Her enthusiasm for animals and travel has led her to visit many countries around the world where she can indulge her passion for watching and photographing wildlife. She is a[so author of Africa: Natural Spirit of the African Continent, Spirit of the Jungle, Spirit of the Elephant and Spirit of India in this series. Gill currently lives in a converted barn by the coast in Pembrokeshire with her graphic designer husband and three cats.
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkestyears of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before orsince. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues thisiconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour deforce of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and theircommunities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells oftheir desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dustblizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantlycapturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equaljustice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic,long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgencyand respect" (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greaternatural disasters, "The Worst Hard Time" is "arguably the bestnonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatestenvironmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and apowerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling withnature
On January 30, 1889,at the champagne-splashed height of the Viennese Carnival, theHandsome and charming Crown Prince Rudolf fired a revolver at histeenaged mistress and them himself. The two shots that rang out atMayerling in the Vienna Woods echo still.
FREDERICKSBURG TO MERIDIAN "Gettysburg...is described with such meticulous attention toaction, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commandersthat I understand, at last, what happened in that battle.... Mr.Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and anovelist's skill in directing the reader's attention to the men andthe episodes that will influence the course of the whole war,without omitting items which are of momentary interest. Hisorganization of facts could hardly bebetter."-- Atlantic
In 1648, Europe was essentially a medieval society. By 1815, itwas the powerhouse of the modern world. In exuberant prose, TimBlanning investigates ?“the very hinge of European history?”( The New York Times ) between the end of the Thirty Y ears?’War and the Battle of Waterloo that witnessed five of the modernworld?’s great revolutions: scientific, industrial, American,French, and romantic. Blanning renders this vast subject digestibleand absorbing by making fresh connections between the most mundanedetails of life and the major cultural, political, andtechnological transformations that birthed the modern age.
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, PulitzerPrize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the greatuntold stories of American history: the decades-long migration ofblack citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities,in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus ofalmost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkersoncompares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples inhistory. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gainedaccess to new data and official records, to write this definitiveand vividly dramatic account of how these American journeysunfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this storythrough the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, whoin 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi forChicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in oldage, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senateseat; sh
The Battle ofNormandy was the greatest offensive campaign the world had everseen. Millions of soldiers struggling for the control of Europewere thrust onto the front lines of a massive war unlike anyexperienced in history. But this greatest of clashes would prove tobe the crucible in which the outcome of World War II would bedecided. It began on D-Day. June 6, 1944-the day that the Allied Forceslaunched Operation Overlord: the great crusade to free Europe fromthe iron grip of Nazi Germany. But only when the troops were ashoredid the real battle begin. With Nazi defenders marshaling to stop the invaders, Hitler and hisgenerals schemed to counterattack. Tightly constricted hedgerowcountry and bitter German resistance held the Allied advance to acrawl. Suddenly the Allies broke through and trapped the Naziarmies. Yet within weeks of this stunning disaster, the Germanssmashed the most dangerous Allied offensive yet. How was this possible? In Normandy Crucible , noted authorJohn Prados offers a penetrating acco
More dramtatic than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is amagnificent narrative--beautifully organized, elegantly phrased,skillfully paced and sustained....The product of painstaking andsophisticated research. CHICAGO TRIBUNE Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman hasbrought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl WarI. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledgeof her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for thefirst time, just how the war started, why, and why it could havebeen stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time anda people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST willnot be forgotten.
Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World , here turns his attention toa common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt.The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the verybeginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part ofthe history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served ascurrency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes andcities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspiredrevolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with anunending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopichistory is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
I have never read a better, more vivid, more understandableaccount of the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies....Foote stays with the human strife and suffering, and unlike mostSouthern commentators, he does not take sides. In objectivity, inrange, in mastery of detail in beauty of language and feeling forthe people involved, this work surpasses anything else on thesubject.... It stands alongside the work of the best ofthem.-- New Republic
Covering the dramatic rise of German science in the nineteenthcentury, its preeminence in the early twentieth, and thefrightening developments that led to its collapse in 1945, this isthe compelling story of German scientists under Hitler’s regime.Weaving the history of science and technology with the fortunes ofwar and the stories of men and women whose discoveries brought bothbenefits and destruction to the world, Hitler’s Scientists raises questions that are still urgent today. As science becomesembroiled in new generations of weapons of mass destruction and thewar against terrorism, as advances in biotechnology outstriptraditional ethics, this powerful account of Nazi science forms acrucial commentary on the ethical role of science.
In 1944,eighteen-year-old university student Leo Litwak finds himself in the middle of the waning European war,a medic trained to save lives but often powerless to do much more than watch life slip away.instead of a rifle he carries bandages, sulfa powder, morphine_and only a red cross to protect him.This is the true story of real people in war _friende and thieves,dreamers and killers,jokers and heroes_as wellas theper-sonal account of a young American plucked from a sheltered,comfort-asble life and sent to a foreign land to save the men fighting to save the world.Few books have portrayed the grit and wonder of war with such eloquence,and still fewer have shown how war looks through the eyes of a soldier whose mission was saving lives,not taking them.
rom one of the great political journalists of our time comes aboldly argued reinterpretation of the central event in ourcollective past--a book that portrays the American Revolution notas a clash of ideologies but as a Machiavellian struggle forpower.
