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Franco: A Concise Biography
by Gabrielle Ashford HodgesGeneral Francisco Franco came to prominence during the days of David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson and was able to cling to absolute political power until his death in 1975. Over his fifty-year career, he became one of the four dictators who changed the face of Europe during the twentieth century.Franco joined the Spanish Army when he was barely fifteen years old. In 1926 he became the youngest general in Europe and, driven by an astonishing sense of his own greatness, was recognized as sole military commander of the Nationalist zone during the Spanish Civil War. His ambition was always to hold on to the power that he had secured. In practice, this meant winning the Spanish Civil War and surviving the fall of the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini and the international isolation that followed their defeat.But behind the military heroics and dexterous political footwork lay an insecure and vengeful man, wracked by contradictory impulses. Although fueled by a single-minded determination to succeed, he was full of self-doubt. A bold and sometimes inspirational soldier in Africa, he became an indecisive, hesitant military commander during the Civil War. Filled with a burning conviction that his destiny was bound up with the medieval kings of Spain and God Himself, he appeared shy, withdrawn, and humble. Ruthlessly intent on wiping out all political opposition, he denied heatedly that he was a dictator. A stubborn man, he could be remarkably flexible when it came to safeguarding his power.Gabrielle Ashford Hodges' psychological biography considers Franco's mental state, as well as his political motivation. In doing so, it succeeds admirably in getting under the skin of Europe's most enduring dictator.
An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
by Henry WiencekAn Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slaveryWhen George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil. Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true.George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror
by George BeahmThe Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, bestselling novels, and film adaptations. The book is also profusely illustrated with nearly 200 photos, color illustrations by celebrated "Dark Tower" artist Michael Whelan, and black-and-white drawings by Maine artist Glenn Chadbourne.Supplemented with interviews with friends, colleagues, and mentors who knew King well, this book looks at his formative years in Durham, when he began writing fiction as a young teen, his college years in the turbulent sixties, his struggles with early poverty, working full-time as an English teacher while writing part-time, the long road to the publication of his first novel, Carrie, and the dozens of bestselling books and major screen adaptations that followed.For fans old and new, The Stephen King Companion is a comprehensive look at America's best-loved bogeyman.
The Lady Upstairs: Dorothy Schiff and the New York Post
by Marilyn NissensonThe Lady Upstairs is the dramatic story of Dorothy Schiff---liberal activist, society stalwart, and the most dynamic female newspaper publisher of her day. From 1939 until 1976 she owned and guided the New York Post, the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the United States. Dolly, as she was called, made the Post one of the most dedicated supporters of New Deal liberalism in the country, while simultaneously maintaining its distinct personality as a chatty, parochial, New York tabloid. Unfazed by political or personal controversy, Schiff backed editorial writers like James Wechsler and Max Lerner and reporters like Murray Kempton and Pete Hamill. Under her guidance the Post broke the story of Richard Nixon's slush fund. It helped bring down such icons of the day as Joseph McCarthy, Walter Winchell, and Robert Moses. It supported the civil rights movement and opposed the Vietnam War. Although Dolly seldom appeared in the newsroom, she approved and commented on every major story and every minor column in the paper, until eventually selling it to Rupert Murdoch. Dolly's private life could have been a staple of the Post's society gossip columns. Endlessly flirtatious, she married four times and had extra-marital romances with, among others, Franklin Roosevelt and Max Beaverbrook. She was a friend of national politicians such as Adlai Stevenson, the Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson, and Nelson Rockefeller. Born into a staunchly Republican German-Jewish banking family, she used her inheritance to further causes of the political left. She used her charm and her social connections in the service of her paper, which was the center of her life. The Lady Upstairs is the portrait of a unique life and a crucial era in American history.
Sovereign Ladies: Sex, Sacrifice, and Power: The Six Reigning Queens of England
by Maureen WallerMaureen Waller has written a fascinating narrative history---a brilliant combination of drama and biographical insight on the British monarchy---of the six women who have ruled England in their own names. In the last millennium there have been only six English female sovereigns: Mary I and Elizabeth I, Mary II and Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II. With the exception of Mary I, they are among England's most successful monarchs. Without Mary II and Anne, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 might not have taken place. Elizabeth I and Victoria each gave their name to an age, presiding over long periods when Britain made significant progress in the growth of empire, prestige, and power. All of them have far-reaching legacies. Each faced personal sacrifices and emotional dilemmas in her pursuit of political power. How to overcome the problem of being a female ruler when the sex was considered inferior? Does a queen take a husband and, if so, how does she reconcile the reversal of the natural order, according to which the man should be the master? A queen's first royal duty is to provide an heir to the throne, but at what cost? In this richly compelling narrative of royalty, Maureen Waller delves into the intimate lives of England's queens regnant in delicious detail, assessing their achievements from a female perspective.
