The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination

Review “Fresh and important . . . We rush on through [Summers’s] narrative as if we were reading an artful thriller.” — The New York Times “ Not in Your Lifetime is what some refer to as the Bible of JFK literature. It shows us how to look at both sides of the assassination debate with a critical eye.” —Jacob Carter, Before History Dies About the Author Anthony Summers is the bestselling author of ten works of nonfiction. His investigative books include Not in Your Lifetime , the critically acclaimed account of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover ; Goddess , a biography of Marilyn Monroe; and most recently The Eleventh Day , on the 9/11 attacks—a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Keep Your Sexy Sacred: Winning the War Between the Flesh and the Spirit

Meditations on Awareness Itself

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific

About the Author Eric M. Bergerud is an author and professor of military and American history at Lincoln University in San Francisco. His works include Red Thunder Tropic Lightning and Touched with Fire .

The Executioner's Song

About the Author Norman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1955, he was one of the co-founders of the Village Voice . He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Naked and the Dead ; The Armies of the Night , for which he won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Executioner's Song , for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize; Harlot's Ghost ; Oswald's Tale ; The Gospel According to the Son , The Castle and the Forest and On God . He died in 2007. Dave Eggers is the award-winning and bestselling author of many books, including the National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the King , as well as books for younger readers including What Can a Citizen Do?, Her Right Foot, This Bridge Will Not Be Gray , and The Lifters . He is the founder of the independent publishing company McSweeney's and the nonprofit organization ScholarMatch, in addition to cofounding The International Congress of Youth Voices and 826 Valencia, which has inspired similar organizations worldwide. Eggers lives in Northern California.

L.A. Confidential

Amazon.com Review James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown , Hollywood Babylon , Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad - like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom. Ellroy himself was traumatized as a boy by his party-animal mother's murder. (See his memoir My Dark Places for the whole sordid story.) So it is clear that Bud is partly autobiographical. But Exley, whose shiny reputation conceals a dark secret, and Vincennes, who goes showbiz with a vengeance, reflect parts of Ellroy, too. L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer--based (unfairly) on Walt Disney-- schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent. Ellroy's hardboiled prose is so compressed that some of his rat-a-tat paragraphs are hard to follow. You have to read with attention as intense as hisand that is very intense indeed. But he richly rewards the effort. He may not be as deep and literary as Chandler, but he belongs on the same top-level shelf.

Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship That Shaped the Sixties

Review "Brings alive two talented, tireless characters…Schultz weave[s] their contrasting public lives together in a way that helps to make sense of an era." ― Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street Journal "[A] perceptive dual portrait…Schultz does a superb job of contextualizing their differing positions." ― Kevin Canfield, Minneapolis Star Tribune "A largely respectful portrait, but Schultz doesn’t sugarcoat his subjects’ failings…Flawed these men were for sure. But…it’s good to remember pundits who thought big, fought big, had something to say and said it with hellacious verve." ― Chris Tucker, Dallas Morning News "Illuminate[s], often entertainingly, the cultural and political upheaval of the sixties." ― Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor "Schultz brings a good-natured, entertaining and, rare in academe, highly readable style to his treatment of two 20th century America patriots whose lives enriched us all." ― John R. Coyne Jr., Washington Times "[A] provocative and thorough . . . social and political history of the sixties, among the very best we have had." ― Mark Levine, Booklist (starred review) "Deliciously entertaining and insightful, Buckley and Mailer uses the strange yet meaningful friendship between its combustible protagonists to illuminate its real subject: America’s most tumultuous decade." ― Matthew Stewart, author of Nature’s God "One might think that Bill Buckley and Norman Mailer were not at all alike, but Kevin M. Schultz, in his very entertaining book, reminds us to think again. In fact, despite their complicated political differences, these two American originals liked each other, tried to understand each other, and discovered that that they had much in common: a passion for engagement, for literate expression, and perhaps above all the pleasure they took in playing their outsize selves." ― Jeffrey Frank, best-selling author of Ike and Dick "Riveting. In this superbly written account of two of the most fascinating and important 20th-century American intellectuals, Kevin M. Schultz not only brings the spirits of William Buckley and Norman Mailer back to life, he endows us with a subtle yet profound analytical framework for understanding the massive social changes set off during the Sixties. Anyone who wants to understand contemporary American political culture needs to read this book." ― Andrew Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America About the Author Kevin M. Schultz holds a PhD in history from Berkeley and teaches twentieth-century American history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Chicago.

Alexander Hamilton

Review ". . . [N]obody has captured Hamilton better than Chernow . . ." — The New York Times Book Review ". . . [A] biography commensurate with Hamilton's character, as well as the full, complex context of his unflaggingly active life.... This is a fine work that captures Hamilton's life with judiciousness and verve." — Publishers Weekly "A splendid life of an enlightened reactionary and forgotten Founding Father. Literate and full of engaging historical asides. By far the best of the many lives of Hamilton now in print, and a model of the biographer’s art." — Kirkus Reviews (starred) "A robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all." — Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation "A brilliant historian has done it again! The thoroughness and integrity of Ron Chernow’s research shines forth on every page of his Alexander Hamilton. He has created a vivid and compelling portrait of a remarkable man—and at the same time he has made a monumental contribution to our understanding of the beginnings of the American Republic.” —Robert A. Caro, author of The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson "Alexander Hamilton was one of the most brilliant men of his brilliant time, and one of the most fascinating figures in all of American history. His rocketing life-story is utterly amazing. His importance to the founding of the new nation, and thus to the whole course of American history, can hardly be overstated. And so Ron Chernow's new Hamilton could not be more welcome. This is grand-scale biography at its best—thorough, insightful, consistently fair, and superbly written. It clears away more than a few shop-worn misconceptions about Hamilton, gives credit where credit is due, and is both clear-eyed and understanding about its very human subject. Its numerous portraits of the complex, often conflicting cast of characters are deft and telling. The whole life and times are here in a genuinely great book." —David McCullough, author of John Adams About the Author Ron Chernow is the prizewinning author of seven books and the recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal. His first book, The House of Morgan , won the National Book Award; Washington: A Life won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; and Alexander Hamilton— the inspiration for the Broadway musical—won the George Washington Book Prize. His other books include The Warburgs, The Death of the Banker, Titan, and Grant . A past president of PEN America, Chernow has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates. He resides in Brooklyn, New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. On the night of April 18, 1775, 800 British troops marched out of Boston to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seize a stockpile of patriot munitions in Concord, Massachusetts. As they passed Lexington, they encountered a motley battalion of militia farmers known as Minutemen, and in the ensuing exchange of gunfire the British killed 8 colonists and then 2 more in Concord. As the redcoats retreated helter-skelter to Boston, they were riddled by sniper fire that erupted from behind hedges, stone walls, and fences, leaving a bloody trail of 273 British casualties versus 95 dead or wounded for the patriots.The news reached New York within four days and a mood of insurrection promptly overtook the city. People gathered at taverns and street corners to ponder events while Tories quaked. The newly emboldened Sons of Liberty streamed down to the East River docks, pilfered ships bound for British troops in Boston, then emptied the city hall arsenal of its muskets, bayonets, and cartridge boxes, grabbing a thousand weapons in all.Armed with this cache, volunteer militia companies sprang up overnight. However much the British might deride these ragtag citizen-soldiers, they conducted their business seriously. Inflamed by the astonishing news from Massachusetts, Alexander Hamilton, then a student at King’s College (later Columbia University), was that singular intellectual who picked up a musket as fast as a pen. Nicholas Fish recalled that “immediately after the Battle of Lexington, [Hamilton] attached himself to one of the uniform companies of militia then forming for the defence of the country by the patriotic young men of this city under the command of Captain Fleming.” Fish and Robert Troup, both classmates of Hamilton, were among the earnest cadre of King’s College volunteers who drilled before classes each morning in the churchyard of nearby St. Paul’s Chapel. The fledgling volunteer company was named the Hearts of Oak. The young recruits marched briskly past tombstones with the motto of “Liberty or Death” stitched across their round leather caps. On short, snug green jackets they also sported, for good measure, red tin hearts that announced “God and our Right.”Hamilton approached this daily routine with the same perfectionist ardor that he exhibited in his studies. Troup stressed the “military spirit” infused into Hamilton and noted that he was “constant in his attendance and very ambitious of improvement.” Never one to fumble an opportunity, Hamilton embarked on a comprehensive military education. With his absorbent mind, he mastered infantry drills, pored over volumes on military tactics and learned the rudiments of gunnery and pyrotechnics from a veteran bombardier. There was a particular doggedness about this young man, as if he were already in training for something far beyond lowly infantry duty.On April 24, a huge throng of patriots massed in front of city hall. While radicals grew giddy with excitement, many terrified Tory merchants began to book passage for England. The next day, an anonymous handbill blamed Myles Cooper, the Tory president of King’s College, and four other “obnoxious gentlemen” for patriotic deaths in Massachusetts and said the moment had passed for symbolic gestures. “The injury you have done to your country cannot admit of reparation,” these five loyalists were warned. “Fly for your lives or anticipate your doom by becoming your own executioners.” A defiant Myles Cooper stuck to his post.After a demonstration on the night of May 10, hundreds of protesters, armed with clubs and heated by a heady brew of political rhetoric and strong drink, descended on King’s College, ready to inflict rough justice on Myles Cooper. Hercules Mulligan recalled that Cooper “was a Tory and an obnoxious man and the mob went to the college with the intention of tarring and feathering him or riding him upon a rail.” Nicholas Ogden, a King’s alumnus, saw the angry mob swarming toward the college and raced ahead to Cooper’s room, urging the president to scramble down a back window. Because Hamilton and Troup shared a room near Cooper’s quarters, Ogden also alerted them to the approaching mob. “Whereupon Hamilton instantly resolved to take his stand on the stairs [the outer stoop] in front of the Doctor’s apartment and there to detain the mob as long as he could by an harangue in order to gain the Doctor the more time for his escape,” Troup recorded.After the mob knocked down the gate and surged toward the residence, Hamilton launched into an impassioned speech, telling the boisterous protesters that their conduct, instead of promoting their cause, would “disgrace and injure the glorious cause of liberty.” One account has the slightly deaf Cooper poking his head from an upper-story window and observing Hamilton gesticulating on the stoop below. He mistakenly thought that his pupil was inciting the crowd instead of pacifying them and shouted, “Don’t mind what he says. He’s crazy!” Another account has Cooper shouting at the ruffians: “Don’t believe anything Hamilton says. He’s a little fool!” The more plausible version is that Cooper had vanished, having scampered away in his nightgown once Ogden forewarned him of the approaching mob.Hamilton knew he couldn’t stop the intruders but he won the vital minutes necessary for Cooper to clamber over a back fence and rush down to the Hudson. Of all the incidents in Hamilton’s early life in America, his spontaneous defense of Myles Cooper was probably the most telling. It showed that he could separate personal honor from political convictions and presaged a recurring theme of his career: the superiority of forgiveness over revenge. Most of all, the episode captured the contradictory impulses struggling inside this complex young man, an ardent revolutionary with a profound dread that popular sentiment would boil over into dangerous excess. Read more

The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

Review “An ambitious, vivid account . . . A vital and anecdotally rich history of the struggle to organize coal miners in West Virginia . . . Green presents readers with a refreshingly nuanced and fuller depiction of this class of workers than previously conceived . . . The Devil Is Here in These Hills is ambitious in scope [and] fast-moving.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune “The story James Green has to tell in The Devil Is Here in These Hills . . . is among the best and largely forgotten American stories.” — New York Times “James Green provides what could be the best history of events in West Virginia from 1892 to 1933, especially in the coalfields.” — Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) “ The Devil is Here in These Hills provides much needed perspective on the economic, social and political issues that still confound the Mountaineer State. . . . The author’s nuanced treatment . . . is the way history should be written. . . . Mr. Green’s thorough research and steady analysis . . . gives this backwoods struggle between capital and labor the due it deserves. He tells a dark, often despairing story from a century ago that rings true today.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Deepens our understanding of . . . well-known labor conflicts . . . The Devil Is Here in These Hills not only succeeds in bringing together heretofore disparate episodes in coal miners’ struggles for social justice but convincingly connects these moments and movements to a central theme: ‘a people’s fight to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of association in the workplaces where the rights of property owners had reigned supreme.’” — Journal of American History “A lively and accessible history of the West Virginia mine wars and the struggle for the United Mine Workers of America union from the 1890s through the 1920s. This is the most authoritative book written on this bloody and turbulent chapter of US history since David Allan Corbin’s 1981 Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields .” — Choice “James Green has resurrected an important, searing piece of our heritage—and just the kind of thing your high school American History teacher didn’t teach you. His lively and moving account of the West Virginia mine wars is a reminder of how painfully long people in this country had to fight to gain even barely decent wages and working conditions. And, as today’s gap between the 1% and everyone else grows ever wider, the era of the robber barons he evokes so well doesn’t seem that far away.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopold’s Ghost “In James Green’s capable hands, the bloody Appalachian mine wars become an important national story of the forces of corporate greed met with the indomitable power of the human spirit. Insightful, eloquent— The Devil is Here in These Hills will forever change the way we think of the miners’ role in early twentieth century history.” —Philip Dray, author of There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America “ The Devil is in These Hills is the most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I've ever read. James Green has made sense of a half century of violent confrontation.” —John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan “Green mines the historically dark seams of the sanguinary Mountain State coal wars that raged in the early decades of the 20th century. . . . Green opens our eyes with his assiduous research and steady storytelling.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Green . . . has assembled a gritty cast of characters in this fact-rich recounting of the West Virginia mine war . . . These events, until now with Green’s account, have been largely forgotten, in some instances suppressed. Green gives the troubling era rebirth.” —Bookreporter “Green does an outstanding job here of bringing this period to life, giving readers a vivid picture of the hardscrabble Appalachian miners’ day-to-day existence and their frequent bloody skirmishes with coal company hired guns . . . A thoroughly documented and masterfully written account of a little-remembered but critical period in U.S. history, when unions scored a major victory for workers’ rights.” — Booklist “There are many fine photos of the struggles in West Virginia, but Green gives us a full-length feature film, telling the fifty-year-long saga of the fight against greed and exploitation. An excellent book.” —Elliott Gorn, professor of history at Loyola University Chicago and author of Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America “James Green’s The Devil is Here in These Hills brilliantly locates the West Virginia Mine Wars within the contexts of West Virginia and American history and portrays this story as a basic struggle for the freedoms Americans have always expected as their birthright. Green personifies this class struggle in a panorama of heroes, antiheroes, and the mass of ordinary people doing unordinary things to achieve a better life. This is an outstanding book which, undoubtedly, will stand for a long time to come as the best single volume on the subject.” —Ronald L. Lewis, Professor of History Emeritus, West Virginia University “James Green’s astonishing book deftly depicts a multinational and interracial group of hard-bitten men, rallied by an Irish-born grandmother, who waged a war for democracy that lasted forty years. As this masterful history demonstrates, the South was often a hotbed of unionism, poor women proved feisty and enduring adversaries, and remote ‘hillbillies’ lived in one of the most industrialized regimes in the world. . . . As Americans grow increasingly concerned about global capital’s oppression of workers, we would do well to understand how and why it happened here and what it took to stop it.” —Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University “Engaging and easy to follow. [Green] is a gifted storyteller who manages to weave a fascinating narrative that is both scholarly and fun to read. . . . Another strength of Green’s book is his ability to put the labor strife in broader contexts, specifically that of Appalachian culture, and the labor strife prominent in much of the U.S. . . . I would recommend The Devil is Here in These Hills to anyone with an interest in American history, mining, or Appalachian studies. James Green has written an enlightening, accessible tome that should become the standard history of mining unionization in America.” —Appalachian History “A story full of pathos and amazing characters that seem invented for a novel or film and become larger than life in Green’s deft hands . . . Green . . . plumbs much of the little-known scholarly work on various aspects of these years to give us a new and compelling accessible synthesis.” — West Virginia History “Celebrated labor historian James Green tells the story of West Virginia and coal like never before.” — Grand Forks Herald (North Dakota) “[A] captivating new book . . . Aside from telling riveting stories of labor battles, Green also dissects how the mine wars are interpreted today . . . [A] beautifully written account.” —Truthout “James Green brings to light a little-known labor battle that never garnered the same fame as the automotive and steel industry tussles, yet exceeds those scraps in the depths of its brutality and inhumanity . . . This engaging account mirrors many economic issues of the present day.” — Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star About the Author James Green is the author of five books, including the critically acclaimed Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America . Green received his PhD in history from Yale University and is a professor of history emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World

