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Whale Hunter (Seafarers' Voices)
by Nelson ColeThis is the narrative of a harpooner in the whale-ship Charles W Morgan, whose four-year voyage in 1849–1853 took him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the South Pacific and on around the world. Before the days of the whale-gun and its explosive warhead, whaling was a dangerous and far from one-sided pursuit indeed, one of Haleys earliest experiences was the destruction of his boat by a whale attack, and even when the harpoon hit the target, the whaleboat would be towed at speed until the wounded whale was exhausted, a terrifying experience that was known to whalemen as a Nantucket sleigh ride. Haleys narrative covers all the excitements and dangers of the business like trying to work on a slippery whale carcass, while the surrounding waters seethed with sharks but also encompasses the long hours of boredom, when sailors entertained each other with tall tales. Many are recounted, and, surprisingly, some of the least likely can be corroborated. In fact, Haleys anecdotes of the South Seas in transition form one of the great appeals of the book. On the one hand there were still hostile islands with murderous inhabitants, while others had been so strongly influenced by Christian missionaries that pleasures of the flesh were now entirely off-limits.Whaling was, in effect, the first oil industry, a high-risk business where huge fortunes were to be made. Haleys is the authentic voice of those that chose its dangers.
Whale Off!: The Story of American Shore Whaling [Revised Edition]
by Everett J. Edwards Jeannette Edwards RattrayFirst published in 1932 and revised in 1956 by Everett J. Edwards’ daughter Jeannette Edwards Rattray with a new Foreword, this is a well-researched account on American shore-whaling, with special focus on the small-boat whaling carried on off the eastern end of Long Island from 1640 to 1918—the first and last whaling of this sort done anywhere in America.
What Cares The Sea?
by Kenneth Cooke“The S.S. Lulworth Hill, a freighter bound home for England...was torpedoed by a German submarine on March 19, 1943, off the west coast of central Africa. The ship’s first officer and 13 crewmen reached life rafts. Fifty days later, when a British destroyer steamed into view, two men still lived. One survivor died shortly after the rescue. The remaining man, who was the ship’s carpenter, tells the story.Kenneth Cooke, ends his preface with a line that might have been written by Conrad: “And there is no one left now to tell me I have remembered badly.” It is the musing of a man who sat helpless while sharks ate the bodies of twelve raftmates, and who calculated the dwindling strength of those left alive, as they openly calculated his, in the hope of gaining extra rations. After 17 years, the inexplicable and awesome fact of his survival still obsesses Cooke. No one who reads his book will need to ask why.After the 14 men reached their raft, the first officer calculated the food supply to last for 30 days...What follows is a catalogue of torments. Tongues swelled and turned black. Sea water and the equatorial sun cut running sores. The feet of a wounded man turned gangrenous. By the 19th day, Cooke, who kept the log, recorded the first death. The body was rolled into the sea; cannibalism was a temptation.Now and then a flying fish landed in the raft, and Cooke speared a few other fish with a homemade harpoon. Once it rained briefly, and the men greedily licked moisture from the raft’s canvas. Otherwise there was no relief. More men died. The strongest man on the raft went mad, locked two other men in his arms and jumped to the sharks. Cooke, crazed by the groans of a man whose ribs were broken, kicked the fellow to quiet him.To the author, the book is a riddle: How was he alone able to survive?...The only conclusion is that some men, for some reason, cling hard to life, and that the sea, as Cooke wrote truthfully, does not care.”-Time.
What Comes with the Dust: A Novel
by Gharbi M. MustafaAs The Kite Runner and The Swallows of Kabuldid for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, this slim, profound novel illuminates the plight of those living under the Islamic State as well as the spirit of the Yazidi people. Today is Nazo’s wedding. Today she will set herself on fire. Nazo Heydo has drenched herself in kerosene and is ready to light the match in order to avoid marrying the Syrian elder who bought her from Islamic State officials. Her forced marriage is just the latest horror in a journey that began when ISIS fighters surrounded her peaceful village, demanding spoils and the Yazidis’ conversion to Islam. Rebuffed, they took away her father, brothers, and the love of her life in their pickup trucks with the other village men. The women and children they enslaved and separated, transporting the younger women to be trafficked for the pleasure of their soldiers or sold for money. Only Nazo’s wits and daring have saved her from further abuse or death, yet each escape leads to some new horror. Meanwhile, in a parallel narrative, Soz, another young Yazidi, flees her family’s farm when she sees the black-flagged pickups approach. She manages to reach Mount Sinjar, where she joins the Yazidi fighters who have allied with the Kurdish Peshmerga. Her journey will lead back to her homeland to do battle against ISIS.What Comes with the Dust is a powerful novel about genocide and the will to survive as well as a testament to struggles of the Yazidi people.