A Life of Privilege, Mostly: A Memoir
by Gardner BotsfordGardner Botsford's A Life of Privilege tells the fascinating and humorous story of his WWII experiences, from his assignment to the infantry due to a paperwork error to a fearful trans-Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary, to landing under heavy fire on Omaha Beach and the Liberation of Paris. After the war, he began a distinguished literary career as a long-time editor at the New Yorker, and chronicles the magazine's rise and influence on postwar American culture with wit and grace.
We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords
by "Mickey" Miguel MelendezAn inside look at the Young Lords, the radical Puerto Rican activist group of the 1960s, from one of its founding members.In 1968 Miguel "Mickey" Melendez was a college student, developing pride in his unique cultural identity as Cuban and Puerto Rican, while growing increasingly aware of the lack of quality health care, education, and housing—not to mention respect—his people endured for the sake of the American Dream. He was not alone. Bringing together other like-minded Latino student activists, like Juan Gonzalez, Felipe Luciano, David Perez, and Pablo "Yoruba" Guzman, Melendez helped to form the central committee of what would become the New York branch of the Young Lords. Over the course of the next three years, the Young Lords were a force to be reckoned with. From their storefront offices in East Harlem, they defiantly took back the streets of El Barrio. In addition to running clothing drives, day-care centers, and free breakfast and health programs, the Young Lords became known for their bold radical actions, like the takeovers of the First People's Church and Lincoln Hospital. Front-page news, they forced the city to take notice of their demands for social and political justice and make drastic policy changes. Melendez was part of it all, and describes the idealism, anger, and vitality of the Lords with the unsparing eye of an insider. For the first time, he reveals the extent of the clandestine military branch of the organization and his role coordinating and arming the underground.Although they were active for only a brief period of time, the legacy of the Young Lords—their urban guerrilla, media-savvy tactics, as well as their message of popular power and liberation, civil rights, and ethnic equity—is lasting. We Took the Streets is one man's passionate and inspiring story of the Puerto Rican struggle for equality, civil rights, and independence.
The Last Mazurka: A Family's Tale of War, Passion, and Loss
by Andrew TarnowskiThe shot Count Hieronim Tarnowski fired on his wedding night in 1914, on the eve of the First World War, was like a tocsin that sounded the doom of his ancient Polish family. When, in August 1939, on the eve of another war, his daughter Sophie saw blood pouring down the side of her train, she felt a terrible foreboding and knew her idyllic world would be swept away. Thirty years later, when Count Hieronim's British grandson Andrew learned of the death of his mother---the beautiful, fragile, and abused Chouquette---his sense of a lost identity deepened and he set out to rediscover the world from which he came. These moments punctuate an extraordinary tale of the downfall of a once-powerful family, which in turn mirrors the twentieth-century fate of a nation ravaged by invasions and crushed by tyranny. Before 1945, Poland, now a fledgling EU country, was an almost Tolstoyan world of wolf hunts and extravagant wealth, set alongside great poverty and a semifeudal peasantry, in a landscape of frozen fields and dark forests. Broken by war, it was reduced by Communism to drab uniformity, and a way of life was lost forever. This world out of time is the setting for Andrew Tarnowski's memoir, The Last Mazurka, a tale of loss and exile, love and violence, wandering and longing, told with poignancy and unexpected humor, and a lingering regret.