Review "If you want to explore the latest science behind The Secret , look no further. Science and wisdom collide and make friends in this real-world adventure that is ultimately a guidebook for living." -- Drew Heriot, director of The Secret"Lynne McTaggart has zeroed in on a wonderful collection of experiments and events that shatters our normal materialistic assumptions of time, space, and everything in between (if there is an in-between). It's as mind-bending as it's meant to be." -- William Arntz, producer, writer, and director of What the BLEEP Do We Know!?"Very few books are able to transform information into inspiration—concepts into action—word into deed. The Intention Experiment does exactly that. In a style that is highly entertaining and accessible, McTaggart reminds us of an eternal truth too often overlooked: Each of us possesses the power of the Universe WITHIN. Now that is a transformational read!" -- Ward M. Powers, filmmaker and director of ONE: The Movie" The Intention Experiment is an extraordinary advance in our understanding of consciousness as a field of all possibilities where intention orchestrates its own fulfillment. If you want to empower yourself and use the laws of intention to manifest your material reality, read this book." -- Deepak Chopra, author of Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment About the Author Lynne McTaggart, one of the central authorities on the new science of consciousness, is the award-winning author of seven books, including the internationally bestselling The Intention Experiment and The Field . She is also editorial director of What Doctors Don’t Tell You , one of the world’s most respected health magazines, and architect of the Intention Experiments, a web-based “global laboratory.” A highly sought-after public speaker, Lynne is consistently listed as one of the world’s 100 most spiritually influential people. Lynne and her husband, author and WDDTY co-founder Bryan Hubbard, who live in London, have two adult daughters.

UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record

Review "At last, a serious and thoughtful book about this controversial subject. Skeptics and true believers will find a treasure trove of insightful and eye opening information. This book is bound to set the gold standard for UFO research."                    —Michio Kaku, Ph.D. Author of Physics of the Impossible and host of Sci Fi Science on the Science Channel “I was astonished by the care and precision of Leslie Kean’s research in this terrific book.  Her analysis is carefully reasoned and to the point; her craftsmanship in organization and writing are superb.    Her expose' raises important questions: Why does the US government create public distrust by neglecting this important topic? Why do its agencies avoid investigating cases of interference with flight operations and instead issue absurd cover-up stories?  This book is ultimately an appeal to all scholars for an "extraordinary investigation of an extraordinary phenomenon.”  —Rudy Schild, Ph.D., Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics “Like me, Leslie Kean is an agnostic on the issue of UFOs.  Her book is a fine piece of journalism - not about beliefs, but about facts.  Kean presents the most accurate, most credible reports on UFO's you will ever find.  She has fought long and hard to discover the facts and let the chips fall where they may . She may not have the final smoking gun, but I smell the gunpowder.” —Miles O'Brien, former CNN space/science correspondent  “I find explanations offered by UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists to be implausible, but I also have little patience with "deniers" who ridicule credible reports.  Leslie Kean has found a thoughtful path between extreme views, documenting the UFO mystery with intelligence and insight. She makes a strong case for U.S. participation in official, international UFO investigations and for public dissemination of the results.  The fascinating first-hand accounts make this a thought-provoking book, even for those of us who don’t know much about UFOs.”    —Neal Lane, Ph.D., Rice University; former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy  “If you don't know much about UFOs, you must read this book. If you think that UFO reports are nonsense, this book will disabuse you of that notion. Leslie Kean's UFOs informs readers at every level of knowledge and belief.  It could, and should, become the "tipping point" that leads to public acceptance of the reality of UFOs and all of its implications.” —Don Donderi, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, McGill University (Ret.)  “In an area of study where there aren’t many, this is a serious book.  It is credible, clear, and compelling, without any farfetched jumps in logic and assumption.  Its credibility begins on the first page with John Podesta and continues with case studies of extraordinary quality to the very end.  Leslie Kean not only makes the case for, but calls for, a whole new concrete and realistic perspective on UFOs that has more honesty and integrity than any other that I have read.  This is a book for anyone with an open mind.”  —John L. Petersen, Founder & President of The Arlington Institute “In these pages we are confronted head-on by the UFO phenomenon as revealed firsthand by highly credible government officials and military aviation experts. Their credibility and integrity cannot be questioned, and their firsthand observations cannot be ignored.  Leslie Kean provides a challenging analysis and she writes with penetrating depth and insight. The revelations in this book constitute a watershed event in lifting the taboo against rational discourse about this controversial subject.”—Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D., Director of The Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin “When I started reading Leslie Kean’s UFOs , I found it very difficult to stop. This is an unprecedented assessment of what may be the greatest challenge ever presented to mankind . In an outstanding piece of investigative journalism , Kean provides a well-written and convincing appeal for change in dealing with a phenomenon that can no longer be ignored.”  —Jean-Claude Ribes, Ph.D., Paris Observatory (Ret.) “For anyone who questions why - after more than fifty  years of denial, ridicule, and dismissal - many scientists, academics, political figures, and military personnel still insist that the subject of UFOs should be taken seriously, this book provides the answer.  Leslie Kean offers compelling documentation that physical objects, with flight characteristics not yet achievable by known technology, are being routinely reported in our skies.  They represent a mystery that needs to be solved.”  —Stuart Appelle, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Science and Mathematics, State University of New York, Brockport"Leslie Kean’s astonishing book is the finest piece of investigative journalism ever written on this subject.  She has an incomparable ability to ‘give voice’ to a constituency of exceptionally qualified and unbiased first-hand observers. They are not from the fringe, not groupies, and not delusional.  Rather, they are high-level military, intelligence, aerospace, and government officials who speak with authority while providing reports that document actual, physical craft. Kean’s book represents the first important step toward a new U.S. government openness about UFOs.  It brings forward a reality otherwise buried for far too long inside official mystery, and elevates the discourse above that of small-minded public discussions."—Christopher C. Green, MD, Ph.D., Harper University Hospital, Wayne State University School of Medicine About the Author Leslie Kean is an investigative journalist who has been published internationally and nationally in the Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Providence Journal, The Nation, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, and Journal of Scientific Exploration, among other publications. She is coauthor of Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit and cofounder of the Coalition for Freedom of Information. She lives in New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1  Majestic Craft with Powerful Beaming Spotlights    We begin this exploration on very solid ground, with a Major General’s firsthand chronicle of one of the most vivid and well- documented UFO cases ever. What you are about to read will demonstrate the dramatic, and very mysterious, physicality of UFOs— in this case, ones that were unusually bold. Although parts may sound like science fiction, they are not. The fact is that silent gliding or hovering objects, usually triangular, were seen by thousands of people and investigated by university scientists and government officials, yet they could never be explained. They left imprints on film, and although virtually impossible to detect on radar, they triggered the launching of Air Force F- 16s in anxious pursuit. The sightings occurred in a more than two- year “wave” over Belgium, beginning in late 1989.   To launch this book’s exploration into the UFO phenomenon, Belgian Major General Wilfried De Brouwer, now retired, has provided an exclusive account that includes some personal responses he has never expressed before. As chief of the Operations Division in the Air Staff, then Colonel De Brouwer played a prominent role, along with officials from other branches of government, in mobilizing various departments to try to identify the strange intruders that kept showing up unannounced over cities and countryside. “Hundreds of people saw a majestic triangular craft with a span of approximately a hundred and twenty feet and powerful beaming spotlights, moving very slowly without making any significant noise but, in several cases, accelerating to very high speeds,” De Brouwer stated publicly a few years ago, describing only the first night of the wave. Numerous police officers were among the initial group of witnesses, reporting from different locations as the multiple flying craft hovered and glided and lit up fields along their routes— the same officers who had joked dismissively when first receiving radio calls about the sightings. And the strange objects kept returning, for some unfathomable reason, to display themselves over the otherwise quiet territory of Belgium.   Colonel De Brouwer was tasked to handle the UFO wave by his country’s defense minister, Guy Coëme. After spending twenty years as a fighter pilot in the Belgian Air Force, De Brouwer had been appointed to the Strategic Planning Branch in NATO in 1983, while a colonel. He then became Wing Commander of the Belgian Air Force Transport Wing and, in 1989, chief of the Operations Division in the Air Staff. Promoted to Major General in 1991, he became Deputy Chief of Staff of the Belgian Air Force, in charge of operations, planning, and human resources. Beginning in 1995, after his retirement from the Air Force, he worked for more than ten years as a consultant for the United Nations to improve the UN Logistics rapid- response capabilities during emergencies. A man of great integrity and responsibility, De Brouwer was determined to do everything he could to find out what was invading Belgian airspace and repeatedly committing infractions of basic aviation rules.   I first came to know General De Brouwer personally when arranging his trip to Washington, D.C., in November 2007 to speak at an international press conference I organized with filmmaker James Fox. We brought together a panel of former high- ranking government, aviation, and military officials from seven countries to speak to the press about UFO incidents and investigations, which was filmed for a new documentary. We also wanted to give these courageous speakers the opportunity to meet their counterparts from other countries and talk privately over a period of days. Many of the contributors to this book met then for the first time.   General De Brouwer is extremely concerned about factual accuracy, conservative in his estimations, and meticulous in his attention to detail. He is a man who does not jump to conclusions, nor is he prone to exaggeration or embellishment. His concern for safeguarding the accurate record of events in Belgium has not let up, despite the passage of time. “Recently, when on the Internet, I discovered an accumulation of misinformation about the Belgian UFO wave,” he wrote me in an e- mail while we worked on editing his extensive text. “This incited me to react; I cannot accept that so- called researchers come forward with assumptions that are based on incorrect information. Testimonies of hundreds of people are neglected and attempts are made to convince outsiders that the observations were nothing more than misperceptions of ordinary craft. Also, the official statements of the Minister of Defense and the Air Force have been neglected or misinterpreted by these ‘researchers.’ ”   In one of our more recent conversations, I asked the general to refl act back on his experience during the Belgian UFO wave twenty years ago—which he says was unique but also frustrating, since they were unable to identify the trespassing craft. What impressed him most was the utmost sincerity of the witnesses he spoke to, many of whom were “highly qualified intellectuals genuinely overwhelmed by what they had seen and convinced that they were not dealing with conventional technology.” Unfortunately, they were often afraid to come forward because of the stigma attached to UFOs. “One person I had known for many years worked within NATO at the time,” De Brouwer said. “He was so astonished that he didn’t dare to mention it to anyone, not even to his wife. He only conveyed his experience to me on condition that I wouldn’t reveal his name.” Read more

The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism

Review “A superb work of scholarship and a delight to read. Conservatives will relish the anecdotes, the explanations of half-remembered books; liberals will learn something about their adversaries….invaluable clarity.”― Wall Street Journal, Best Politics Books of 2022 “Superb….[Continetti] brings an insider’s nuance and a historian’s dispassion to the ambitious task of writing the American right’s biography, and he adds a journalist’s knack for deft portraiture and telling details.” ― Jonathan Rauch , New York Times “Mr. Continetti captures beautifully the ad hoc, rearguard nature of American conservatism.”― Wall Street Journal “ The Right is readable and relatable, well-written and engaging. The author’s command of facts is impressive."― The Guardian “[A] sturdy account of the many divisions within modern conservatism… Rational, well thought out, and impeccably argued—of interest to all students of politics.”― Kirkus, Starred “Matthew Continetti’s The Right is a rich and detailed survey from the 1920s to now.”― Financial Times “Thoroughly researched.”― The Economist “Continetti’s experiences have given him a valuable perspective on his subject… His description of life in the conservative machine has the feel of an eyewitness account.”― The New Republic “Matthew Continetti applies what scholars of all persuasions should do with American conservatism, treating it as a complex, contradictory movement, often at war between its populists and its intellectual elite wings… Continetti is skilled in going places and making conclusions other rightists don’t.”  ― The Federalist “An authoritative account of the complex interplay between conservative ideas, politics, and policy over the past century… Continetti is particularly well-positioned to tackle the topic.”― The Public Discourse "A compelling analysis..."― City Journal “A much more nuanced and satisfying portrait of the American right than is offered by most other journalists and historians.”― Reason "Continetti’s perspective is that of a consummate insider… He is, as a result, better attuned than most to the role of elites in the conservative ecosystem, as well as to the limits of their power.”― Unherd “Continetti’s book is an excellent primer for understanding key aspects of the last century of American politics, and many of the author’s recommendations are very shrewd. He covers a tremendous amount of ground with lucidity and panache.”― American Purpose "Important… Superior to any previous volume on this critical subject."― Quillette "Well-researched, lucidly presented, and evenhanded."― Commentary “Matthew Continetti has written a superb history of the conservative movement.”― World Magazine “[Continetti] skillfully leads us through the pulsing, fractious, improbable story of American conservatism all the way to today’s fractured Republican party…"― Mosaic “With The Right , Matthew Continetti has written a fine, comprehensive, and readable narrative of the rip-roaring history of American conservatism with its amazing repertory company of statesmen, philosophers, and eccentrics. It’s a remarkable achievement and a great read…”― Claremont Review of Books "A worthy analysis.”― Publishers Weekly “Matthew Continetti has earned his luminous reputation as the foremost contemporary chronicler of American conservatism’s path to today’s problematic condition. He traces conservatism’s rich intellectual pedigree, from the founders’ classical liberalism through twentieth-century conservatives’ responses to the challenges of progressivism. The result is a thinking person’s map for the road ahead.”― George F. Will, author of The Conservative Sensibility “Matthew Continetti has written an instant classic, sure to become the essential one-volume history of modern American conservatism. Balanced and subtle, it offers an engaging combination of intellectual and political history that makes sense of the immensely complicated story of the Right.”― Yuval Levin, author of A Time to Build “Deft and authoritative, Matthew Continetti illuminates conservatism’s present through its long and often tumultuous past. The Right isn’t just an engaging history and incisive analysis of the intra-conservative debate, but an essential contribution to it.”― Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review “An immensely useful contribution.”― Jonah Goldberg, editor in chief of The Dispatch “A brilliant synthesis of political and intellectual history, and it captures several themes essential in this moment.”― Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute About the Author Matthew Continetti is a senior fellow and the Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon and a columnist for Commentary magazine. The author of The Persecution of Sarah Palin and The K Street Gang , he lives in Virginia.

