could either the British or the Boers—the republics' mostly Dutch-descended inhabitants—have dreamed that the three-year war would claim the lives of some 30,000 soldiers and 48,000 noncombatants. The Boer War was not only Britain's bloodiest in more than a century but also its most controversial, particularly because of the British army's tactics of burning Boer homes and farms and imprisoning the Boer civilians in concentration camps. Read more about this major turning point in British and South African history in The Boer War.
Call Number: 968.04 SLA
ISBN: 9781604134582
Publication Date: 2012-02-29
Mexico by Enrique Krauze; Hank Heifetz (Translator)The concentration of power in the caudillo (leader) is as much a formative element of Mexican culture and politics as the historical legacy of the Aztec emperors, Cortez, the Spanish Crown, the Mother Church and the mixing of the Spanish and Indian population into a mestizo culture. Krauze shows how history becomes biography during the century of caudillos from the insurgent priests in 1810 to Porfirio and the Revolution in 1910. The Revolutionary era, ending in 1940, was dominated by the lives of seven presidents -- Madero, Zapata, Villa, Carranza, Obregon, Calles and Cardenas. Since 1940, the dominant power of the presidency has continued through years of boom and bust and crisis. A major question for the modern state, with today's president Zedillo, is whether that power can be decentralized, to end the cycles of history as biographies of power.
Call Number: 972 KRA
ISBN: 0060163259
Publication Date: 1997-05-29
Path Between the Seas by David McCulloughThe National Book Award-winning epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal, a first-rate drama of the bold and brilliant engineering feat that was filled with both tragedy and triumph, told by master historian David McCullough. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise. The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama.
Call Number: 972.8 MCC
ISBN: 0671244094
Publication Date: 1978-10-15
The Cuban Revolution by Myra Immell (Editor)Like all the other books of the Perspectives on Modern World History series, this book goes one step further than providing a concise history on its topic. It shares actual stories of those who witnessed and lived through the Cuban Revolution. Readers will hear from a rebel leader who recalls the first victory. A C.I.A. officer recounts the Bay of Pigs Invasion. A journalist shares the experience of the Revolution as it was being won. A daughter of Cuban Immigrants discusses visiting Cuba for the first time. In addition to the personal narratives, this volume provides historical background and primary source material on the Cuban Revolution, explores why the Revolution was successful, and presents controversies related to the Revolution.
Call Number: 972.91 CUB
ISBN: 0737763663
Publication Date: 2013-02-08
Havana by Mark KurlanskyA city of tropical heat, sweat, ramshackle beauty, and its very own cadence--a city that always surprises--Havana is brought to pulsing life by New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky.Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than thirty years. Part cultural history, part travelogue, with recipes, historic engravings, photographs, and Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings throughout, Havana celebrates the city's singular music, literature, baseball, and food; its five centuries of outstanding, neglected architecture; and its extraordinary blend of cultures. Like all great cities, Havana has a rich history that informs the vibrant place it is today--from the native Taino to Columbus's landing, from Cuba's status as a U.S. protectorate to Batista's dictatorship and Castro's revolution, from Soviet presence to the welcoming of capitalist tourism. Havana is a place of extremes: a beautifully restored colonial city whose cobblestone streets pass through areas that have not been painted or repaired since long before the revolution. Kurlansky shows Havana through the eyes of Cuban writers, such as Alejo Carpentier and José Martí, and foreigners, including Graham Greene and Hemingway. He introduces us to Cuban baseball and its highly opinionated fans; the city's music scene, alive with the rhythm of Son; its culinary legacy. Through Mark Kurlansky's multilayered and electrifying portrait, the long-elusive city of Havana comes stirringly to life.
Call Number: 972.91 KUR
ISBN: 9781632863911
Publication Date: 2017-05-04
Stealing Green Mangoes by Sunil DuttaA memoir--written in the wake of a cancer diagnosis--that zeroes in on the crux between two brothers: one who became an LAPD officer, and the other a terrorist Sunil Dutta is a twenty-year veteran of the LAPD. Before that, he was a biologist at the University of California and a translator of classic Indian poetry. Before that, he was a destitute refugee, one of so many uprooted by the genocidal violence surrounding the Partition of India. Back then, he had a brother. Back then, they were children together, chasing whatever fun and solace they could find in impossible conditions. Sunil looked up to Raju. He admired his strength, his character. Raju took a different path. He was arrested, he fled the law, he became a fugitive. He became a terrorist. Then he became a father--and then a murderer. After being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer later in life, Sunil urgently wanted to understand what choices had led he and his brother down such radically different paths. In Stealing Green Mangoes, Dutta takes us from his family home in Rajasthan to America, to France, to the streets of southeastern Los Angeles, homing in on the questions that tore him and Raju apart: Can you outgrow the madness that made you? Can you make peace with the ghosts of your past? A memoir with sweeping, spiritual ambitions, Stealing Green Mangoes tells the story of a man who pushed back against the forces that captured his own brother and built a compassionate, meaningful life in a broken world.
Call Number: 973 DUT
ISBN: 9780062795854
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Cambodia's Curse by Joel BrinkleyA generation after the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia shows every sign of having overcome its history - the streets of Phnom Penh are paved; skyscrapers dot the skyline. But under this façade lies a country still haunted by its years of terror.Joel Brinkley won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Cambodia on the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed one quarter of the nation's population during its years in power. In 1992, the world came together to help pull the small nation out of the mire. Cambodia became a United Nations protectorate - the first and only time the UN tried something so ambitious. What did the new, democratically-elected government do with this unprecedented gift?In 2008 and 2009, Brinkley returned to Cambodia to find out. He discovered a population in the grip of a venal government. He learned that one-third to one-half of Cambodians who lived through the Khmer Rouge era have P.T.S.D. - and its afflictions are being passed to the next generation. His extensive close-up reporting in 'Cambodia's Curse' illuminates the country, its people, and the deep historical roots of its modern-day behavior.