Another Side of Bob Dylan: A Personal History on the Road and off the Tracks
by Victor MaymudesA vivid, first-hand account of Nobel Prize-winning singer and songwriter Bob Dylan as an artist, friend, and celebrity, illustrated with never-before-seen photographs, and told by an engaging raconteur who cut his own swathe through the turbulent counterculture.August 2014 marks 50 years since Bob Dylan released his fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. Recorded in one night, in the middle of a turbulent year in his life, the music marked a departure from Dylan's socially-conscious folk songs and began his evolution toward other directions.During the years they spent together, few people outside of Dylan's immediate family were closer than Victor Maymudes, who was Dylan's tour manager, personal friend, and travelling companion from the early days in 1960s Greenwich Village through the late 90's. Another Side of Bob Dylan recounts landmark events including Dylan's infamous motorcycle crash; meeting the Beatles on their first US tour; his marriage to Sara Lownds, his romances with Suze Rotolo, Joan Baez, and others; fellow travelers Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Wavy Gravy, Dennis Hopper, The Band, The Traveling Wilburys, and more; memorable concerts, and insights on Dylan's songwriting process.On January 26th, 2001, after recording more than 24 hours of taped memories in preparation for writing this book, Victor Maymudes suffered an aneurysm and died. His son Jacob has written the book, using the tapes to shape the story. A Los Angeles Times Best Seller.
Raider: The True Story of the Legendary Soldier Who Performed More POW Raids than Any Other American in History
by Charles W. SasserRaider is the true story of the legendary soldier who performed more POW raids than any other American in history.He went into battle as a boy. And on one of the most daring missions of World War II, he became a man-- and the perfect soldier for America's next wars...Galen Charles Kittleson was slight, modest, and born to wage war. The son of an Iowa farmer, Kittleson volunteered in 1943 and caught the eye of his commanders. By 1945, PFC Kittleson was selected for the Army's smallest elite unit, the Alamo Scouts. While U.S. forces were pushing back the Japanese in the Pacific, the Alamo scouts unleashed legendary raids deep behind enemy lines, including the liberation of over 500 starved, beaten prisoners of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. For Kittleson, a career as a raider had just begun...Charles W. Sasser chronicles the remarkable journey that was Kit Kittleson's courageous life in the service of his country. Now a veteran after first going to war as a boy twenty-five years ago, Kittleson volunteered for one last mission-- the most extraordinary and daring POW raid ever attempted by secret American Special Forces in Vietnam...
Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race
by David Scott Alexei LeonovGrowing up on either side of the Iron Curtain, David Scott and Alexei Leonov experienced very different childhoods but shared the same dream to fly. Excelling in every area of mental and physical agility, Scott and Leonov became elite fighter pilots and were chosen by their countries' burgeoning space programs to take part in the greatest technological race ever-to land a man on the moon. In this unique dual autobiography, astronaut Scott and cosmonaut Leonov recount their exceptional lives and careers spent on the cutting edge of science and space exploration. With each mission fraught with perilous risks, and each space program touched by tragedy, these parallel tales of adventure and heroism read like a modern-day thriller. Cutting fast between their differing recollections, this book reveals, in a very personal way, the drama of one of the most ambitious contests ever embarked on by man, set against the conflict that once held the world in suspense: the clash between Russian communism and Western democracy.Before training to be the USSR's first man on the moon, Leonov became the first man to walk in space. It was a feat that won him a place in history but almost cost him his life. A year later, in 1966, Gemini 8, with David Scott and Neil Armstrong aboard, tumbled out of control across space. Surviving against dramatic odds-a split-second decision by pilot Armstrong saved their lives-they both went on to fly their own lunar missions: Armstrong to command Apollo 11 and become the first man to walk on the moon, and Scott to perform an EVA during the Apollo 9 mission and command the most complex expedition in the history of exploration, Apollo 15. Spending three days on the moon, Scott became the seventh man to walk on its breathtaking surface. Marking a new age of USA/USSR cooperation, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project brought Scott and Leonov together, finally ending the Cold War silence and building a friendship that would last for decades. Their courage, passion for exploration, and determination to push themselves to the limit emerge in these memoirs not only through their triumphs but also through their perseverance in times of extraordinary difficulty and danger.