What Deters and Why: Exploring Requirements for Effective Deterrence of Interstate Aggression
by Alireza Nader Stephanie Pezard Arthur Chan Michael J. Mazarr Bryan Frederick Julia A. Thompson Alyssa Demus Elina TreygerThe challenge of deterring territorial aggression is taking on renewed importance, yet discussion of it has lagged in U.S. military and strategy circles. The authors aim to provide a fresh look, with two primary purposes: to review established concepts about deterrence, and to provide a framework for evaluating the strength of deterrent relationships. They focus on a specific type of deterrence: extended deterrence of interstate aggression.
What Distant Deeps
by David DrakeNO REST FOR THE WEARY - Captain Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy, have been in the front lines of Cinnabar's struggle against the totalitarian Alliance. Now these galactic superpowers have signed a peace of mutual exhaustion--But the jackals are moving in! The Republic of Cinnabar was on the verge of collapse under the weight of taxes, casualties, and war's disruption of trade. That the Alliance of Free Stars was in even worse condition helped only because it has made peace possible. Years of war have been hard on Daniel and harder still on Adele, whose life outside information-gathering is a tightrope between despair and deadly violence. Their masters in the RCN and the Republic's intelligence service have sent them to the fringes of human space to relax away from danger. But the barbarians of the outer reaches have their own plans, plans which will bring down both Cinnabar and the Alliance. The enemies of peace include traitors, giant reptiles, and barbarian pirates whose ships can outsail even Daniel Leary's splendid corvette, the Princess Cecile. Unless Daniel, Adele, and their unlikely allies succeed, galactic civilization will disintegrate into blood and chaos. So they will succeed - or they'll die trying!
What Every Person Should Know About War
by Chris HedgesAcclaimedNew York Timesjournalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U. S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. Hedges poses dozens of questions that young soldiers might ask about combat, and then answers them by quoting from medical and psychological studies. What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war? What does it feel like to get shot? What do artillery shells do to you? What is the most painful way to get wounded? Will I be afraid? What could happen to me in a nuclear attack? What does it feel like to kill someone? Can I withstand torture? What are the long-term consequences of combat stress? What will happen to my body after I die?This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.
What Happened At Little Bighorn?
by Stephanie St. PierreThere were many more battles between the Army and the Native Americans, especially the Lakota. The last battle of the Indian wars took place at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. By 1900 the life on the open plains that the Lakota, Cheyenne, and other Indians had known and loved was over.
What Happened to the Battleship: 1945 to the Present
by Chris BakerIn the hundreds of books written about battleships, the authors tend to draw down the curtain on the careers of these great vessels in September 1945, with the surrender of Japan. Yet, on that day some ninety-eight battleships or ex-battleships might be spotted around the world, and eleven of them were in or around Tokyo Bay for the surrender itself. What happened to all those ships? This new book takes a fresh look at the slow demise of the battleship. It examines the decisions made by the major world powers after 1945, and their aspirations to retain battleships in their navies, despite financial stringency. It places the history and role of battleships after 1945 in their geo-political context, centered around the Cold War and the need for the West to face down an aggressive Soviet Union. It also examines the impact on battleships of operational analysis of the Second World War and new technological developments, notably the atom bomb and the guided missile. The book uses the wealth of information from ship’s books, ship’s logs and gun logs to document in considerable detail what the ships actually did after the Second World War, with a particular focus on those of the Royal Navy. It covers United States battleship operations in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, as well as the deterrent role played by battleships for NATO from the 1950s to the 1990s. Finally, it brings the story up to date by documenting the preservation as museum ships of the eight dreadnoughts which still exist today in the United States. Extensively illustrated with photographs of the huge range of activities of battleships after 1945, from their use as Fleet flagships to Royal or Presidential yachts and more poignantly as target ships, this new book will appeal equally to the historic ship enthusiast and naval specialist, and provide a novel perspective through a battleship–shaped lens on late twentieth-century history for the more general reader.
