My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever readbefore, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age inthe controversial war that defined a generation. In anastonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of dutyin Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the firsttime about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to becomea classic. Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out ofcollege and expecting a stateside assignment, when his ordersarrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, hetried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eightmore-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radiolocations. He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh anddrink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fearof war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radiotransmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidderrealized that he would spend hi

This provocative work challenges traditional accounts ofMeriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across thecontinent and back again. Uncovering deeper meanings in theexplorers’ journals and lives, Exploring Lewis and Clark exposes their self-perceptions and deceptions, and how theyinteracted with those who traveled with them, the people theydiscovered along the way, the animals they hunted, and the landthey walked across. The book discovers new heroes and brings oldones into historical focus. Thomas P. Slaughter interrogates the explorers’ dreams, how theywrote and what they aimed to possess, their interactions withanimals, Indians, and each other, their sense of themselves asleaders and men, and why they feared that they had failed theirnation and President. Slaughter’s Lewis and Clark are moreconfused, frightened, courageous, and flawed than in previousaccounts. They are more human, their expedition more dramatic, andthus their story is more revealing about our own relationships tohistory

On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slippedbehind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirtyrugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp,among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March. Arecent prison massacre by Japanese soldiers elsewhere in thePhilippines made the stakes impossibly high and left little time toplan the complex operation. In Ghost Soldiers Hampton Sides vividly re-creates thisdaring raid, offering a minute-by-minute narration that unfoldsalongside intimate portraits of the prisoners and their lives inthe camp. Sides shows how the POWs banded together to survive,defying the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation,tropical diseases, and torture. Harrowing, poignant, and inspiring, Ghost Soldiers is the mesmerizing story of a remarkablemission. It is also a testament to the human spirit, an account ofenormous bravery and self-sacrifice amid the most tryingconditions.

Until World War II aircraft had played only a minor role incombat, but with the RAF and Luftwaffe fiercely dueling in theBattle of Britain it was apparent that air superiority would be thedeciding factor in the war. The Eighth Air Force quickly grew fromits first modest effort into the mightiest aerial armada inhistory, eventually launching thousand-plane raids. WhileFortresses and Liberators attacked factories, fuel supplies, andtransportation networks, Lightnings, Thunderbolts, and Mustangsshot enemy fighters from the skies. But the road to victory was paved with sacrifice. From itsinaugural mission on July 4, 1942, until V-E Day, the Eighth AirForce lost more men than did the entire United States Marine Corpsin all its campaigns in the Pacific. The Mighty Eighth chroniclesthe testimony of the pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunnerswho daily put their lives on the line. Their harrowing accountsrecall the excitement and terror of dogfights against Nazi aces,maneuvering explosive-laden aircr

For the first time, one book gives voice to the haunting,painful, tender, and healing tales of those who lost so much inAmerica's least popular war.

In this rich and engrossing account, John and Abigail Adamscome to life against the backdrop of the Republic’s tenuous earlyyears. Drawing on over 1,200 letters exchanged between the couple, Ellistells a story both personal and panoramic. We learn about the manyyears Abigail and John spent apart as John’s political career senthim first to Philadelphia, then to Paris and Amsterdam; theirrelationship with their children; and Abigail’s role as John’sclosest and most valued advisor. Exquisitely researched andbeautifully written, First Family is both a revealing portrait of amarriage and a unique study of America’s early years.

A powerful wartime saga in the bestselling tradition of Flags of Our Fathers, Brothers in Arms recounts theextraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the firstall-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.

In 1787, the beautiful Lucia is married off to AlviseMocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. Buttheir life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed whenVenice falls to Bonaparte. We witness Lucia's painful series ofmiscarriages and the pressure on her to produce an heir; herimpassioned affair with an Austrian officer; the glamour and strainof her career as a hostess in Vienna; and her amazing firsthandaccount of the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. With his brave andarticulate heroine, Andrea di Robilant has once again reachedacross the centuries, and deep into his own past, to bring historyto rich and vivid life on the page.

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army hadno specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of1939–40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought theinvading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named CharlesMinot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let himrecruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates,wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form theminto a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearlythree years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in theprocess set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering.The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in thewinter of 1945, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, against theseemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the GothicLine. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded asthe most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S.military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, tre

By the world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and authorof Wizard of the Crow, an evocative and affecting memoir ofchildhood. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a fatherwhose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The manwho would become one of Africa’s leading writers was the fifthchild of the third wife. Even as World War II affected the lives ofAfricans under British colonial rule in particularly unexpectedways, Ngugi spent his childhood as very much the apple of hismother’s eye before attending school to slake what was thenconsidered a bizarre thirst for learning. In Dreams in a Time of War, Ngugi deftly etches a bygone era,capturing the landscape, the people, and their culture; the socialand political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war; andthe troubled relationship between an emerging Christianized middleclass and the rural poor. And he shows how the Mau Mau armedstruggle for Kenya’s independence against the British informed noton

What ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation ofcitizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds?These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly UnitedStates together. In A is for American, award-winning historian Jill Leporeportrays seven men who turned to language to help shape a newnation’s character and boundaries. From Noah Webster’s attempts tostandardize American spelling, to Alexander Graham Bell’s use of“Visible Speech” to help teach the deaf to talk, to Sequoyah’sdevelopment of a Cherokee syllabary as a means of preserving hispeople’s independence, these stories form a compelling portrait ofa developing nation’s struggles. Lepore brilliantly explores thepersonalities, work, and influence of these figures, seven mendriven by radically different aims and temperaments. Through thesesuperbly told stories, she chronicles the challenges faced by ayoung country trying to unify

There are many heroes of the civil rights movement—men andwomen we can look to for inspiration. Each has a unique story, apath that led to a role as leader or activist. Death of Innocenceis the heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring story of one suchhero: Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till—an innocentfourteen-year-old African-American boy who was in the wrong placeat the wrong time, and who paid for it with his life. His outragedmother’s actions galvanized the civil rights movement, leaving anindelible mark on American racial consciousness. Mamie Carthan was an ordinary African-American woman growing upin 1930s Chicago, living under the strong, steady influence of hermother’s care. She fell in love with and married Louis Till, andwhile the marriage didn’t last, they did have a beautiful baby boy,Emmett. In August 1955, Emmett was visiting family in Mississippi when hewas kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two whitemen and brutally murdered. His crime: a

Descubre el verdadero significado de las profecías más famosasde todos los tiempos. Su nombre se ha convertido en un sinónimo de clarividencia:Nostradamus, astrólogo del rey de Francia, el adivino más famoso dela historia occidental. Pero el significado verdadero de susprofecías ha pasado desapercibido, oculto en un código alquímicosecreto. Conocido como el lenguaje verde, era entendido solamentepor un pu?ado de eruditos ocultos medievales, y se ha perdido porsiglos—hasta este momento. David Ovason pasó cuarenta a?os trabajando en este lenguaje,permitiéndole finalmente romper el código secreto de Nostradamus.En este libro, Ovason revela con un análisis línea por línea, lasescrituras ocultas del gran astrólogo, demostrando que sus fechas ydetalles son más exactos de los que cualquier erudito anterior harealizado. Como maestro de las tradiciones astrológicas arcanaspracticadas por Nostradamus, Ovason proporciona la cuenta másexacta y más profunda escrita nunca acerca de

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and SebastianJunger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventurein which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a greathistorical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was morethan a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents,braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigatingthrough wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselvesto their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than oncein the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers wereprepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in thefrigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: aWorld War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wastelandof twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried underdecades of accumulated sediment. No identifying marks were visible on

Paris - Underground BY ETTA SHIBER. Contents include: I Escapefrom Europe i II Flight from Paris 13 III The English Pilot 22 IVRunning the Gauntlet 31 V They Are Here 37 VI Plans for Escape 51VII William Escapes 57 VIII A Trip to Doullens 67 IX Ten T

In his writing, Borges always combined high seriousness with awicked sense of fun. Here he reveals his delight in re-creating (ormaking up) colorful stories from the Orient, the Islamic world, andthe Wild West, as well as his horrified fascination with knifefights, political and personal betrayal, and bloodthirsty revenge.Spark-ling with the sheer exuberant pleasure of story-telling, thiscollection marked the emergence of an utterly distinctive literaryvoice.

The sinking of the Dorchester in the icy waters offGreenland shortly after midnight on February 3, 1942, was one ofthe worst sea disasters of World War II. It was also the occasionof an astounding feat of heroism—and faith. As water gushed through a hole made by a German torpedo, fourchaplains—members of different faiths but linked by bonds offriendship and devotion—moved quietly among the men onboard.Preaching bravery, the chaplains distributed life jackets,including their own. In the end, these four men went down with theship, their arms linked in spiritual solidarity, their voicesraised in prayer. In this spellbinding narrative, award-winningauthor and journalist Dan Kurzman tells the story of these heroesand the faith—in God and in country—that they shared. They were about as different as four American clergymen could be.George Lansing Fox (Methodist), wounded and decorated in World WarI, loved his family and his Vermont congregation—yet he re-enlistedas soon as he heard about Pearl Harbo

In this lively and engaging history, Stephen Puleo tells thestory of the Boston Italians from their earliest years, when alargely illiterate and impoverished people in a strange landrecreated the bonds of village and region in the cramped quartersof the North End. Focusing on this first and crucial Italianenclave in Boston, Puleo describes the experience of Italianimmigrants as they battled poverty, illiteracy, and prejudice;explains their transformation into Italian Americans during theDepression and World War II; and chronicles their rich history inBoston up to the present day.

Robert Carter III, thegrandson of Tidewater legend Robert “King” Carter, was born intothe highest circles of Virginia’s Colonial aristocracy. He wasneighbor and kin to the Washingtons and Lees and a friend and peerto Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. But on September 5, 1791,Carter severed his ties with this glamorous elite at the stroke ofa pen. In a document he called his Deed of Gift, Carter declaredhis intent to set free nearly five hundred slaves in the largestsingle act of liberation in the history of American slavery beforethe Emancipation Proclamation. How did Carter succeed in the very action that George Washingtonand Thomas Jefferson claimed they fervently desired but werepowerless to effect? And why has his name all but vanished from theannals of American history? In this haunting, brilliantly originalwork, Andrew Levy traces the confluence of circumstance,conviction, war, and passion that led to Carter’s extraordinaryact. At the dawn of the Revolutionary War, Carter was one of thewealt