Madam Secretary: A Biography of Madeleine Albright
by Thomas BloodThomas Blood’s Madame Secretary is a riveting biography of the first woman U. S. Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, “the ultimate independent woman” (The New York Times Magazine).No American envoy has ever burst on the diplomatic scene and grabbed center stage in the theater of foreign relations like Madeleine Albright. Navigating difficult terrain as few can, Washington D. C. insider Thomas Blood provides exclusive interviews with, and revealing anecdotes from, politicians, friends, adversaries, and colleagues, including former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Senators Leahy, Mikulski, Kerrey, Helms, Reid, and Rockefeller, and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt.This unique biography reveals the dramatic story of the first woman U.S. Secretary of State. Rather than providing a simple chronology, Blood focuses on the defining moments in Madeleine Albright’s life, identifying the periods that best open a window on the Secretary of State’s uncanny ability to triumph over adversity, her unparalleled success in politics and her meteoric rise to dominance in the world of foreign policy. From her family’s thrilling escape from Czechoslovakia to her astounding rise to power to her victories and setbacks as the head of American foreign policy, Madeleine Albright’s life unfolds like a major motion picture.An immensely readable biography that illuminates key experiences in Albright’s career and personal life, Madam Secretary introduces us to Madeleine Albright the person, the politician, the policymaker.
Coming of Age: The Sexual Awakening of Margaret Mead
by Deborah Beatriz BlumThe startling coming-of-age story of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead whose radical ideas challenged the social and sexual norms of her time.The story begins in 1923, when twenty-two year old Margaret Mead is living in New York City, engaged to her childhood sweetheart and on the verge of graduating from college. Seemingly a conventional young lady, she marries, but shocks friends when she decides to keep her maiden name. After starting graduate school at Columbia University, she does the unthinkable: she first enters into a forbidden relationship with a female colleague, then gets caught up in an all-consuming and secret affair with a brilliant older man. As her sexual awakening continues, she discovers it is possible to be in love with more than one person at the same time. While Margaret’s personal explorations are just beginning, her interest in distant cultures propels her into the new field of anthropology. Ignoring the constraints put on women, she travels alone to a tiny speck of land in the South Pacific called Samoa to study the sexual behavior of adolescent girls. Returning home on an ocean liner nine months later, a chance encounter changes the course of her life forever.Now, drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs, Deborah Beatriz Blum reconstructs these five transformative years of Margaret Mead’s life, before she became famous, revealing the story that she hid from the world –during her lifetime and beyond.
Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, The Actress, The Heiress and One of the World's Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry
by Cherie BurnsBoth a history of fine jewelry coming out of Paris in the Golden Age and a tour through the secretive world of high-end, privately-sold jewelry, Diving for Starfish is a stylish detective story with a glittering piece of jewelry at its heart. In the mid 1930s, in the workroom of the famous Parisian jeweler Boivin, a young jewelry designer named Juliette Moutard created one of the most coveted pieces of jewelry in the world—the famous starfish pin—still sought after today by aficionados of fine jewelry. The starfish, created out of gold and encrusted with 71 cabochon rubies and 241 small amethysts, was distinctive because its five rays were articulated, meaning that they could curl and conform to the bustline or shoulder of the women who wore it. The House of Boivin made three of them. Two of the women who bought and wore the starfish were Claudette Colbert and Millicent Rogers. Obsessed with the pin after she saw it in the private showroom of a Manhattan jewelry merchant, Cherie Burns set off on a journey to find out all she could about the elusive pins and the women who owned them. Her search took her around the world to Paris, London, New York, and Hollywood. Diving for Starfish is the story of these marvelous pieces of jewelry and the equally dazzling women who loved them.
Caught in the Revolution: Witness to the Fall of Imperial Russia
by Helen RappaportFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters, Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport's masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold.Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil – felt nowhere more keenly than on the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt. There, the foreign visitors who filled hotels, clubs, offices and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps and beneath their windows.Among this disparate group were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, bankers, governesses, volunteer nurses and expatriate socialites. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareva.Helen Rappaport draws upon this rich trove of material, much of it previously unpublished, to carry us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened to an assortment of individuals who suddenly felt themselves trapped in a "red madhouse."