What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars
by David WoodFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wood, a battlefield view of moral injury, the signature wound of America's 21st century wars. Most Americans are now familiar with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking new book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict. Featuring portraits of combat veterans and leading mental health researchers, along with Wood's personal observations of war and the young Americans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, WHAT HAVE WE DONE offers an unflinching look at war and those who volunteer for it: the thrill and pride of service and, too often, the scars of moral injury.Impeccably researched and deeply personal, WHAT HAVE WE DONE is a compassionate, finely drawn study of modern war and those caught up in it. It is a call to acknowledge our newest generation of veterans by listening intently to them and absorbing their stories; and, as new wars approach, to ponder the inevitable human costs of putting American "boots on the ground."
What I Saw In Kaffir-Land
by Stephen Lakeman“The nineteenth century wars against the Xhosa tribes of South Africa could be as savage as any fought and there can be little doubt that imperial powers could use methods verging on genocide when they decided to take over the lands and resources of underdeveloped people. Equally, a savage foe inevitably fought a savage war and Kaffir and Zulu warriors were not given to taking prisoners. This book is by and concerns the experiences of Steven Lakeman in the wars by the British crown and settlers against the Kaffir tribes in Cape Colony in the 1850s. Lakeman was a mercenary adventurer, soldier and administrator, and it was widely recognised that his command, the Waterkloof Rangers, waged war in a fashion brutal to the point of criminality by modern standards. Some of his matter of fact statements concerning the activities of his men-and indeed his own actions-will be troubling to contemporary sensibilities, while being essential reading for those who wish to understand both the events reported and those who took part in them. Lakeman was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1853. He went on to play a pivotal role in the Victorian age both in war and as a diplomat. He was one of the earliest proponents for the discontinuation of the iconic scarlet uniform of the British soldier and its replacement with khaki and he campaigned vigorously for the introduction of the Minie rifle to replace smooth bore muskets.”-Print ed.
What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might have Been
by Robert CowleyA book of essays from several noted historians on what would have happened if history hadn't gone as it did.
What Is A Jew?
by Rabbi Morris N. KertzerA guide to the beliefs, traditions and practices of Judaism that answers questions for both Jew and Gentile.Rabbi Kertzer answers over 100 of the most commonly asked questions about Jewish life and customs, including: What is the Jewish attitude toward intermarriage? Toward birth control? Do Jews believe in equality between the sexes? Are Jews forbidden to read the New Testament? What is the basis for the Dietary Laws?For non-Jews who want to learn about the Jewish way of life.For Jews who wish to rediscover forgotten traditions and beliefs."This portrayal of the Jewish way of looking at things attempts to convey some of the warmth, the glow and the serenity of Judaism: the enchantment of fine books; the captivating color of Hasidism;...the mirthful spirit of scholars more than sixteen centuries ago; and the abiding sense of compassion that permeates our tradition. It is in this way--and only in this way that anyone can give a meaningful answer to the question, 'What is a Jew?'"--Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer
What Is Left The Daughter: A Novel
by Howard NormanHoward Norman, widely regarded as one of this country’s finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story. Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda. Setting in motion the novel’s chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat’s sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman’s uncannily layered story. Wyatt’s account of the astonishing—not least to him— events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It’s a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one. An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.
What It Is Like to Go to War
by Karl Marlantes"What It Is Like To Go To War" is about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war.
What It Is Like to Go to War
by Karl MarlantesFrom the author of the award-winning, best-selling novel Matterhorn, comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his war experience. In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at what it is like to experience the ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our soldiers for war. Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings—from Homer to The Mahabharata to Jung. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of the journey. Just as Matterhorn is already being acclaimed as acclaimed as a classic of war literature, What It Is Like to Go to War is set to become required reading for anyone—soldier or civilian—interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience.
What Kept The Tank From Being The Decisive Weapon Of World War One?
by Major Brian A. PedersenThe modern tank was invented in 1916 as a means to mechanically overcome the stalemate of trench warfare brought on by the increased lethality of fires employed during World War I. Its introduction received mixed reviews among British leaders. Some advocated its continued role supporting infantry and artillery attacks. Others envisioned it as a revolutionary weapon with the potential to effect decisive results at an operational and strategic level. Still others viewed it as a useless and unnecessary drain on already-scarce resources of men and materiel. Ultimately, the tank was an ancillary sideshow and failed to produce a decisive knock-out punch leading to Allied victory in World War I. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons why the tank failed to become the decisive weapon of World War I. It specifically focuses on the genesis of logistics, maintenance, training, and production infrastructure, studying the interaction of development, employment, acceptance or lack thereof, and subsequent frictions which negatively influenced the ascent of tanks as the decisive weapon of World War I. By examining the British efforts to design support systems while simultaneously producing, fielding and employing multiple iterations of the tank, this paper seeks to promote a deeper understanding of the potential challenges facing other armed forces that are rapidly upgrading or replacing combat systems in the midst of the Global War on Terror.