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

Amazon.com Review An Amazon Best Book of September 2016: A Gentleman in Moscow is the utterly entertaining second novel from the author of Rules of Civility . Amor Towles skillfully transports us to The Metropol, the famed Moscow hotel where movie stars and Russian royalty hobnob, where Bolsheviks plot revolutions and intellectuals discuss the merits of contemporary Russian writers, where spies spy, thieves thieve and the danger of twentieth century Russia lurks outside its marbled walls. It’s also where wealthy Count Alexander Rostov lives under house arrest for a poem deemed incendiary by the Bolsheviks, and meets Nina. Nina is a precocious and wide-eyed young girl who holds the keys to the entire hotel, wonders what it means to be a princess, and will irrevocably change his life. Despite being confined to the hallway of the hotel, the Count lives an absorbing, adventure-filled existence, filled with capers, conspiracies and culture. Alexander Rostov is a character for the ages--like Kay Thompson’s Eloise and Wes Anderson’s M. Gustav, he is unflinchingly (and hilariously for readers) devoted to his station, even when forced to wait tables, play hide and seek with a young girl, or confront communism. Towles magnificently conjures the grandeur of the Russian hotel and the vibrancy of the characters that call it home. --Al Woodworth, The Amazon Book Review Review "The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, [and] twists of fate." — The Wall Street Journal "If you're looking for a summer novel, this is it. Beautifully written, a story of a Russian aristocrat trapped in Moscow during the tumult of the 1930s. It brims with intelligence, erudition, and insight, an old-fashioned novel in the best sense of the term." —Fareed Zakaria, "Global Public Square," CNN "Fun, clever, and surprisingly upbeat . . . A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. There’s fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood and poetry. The book is technically historical fiction, but you would be just as accurate calling it a thriller or a love story.” —Bill Gates “The book is like a salve. I think the world feels disordered right now. The count’s refinement and genteel nature are exactly what we’re longing for.” — Ann Patchett “How delightful that in an era as crude as ours this finely composed novel stretches out with old-World elegance.” —The Washington Post “[A] wonderful book at any time . . . [I]t brought home to me how people find ways to be happy, make connections, and make a difference to one another’s lives, even in the strangest, saddest and most restrictive circumstances.” —Tana French, author of The Searcher “Marvelous.” — Chicago Tribune “The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, twists of fate and silly antics.” — The Wall Street Journal “A winning, stylish novel.” —NPR.org “Enjoyable, elegant.” — Seattle Times “The perfect book to curl up with while the world goes by outside your window.” —Refinery29 “Who will save Rostov from the intrusions of state if not the seamstresses, chefs, bartenders and doormen? In the end, Towles’s greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the generous transformation of these peripheral workers, over the course of decades, into confidants, equals and, finally, friends. With them around, a life sentence in these gilded halls might make Rostov the luckiest man in Russia.” — The New York Times Book Review “This is an old fashioned sort of romance, filled with delicious detail. Save this precious book for times you really, really want to escape reality.” —Louise Erdrich “Towles gets good mileage from the considerable charm of his protagonist and the peculiar world he inhabits.” — The New Yorker “Irresistible . . . In his second elegant period piece, Towles continues to explore the question of how a person can lead an authentic life in a time when mere survival is a feat in itself . . . Towles’s tale, as lavishly filigreed as a Fabergé egg, gleams with nostalgia for the golden age of Tolstoy and Turgenev.” — O, The Oprah Magazine “‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ and ‘Eloise’ meets all the Bond villains.” —TheSkimm “And the intrigue! . . . [ A Gentleman in Moscow ] is laced with sparkling threads (they will tie up) and tokens (they will matter): special keys, secret compartments, gold coins, vials of coveted liquid, old-fashioned pistols, duels and scars, hidden assignations (discreet and smoky), stolen passports, a ruby necklace, mysterious letters on elegant hotel stationery . . . a luscious stage set, backdrop for a downright Casablanca -like drama.” — The San Francisco Chronicle “The same gorgeous, layered richness that marked Towles’ debut, Rules of Civility , shapes [ A Gentleman in Moscow ].” — Entertainment Weekly Praise for Rules of Civility “An irresistible and astonishingly assured debut." — O, the Oprah Magazine “With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age…[his] characters are youthful Americans in tricky times, trying to create authentic lives.” — The New York Times Book Review “Sharp [and] sure-handed.” — Wall Street Journal “Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent." — People “[A] wonderful debut novel.” — The Chicago Tribune “Glittering…filled with snappy dialogue, sharp observations and an array of terrifically drawn characters…Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.” —NPR.org “A book that enchants on first reading and only improves on the second.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer About the Author Amor Towles is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow . The two novels have collectively sold more than four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From A Gentleman in Moscow : There were two restaurants in the Hotel Metropol: the Boyarsky, that fabled retreat on the second floor that we have already visited, and the grand dining room off the lobby known officially as the Metropol, but referred to affectionately by the Count as the Piazza.Admittedly, the Piazza could not challenge the elegance of the Boyarsky’s décor, the sophistication of its service, or the subtlety of its cuisine. But the Piazza did not aspire to elegance, service, or subtlety. With eighty tables scattered around a marble fountain and a menu offering everything from cabbage piroghi to cutlets of veal, the Piazza was meant to be an extension of the city—of its gardens, markets, and thorough fares. It was a place where Russians cut from every cloth could come to linger over coffee, happen upon friends, stumble into arguments, or drift into dalliances—and where the lone diner seated under the great glass ceiling could indulge himself in admiration, indignation, suspicion, and laughter without getting up from his chair.And the waiters? Like those of a Parisian café, the Piazza’s waiters could best be complimented as “efficient.” Accustomed to navigating crowds,they could easily seat your party of eight at a table for four. Having noted your preferences over the sound of the orchestra, within minutes they would return with the various drinks balanced on a tray and dispense them round the table in rapid succession without misplacing a glass. If, with your menu in hand, you hesitated for even a second to place your order, they would lean over your shoulder and poke at a specialty of the house. And when the last morsel of dessert had been savored, they would whisk away your plate, present your check, and make your change in under a minute. In other words, the waiters of the Piazza knew their trade to the crumb, the spoon, and the kopek.At least, that was how things were before the war. . . .Today, the dining room was nearly empty and the Count was being served by someone who appeared not only new to the Piazza, but new to the art of waiting. Tall and thin, with a narrow head and superior demeanor, he looked rather like a bishop that had been plucked from a chessboard. When the Count took his seat with a newspaper in hand—the international symbol of dining alone—the chap didn’t bother to clear the second setting; when the Count closed his menu and placed it beside his plate—the international symbol of readiness to order—the chap needed to be beckoned witha wave of the hand; and when the Count ordered the okroshka and filet of sole, the chap asked if he might like a glass of Sauterne. A perfect suggestion, no doubt, if only the Count had ordered foie gras!“Perhaps a bottle of the Châteaude Baudelaire,” the Count corrected politely.“Of course,” the Bishop replied with an ecclesiastical smile.Granted, a bottle of Baudelaire was something of an extravagance for a solitary lunch, but after spending another morning with the indefatigable Michel de Montaigne, the Count felt that his morale could use the boost. For several days, in fact, he had been fending off a state of restlessness. On his regular descent to the lobby, he caught himself counting the steps. As he browsed the headlines in his favorite chair, he found he was lifting his hands to twirl the tips of moustaches that were no longer there. He found he was walking through the door of the Piazza at 12:01 for lunch. And at 1:35, when he climbed the 110 steps to his room, he was already calculating the minutes until he could come back downstairs for a drink. If he continued along this course, it would not take long for the ceiling to edge downward, the walls to edge inward, and the floor to edge upward, until the entire hotel had been collapsed into the size of a biscuit tin.As the Count waited for his wine, he gazed around the restaurant, but his fellow diners offered no relief. Across the way was a table occupied by two stragglers from the diplomatic corps who picked at their food while they awaited an era of diplomacy. Over there in the corner was a spectacled denizen of the second floor with four enormous documents spread across his table, comparing them word for word. No one appeared particularly gay; and no one paid the Count any mind. That is, except for the young girl with the penchant for yellow who appeared to be spying on him from her table behind the fountain. According to Vasily, this nine-year-old with straight blond hair was the daughter of a widowed Ukrainian bureaucrat. As usual, she was sitting with her governess. When she realized the Count was looking her way, she disappeared behind her menu.“Your soup,” said the Bishop.“Ah. Thank you, my good man. It looks delicious. But don’t forget the wine!”“Of course.”Turning his attention to his okroshka, the Count could tell at a glance that it was a commendable execution—a bowl of soup that any Russian inthe room might have been served by his grandmother. Closing his eyes in order to give the first spoonful its due consideration, the Count noted asuitably chilled temperature, a tad too much salt, a tad too little kvass, but a perfect expression of dill—that harbinger of summer which brings to mind the songs of crickets and the setting of one’s soul at ease. But when the Count opened his eyes, he nearly dropped his spoon. For standing at the edge of his table was the young girl with the penchant for yellow—studying him with that unapologetic interest peculiarto children and dogs. Adding to the shock of her sudden appearance was the fact that her dress today was in the shade of a lemon.“Where did they go?” she asked, without a word of introduction.“I beg your pardon. Where did who go?”She tilted her head to take a closer look at his face.“Why, your moustaches.”The Count had not much cause to interact with children, but he had been raised well enough to know that a child should not idly approach a stranger, should not interrupt him in the middle of a meal, and certainly should not ask him questions about his personal appearance. Was the minding of one’s own business no longer a subject taught in schools?“Like swallows,” the Count answered, “they traveled elsewhere for the summer."Then he fluttered a hand from the table into the air in order to both mimic the flight of the swallows and suggest how a child might follow suit.She nodded to express her satisfaction with his response.“I too will be traveling elsewhere for part of the summer.”The Count inclined his head to indicate his congratulations.“To the Black Sea,” she added.Then she pulled back the empty chair and sat.“Would you like to join me?” he asked.By way of response, she wiggled back and forth to make herself comfortable then rested her elbows on the table. Around her neck hung a small pendant on a golden chain, some lucky charm or locket. The Count looked toward the young lady’s governess with the hopes of catching her attention, but she had obviously learned from experience to keep her nose in her book.The girl gave another canine tilt to her head.“Is it true that you are a count?”“’Tis true.”Her eyes widened.“Have you ever known a princess?”“I have known many princesses.”Her eyes widened further, then narrowed.“Was it terribly hard to be a princess?”“Terribly.”At that moment, despite the fact that half of the okroshka remained in its bowl, the Bishop appeared with the Count’s filet of sole and swapped one for the other.“Thank you,” said the Count, his spoon still in hand.“Of course.”The Count opened his mouth to inquire as to the whereabouts of the Baudelaire, but the Bishop had already vanished. When the Count turned back to his guest, she was staring at his fish.“What is that?” she wanted to know.“This? It is filet of sole.”“Is it good?”“Didn’t you have a lunch of your own?”“I didn’t like it.”The Count transferred a taste of his fish to a side plate and passed it across the table. “With my compliments.”She forked the whole thing in her mouth.“It’s yummy,” she said, which if not the most elegant expression was at least factually correct. Then she smiled a little sadly and let out a sigh as she directed her bright blue gaze upon the rest of his lunch.“Hmm,” said the Count.Retrieving the side plate, he transferred half his sole along with an equal share of spinach and baby carrots, and returned it. She wiggled back and forth once more, presumably to settle in for the duration. Then, having carefully pushed the vegetables to the edge of the plate, she cut her fish into four equal portions, put the right upper quadrant in her mouth, and resumed her line of inquiry.“How would a princess spend her day?”“Like any young lady,” answered the Count.With a nod of the head, the girl encouraged him to continue.“In the morning, she would have lessons in French, history, music. After her lessons, she might visit with friends or walk in the park. And at lunch she would eat her vegetables.”“My father says that princesses personify the decadence of a vanquished era.”The Count was taken aback.“Perhaps a few,” he conceded. “But not all, I assure you.”She waved her fork.“Don’t worry. Papa is wonderful and he knows everything there is to know about the workings of tractors. But he knows absolutely nothing about the workings of princesses.”The Count offered an expression of relief.“Have you ever been to a ball?” she continued after a moment of thought.“Certainly.”“Did you dance?”“I have been known to scuff the parquet.” The Count said this with the renowned glint in his eye—that little spark that had defused heated conversations and caught the eyes of beauties in every salon in St. Petersburg.“Scuff the parquet?”“Ahem,” said the Count. “Yes, I have danced at balls.”“And have you lived in a castle?”“Castles are not as common in our country as they are in fairy tales,” the Count explained. “But I have dined in a castle. . . .”Accepting this response as sufficient, if not ideal, the girl now furrowed her brow. She put another quadrant of fish in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Then she suddenly leaned forward.“Have you ever been in a duel?”“An affaire d’honneur?” The Count hesitated. “I suppose I have been in a duel of sorts. . . .”“With pistols at thirty-two paces?”“In my case, it was more of a duel in the figurative sense.”When the Count’s guest expressed her disappointment at this unfortunate clarification, he found himself offering a consolation:“My godfather was a second on more than one occasion.”“A second?”“When a gentleman has been offended and demands satisfaction on the field of honor, he and his counterpart each appoint seconds—in essence, their lieutenants. It is the seconds who settle upon the rules of engagement.”“What sort of rules of engagement?”“The time and place of the duel. What weapons will be used. If it is to be pistols, then how many paces will be taken and whether there will be more than one exchange of shots.”“Your godfather, you say. Where did he live?”“Here in Moscow.”“Were his duels in Moscow?”“One of them was. In fact, it sprang from a dispute that occurred in this hotel—between an admiral and a prince. They had been at odds for quite some time, I gather, but things came to a head one night when their paths collided in the lobby, and the gauntlet was thrown down on that very spot.”“Which very spot?”“By the concierge’s desk.”“Right where I sit!”“Yes, I suppose so.”“Were they in love with the same woman?”“I don’t think a woman was involved.”The girl looked at the Count with an expression of incredulity.“A woman is always involved,” she said.“Yes. Well. Whatever the cause, an offense was taken followed by a demand for an apology, a refusal to provide one, and a slap of the glove. At the time, the hotel was managed by a German fellow named Keffler, who was reputedly a baron in his own right. And it was generally known that he kept a pair of pistols hidden behind a panel in his office, so that when an incident occurred, seconds could confer in privacy, carriages could be summoned, and the feuding parties could be whisked away with weapons in hand.”“In the hours before dawn . . .”“In the hours before dawn.”“To some remote spot . . .”“To some remote spot.”She leaned forward.“Lensky was killed by Onegin in a duel.”She said this in a hushed voice, as if quoting the events of Pushkin’s poem required discretion.“Yes,” whispered back the Count. “And so was Pushkin.”She nodded in grave agreement.“In St. Petersburg,” she said. “On the banks of the Black Rivulet.”“On the banks of the Black Rivulet.”The young lady’s fish was now gone. Placing her napkin on her plate and nodding her head once to suggest how perfectly acceptable the Count had proven as a luncheon companion, she rose from her chair. But before turning to go, she paused.“I prefer you without your moustaches,” she said. “Their absence improves your . . . countenance.”Then she performed an off-kilter curtsey and disappeared behind the fountain. Read more