Buddha's Child: My Fight to Save Vietnam
by Nguyen Cao Ky Marvin J. WolfThe history of the Vietnam War has rarely been told from the Vietnamese perspective-and never by a leader of that country. In Buddha's Child, Nguyen Cao Ky reveals the remarkable story of his tumultuous tenure as Premier of South Vietnam, and offers unprecedented insight into the war's beginning, escalation, and heartbreaking end.A thirty-four year old pilot and Air Force commander, known for his fighter-pilot's moustache, flowing lavender scarf and his reputation as a ladies' man, Ky in 1965 agreed to lead South Vietnam after a series of coups had dangerously destabilized the nation. Ky's task was to unite a country riven by political, ethnic, and religious factions and undermined by corruption. With little experience in governing and none in international affairs, and while continuing to fly combat missions over Vietnam, Ky plunged into a war to save his homeland. He served as premier until 1967, continued to be active in the war after his resignation, and finally left Vietnam in 1975 during the fall of Saigon.Buddha's Child offers Ky's perspective on the crucial events and memorable images of the Vietnam War: the coup against and execution of President Diem; the self-immolation by the Buddhist monk, and the radical Buddhists' attempt to topple Ky's government; the bloody and pivotal Tet Offensive; the shooting of a Vietcong prisoner, captured in one of the war's most notorious photographs; the Paris Peace talks that sold out South Vietnam; and the last, desperate days of Saigon. In frank language, Ky discusses his own successes and failures as a leader and dramatically relates the progress of the war as it unfolded on the ground and behind the scenes-including anecdotes about Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, William Westmoreland, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Colby, Henry Kissinger, and many others. Buddha's Child is a revelatory, fascinating account of a nation at war by a most unusual man.
Sex Lives of the Presidents: From Washington to Clinton
by Nigel CawthorneIt didn't start with Clinton, or even Kennedy. Ever since the Father of our Country was sworn in over 200 years ago, the White House has seen its share of oversexed, adulterous, philandering presidents. From Washington's countless bed partners to Jefferson's illegitimate children, Kennedy's notorious womanizing to Clinton's unstoppable libido, find out the surprising and sometimes bizarre sexual practices of all the men in the Oval Office.
Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.'s Most Notorious Gang
by Ann Pearlman Colton SimpsonInside the Crips is the memoir of the author Colton Simpson's life as a Crip--beginning at the tender age of ten in the mid-seventies--and his prison turnaround nearly twenty-five years later.Colton ("C-Loc") Simpson calls himself the only gang member ever allowed to quite the Crips--and one of the few to survive into his thirties. Simpson--son of a ballplayer for the California Angels and a mother who was relentlessly rough with her sons after their fathers left her--became a gang member at ten. Inside The Crips tells the remarkable--and at the same time, all too common--story of gang life in the 1980s in immediate and descriptive prose that makes this book a gripping true-life read. Inside The Crips covers the rush that comes from participating in gang violence and the years-long wars between the Bloods and Crips. Simpson's story also puts the reader in the middle of the struggle between the Crips and corrections officers in Calipatria prison. It covers gang life from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties, and introduces characters it's impossible not to care about: Simpson's fellow gangbanger Smile; and Gina, the long-suffering friend and mother of two sons who married Simpson in prison.
Beating Goliath: My Story of Football and Faith
by Art Briles Don YaegerBeating Goliath is a memoir about overcoming loss and keeping faith by the innovative former head coach of the top ranked Baylor Bears college football team.Growing up in Rule, Texas, Art Briles learned at a young age the importance of hard work and faith from his parents. Soon that faith would be tested. On their way to see him play in a college football game, Briles' parents and aunt died in a car crash. This event shaped Briles into the man he is today. His father, Dennis, left him with a series of lessons. He taught his son that the world doesn't just hand you things, you have to earn them. And he taught him the influence that faith could have in his life.Briles put these lessons to work as a football coach, where he established his reputation for turning struggling teams into winners, from high school to the staff at Texas Tech to head coach at the University of Houston. Hired to coach Baylor in 2007, he was faced with a familiar task. Within three years, Briles led the Bears to their first bowl game in 15 years.Today, he instills those same lessons into his young players, helping them find a reason to excel. There are plenty of excuses for failure but Briles surrounds himself with people who are fearless when it comes to chasing success. That is one of the many lessons he imparts to his readers, with chapters that include:* God and the Teaching of Dennis Briles* Finding Your Passion* You Can Change Attitude, Not Talent* Passing in the Land of Earl Campbell* Everybody is a CaptainFilled with dramatic football stories and lessons learned, this book will inspire and entertain.
Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection
by John ManGenghis Khan is one of history's immortals, alive in memory as a scourge, hero, military genius and demi-god. To Muslims, Russians and westerners, he is a murderer of millions, a brutal oppressor. Yet in his homeland of Mongolia he is the revered father of the nation, and the Chinese honor him as the founder of a dynasty. In his so-called Mausoleum in Inner Mongolia, worshippers seek the blessing of his spirit. In a supreme paradox, the world's most ruthless conqueror has become a force for peace and reconciliation.As a teenager, Genghis was a fugitive, hiding from enemies on a remote mountainside. Yet he went on to found the world's greatest land empire and change the course of world history. Brilliant and original as well as ruthless, he ruled an empire twice the size of Rome's until his death in 1227 placed all at risk. To secure his conquests and then extend them, his heirs kept his death a secret, and secrecy has surrounded him ever since. His undiscovered grave, with its imagined treasures, remains the subject of intrigue and speculation.This is more than just a gripping account of Genghis' rise and conquests. John Man uses first-hand experiences in China and Mongolia to reveal the khan's enduring influence. He has traveled the length of the empire. He spotlights the tension between Mongols and Chinese, who both claim Genghis' spirit. He is the first writer to explore the hidden valley where Genghis is believed to have died, and one of the few westerners to climb the mountain where he was likely buried.This stunning narrative paints a vivid picture of the man himself, the places where he lived and fought, and the passions that surround him still. For in legend, ritual and intense controversy, Genghis lives on.
The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoleon III
by Alan Strauss-SchomA breakout biography of Louis-Napoleon III, whose controversial achievements have polarized historians.Considered one of the pre-eminent Napoleon Bonaparte experts, Pulitzer Prize-nominated historian Alan Strauss-Schom has turned his sights on another in that dynasty, Napoleon III (Louis-Napoleon) overshadowed for too long by his more romanticized forebear. In the first full biography of Napoleon III by an American historian, Strauss-Schom uses his years of primary source research to explore the major cultural, sociological, economical, financial, international, and militaristic long-lasting effects of France's most polarizing emperor. Louis-Napoleon’s achievements have been mixed and confusing, even to historians. He completely revolutionized the infrastructure of the state and the economy, but at the price of financial scandals of imperial proportions. In an age when “colonialism” was expanding, Louis-Napoleon’s colonial designs were both praised by the emperor’s party and the French military and resisted by the socialists.He expanded the nation’s railways to match those of England; created major new transoceanic steamship lines and a new modern navy; introduced a whole new banking sector supported by seemingly unlimited venture capital, while also empowering powerful new state and private banks; and completely rebuilt the heart of Paris, street by street.Napoleon III wanted to surpass the legacy of his famous uncle, Napoleon I. In The Shadow Emperor, Alan Strauss-Schom sets the record straight on Napoleon III's legacy.
Away All Boats: A Personal Guide for the Small-Boat Owner
by John ColeHigh-spirited and passionate--at once a useful guide and a record of an extended love affair with small boats--Away All Boats is a blending of sparkling waterlands and vivid memories.Author of Striper and Fishing Came First, John N. Cole takes readers from the dangers of haul-seining for striped bass that challenge a wooden dory's limits in the surf to the excitement of searching the flats of the Florida Keys for tarpon and other game fish aboard a shall-draft, high-tech craft perfectly matched to the task. Evocative of nature's miracles and realities (and the foibles of men who go down to the sea in "ships"), the writing is dry and witty, tender and perceptive. Alongside the hard facts and opinions about the selection, refitting, maintenance, and use of small boats is a series of wonderful stories about the author's explorations as a bayman and fisherman in the waters of eastern Long Island, Maine, and the Florida Keys. Each boat described serves to introduce a key chapter in the author's life and his taste for adventure.John Cole's first love is the skiff, rowboat, dory, or sharpie--any relatively stable wooden boat that can be easily and efficiently rowed--but the author also takes on larger craft powered by the internal combustion engine to indicate that every boat is designed to perform a limited family of functions. The trick, as we learn in these robust pages, is to find the boat you need (not always the boat you want), and Cole offers practical advice on how to go about it. The surprise is that a good boat doesn't have to be expensive; some are even gifts from the sea. As to basic equipment, the author keeps the advice simple: a compass, charts, a tachometer, an ammeter, an understanding of local winds and tides, and, with luck, an informed "weather eye" to minimize risks in open water.