What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq: Women and the Occupation of Iraq
by Nicola Pratt Nadje Al-AliIn the run-up to war in Iraq, the Bush administration assured the world that America's interest was in liberation--especially for women. The first book to examine how Iraqi women have fared since the invasion, What Kind of Liberation? reports from the heart of the war zone with dire news of scarce resources, growing unemployment, violence, and seclusion. Moreover, the book exposes the gap between rhetoric that placed women center stage and the present reality of their diminishing roles in the "new Iraq." Based on interviews with Iraqi women's rights activists, international policy makers, and NGO workers and illustrated with photographs taken by Iraqi women, What Kind of Liberation? speaks through an astonishing array of voices. Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt correct the widespread view that the country's violence, sectarianism, and systematic erosion of women's rights come from something inherent in Muslim, Middle Eastern, or Iraqi culture. They also demonstrate how in spite of competing political agendas, Iraqi women activists are resolutely pressing to be part of the political transition, reconstruction, and shaping of the new Iraq.
What Lessons Can Be Drawn From U.S. Riverine Operations During The Vietnam War: As The U.S. Navy Moves Into The Twenty-First Century?
by Major David J. SpanglerThis study examines U.S. riverine force operations in the Vietnam War to determine why the force was established, how and why it evolved, and what significance it held for the war as a whole. This study begins with Operation Game Warden, continues through Mobile Riverine Force operations, and ends with the completion of the SEALORDS campaign. The impetus for this research arose from the current debate in Washington as to whether or not the U.S. military has a real need for riverine forces and if those forces should be "stood up" today.Looking back through history gives an opportunity to view past riverine warfare conducted by the American military and determine the contributions such operations have made to the overall conduct of wars. This study shows that riverine operations have been crucial to success in certain environments in the past and points to their possible use in similar environments today. This study measures the effect of U.S. riverine operations in Vietnam and evaluates the contribution this type of force made to our war effort in that environment.This study promotes the use of Task Force 194, which conducted the SEALORDS campaign, as the model for establishing U.S. riverine forces today. This study points out that the nucleus of a riverine force must be maintained, doctrine modernized, and crew currency maintained in order to have any reasonable expectation for success at the outset of future riverine conflicts.
What Lessons Does The Burma Campaign Hold?
by Mark E WheelerThe World War II Burma Campaign was an "economy of force" theater where competition for scarce resources presented unique challenges to operational planners. The Campaign is analyzed using the Principles of War and other operational concepts. Its study shows the close, overlapping relationship between the operational level of war and the tactical and strategic levels. The campaign demonstrates the need for a well-organized theater command structure, the dependence of war plans on allied cooperation and support, the limitations imposed on operations by insufficient logistical resources, and the effect that enemy action can have on plans. The problems of resource allocation, force apportionment, and command relationships will continue to plaque military planners. The lessons from the Burma Campaign are as important and relevant today as they were in World War II.