Review PULITZER PRIZE WINNER "Surely the greatest book ever written about a city." —David Halberstam, Pulitzer–Prize winning journalist and author of The Best and the Brightest "I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was twenty-two years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics." —President Barack Obama "The most absorbing, detailed, instructive, provocative book ever published about the making and raping of modern New York City and environs and the man who did it, about the hidden plumbing of New York City and State politics over the last half-century, about the force of personality and the nature of political power in a democracy. A monumental work, a political biography and political history of the first magnitude." —Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York "One of the most exciting, un-put-downable books I have ever read. This is definitive biography, urban history, and investigative journalism. This is a study of the corruption which power exerts on those who wield it to set beside Tacitus and his emperors, Shakespeare and his kings." —Daniel Berger, Baltimore Evening Sun "Simply one of the best nonfiction books in English of the past 40 years . . . There has probably never been a better dissection of political power . . . From the first page . . . you know that you are in the hands of a master . . . Riveting . . . Superb . . . Not just a stunning portrait of perhaps the most influential builder in world history . . . but an object lesson in the dangers of power. Every politician should read it." —Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times "A study of municipal power that will change the way any reader of the book hereafter peruses his newspaper." —Philip Herrera, Time "A triumph, brilliant and totally fascinating. A majestic, even Shakespearean, drama about the interplay of power and personality." —Justin Kaplan "In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort." —Richard C. Wade, The New York Times Book Review "The feverish hype that dominates the merchandising of arts and letters in America has so debased the language that, when a truly exceptional achievement comes along, there are no words left to praise it. Important, awesome, compelling--these no longer summon the full flourish of trumpets this book deserves. It is extraordinary on many levels and certain to endure." —William Greider, The Washington Post Book World "A modern Machiavelli's Prince. " — The Guardian "One of the great biographies of all time . . . [by] one of the great reporters of our time . . . and probably the greatest biographer. He is also an extraordinary writer. After reading page 136 of his book The Power Broker, I gasped and read it again, then again. This, I thought, is how it should be done . . . One of the greatest nonfiction works ever written . . . Every MP, wonk and would-be wonk in Westminster has read [Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson], because they think it is the greatest insight into power ever written. They're nearly right: it's the second greatest after The Power Broker. " —Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times "Apart from the book's being so good as biography, as city history, as sheer good reading, The Power Broker is an immense public service." —Jane Jacobs "Required reading for all those who hope to make their way in urban politics; for the reformer, the planner, the politician and even the ward heeler." —Jules L. Wagman, Cleveland Press "An extraordinary study of the workings of power, individually, institutionally, politically, and economically in our republic." — Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal "Caro has written one of the finest, best-researched and most analytically informative descriptions of our political and governmental processes to appear in a generation." —Nicholas Von Hoffman, The Washington Post "This is irresistibly readable, an outright masterpiece and unparalleled insight into how power works and perhaps the greatest portrait ever of a world city." —David Sexton, The Evening Standard "Caro's achievement is staggering. The most unlikely subjects--banking, ward politics, construction, traffic management, state financing, insurance companies, labor unions, bridge building--become alive and contemporary. It is cheap at the price and too short by half. A milestone in literary and publishing history." —Donald R. Morris, The Houston Post "A masterpiece of American reporting. It's more than the story of a tragic figure or the exploration of the unknown politics of our time. It's an elegantly written and enthralling work of art." —Theodore H. White "A stupendous achievement . . . Caro's style is gripping, indeed hypnotic, and he squeezes every ounce of drama from his remarkable story . . . Can a democracy combine visionary leadership with effective checks and balances to contain the misuse of power? No book illustrates this fundamental dilemma of democracy better than The Power Broker . . . Indeed, no student of government can regard his education as complete until he has read it." —Vernon Bogdanor, The Independent "Irresistible reading. It is like one of the great Russian novels, overflowing with characters and incidents that all fit into a vast mosaic of plot and counterplot. Only this is no novel. This is a college education in power corruption." —George McCue, St. Louis Post-Dispatch From the Inside Flap One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today. In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own. From the Back Cover This is the first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man-an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. About the Author For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, ROBERT A. CARO has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the National Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal, stating at the time: “I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was twenty-two years old and just being mesmerized, and I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.” In 2016 he received the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. The London Sunday Times has said that Caro is “The greatest political biographer of our times.”   Caro’s first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, everywhere acclaimed as a modern classic, was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It is, according to David Halberstam, “Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.” And The New York Times Book Review said: “In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort.” The first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power , was cited by The Washington Post as “proof that we live in a great age of biography . . . [a book] of radiant excellence . . . Caro’s evocation of the Texas Hill Country, his elaboration of Johnson’s unsleeping ambition, his understanding of how politics actually work, are—let it be said flat out—at the summit of American historical writing.” Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia University called the second volume, Means of Ascent , “brilliant. No review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day politics was born.” The London Times hailed volume three, Master of the Senate , as “a masterpiece . . . Robert Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age.” The Passage of Power, volume four, has been called “Shakespearean . . . A breathtakingly dramatic story [told] with consummate artistry and ardor” ( The New York Times ) and “as absorbing as a political thriller . . . By writing the best presidential biography the country has ever seen, Caro has forever changed the way we think about, and read, American history” (NPR). On the cover of The New York Times Book Review, President Bill Clinton praised it as “Brilliant . . . Important . . . Remarkable. With this fascinating and meticulous account Robert Caro has once again done America a great service.”  “Caro has a unique place among American political biographers,” The Boston Globe said . . . “He has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are measured.” And Nicholas von Hoffman wrote: “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”Born and raised in New York City, Caro graduated from Princeton University, was later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and worked for six years as an investigative reporter for Newsday . He lives in New York City with his wife, Ina, the historian and writer. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Excerpted from the Introduction Wait Until the Evening “One must wait until the evening To see how splendid the day has been.” —SOPHOCLES   As THE CAPTAIN  of the Yale swimming team stood beside the pool, still dripping after his laps, and listened to Bob Moses, the team's second-best freestyler, he didn't know what shocked him more—the suggestion or the fact that it was Moses who was making it.   Ed Richards knew that Moses was brilliant—even "Five A" Johnson, who regularly received the top grade in every course he took each term, said that Moses could have stood first in the Class of 1909 if he hadn't spent so much time reading books that had nothing to do with his assignments—but the quality that had most impressed Richards and the rest of '09 was his idealism. The poems that the olive-skinned, big-eyed Jew from New York wrote for the Yale literary magazines, sitting up late at night, his bedroom door closed against the noise from the horseplay in the dormitory, were about Beauty and Truth. When the bull sessions got around, as they did so often, now that the Class was in its senior year, to the subject of careers, Moses was always talking—quite movingly, too—about dedicating his life to public service, to helping the lower classes. And just the other evening, in the midst of a desultory discussion about which fraternity's nominee should be elected class treasurer, Moses had jumped to his feet and argued so earnestly that class officers should be chosen on merit rather than fraternity affiliation, that the criterion shouldn't be who a man's friends were but what he could do, that Johnson had said to Richards afterwards, "I feel as if I've had an awakening tonight." And now, Richards realized, this same Bob Moses was suggesting that they get money for the swimming team by deliberately misleading Og Reid.   Ogden Mills Reid was the best thing that had ever happened to swimming at Yale. Since the legendary Walter Camp, athletic director as well as football coach, was hoarding the football receipts for a new stadium, there  was no money to replace the dank, low-ceilinged pool, which wasn't even the right length for intercollegiate swimming events. There was no allocation from the university for travel expenses or even for a coach. But Reid, who had been Yale's first great swimmer, not only paid the team's expenses but, week after week, traveled up to New Haven from New York to do the coaching himself. This year, after a long fight, Moses had succeeded in organizing the wrestling, fencing, hockey, basketball and swimming teams into a "Minor Sports Association" which would conduct a general fund-raising effort and divide the money among the teams, in the hope that the existence of such a formal organization would coax new contributions from alumni. The theory was good, Richards had thought at the time, but there was one hitch: any money contributed specifically to one of the teams also had to go into the general fund. Richards doubted that Reid, who was interested only in swimming, would want to contribute to a general fund and he wondered if the swimmers might not end up with even less money than before. But Moses had seemed to have no fears on that score. And now, standing beside the pool, Richards was beginning to understand why. Moses, dressed in suit, vest and a high collar that was wilting in the dampness, had just announced that he was skipping practice to go to New York and see Reid, and when Richards had expressed his doubts that the alumnus would contribute, Moses had smiled and said, "Oh, that's all right. I just won't tell him it's going to an association. He'll think it's the regular contribution to the swimming team."   Now Richards said slowly, "I think that's a little bit tricky, Bob. I think that's a little bit smooth. I don't like that at all."   With astonishing rapidity, the face over the high collar turned pale, almost white. Moses' fists came up for a moment before he lowered them. "Well, you've got nothing to say about it," he said.   "Yes, I do," Richards said. "I'm the captain. I'm responsible. And I'm telling you not to do it."   "Well, I'm going to do it anyway," Moses said.   "If you do," Richards said, "I'll go to Og and tell him that the money isn't going where he thinks it is."   Moses' voice suddenly dropped. His tone was threatening. "If you don't let me do it," he said, "I'm going to resign from the team."   He thought he was bluffing me, Richards would recall later. He thought I wouldn't let him resign. "Well, Bob," Richards said, "your resignation is accepted."   Bob Moses turned and walked out of the pool. He never swam for Yale again.       Forty-five years later, a new mayor of New York was being sworn in at City Hall. Under huge cut-glass chandeliers Robert F. Wagner, Jr., took the oath of office and then, before hundreds of spectators, personally administered the oath, and handed the coveted official appointment blanks, to his top appointees.   But to a handful of the spectators, the real significance of the ceremony  was in an oath not given. When Robert Moses came forward, Wagner swore him in as City Park Commissioner and as City Construction Coordinator—and then, with Moses still waiting expectantly, stopped and beckoned forward the next appointee.   To those spectators, Wagner's gesture signaled triumph. They were representatives of the so-called "Good Government" organizations of the city: the Citizens Union, the City Club, liberal elements of the labor movement. They had long chafed at the power that Moses had held under previous mayors as Park Commissioner, Construction Coordinator and  member of the City Planning Commission. They had determined to try to curb his sway under Wagner and they had decided to make the test of strength the Planning Commission membership. This, they had decided after long analysis and debate, was Moses' weak point: As Park Commissioner and Construction Coordinator he proposed public works projects, and the City Charter had surely never intended that an officeholder who proposed projects should sit on the Planning Commission, whose function was to pass on the merits of those projects. For nine weeks, ever since Wagner's election, they had been pressing him not to reappoint Moses to the commission. Although Wagner had told them he agreed fully with their views and had even hinted that, on Inauguration Day, there would be only two jobs waiting for Moses, they had been far from sure that he meant it. But now they realized that Wagner had in fact not given Moses the third oath—and the Planning Commission job. And, looking at Moses, they could see he realized it, too. His face, normally swarthy, was pale with rage.   The more observant among these spectators, however, noticed that after the ceremonies Moses followed Wagner into his inner office. They knew all too well what he would be saying to the new mayor; he had said it often enough, publicly and privately, orally and in writing, to Wagner's predecessors, Vincent R. Impellitteri and William O'Dwyer, and, even earlier, to the great La Guardia. "He's threatening to resign," they whispered to one another.   They were right. Behind the closed doors of the inner office, Moses was putting it to Wagner straight: If he didn't get the third post, he would quit the other two. And he'd do it right now. Wagner tried frantically to stall. The Planning Commission oath? The Mayor said. There must have been an oversight. Some clerk must have forgotten to fill out the appointment blank. Nothing to worry about. He'd see to it in a few days. Moses walked out of the Mayor's office and into the little room down the hall where a deputy mayor and his assistant were filing the appointment blanks. Snatching an unused blank off a sheaf on a table, he sat down at the table and filled it out himself. Then he walked back to Wagner's office and, without a word, laid the paper on the Mayor's desk.   Without a word, the Mayor pulled the paper toward him and signed it.       Robert Moses possessed at the time of his confrontation with Ed Richards an imagination that leaped unhesitatingly at problems insoluble to other men—the problem of financing minor sports had been tormenting Yale  deans for two decades—and that, seemingly in 4he very moment of the leap, conceived of solutions. He possessed an iron will that put behind his solutions and dreams a determination to let nothing stand in their way—to form the Minor Sports Association he, only an undergraduate, had faced up to, and had finally faced down, Walter Camp, who was implacably opposed to its formation. And he possessed an arrogance which made him conceive himself so indispensable that, in his view, his resignation was the most awful threat he could think of.   Robert Moses possessed the same qualities during his confrontation with Robert Wagner. But by then he also possessed something more. He possessed power.   Power is the backdrop against which both confrontation scenes should be played. For power was the reason for the contrast in their denouements.   The whole life of Robert Moses, in fact, has been a drama of the interplay of power and personality. For a time, standing between it and him was an interceding force, the passionate idealism he had expressed in the Yale bull sessions. Dedicating his life to public service, he remained, during the first years of that service, the idealist of those bull sessions, an idealist possessed, moreover, of a vision of such breadth that he was soon dreaming dreams of public works on a scale that would dwarf any yet built in the cities of America. He wandered tirelessly around New York, and a woman who occasionally wandered with him said he was "burning up with ideas, just burning up with them," ideas for great highways and parks circling the city's waterfront and for more modest projects that he thought would also improve the quality of life for the city's people—little shelters, for instance, in Central Park so that mothers could change their babies' diapers without having to go all the way home. And when he argued for his ideas before the Good Government organization for which he worked and before the Board of Estimate, he was very careful always to have his facts ready, never to exaggerate them and always to draw from them logical conclusions, for he believed that Truth and Logic would prevail. When hexlecided to specialize, the area he chose—civil service reorganization—was one based on the same principle with which he had "awakened" "Five A" Johnson, the principle that jobs should be given and promotions based on merit rather than patronage. And he dedicated himself to that principle with the devotion of the acolyte. Brought into the administration of reforming Mayor John Purroy Mitchel in 1914, Moses devised, in a year of unremitting labor, a system that made every aspect of a city employee's performance—including facets of his personality—subject to a numerical grade. And for three additional years he fought for adoption of his system, battling a Board of Estimate dominated by one of the most corrupt political machines the United States had ever known, speaking night after night—a tall, very slim, very handsome young man with deep, burning eyes, dressed, often and appropriately, in a white suit, clutching a bulging briefcase and introduced to audiences as "Dr. Moses" in recognition of his Ph.D.—into hails of abuse from furious municipal employees who owed their jobs not to merit but to Tammany Hall, and observers said that the viciousness of the jeering crowds seemed to make no impression on him, so deeply did he believe that if only they could be made to understand how good his system was, they would surely support it. In those pre-World War I years of optimism, of reform, of idealism, Robert Moses was the optimist of optimists, the reformer of reformers, the idealist of idealists.   So great a nuisance did he make of himself that in 1918 Tammany Hall decided it had to crush him. It did so with efficiency. At the age of thirty, with the grading papers for his system being used as scrap paper, the Central Park shelters and great highways unbuilt, Robert Moses, Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, honors man at Oxford, lover of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, was out of work and, with a wife and two small daughters to support, was standing on a line in the Cleveland, Ohio, City Hall, applying for a minor municipal job—a job which, incidentally, he didn't get.   When the curtain rose on the next act of Moses' life, idealism was gone from the stage. In its place was an understanding that ideas—dreams—were useless without power to transform them into reality. Moses spent the rest of his life amassing power, bringing to the task imagination, iron will and determination. And he was successful. The oath that was administered to Robert Wagner in City Hall on January 1, 1954, should have given Wagner supreme power in New York. That was the theory. In democratic America,supposedly, ultimate power rests in the voters, and the man for whom a majority of them cast their votes is the repository of that power. But Wagner knew better. The spectators may have thought that he had a choice in dealing with Moses. He knew that he did not. Why, when Moses pushed the appointment blank across his desk, did the Mayor say not a word? Possibly because there was nothing to say. Power had spoken.        With his power, for twenty years prior to the day he strode out of City Hall in triumph (and for an additional fourteen years thereafter), Robert Moses shaped a city and its sprawling suburbs—and, to an extent that would have astonished analysts of urban trends had they measured the implications of his decades of handiwork, influenced the destiny of all the cities of twentieth century America.   The city in which the shaping by his hand is most evident is New York, Titan of cities, colossal synthesis of urban hope and urban despair. It had become a cliche by the mid-twentieth century to say that New York was "ungovernable," and this meant, since the powers of government in the city had largely devolved on its mayor, that no mayor could govern it, could hope to do more than merely stay afloat in the maelstrom that had engulfed the vast metropolis. In such a context, the cliche was valid. No mayor shaped New York; no mayor—not even La Guardia—left upon its roiling surface more than the faintest of lasting imprints.   But Robert Moses shaped New York.    Physically, any map of the city proves it. The very shoreline of metropolis was different before Robert Moses came to power. He rammed bulkheads of steel deep into the muck beneath rivers and harbors and crammed into the space between bulkheads and shore immensities of earth and stone, shale and cement, that hardened into fifteen thousand acres of new land and thus altered the physical boundaries of the city.   Standing out from the map's delicate tracery of gridirons representing streets are heavy lines, lines girdling the city or slashing across its expanses. These lines denote the major roads on which automobiles and trucks move, roads whose very location, moreover, does as much as any single factor to determine where and how a city's people live and work. With a single exception, the East River Drive, Robert Moses built every one of those roads. He built the Major Deegan Expressway, the Van Wyck Expressway, the Sheridan Expressway and the Bruckner Expressway. He built the Gowanus Expressway, the Prospect Expressway, the Whitestone Expressway, the Clearview Expressway and the Throgs Neck Expressway. He built the Cross-Bronx Expressway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Nassau Expressway, the Staten Island Expressway and the Long Island Expressway. He built the Harlem River Drive and the West Side Highway.   Only one borough of New York City—the Bronx—is on the mainland of the United States, and bridges link the island boroughs that form metropolis. Since 1931, seven such bridges were built, immense structures, some of them anchored by towers as tall as seventy-story buildings, supported by cables made up of enough wire to drop a noose around the earth. Those bridges are the Triborough, the Verrazano, the Throgs Neck, the Marine, the Henry Hudson, the Cross Bay and the Bronx-Whitestone. Robert Moses built every one of those bridges.   Scattered throughout New York stand clusters of tall apartment houses built under urban renewal programs and bearing color, splashed on terraces and finials, that in the twentieth-century American cityscape marks them as luxury dwellings. Alongside some of these clusters stand college lecture halls and dormitories. Alongside one stand five immense dingy white expanses of travertine that are Lincoln Center, the world's most famous, costly and imposing cultural complex. Alongside another stands the New York Coliseum, the glowering exhibition tower whose name reveals Moses' preoccupation with achieving an immortality like that conferred on the Caesars of Rome (feeling later that he could make the comparison even more exact, he built Shea Stadium, remarking when it was completed, "When the Emperor Titus opened the Colosseum in 80 A.D. he could have felt no happier"). Once the sites of the clusters contained other buildings: factories, stores, tenements that had stood for a century, sturdy, still serviceable apartment houses. Robert Moses decided that these buildings would be torn down and it was Robert Moses who decided that the lecture halls and the dormitories and the cultural  center—and new apartment houses—would be erected in their place.   The eastern edge of Manhattan Island, heart of metropolis, was completely altered between 1945 and 1958. Northward from the bulge of Corlears Hook looms a long line of apartment houses devoid of splashes of color, hulking buildings, utilitarian, drab, unadorned, not block after block of them but mile after mile, appearing from across the East River like an endless wall of dull brick against the sky. Almost all of them—ninety-five looming over the river in the first two miles north of Corlears Hook—are public  housing. They—and hundreds of similar structures huddled alongside the expressways or set in rows beside the Rockaway surf—contain 148,000 apartments and 555,000 tenants, a population that is in itself a city bigger than Minneapolis. These buildings were constructed by the New York City Housing Authority, 1,082 of them between 1945 and 1958. Robert Moses was never a member of the Housing Authority and his relationship with it was only hinted at in the press. But between 1945 and 1958 no site for public housing was selected and no brick of a public housing project laid without his approval. Read more

Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Amazon.com Review Coach Wooden's remarkable 10 national basketball championships in 12 years at UCLA speak for themselves. In Wooden , the coach--quiet, thoughtful, and introspective throughout his distinguished career--finally speaks for himself , and he's well worth hearing. Wooden is a modern chapbook of inspiration and good sense that reveals the hard-court philosopher behind it as a man of character, conviction, decency, and straightforwardness. There are no complex ideas, just little beams of light filtered through anecdotes that project the kinds of simple, immutable truths that in the end touch nothing but net. From Library Journal As stated in the introduction, this book is "neither a conventional narrative, a biography, nor a how-to book on basketball." It is instead a compilation of the tenets and teachings of arguably the greatest basketball coach of all time. Wooden's codes are of the traditional kind, centering on family, faith, friends off the court and organization, dedication, and preparation on the hardwood. Still, he is not stuck in the past. His observation that basketball is first and foremost a game of quickness revolutionized the tactical approach to the sport. The former UCLA coach is above all a teacher, and the lessons he imparts here are derived from a lifetime of learning and achievement. Recommended for adult and young adult collections.?William H. Hoffman, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., Ft. Myers, Fla.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the Publisher Author Profiles John Wooden (1910-2010) , guided the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA basketball championships over a 12-year period, including four perfect seasons and an 88-game winning streak. He was named ESPN’s “Greatest Coach of the 20th Century” and voted “#1 Coach of All Time” by The Sporting News . Sports Illustrated said it best when they said: “There’s never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach.” In 2003 John Wooden was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Steve Jamison is America's foremost author and authority on the life and philosophy of John Wooden. Mr. Jamison is a consultant to the UCLA Anderson Scool of Business’ John Wooden Global Leadership Program. He has collaborated with Coach Wooden on an award-winning PBS presentation as well as several books, including his final book, The Wisdom of Wooden: My Century On and Off the Court . From the Back Cover "I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs."--John Wooden Evoking days gone by when coaches were respected as much for their off-court performances as for their success on the court, this unique and intimate work presents the timeless wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden. In honest and telling passages about virtually every aspect of life, Wooden shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence. Raised on a small farm in south-central Indiana, Wooden learned a great deal from his parents--lessons that stayed with him not only throughout his unparalleled career at UCLA, but also as dedicated husband, father, and teacher. These lessons, along with personal letters from Bill Walton, Denny Crum, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bob Costas, among others, mark Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and off the Court as an inspirational classic. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Wooden A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court By John Wooden Steve Jamison McGraw-Hill Copyright © 1997 Steve Jamison and John WoodenAll right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-80-923041-9 Contents Chapter One Part I Families, Values, Virtues I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs. —John Wooden My Roots Go Deep in America I was born on a Friday morning in a little place called Hall, Indiana. It was just after the turn of the twentieth century—October 14, 1910. Dad and Mother raised my three brothers and me on a small farm in the south-central part of the state, until hard times forced our family to move into the nearby town of Martinsville. What I learned back there during those early years in Indiana—the training I got from my father and mother— has stayed with me all my life. That training started with the kind of people my parents were. Nothing Is Stronger than Gentleness My dad, Joshua Wooden, was a strong man in one sense, but a gentle man. While he could lift heavy things men half his age couldn't lift, he would also read poetry to us each night after a day working in the fields raising corn, hay, wheat, tomatoes, and watermelons. We had a team of mules named Jack and Kate on our farm. Kate would often get stubborn and lie down on me when I was plowing. I couldn't get her up no matter how roughly I treated her. Dad would see my predicament and walk across the field until he was close enough to say "Kate." Then she'd get up and start working again. He never touched her in anger. It took me a long time to understand that even a stubborn mule responds to gentleness. My Mother's Great Example My mother, Roxie Anna, had a hard life living and working and raising a family in our little white farmhouse outside Martinsville. She did the washing, scrubbing, ironing, cooking, mending, and canning with no electricity and no inside plumbing. She did it all herself without any modern conveniences while helping with the farming and bringing up four rambunctious young sons: Maurice, me, Daniel, and William. At night, during the heat of the Indiana harvest season, Mother would offer us cool slices of watermelon as we sat out on our front porch looking up into the stars. She gave me my first "basketball," a wobbly thing sewed together using rolled-up rags she had stuffed into some black cotton hose. Dad nailed an old tomato basket with the bottom knocked out to one end of the hayloft in the barn. That's how I got started playing the game of basketball. Each day my mother demonstrated great patience and the ability and eagerness to work very hard without complaint. I learned from her what hard work really means and that it's part of life. Hard work comes with the territory. She always knew what had to be done and she did it. Mother provided a model for how to do my job regardless of the particular circumstances. The Real Coaches and Teachers A father and mother must be there to set an example for their children, strong and positive models of what to be and how to behave when the youngsters grow up. Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating. Youngsters need good models more than they need critics. It is one of a parent's greatest responsibilities and opportunities. Too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life. Strong Inside My father had great inner strength. He was strong in his moral principles, values, and ideals, and like any good father he wanted to instill them in his four sons. He did that in the manner by which he lived his life. Life's Game Plan Starts Early Dad was one of the wisest people I have ever known, in spite of the fact that both he and Mother had only high-school educations. My father created a desire in us to learn to read (including some of the Bible every day). He was a very religious man without being overt about it. Like Mother, he believed in hard work. He was a good man, strong and positive, who wouldn't speak ill of anyone. Dad was quiet, but when he did say something, he said something. He was the kind of man I set out to be. He was the model. Two Sets of Threes My father had what he called his "two sets of threes." They were direct and simple rules aimed at how he felt we should conduct ourselves in life. The first set was about honesty: Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. It required no explanation. My brothers and I knew what it meant and that he expected us to abide by it. The second set of threes was about dealing with adversity: Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses. Some people today may think these are naive or kind of corny. But think a moment about what they mean and who you become if you abide by them. That isn't naive. You don't become corny. Dad's two sets of threes were a compass for me in trying to do the right thing and behaving in a proper manner. Pride or Punishment Joshua Wooden was a disciplinarian, but not from a physical point of view. I'd almost rather have taken a whipping than hear him say he was disappointed in something I'd done. I wanted to please him and not let him down with my behavior. It wasn't a fear of punishment that motivated me. It was my desire to live up to his model and expectations. Later, as a teacher, I wanted those under my own supervision to be motivated in the same way, to strive to be their best because I believed in them rather than from any fear of punishment. The Gift of a Lifetime When I graduated from our little three-room grade school in Centerton, Indiana, I got dressed up in clean overalls for the big event. For my graduation present Dad gave me an old, wrinkled two-dollar bill that he probably had been hanging onto for some time. He said, "Johnny, as long as you have this you'll never be broke," and he was pretty close to right. Eventually I gave it to my own son Jim. Dad also gave me something that day that would shape my entire life: my work, my marriage, my goals, my entire philosophy. It was a card on which he had written a few guidelines. I still carry it with me. On one side was this verse by the Reverend Henry Van Dyke: Four things a man must learn to do     If he would make his life more true:     To think without confusion clearly,     To love his fellow-man sincerely,     To act from honest motives purely,     To trust in God and Heaven securely. The little verse was straightforward but profound: think clearly, have love in your heart, be honest, and trust in God. On the other side of the paper, Dad had written out his creed. At the top of the paper, it said "Seven Things to Do." It read as follows: 1. Be true to yourself. 2. Help others. 3. Make each day your masterpiece. 4. Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible. 5. Make friendship a fine art. 6. Build a shelter against a rainy day. 7. Pray for guidance and count and give thanks for your blessings every day. All he said when he gave me the little note he had written was, "Son, try and live up to these things." I wish I could say I have lived up to them. I have tried. Over the years, as I've attempted to follow his creed, I've gained a deeper understanding of it. Let me share what it means to me after all these years. Be True to Yourself If we are not true to ourselves, we cannot be true to others—our wife or husband, our family, our profession and colleagues. As Polonius said to his son Laertes in William Shakespeare's Hamlet , "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." This is so true, and I believe it is the first point in Dad's creed for a reason. You must know who you are and be true to who you are if you are going to be who you can and should become. You must have the courage to be true to yourself. Help Others Oh, the great joy there is in helping others, perhaps the greatest joy! You cannot have a perfect day without helping others with no thought of getting something in return. When we are helping others with the thought of getting something back, it's not the same at all. Sharing and giving of yourself is joyous. James Russell Lowell wrote: It's not what we give but what we share,     For the gift without the giver is bare.     Who gives of himself of his alms feeds three,     Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me. The basic precept of all the great religions is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Simply stated, it means, "Help others." Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We say those words, but how often do we really believe them? They are always true. You can never acquire happiness without giving of yourself to someone else without the expectation of getting something back. When it comes to giving, I remind myself what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of thyself." Make Each Day Your Masterpiece When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece. Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that. This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. If a player appeared to be taking it easy in practice, I told him, "Don't think you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, why aren't you doing it now?" If you sincerely try to do your best to make each day a masterpiece, angels can do no better. Drink Deeply from Good Books, Including the Bible Poetry, biographies, and all the other great books will greatly enrich your life. There are so many that are so good, and they are all available to you. The poetry Dad read to us when we were kids instilled a love of reading, English, books, and knowledge. It was a priceless gift and one that has enhanced my own life so much. Drink deeply from those great books of your own choosing and you will enrich yourself. Make Friendship a Fine Art Don't take friendship for granted. Friendship is giving and sharing of yourself. If just one side works at it, it isn't friendship. You must work at friendship. Make it a fine art. Go more than halfway. It is two-sided, just like marriage. Someone is not a good friend because he or she does good things for you all the time. It's friendship when you do good things for each other. It's showing concern and consideration. Friendship is so valuable and so powerful. We take it for granted, but we shouldn't. At times when I am feeling low,     I hear from a friend and then     My worries start to go away     And I am on the mend.      In spite of all that doctors know,     And their studies never end,     The best cure of all when spirits fall     Is a kind note from a friend.      — John Wooden The first and most important step in friendship is being a friend. Build a Shelter Against a Rainy Day This is not necessarily a material shelter. Your faith, whatever it may be, is the greatest shelter of all. In many ways we've been taken in by materialism. I'm not saying possessions are unimportant, but we often put them out of proportion, ahead of family, faith, and friends. Pray for Guidance and Count and Give Thanks for Your Blessings Every Day So often we fail to acknowledge what we have because we're so concerned about what we want. We fail to give real thanks for the many blessings for which we did nothing: our life itself, the flowers, the trees, our family and friends. This moment. All of our blessings we take for granted so much of the time. A wise person once observed, "How much more pleasant this world would be if we magnified our blessings the way we magnify our disappointments." And, of course, with that we must also pray for guidance. One of my players at UCLA once told me he was embarrassed to have anyone know that he prayed. There's no shame in praying for guidance. It's a sign of strength. Living Up to Dad's Creed I am now in my eighth decade and I would like to be able to tell you that I lived up to Dad's creed, but I am more like the fellow who said: I am not what I ought to be,     Not what I want to be,     Not what I am going to be,     But I am thankful that     I am better than I used to be. It's important to keep trying to do what you think is right no matter how hard it is or how often you fail. You never stop trying. I'm still trying. Give It Away to Get It Back There is a wonderful, almost mystical, law of nature that says three of the things we want most—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained when we give them to others. Six of Life's Puzzlers ? Why is it easier to criticize than to compliment? ? Why is it easier to give others blame than to give them credit? ? Why is it that so many who are quick to make suggestions find it so difficult to make decisions? ? Why can't we realize that it only weakens those we want to help when we do things for them that they should do for themselves? ? Why is it so much easier to allow emotions rather than reason to control our decisions? ? Why does the person with the least to say usually take the longest to say it? Trusting Others It has been said that you will be hurt occasionally if you trust too much. This may be true, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough. Trusting is part of our higher nature. Doubting is a lower instinct. The latter is easy to do, the former more difficult—but so much more rewarding. Politeness and Courtesy You've heard the expression "Politeness and courtesy are a small price to pay for the goodwill of others." In fact, I've used it myself from time to time even though I don't really agree with it. Being polite and courteous isn't paying a price any more than smiling or being happy is paying a price. You get more than you give when you are polite and courteous. You don't pay. You are paid. What You Are A favorite observation of my dad's was the following: "Never believe you're better than anybody else, but remember that you're just as good as everybody else." That's important: No better, but just as good! I attempted to keep that in mind both when we weren't winning national championships and when we were. It helped me avoid getting carried away with myself. It goes back to the importance of having strong guidance and role models in the home. That's where the standards are set. Nellie and I Agreed to Be Agreeable Nellie Riley caught my eye the first time I ever saw her back at Martinsville High School in Indiana. It was on a warm star-filled night at the carnival during the summer of my freshman year. I think we probably fell in love right away and didn't even know it. Folks think Nellie and I had a perfect marriage, but it was because we worked at it. There are rough patches in any marriage. Very early we understood that there would be times when we disagreed but there would never be times when we had to be disagreeable. We kept to that rule for over half a century. Nellie and I have a great love for one another, but we understood that even love takes some work. Passion Isn't Love Love is more than passion. Passion is temporary. It isn't lasting. Love, real love, lasts. Love and Marriage Love means many things. It means giving. It means sharing. It means forgiving. It means understanding. It means being patient. It means learning. And you must always consider the other side, the other person. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. (Continues...) Excerpted from Wooden by John Wooden Steve Jamison Copyright © 1997 by Steve Jamison and John Wooden. Excerpted by permission of McGraw-Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more

Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life

From Library Journal Gawain's self-help title has sold more than three million copies in English and another three million in the more than 30 languages into which it has been translated. According to the publisher, this revised anniversary edition contains additional "meditations, exercises, and techniques that can become part of your everyday routine." The author asserts that people can achieve an ideal existence simply through mental visualization. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review "I do believe, and I have seen in my own life, that creative visualization works." About the Author Shakti Gawain is the bestselling author of Creative Visualization, Living in the Light, The Path of Transformation, Creating True Prosperity, Developing Intuition, and several other books. Her books have sold more than six million copies in thirty languages worldwide. A warm, articulate, and inspiring teacher, Shakti leads workshops internationally. For more than thirty years, she has facilitated thousands of people in learning to trust and act on their own inner truth, thus releasing and developing their creativity in every area of their lives. Shakti has appeared on such nationally syndicated shows as Oprah, Good Morning America, Sonya Live, Larry King Live, and New Dimensions Radio, and she has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Body Mind & Spirit, and Time magazine. Shakti Gawain was cofounder of New World Library along with Marc Allen. Shakti and her husband, Jim Burns, also cofounded Nataraj Publishing Company, which New World Library acquired in 1998. They make their home in Mill Valley, California. Read more

The Pearl Lagoon

The Black Dahlia

The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War--a Tragedy in Three Acts

Amazon.com Review An Amazon Best Book of September 2020: Scott Anderson’s The Quiet Americans is a deeply-researched history that reads like a character driven novel. At the end of World War II, the United States began turning its attention to the Soviet Union, and the relatively new CIA became integral to the covert effort to confront the Soviets. Much as he did in his epic Lawrence in Arabia , Anderson focuses on the experiences of a handful of men in order to tell the wider story. The result is both intimate and sweeping. Anderson follows four agents whose work was spread across the globe, initially directed at maintaining American ideals, but eventually decaying under the weight of politics, myopia, and overreach. Each of these men bore great costs for the work they did in the CIA. As they were altering the course of world events, the work was altering—sometimes quite severely—the courses of their lives. – Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review Review A New York Times Notable Book“ ENTHRALLING ...Lying and stealing and invading, it should be said, make for captivating reading, especially in the hands of a storyteller as skilled as Anderson...the climate of fear and intolerance that it describes in Washington also feels uncomfortably timely. "— Kevin Peraino, The New York Times Book Review “Anderson’s look at four men who ran covert operations around the globe after World War II is AS THRILLING AS IT IS TRAGIC , as each man confronts the moral compromises he made in the name of democracy.” — The Washington Post “A DARKLY ENTERTAINING tale about American espionage, set in an era when Washington’s fear and skepticism about the agency resembles our climate today.“ — The New York Times “In his skillful and fascinating “The Quiet Americans”…Mr. Anderson ingeniously tells his story through the entwined sagas of four of the secret service’s most adept and intrepid operatives” —Edward Kosner, Wall Street Journal “This intriguing book is an indictment. From its first page it argues that the CIA lost its way, in all senses, in the first decade of the cold war. Its witnesses are four courageous and initially idealistic patriots. Frank Wisner oversaw some of the earliest efforts to “roll back” communism in Europe. Michael Burke was a daredevil figure in the same game. Edward Lansdale was an éminence grise in the Far East. Peter Sichel, a German-born Jewish wine-merchant and Wunderkind—and the only one of the four still alive—held his nose as he co-opted former Nazis into the agency, an initiative cited as one of its original sins....Many of the CIA’s failures stemmed from familiar shortcomings. ‘We all have this tendency to look for information that confirms our beliefs and to ignore what conflicts with them,” explains Mr Sichel. “It’s very hard to give somebody information he doesn’t want to hear, and the more senior they are, the worse it is. ’ — The Economist "In this sweeping, vivid, beautifully observed book, Scott Anderson unearths the devastating secret history of how the Unites States lost the plot during the Cold War. By focusing on the twisty, colorful lives of four legendary spies, Anderson distills the larger geopolitical saga into an intimate story of flawed but talented men, of the 'disease of empires,' and of the inescapable moral hazard of American idealism and power. It's a hell of a book, with themes about the unintended consequences of espionage and interventionism that still resonate, powerfully, today."   — Patrick Radden Keefe , author of SAY NOTHING“[A] highly entertaining history of four Cold War spies...” — Evan Thomas, Air Mail “Anderson delivers a complex, massively scaled narrative, balancing prodigious research with riveting storytelling skills…Over the course of the narrative, the author amply shows how the CIA was increasingly pushed to function as an instrument of politically charged ambitions. An engrossing history of the early days of the CIA.” — Kirkus Review (Starred)  "Anderson notes the harrowing emotional cost on his subjects…as the U.S. threw its support behind autocratic leaders and missed opportunities to aid legitimate liberation movements such as the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Such blunders, Anderson writes, recast the U.S. from WWII savior to “one more empire in the mold of all those that had come before.” Laced with vivid character sketches and vital insights into 20th-century geopolitics, this stand-out chronicle helps to make sense of the world today." — Publisher’s Weekly (Starred)"Anderson weaves his narrative among the lives of his subjects, highlighting aspects of their livelihoods as American spies that were at times equally frustrating, ridiculous, and chillingly dangerous…A fascinating and compulsively readable account of wartime spying." — Library Journal About the Author SCOTT ANDERSON is the author of two novels and four works of nonfiction, including Lawrence of Arabia, an international bestseller which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. A veteran war correspondent, he is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1OPERATION DOGWOODAs Frank Wisner watched from a dark corner of the nightclub, the diverted stage spotlight swept over the crowd until it found the man who had just stepped through the entranceway. He was in his mid-forties, bespectacled and wore a well-tailored suit. He was also clearly well known at the Park Hotel for, along with drawing the spotlight, his arrival caused the nightclub band to slide into a different jazzy number.I’m involved in a dangerous game,Every other day I change my name,The face is different, but the body’s the same,Boo boo, baby, I’m a spy!Wisner felt a growing irritation, directed less at the song than at the man being serenaded. His name was Lanning “Packy” Macfarland, and he was, in fact, a spy, the head of the Istanbul branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s wartime intelligence agency. He was also the man that Frank Wisner, a fellow OSS officer, had made the 1,400-mile overland journey from Cairo to meet.You have heard of Mata Hari,We did business cash and carry,Papa caught us and we had to marry,Boo boo, baby, I’m a spy!“Boo Boo, Baby, I’m a Spy” was a popular ditty in Istanbul in the spring of 1944, and with no group more so than the habitués of the Park Hotel bar. Located near the sprawling German consulate in neutral Turkey’s largest city, the bar was the favored watering hole for officials of the Abwehr, the Nazi military intelligence agency. Naturally, that status also made it a destination spot for all the other spies circulating through wartime Istanbul, along with the assorted lowlifes—con men and arms merchants, prostitutes and pimps—inevitably drawn to such an underworld. Wisner had arrived early for his rendezvous with Macfarland and situated himself in a dark corner of the bar so as to avoid notice, a pointless precaution judging by the extravagant welcome given the American spy chief.Now, as a lad, I’m not so bad,In fact, I’m a darn good lover.But look, my sweet, let’s be discreet,And do this undercover.In Macfarland’s defense, he may have simply accepted as absurd any notion that his Axis counterparts didn’t know exactly who he was; as author Barry Rubin notes, World War II–era Istanbul practically survived on espionage: “Would-be spies for rent strolled up and down Istiklal Boulevard and around Taksim Square with its neo-baroque monument to the republic. They lounged in Istanbul’s bars, dining places, nightclubs, and dance halls. . . . The music from the cafes and the bells of the crowded trolleys played accompaniment as men weaved through the streets trying to follow or evade each other.”I’m so cocky, I could swagger.The things I know would make you stagger.I’m ten percent cloak and ninety percent dagger,Boo boo, baby, I’m a spy!Certainly, Macfarland’s own OSS colleagues had been little help in maintaining his cover as a banker with the U.S. government’s Lend-Lease program, the wartime structure that funneled American weapons and matériel to its allies. Soon after setting up shop in the Istanbul Lend-Lease office, the frustrated spymaster had fired off a despairing cable to OSS Cairo: “Please, please, please! Instruct everyone to leave out any reference whatsoever to Office of Strategic Services in addressing envelopes. Today there came two more that bear this inscription.”The element of farce aside, the mission of the OSS in wartime Istanbul was deadly serious—so deadly serious, in fact, that by the time of Wisner’s arrival in the city, Packy Macfarland had managed to compromise a whole series of intelligence missions and may have been instrumental in prolonging the course of World War II. Indeed, so calamitous was the workings of his Operation Dogwood, a spy network that extended throughout Eastern Europe but which had been thoroughly infiltrated by Nazi agents, that many details of the story still remain classified. What is known is that by the late spring of 1944, OSS leadership in Washington had become so alarmed by the dire news coming out of Istanbul on Dogwood that they scrambled to find an operative close at hand who might be brought in to stanch the bleeding. The man they chose was a thirty-four-year-old naval officer attached to OSS Cairo, Frank Gardiner Wisner.It was a call Wisner had been awaiting ever since joining the military three years earlier. In that time, his lot had been to look over legal briefs and shuffle paper, to sit in a back-base office and collate the fieldwork of others. Now, by being dispatched to Istanbul, he was finally going into the field with the opportunity to accomplish something tangible, and he set to the housecleaning mission in Istanbul with a zeal. OSS higher-ups swiftly took note of the contrast between their two men in Turkey; just days after his arrival, Wisner was made head of the Secret Intelligence branch of OSS Istanbul, then shortly after named chief of the entire mission, with Macfarland bundled off to a posting in Yugoslavia where he could do little harm. At long last, Frank Wisner had arrived. The inauspicious trappings of his meeting with Macfarland at the Park Hotel notwithstanding, he was now on his way to becoming one of the most important and powerful figures of the American intelligence community in the twentieth century.Childhood acquaintances of Frank Gardiner Wisner rarely recalled seeing him walk; he seemed to run everywhere. Even as a boy, he fairly crackled with a kind of impatient energy. In a photograph taken of him around the age of eight or nine and in which he is posing with two other boys, he appears to be practically bursting out of his Sunday suit, as if clothes are just another thing getting in his way, slowing him down.Wisner was born in the town of Laurel, in the swampy, yellow pinelands of southeastern Mississippi. Even today, Laurel dubs itself “the town that lumber built,” although “lumber” might more accurately be traded out for “the Iowans.” In the early 1890s, a group of prospectors from eastern Iowa moved into the economically moribund Deep South town, and proceeded to both buy up vast tracts of the surrounding yellow pine forest, and then to build a state-of-the-art lumber mill. Among the newcomers was Frank Wisner’s father, Frank George.Their timing was propitious, for within a few years the lumbering of Southern Yellow Pine was experiencing a nationwide boom, making the Midwestern transplants in Laurel—along with the Wisners, there were the Gardiners and Eastmans—fabulously wealthy. According to one local historian, by the 1920s Laurel boasted more millionaires per capita than any city in the nation, and had converted the once scrubby little town in the pinelands into an unlikely architectural showcase, with a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and mansions lining its own Fifth Avenue.At its heart, Laurel was a boomtown. As such, it had far more in common with, say, the mining settlements of Montana or the oilfields of California than with its Mississippi counterparts. In this most rigidly segregated state of the Deep South, blacks and whites worked alongside each other in Laurel’s Eastman-Gardiner lumber mill, and there was a degree of racial intermingling virtually unheard-of elsewhere in Mississippi. In the black sections of town, the Iowans funded parks and streetlights and, in 1926, one of the first high schools for black children in the state, a development regarded as shocking, even subversive, by many Mississippi whites at the time.All of this made Frank Wisner, born in Laurel in 1909, something of an oddity, a hybrid of two very different cultures. While his childhood bore all the hallmarks of the privileged white Southerner—he was raised by a black nanny, and black housekeepers tended to the expansive Wisner home on Fifth Avenue—his family had little in common with the Mississippi “aristocracy,” those wealthy landowning families who traced their roots back to pre–Civil War days and who remained steeped in nostalgic notions of the Old South. Instead, from a very early age, Frank Wisner had his sights set beyond Mississippi. After graduating from the local high school at sixteen, he was dispatched to one of the South’s better preparatory boarding schools, Woodberry Forest in Virginia, then sent on the obligatory grand tour of Europe prior to going to college. For his part, Frank Wisner never truly regarded himself as a Southerner except, his middle son, Ellis, recalled, on those occasions when outsiders denigrated the region. “That’s when he got his back up,” Ellis Wisner recalled. “If people made fun of it, that’s when he became a Southerner.”This was a distinction lost on most of his future CIA associates. To them, Frank Wisner seemed the very epitome of the Southern gentleman—his colleagues invariably remarked upon his politeness and good manners, his soft rounded drawl—and, as a result, often ascribed stereotypes to him which didn’t really apply.Perhaps the most inapt was the stereotype of Southerners being laid-back, even a bit slow. Much to the contrary, by his adolescence, Wisner seemed propelled by a kind of edgy anxiety, the need to prove something to himself and to others. Along with being quite small for his age, he suffered a series of childhood illnesses that left him bedridden for weeks or even months at a time. This was undoubtedly an enormous worry to his parents—they had lost two children in infancy prior to Frank, and would lose another afterward—and might easily have resulted in a cosseted youth. Instead, these frailties appeared to spur a fierce self-discipline. On his college track team at the University of Virginia, Wisner was such a standout sprinter and broad jumper that he was invited to try out for the American Olympic team. “And that’s where you see the conservativeness of the family come in,” said Graham Wisner, the youngest of Wisner’s three sons. “My dad was, I don’t know, maybe the second or third fastest runner in the country, but his father said no. ‘A gentleman does not do athletics when he should be going to law school and starting a career. A gentleman is serious.’ ”Wisner obeyed his father’s dictate, and instead turned his fire-at-the-heels sensibility to academics. After receiving his undergraduate degree at Virginia, he went on to its law school, one of the most demanding and select in the nation. There, he sat on the Law Review, finished third in his graduating class, and was inducted into UVa’s most exclusive secret club, the Seven Society. To the surprise of no one, within weeks of his graduation in 1934, the newly minted attorney was hired on by a prestigious Wall Street law firm, Carter Ledyard.At that juncture, it seemed Frank Wisner was determined to check off all the requisite boxes that marked the rites of passage of the successful, if utterly conventional, American man—albeit to do so a bit faster than most. Two years after he joined Carter Ledyard, he married his girlfriend, Mary “Polly” Ellis Knowles. Moving into a spacious apartment on Manhattan’s East 57th Street, the couple soon had the first of what would ultimately be four children. By 1938, the twenty-nine-year-old corporate lawyer—most of his work was for the American Express Company—was already highly regarded in the tightknit Wall Street legal community, and well on his way to becoming a Carter Ledyard partner.“He came up with very defined parameters of his own behavior,” Graham Wisner explained. “This is what men of his class, of his time, did, what was expected of them.”And yet, for all his life’s ease and privilege, it somehow didn’t satisfy. Always keenly interested in politics and world affairs, Wisner closely monitored the march to war in Europe and, after the fall of France to the German war machine in 1940, became convinced the United States would eventually intervene. But “eventually” wasn’t a word that sat well with the hard-driving lawyer; in early 1941, he told his startled Carter Ledyard colleagues of his plan to take a leave of absence from the firm and join the Navy. No doubt those colleagues tried to talk him out of the idea—after all, Wisner had a wife and now two young children to support—but instead, and under the weight of his considerable persuasive skills, ended up writing Wisner glowing letters of recommendation.By that spring, the lawyer from Mississippi had received his naval commission—lieutenant, junior grade—and was assigned to the New York branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI. He was there when Pearl Harbor was attacked that December.But if Wisner had been prescient in enlisting before the United States came into the war, he quickly discovered the downside of leading a life of advantage. Taking note of his academic and professional pedigree, his ONI superiors immediately shunted Wisner into a managerial role—and in 1941, just as today, “managerial” was usually shorthand for sitting behind a desk. Matters didn’t improve when he was transferred to the naval cable and radio censorship office for the New York district. While that posting came with the benefit of allowing Wisner to continue to live with his family, it was also mind-numbingly dull. “He had a joke about it,” his eldest son, Frank Wisner Jr., recalled, “that in the Navy, they gave him command of a cutter. A paper cutter, that is, chopping up documents.”After enduring the censorship office for nearly two years and seeing no end in sight, Wisner desperately looked to transfer to any military branch that might offer something more interesting. His lucky break came when an old Carter Ledyard colleague passed his name on to another former corporate lawyer who had joined in the war effort, William Donovan. As unpromising as that might sound, Donovan was no typical lawyer and neither was the wartime agency that he headed. Instead, the sixty-year-old attorney from Buffalo, New York, had earned his nickname, “Wild Bill,” through heroism on the battlefields of World War I Europe, and he was now President Roosevelt’s handpicked spymaster, the director of the Office of Strategic Services.The adjectives used to describe William J. Donovan tend to run to hyperbole: brilliant, charismatic, fearless, larger-than-life. A former CIA officer based in postwar Berlin offered a different one: “Exhausting. He was a wonderful man, with an extraordinary mind, but he just never damn stopped.” Donovan occasionally visited Berlin in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and sometimes stayed in the CIA officer’s home. “He’d keep you up till one or two in the morning peppering you with questions, and then he’d be up at seven and he would start in all over again.”By the time Frank Wisner’s résumé landed on his desk in October 1943, Wild Bill Donovan had been a prominent figure on the American political landscape for the previous quarter-century. A very successful Ivy League–educated lawyer, he had first garnered notice in the early days of World War I when he vigorously lobbied for the United States to join the military alliance of Great Britain, France and Russia; what made this noteworthy was that, as an Irish Catholic Republican, Donovan was from an ethnic group that overwhelmingly favored neutrality in the conflict. Read more