Lucius D. Clay: An American Life
by Jean Edward SmithSoldier, statesman, logistical genius: Lucius D. Clay was one of that generation of giants who dedicated their lives to the service of this country, acting with ironclad integrity and selflessness to win a global war and secure a lasting peace. A member of the Army's elite Corps of Engineers, he was tapped by FDR in 1940 to head up a crash program of airport construction and then, in 1942, Roosevelt named him to run wartime military procurement. For three years, Clay oversaw the requirements of an eight-million-man army, setting priorities, negotiating contracts, monitoring production schedules and R&D, coordinating military Lend-Lease, disposing of surplus property-all without a breath of scandal. It was an unprecedented job performed to Clay's rigorous high standards. As Eliot Janeway wrote: "No appointment was more strategic or more fortunate."If, as head of military procurement, Clay was in effect the nation's economic czar, his job as Military Governor of a devastated Germany was, as John J. McCloy has phrased it, "the nearest thing to a Roman proconsulship the modern world afforded." In 1945, Germany was in ruins, its political and legal structures a shambles, its leadership suspect. Clay had to deal with everything from de-Nazification to quarrelsome allies, from feeding a starving people to processing vast numbers of homeless and displaced. Above all, he had to convince a doubting American public and a hostile State Department that German recovery was essential to the stability of Europe. In doing so, he was to clash repeatedly with Marshall, Kennan, Bohlen, and Dulles not only on how to treat the Germans but also on how to deal with the Russians. In 1949, Clay stepped down as Military Governor of Germany and Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe. He left behind a country well on the way to full recovery. And if Germany is today both a bulwark of stability and an economic and political success story, much of the credit is due to Clay and his driving vision.Lucius Clay went on to play key roles in business and politics, advising and working with presidents of both parties and putting his enormous organizing skills and reputation to good use on behalf of his country, whether he was helping run Eisenhower's 1952 campaign, heading up the federal highway program, raising the ransom money for the Bay of Pigs prisoners, or boosting morale in Berlin in the face of the Wall. The Berliners in turn never forgot their debt to Clay. At the foot of his West Point grave, they placed a simple stone tablet: Wir Danken Dem Bewahrer Unserer Freiheit- We Thank the Defender of Our Freedom.
The World of Christopher Marlowe
by David RiggsThe definitive biography: a masterly account of Marlowe's work and life and the world in which he livedShakespeare's contemporary, Christopher Marlowe revolutionized English drama and poetry, transforming the Elizabethan stage into a place of astonishing creativity. The outline of Marlowe's life, work, and violent death are known, but few of the details that explain why his writing and ideas made him such a provocateur in the Elizabethan era have been available until now. In this absorbing consideration of Marlowe and his times, David Riggs presents Marlowe as the language's first poetic dramatist whose desires proved his undoing. In an age of tremendous cultural change in Europe when Cervantes wrote the first novel and Copernicus demonstrated a world subservient to other nonreligious forces, Catholics and Protestants battled for control of England and Elizabeth's crown was anything but secure. Into this whirlwind of change stepped Marlowe espousing sexual freedom and atheism. His beliefs proved too dangerous to those in power and he was condemned as a spy and later murdered. In The World of Christopher Marlowe, Riggs's exhaustive research digs deeply into the mystery of how and why Marlowe was killed.
Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy
by Colin MacCabeAn intimate portrait of the turmoil that spawned the New Wave in French Cinema, and the story of its greatest director, Jean-Luc Godard. Godard's early films revolutionized the language of cinema. Hugely prolific in his first decade--Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Made in USA are just a handful of the seminal works he directed--Godard introduced filmgoers to the generation of stars associated with the trumpeted sexuality of postwar movies and culture: Brigitte Bardot, Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Anna Karina. As the sixties wore on, however, Godard's life was transformed. The Hollywood he had idolized began to disgust him, and in the midst of the socialist ferment in France his second wife introduced him to the activist student left. From 1968 to 1972, Europe's greatest director worked in the service of Maoist politics, and continued thereafter to experiment on the far peripheries of the medium he had transformed. His extraordinary later works are little seen or appreciated, yet he remains one of Europe's most influential artists.Drawing on his own working experience with Godard and his coterie, Colin MacCabe, in this first biography of the director, has written a thrilling account of the French cinema's transformation in the hands of Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol--critics who toppled the old aesthetics by becoming, legendarily, directors themselves--and Godard's determination to make cinema the greatest of the arts.