What Lies Buried (DI Lukas Mahler)
by Margaret Kirk'A harrowing and horrific game of consequences' Val McDermidTHE BRILLIANTLY COMPELLING SECOND NOVEL IN THE DI LUKAS MAHLER SERIESA missing child. A seventy-year-old murder. And a killer who's still on the loose.Ten year-old Erin is missing; taken in broad daylight during a friend's birthday party. With no witnesses and no leads, DI Lukas Mahler races against time to find her. But is it already too late for Erin - and will her abductor stop at one stolen child?And the discovery of human remains on a construction site near Inverness confronts Mahler's team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant's murder linked to a nearby POW camp, or is there an even darker story to be uncovered?With his team stretched to the limit, Mahler's hunt for Erin's abductor takes him from Inverness to the Lake District. And decades-old family secrets link both casesin a shocking final twist.WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT MARGARET KIRK'S DI MAHLER SERIES:'Margaret Kirk's brilliant Inverness series is atmospheric and gripping. She goes from strength to strength. What Lies Buried is an absolute cracker!' CASS GREEN'Tartan Noir at its very best' DAILY MAIL'Gripping''Kept me on my toes right to the end''Another great detective is born''Shadow Man has a taut plot, maintains suspense cleverly and is crisply written''The city of Inverness is almost a character in its own right''A top-notch crime thriller, full of intricate twists with a disturbing insight into the mind of a cold blooded killer''Dark and atmospheric, I just couldn't put it down'
What Not: A Prophetic Comedy (MIT Press / Radium Age #2)
by Rose MacaulayAn early novel by Rose Macaulay about a government program of compulsory selective breeding in a dystopian future England.In a near-future England, a new government entity—the Ministry of Brains—attempts to stave off idiocracy through a program of compulsory selective breeding. Kitty Grammont, who shares author Rose Macaulay&’s own ambivalent attitude, gets involved in the Ministry&’s propaganda efforts, which the novel details with an entertaining thoroughness. (The alphabetical caste system dreamed up by Macaulay for her nightmare world would directly influence Aldous Huxley&’s 1932 dystopia Brave New World.) But when Kitty falls in love with the Minister for Brains, a man whose genetic shortcomings make a union with her impossible, their illicit affair threatens to topple the government. Because it ridiculed wartime bureaucracy, the planned 1918 publication of What Not was delayed until after the end of World War I.
What Price Honor?: Enterprise (Star Trek: Enterprise)
by Dave SternThe Starship Enterprise NX-01 is humanity's flagship -- the first vessel to begin a systematic exploration of what lies beyond the fringes of known space. Led by Captain Jonathan Archer, eighty of Starfleet's best and brightest set forth to pave humanity's way among the stars. Tempered by a year's worth of exploration, they are a disciplined, cohesive unit. But now one of their number has fallen. Bad enough that Ensign Alana Hart is dead. Worse still that she died while attempting to sabotage the Enterprise -- and at the hands of Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the ship's armory officer and her nominal superior. Even as questions swirl around Hart's death, Archer, Reed, and the rest of the Enterprise crew find themselves caught squarely in the middle of another tense situation- a brutal war of terror between two civilizations. But in the Eris Alpha system, nothing -- and no one -- are what they seem. And before the secret behind Ensign Hart's demise is exposed, Reed will be forced to confront death one more time.
What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler
by Robert J. HutchinsonThink You Know Everything about the death of Hitler? Think Again. After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn&’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. This wasn&’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler&’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945. Plus, there were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America where there was a large German colony. Incredible as it sounds, the mystery surrounding Adolf Hitler&’s final days only deepened in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team announced that a piece of Hitler&’s skull held in Soviet archives was not actually Hitler&’s. International interest increased further in 2014 when the FBI released previously classified files detailing investigations surrounding Hitler&’s possible escape. And the following year, The History Channel launched a three-year reality TV series investigating if it was possible Hitler did somehow survive. So what really happened? Popular history writer Robert J. Hutchinson, author of What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination, takes a fresh look at the evidence and discovers, once and for all, the truth about Hitler&’s last week in Berlin. Among the questions the book explores are... * What did surviving Nazi eyewitnesses really say about the Führer&’s final days in the bunker—and could they have been lying to aid Hitler&’s escape? * If Hitler didn&’t escape, why did the Allies not find his body? * What about Hitler&’s proven use of body doubles? Could Hitler have used a body double in the bunker while he and Eva Braun flew to safety in a long-range aircraft that took off from a runway in Berlin&’s Tiergarten? * Why did the FBI continue to investigate reports of Hitler&’s survival for more than a decade after World War II—reports that were only declassified in 2014? * What about sensational claims in books such as The Grey Wolfthat Hitler and Eva Braun lived in an isolated chalet in the Andes – and that Hitler died in 1962? * Why were forensic tests on crucial physical evidence only conducted in 2016, more than 70 years after World War II ended? * And lots MORE.
What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War
by Sarah E. WagnerNearly 1,600 Americans who took part in the Vietnam War are still missing and presumed dead. Sarah Wagner tells the stories of those who mourn and continue to search for them. Today’s forensic science can identify remains from mere traces, raising expectations for repatriation and forcing a new reckoning with the toll of America’s most fraught war.