Completed in 1136, "The History of the Kings of Britain"traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation byBrutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later.Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such asLear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous of allBritish heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is historyand its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. ButGeoffrey of Monmouth's powerful evocation of illustrious men anddeeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and hisinfluence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare,Dryden and Tennyson.
Leading a Learning Revolution tells the compelling story of a learning revolution that took place within the U.S. Department of Defense. Written by practitioners who actually walked the walk, this account of the creation of Defense Acquisition University (DAU) provides a clear blueprint that others can follow. It shares, in detail, the best practices they developed, so that the thousands of training organizations worldwide striving to create premier corporate universities can catapult forward. Offering an insider s look at the process, the authors clearly explain how they transformed an outdated training provider into a world-class university. Step-by-step the book outlines the enduring principles that were pivotal to Defense Acquisition University s success and describes the environment, early victories, current methods, and subsequent results. The authors discuss how to establish a mission and vision, develop a performance-based strategic planning process, and tackle change initiative. They also expl
The remarkable life of Alexander the Great, one of thegreatest military geniuses of all time, vividly told by one of theworld's leading exp erts in Greek history. With all theintensity, insight, and narrative drive that made The Spartans sucha hit with critics and readers, Paul Cartledge's Alexander theGreat: glowingly illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander(356-323 BC), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, andfounder of a new world order. Cartledge, the distinguished scholarand historian long acknowledged as the leading internationalauthority on ancient Sparta and Greece, brilliantly evokesAlexander's remarkable political and military accomplishments,leads us along the geographical path of his victorious armies, andcompellingly charting the tremendous field of this warrior hero'sinfluence. Alexander's legacy has had an astounding impact onmilitary tacticians, scholars, and statesmen—in his own lifetimeand in ours. In various countries and at various times he has beenseen as
In this perfect companion to London: The Biography ,Peter Ackroyd once again delves into the hidden byways of history,describing the river's endless allure in a journey overflowing withcharacters, incidents, and wry observations. Thames: TheBiography meanders gloriously, rather like the river itself. Inshort, lively chapters Ackroyd writes about connections between theThames and such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Henry VIII,and offers memorable portraits of the ordinary men and women whodepend upon the river for their livelihoods. The Thames as a sourceof artistic inspiration comes brilliantly to life as Ackroydinvokes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Turner, Shelley, and other writers,poets, and painters who have been enchanted by its many moods andcolors.
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
In a remarkably vibrant narrative, Michael Stürmer blends highpolitics, social history, portraiture, and an unparalleled commandof military and economic developments to tell the story ofGermany’s breakneck rise from new nation to Continental superpower.It begins with the German military’s greatest triumph, theFranco-Prussian War, and then tracks the forces of unification,industrialization, colonization, and militarization as theycombined to propel Germany to become the force that fatallydestabilized Europe’s balance of power. Without The GermanEmpire ’s masterly rendering of this story, a full understandingof the roots of World War I and World War II is impossible.
David Kertzer's absorbing history presents an astonishingaccount of the birth of modern Italy and the clandestine politicsbehind the Vatican's last stand in the battle between church andthe newly created Italian state. Taking advantage of a wealth ofsecret documents long buried in the Vatican archives, Prisoner ofthe Vatican begins by looking at the embattled Pius IX. WhenItaly's armies seized the Holy City and claimed it for the Italiancapital, the pope, outraged, retreated to the Vatican and declaredhimself a prisoner, calling on foreign powers to force the Italiansout of Rome. The action set in motion decades of politicalintrigues, little known until now, that hinged on such fascinatingcharacters as Garibaldi, Napoleon III, and Chancellor Bismarck. Noone who reads this eye-opening book will ever think of Italy, orthe Vatican, in quite the same way again.
Gibbon’s masterpiece, which narrates the history of the RomanEmpire from the second century a.d. to its collapse in the west inthe fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, iswidely considered the greatest work of history ever written. Thisabridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a compassequivalent to a long novel. Casual readers now have access to thefull sweep of Gibbon’s narrative, while instructors and studentshave a volume that can be read in a single term. This uniqueedition emphasizes elements ignored in all other abridgments—inparticular the role of religion in the empire and the rise ofIslam.
Menzies makes the fascinating argument that the Chinese discovered the Americas a full 70 years before Columbus. Not only did the Chinese discover America first, but they also, according to the author, established a number of subsequently lost colonies in the Caribbean. Furthermore, he asserts that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe, desalinated water, and perfected the art of cartography. In fact, he believes that most of the renowned European explorers actually sailed with maps charted by the Chinese. Though most historical records were destroyed during centuries of turmoil in the Far East, he manages to cobble together some feasible evidence supporting his controversial conclusions. Sure to cause a stir among historians, this questionable tale of adventure on the high seas will be hotly debated in academic circles. Margaret Flanagan
Now at last in a single, abridged paperback - the definitivelife. Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography of Hitler was greeted withuniversal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malignfigures in history. Now this landmark biography is available in onesingle, abridged edition, tracing the story of how a bitter, failedart student from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleledpower, destroying the lives of millions and unleashingArmageddon.