The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Classic About the Outbreak of World War I

Review “A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’” — Newsweek “More dramatic than fiction . . . a magnificent narrative—beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained.” — Chicago Tribune “A fine demonstration that with sufficient art rather specialized history can be raised to the level of literature.” — The New York Times “[ The Guns of August ] has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues, which are considerable, and its feel for characterizations, which is excellent.” — The Wall Street Journal About the Author Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmermann Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August —a huge bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Her other works include Bible and Sword, The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (for which Tuchman was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize), Notes from China, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, and The First Salute . Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 A Funeral So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens—four dowager and three regnant—and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again. In the center of the front row rode the new king, George V, flanked on his left by the Duke of Connaught, the late king’s only surviving brother, and on his right by a personage to whom, acknowledged The Times, “belongs the first place among all the foreign mourners,” who “even when relations are most strained has never lost his popularity amongst us”—William II, the German Emperor. Mounted on a gray horse, wearing the scarlet uniform of a British Field Marshal, carrying the baton of that rank, the Kaiser had composed his features behind the famous upturned mustache in an expression “grave even to severity.” Of the several emotions churning his susceptible breast, some hints exist in his letters. “I am proud to call this place my home and to be a member of this royal family,” he wrote home after spending the night in Windsor Castle in the former apartments of his mother. Sentiment and nostalgia induced by these melancholy occasions with his English relatives jostled with pride in his supremacy among the assembled potentates and with a fierce relish in the disappearance of his uncle from the European scene. He had come to bury Edward his bane; Edward the arch plotter, as William conceived it, of Germany’s encirclement; Edward his mother’s brother whom he could neither bully nor impress, whose fat figure cast a shadow between Germany and the sun. “He is Satan. You cannot imagine what a Satan he is!” This verdict, announced by the Kaiser before a dinner of three hundred guests in Berlin in 1907, was occasioned by one of Edward’s continental tours undertaken with clearly diabolical designs at encirclement. He had spent a provocative week in Paris, visited for no good reason the King of Spain (who had just married his niece), and finished with a visit to the King of Italy with obvious intent to seduce him from his Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria. The Kaiser, possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe, had worked himself into a frenzy ending in another of those comments that had periodically over the past twenty years of his reign shattered the nerves of diplomats. Happily the Encircler was now dead and replaced by George who, the Kaiser told Theodore Roosevelt a few days before the funeral, was “a very nice boy” (of forty-five, six years younger than the Kaiser). “He is a thorough Englishman and hates all foreigners but I do not mind that as long as he does not hate Germans more than other foreigners.” Alongside George, William now rode confidently, saluting as he passed the regimental colors of the 1st Royal Dragoons of which he was honorary colonel. Once he had distributed photographs of himself wearing their uniform with the Delphic inscription written above his signature, “I bide my time.” Today his time had come; he was supreme in Europe. Behind him rode the widowed Queen Alexandra’s two brothers, King Frederick of Denmark and King George of the Hellenes; her nephew, King Haakon of Norway; and three kings who were to lose their thrones: Alfonso of Spain, Manuel of Portugal and, wearing a silk turban, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria who annoyed his fellow sovereigns by calling himself Czar and kept in a chest a Byzantine Emperor’s full regalia, acquired from a theatrical costumer, against the day when he should reassemble the Byzantine dominions beneath his scepter. Dazzled by these “splendidly mounted princes,” as The Times called them, few observers had eyes for the ninth king, the only one among them who was to achieve greatness as a man. Despite his great height and perfect horsemanship, Albert, King of the Belgians, who disliked the pomp of royal ceremony, contrived in that company to look both embarrassed and absentminded. He was then thirty-five and had been on the throne barely a year. In later years when his face became known to the world as a symbol of heroism and tragedy, it still always wore that abstracted look, as if his mind were on something else. The future source of tragedy, tall, corpulent, and corseted, with green plumes waving from his helmet, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir of the old Emperor Franz Josef, rode on Albert’s right, and on his left another scion who would never reach his throne, Prince Yussuf, heir of the Sultan of Turkey. After the kings came the royal highnesses: Prince Fushimi, brother of the Emperor of Japan; Grand Duke Michael, brother of the Czar of Russia; the Duke of Aosta in bright blue with green plumes, brother of the King of Italy; Prince Carl, brother of the King of Sweden; Prince Henry, consort of the Queen of Holland; and the Crown Princes of Serbia, Rumania, and Montenegro. The last named, Prince Danilo, “an amiable, extremely handsome young man of delightful manners,” resembled the Merry Widow’s lover in more than name, for, to the consternation of British functionaries, he had arrived the night before accompanied by a “charming young lady of great personal attractions” whom he introduced as his wife’s lady in waiting with the explanation that she had come to London to do some shopping. A regiment of minor German royalty followed: rulers of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Waldeck-Pyrmont, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, of Saxony, Hesse, Württemberg, Baden, and Bavaria, of whom the last, Crown Prince Rupprecht, was soon to lead a German army in battle. There were a Prince of Siam, a Prince of Persia, five princes of the former French royal house of Orléans, a brother of the Khedive of Egypt wearing a gold-tasseled fez, Prince Tsia-tao of China in an embroidered light-blue gown whose ancient dynasty had two more years to run, and the Kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, representing the German Navy, of which he was Commander in Chief. Amid all this magnificence were three civilian-coated gentlemen, M. Gaston-Carlin of Switzerland, M. Pichon, Foreign Minister of France, and former President Theodore Roosevelt, special envoy of the United States. Edward, the object of this unprecedented gathering of nations, was often called the “Uncle of Europe,” a title which, insofar as Europe’s ruling houses were meant, could be taken literally. He was the uncle not only of Kaiser Wilhelm but also, through his wife’s sister, the Dowager Empress Marie of Russia, of Czar Nicolas II. His own niece Alix was the Czarina; his daughter Maud was Queen of Norway; another niece, Ena, was Queen of Spain; a third niece, Marie, was soon to be Queen of Rumania. The Danish family of his wife, besides occupying the throne of Denmark, had mothered the Czar of Russia and supplied kings to Greece and Norway. Other relatives, the progeny at various removes of Queen Victoria’s nine sons and daughters, were scattered in abundance throughout the courts of Europe. Yet not family feeling alone nor even the suddenness and shock of Edward’s death—for to public knowledge he had been ill one day and dead the next—accounted for the unexpected flood of condolences at his passing. It was in fact a tribute to Edward’s great gifts as a sociable king which had proved invaluable to his country. In the nine short years of his reign England’s splendid isolation had given way, under pressure, to a series of “understandings” or attachments, but not quite alliances—for England dislikes the definitive—with two old enemies, France and Russia, and one promising new power, Japan. The resulting shift in balance registered itself around the world and affected every state’s relations with every other. Though Edward neither initiated nor influenced his country’s policy, his personal diplomacy helped to make the change possible. Taken as a child to visit France, he had said to Napoleon III: “You have a nice country. I would like to be your son.” This preference for things French, in contrast to or perhaps in protest against his mother’s for the Germanic, lasted, and after her death was put to use. When England, growing edgy over the challenge implicit in Germany’s Naval Program of 1900, decided to patch up old quarrels with France, Edward’s talents as Roi Charmeur smoothed the way. In 1903 he went to Paris, disregarding advice that an official state visit would find a cold welcome. On his arrival the crowds were sullen and silent except for a few taunting cries of “Vivent les Boers!” and “Vive Fashoda!” which the King ignored. To a worried aide who muttered, “The French don’t like us,” he replied, “Why should they?” and continued bowing and smiling from his carriage. Read more

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Review "One of the best crime stories ever written." ― Chicago Sun-Times "[A] social document of rare importance." ― The New Republic About the Author Vincent Bugliosi (1934―2015), was the prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter , Outrage , and other #1 bestselling books. Curt Gentry (1931-2014), an Edgar winner, was the author of J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets , Frame-Up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings , and co-author of Helter Skelter with Vincent Bugliosi.

Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises

Review A New York Times Bestseller  A Washington Post Notable Book of 2016? "The story behind Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is totally captivating, smartly written, and provocative." — Glamour "Meticulously document[ed] ... pacily written ... Ms. Blume has drawn deeply upon many sources, particularly Hemingway’s own correspondence, to deftly portray the cast of lost characters, their thin-skinned vanities and their quarrelsome insecurities." — The Wall Street Journal "Fiendishly readable ... a deeply, almost obsessively researched biography of a book, supported by a set of superb endnotes worth reading in their own right." — Washington Post "Masterfully told ... “Everybody Behaves Badly” is deeply evocative and perceptive, and every page has a Hemingway-like ring of unvarnished truth." — Christian Science Monitor "[A] must-read ... In Lesley M.M. Blume's latest release, escape to the real-life world of Hemingway's groundbreaking piece of modern literature, The Sun Also Rises. The boozy, rowdy nights in Paris, the absurdities at Pamplona's Running of the Bulls and the hungover brunches of the true Lost Generation come to life in this intimate look at the lives of the author's expatriate comrades." — Harper's Bazaar "[An] impeccably researched and resonant account of the true story behind The Sun Also Rises ... Everybody Behaves Badly breaks ground by stressing how important The Sun Also Rises was in bringing modernist literature to a commercial audience and, especially, the part Fitzgerald played in helping to encourage Hemingway and shape his manuscript." — The Financial Times “Without sounding unduly disapproving or moralistic, Blume gives us a portrait of the artist as a young opportunist … [an] excellent book.” — The Times Literary Supplement “My favorite book of 2016 ... a fascinating recreation of one of the most mythic periods in American literature—the one set in Paris in the ’20s—and about the writers and artists who were drawn there: Hemingway’s friends, mentors, lovers, and enemies. Everyone behaved badly indeed, Hemingway worst of all, which is one reason it’s hard to stop reading.” — Jay McInerney "As meticulous a history of the early 20th Century as it is a true drama-fueled page-turner starring characters like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Everybody Behaves Badly ticks both beach read and academic columns." — Tory Burch Daily "A spirited account of a spirited age, when writers saw an opportunity to change the culture ... Blume presents a sharp portrait of a young nobody desperately, sometimes maliciously, trying to become a great — if not the great — writer of his time.  Despite the wobbly tower of books about Hemingway, it seems we can’t keep from returning to him, and writers like Blume make it worth our while." — Los Angeles Review of Books "Thick with juicy details...[with] a fascinating epilogue ... Blume writes that the outline alone for her book ran to 1,400 pages. And every page of that labor is visible." — Dallas Morning News “[A] vivid character- and fact-filled book … One of the distinguishing features of Everybody Behaves Badly is just ho — About the Author LESLEY M. M. BLUME is an award-winning journalist, author, and cultural historian. She contributes regularly to Vanity Fair, and her work has appeared in many other publications , including the New York Times , The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Town & Country, and The Paris Review Daily. She is a New Yorker currently based in Los Angeles.

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

Review Praise for Hue 1968 One of the Wall Street Journal 's top 10 nonfiction books of 2017 One of the Washington Post ’s 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2017 An Amazon Top 100 book of the year Longlisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in nonfiction An ALA Notable Book of the Year A Christian Science Monitor , Kirkus Reviews , Military Times , Hudson Booksellers, and Chicago Public Library best book of the year "An extraordinary feat of journalism . . . Through his scrupulous day-by-day reconstruction of this battle, Bowden encapsulates the essential lessons of the Vietnam War . . . Hue 1968 is also an exploration of what is common to all wars: humankind's capacity for violence, cruelty, self-sacrifice, bravery, cowardice and love. Mr. Bowden undertakes this task with the talent and sensibility of a master journalist who is also a humanist and an honest man . . . the book is full of emotion and color . . . You will find the reading gripping." ―Karl Marlantes, Wall Street Journal "A remarkable book." ―Dave Davies, NPR's Fresh Air “[A] magnificent and meticulous history, which tells, with excruciating detail, a story that is both inspiring and infuriating . . . Bowden’s interviews, almost half a century on, with those who fought, on both sides, have produced unexampled descriptions of small-unit combat.” ―George F. Will, Washington Post "Bowden . . . applies his signature blend of deep reportage and character-driven storytelling to bring readers a fresh look at the 1968 battle in the Vietnamese city of Hue . . . [A] compelling and highly readable narrative . . . A meticulous and vivid retelling of an important battle." ―Linda Robinson, New York Times Book Review "An instantly recognizable classic of military history . . . Bowden tells this story with a power and a wealth of detail that no previous history of this offensive has approached." ―Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor "A gripping, and timely, history . . . powerful . . . [ Hue 1968 ] is likely to claim a place on the shelf of essential books about the Vietnam War. Based on hundreds of interviews, news accounts, histories and military archives, the book combines intensive research with Bowden's propulsive narrative style and insightful analysis . . . What sets Bowden's account of the battle apart is his skill at moving from the macro―the history of the war, the politics surrounding it, the tactics of the battle―to the micro: the individuals, American and Vietnamese, who fought it and tried to survive it." ―Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times "Bowden is one of the great journalists of our generation, and with this book he provides a captivating account of the pivotal battle that did so much to alter the trajectories of not just the Vietnam War, but also American politics and our nation's global posture. With its capacious research that includes the perspectives of combatants and civilians, Vietnamese and Americans, presidents and privates, it epitomizes what a definitive account should be." ― Foreign Policy “An engrossing, fair-minded, up-close account of one of the great battles in the long struggle for Vietnam.” ― Washington Post , “50 notable works of nonfiction in 2017” "A masterful blood-and-guts account of the decisive battle in the Vietnam War . . . The heart and soul of Hue 1968 lies with its vivid and often wrenching descriptions of the 'storm of war' as soldiers and South Vietnamese citizens experienced it." ― Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Bowden's excellent Hue 1968 . . . gives us the clearest picture yet of what happened in Vietnam and in Hue, where today tourists casually shoot pictures where murderous shots once were fired." ―George Petras, USA Today , 4 out of 4 stars “In a 539-page narrative, Bowden delivers a work of grand ambition: impassioned, powerful and revelatory at its best, and the most comprehensive yet on the Tet Offensive’s bloodiest confrontation.” ―Gregg Jones, Dallas Morning News “Mark Bowden’s book Hue 1968 is a must-read. Many lessons, including how government can lie and [the] role of an effective media in finding truth. Timely.” ―Michael Morell, former acting director of the CIA "For readers who enjoy learning about battle tactics and bloody encounters, Bowden delivers, as he did in Black Hawk Down . The book offers so much more than that, however. For readers who care little about military strategy or precisely how each combatant died, Bowden offers copious context about why it matters what occurred in Vietnam at the beginning of 1968―why it mattered so much then, and why it matters so much in 2017 . . . Bowden is masterful in introducing characters whose names have often never appeared in the news but whose actions help explain the complications for the United States of becoming involved in faraway wars involving nearly invisible enemies." ―Steve Weinberg, Philadelphia Inquirer "Dazzling . . . Bowden's account of the battle delivers gut punches from start to finish . . . Most impressive of all, Bowden deftly blends clear descriptions of complex troop movements with careful attention to the human impact of the fighting . . . Bowden deserves enormous credit for calling new attention to an often-overlooked battle and especially for recovering the experiences of those who fought amid otherworldly horrors." ―Mark Atwood Lawrence, Boston Globe “Searing . . . Bowden revisits the historic battle with the same character-driven, grunt-level reporting style that made Black Hawk Down a bestseller. He lends a sympathetic ear to surviving soldiers on both sides, as well as guerrillas and civilians, and gives a vivid account of courage and cowardice, heroism and slaughter.” ―Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times “A powerful account of a critical battle in Vietnam . . . Bowden’s attention to detail is flawless . . . This kind of fine-tuned detail―and sense of mystery―is the soul of a good historical account . . . The book is a mighty piece of work, and as fine an account of a battle as you will likely read. Hell, I wish I had written it.” ―Anthony Loyd, Times (UK) "Nearly 50 years after the battle for the city of Hue, this history reads as fresh as today's news . . . every page merits reading." ― Military Times “An unsparing look at the Vietnam War and how it changed America.” ―Monte Whaley, Denver Post , “Staff pick” “Smart, well-reported and hypnotic in spots.” ―Joe Gross, American-Statesman “ Hue 1968 pulls off a rare feat: it takes a conflict of terrible scale and consequence, and allows us to see it unfold at the street level, through the eyes of Vietnamese and American soldiers engaged in the struggle, journalists and activists observing the chaos, and the civilians caught in the crossfire . . . His emphasis on firsthand accounts gives a vital heart to the unfolding events . . . Not only are the personal stories Bowden uncovers at turns deeply moving and horrifying, but they also pose uncomfortable parallels with current events in the Middle East and Afghanistan.” ―Sebastien Roblin, National Interest “Thoroughly researched and compelling . . . This is as much a book about what happens to peoples’ hearts, minds, and bodies in the swirling chaos of urban combat as it is a history of a specific battle and an assessment of its strategic significance. We come to know a fair number of the participants quite well by the end of the story―one source of the book’s unusual power and authenticity . . . With a novelist’s eye for evoking the grim atmospherics of a hellish locale and the characters within it, Bowden reconstructs dozens of scenes of heart-pounding combat . . . Bowden’s coverage of the ‘other side’ . . . gives this book a richer texture, and more balance, than any of the earlier books on Hue . . . Anyone looking to understand what Vietnam was all about would do well to read Hue 1968 . Without a doubt, it’s one of the very best books to be written about Vietnam in the last decade.” ―James A. Warren, Daily Beast “I am still recovering from the astonishment and appreciation of the reporting and writing in Mark Bowden’s latest book: Hue 1968 , a story of a single battle that encompassed so much of what occurred in that epic year of our history.” ―Mike Barnicle, Politico "A relentlessly immediate chronicle of the bloody, month-long centerpiece of the Tet Offensive . . . This is the definitive account of a turning point in America's Vietnam strategy and in public opinion about the war.” ― Wall Street Journal , “top 10 nonfiction books of 2017” “[A] skillful, gripping account of the turning point of the Vietnam War.” ― Christian Science Monitor , “30 best books of 2017” “Bowden confronts head-on the horrific senselessness of battle and the toll it takes on people, and he grants Hue the regard it deserves as a defining moment in a war that continues to influence how America views its role in the world.” ― Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This Vietnam story reads like a movie but it's all true." ― Courier-Journal (Louisville) "An extraordinary account of the most important and costly battle of the Vietnam War." ―Don McCullin, legendary photojournalist who covered the Battle of Hue "In this meticulous retelling of one critical battle, Mark Bowden captures the nuanced and often invisible threads of America's political, military and cultural blindness in Vietnam. Hue 1968 is the new classic about America's Vietnam War." ―Elizabeth Becker, author of When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution "A detailed, multifaceted account." ―Tirdad Derakhsani, Philadelphia Inquirer “Thoroughly researched, this epic chronicle takes the reader back to a time when America still saw itself as invincible―and acted that way . . . fast-paced . . . A powerful piece of journalism.”― David Kindy, Providence Journal “An outstanding work of reportage and storytelling.”― Paul Davis, Washington Times "[A] master storyteller.” ―John David, Decatur Daily “Bowden interviewed people on both sides, to great effect, and weaves a dense but compelling narrative about a battle that was a microcosm of the entire conflict.” ―Alex Prud’homme, Omnivoracious , favorite reads of 2017 "A stirring history of the 1968 battle that definitively turned the Vietnam War into an American defeat . . . Building on portraits of combatants on all sides, Bowden delivers an anecdotally rich, careful account of the complex campaign to take the city. One of the best books on a single action in Vietnam, written by a tough, seasoned journalist who brings the events of a half-century past into sharp relief." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "An epic masterpiece of heroism and sacrifice, and a testament to the tragic futility of the American experience in Vietnam." ― Booklist (starred review) “The best history of the battle for Vietnam’s imperial city of Hue.” ―William D. Bushnell, Military Officer Magazine "In his monumental new book, Bowden . . . gives voice to dozens, including Nguyen Quang Ha, whose five-man team emerged from underground caves to strike the first blow for North Vietnamese forces, Bob Thompson, a career marine officer charged with taking back the US stronghold at the Citadel, President Lyndon Johnson and General William Westmoreland in Washington, DC and reporters David Halberstam, Michael Herr, Gene Roberts, Walter Cronkite and others who changed the way Americans perceived the war." ―Jane Ciabattari, BBC.com " Hue 1968 unravels one of the great mysteries of our time―how a puny force of North Vietnam regulars and local sympathizers could without warning occupy South Vietnam's second largest city, hold it for a month, then disappear into the mountains, beyond reach and largely unbloodied. It turns out the force wasn't puny, but fanatical warriors who gripped their prey by the throat and wouldn't let go. They were unfazed by waves of counter-attackers, Vietnamese and American soldiers, but mostly Marines rushed in to defeat them. Hue 1968 shows the enormous challenges facing both sides and how they overcame them, or tried to. Did the Battle of Hue end up as a victory or defeat? The answer depends on who's asking and who's telling. Bowden takes on both roles and does it well." ―Lieutenant Colonel Charles A. Krohn (ret.), author of The Lost Battalion of Tet " Hue 1968 is, by far, the most comprehensive (and balanced) coverage on this battle I've seen. Like never before, I've come to realize how narrow a perspective we low-level participants unavoidably had. While giving due respect to the abilities, actions and fighting spirit of the U.S. and ARVN Marines and soldiers who participated, Mark Bowden brought clarity to the larger intelligence, political and strategic shortcomings that made the prosecution of this battle so much more challenging and costly than it needed to be." ―Brigadier General Mike Downs, USMC (ret.) "The longest and fiercest fighting of the Tet Offensive took place in and around Hue in early 1968 where Communist North Vietnam suffered a terrible military defeat. Yet the fight for Hue became a political victory for the leaders of North Vietnam and a turning point for US involvement and support for the war. Through searing personal accounts of many on both sides who were there, Mark Bowden reveals the intensity of the fighting. Relying on archival documents now available after 50 years, he also examines the considerations and decisions of political and military leaders at the highest levels. This book is a tragic tale of misunderstanding but also one of great heroism and sacrifice by those who fought in the streets of Hue and in the nearby rice paddies and villages." ―Brigadier General Howard T. Prince II, USA (ret.), Commanding Officer, Bravo Company, 5/7 Cavalry, 1968 "Mark Bowden uniquely describes the battle from both sides of the front lines and vividly captures the remarkable courage and valor of those that participated in the crucible of war that was Hue City in January to March 1968. Surely to be an historical standard for the recollection of that Tet 1968 battle." ―Colonel Chuck Meadows, USMC (ret.), Former Commanding Officer of Golf Company 2ndBn 5thMar "I am a US Marine Vietnam veteran who participated as a tank crewmen in the Tet 1968 battle for Hue City. I have read just about every written account of the month-long battle, and I have to say that all of the other well-written, well-documented accounts of the battle pale in comparison to Mark Bowden's Hue 1968 . There is no more complete, accurate and detailed book. It reads like a novel even though is it made up almost exclusively of very personal accounts." ―John Wear, president of the USMC Vietnam Tankers Association "Powerfully told, and a vivid depiction of individual courage and national hubris.” ―William J. Burns, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace “The definitive history of the battle for Hue . . . It is a riveting account . . . of valor, heroism, rank foolhardiness, and unshakable camaraderie . . . More than anything, Hue 1968 is the story of the entire Vietnam War in microcosm.” ―Michael M. Rosen, Claremont Review of Books About the Author Mark Bowden is the author of thirteen books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down . He reported at the Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for the Atlantic , Vanity Fair , and other magazines. He is also the writer in residence at the University of Delaware. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Word passed quickly from foxhole to foxhole that they were going. DiLeo felt―what?―relief wasn't a strong enough word. He felt a stab of hope, of exhilarating hope. He had seen so much in the past two days. He had helped carry the shattered bodies of the wounded to the helicopters for evacuation. He had seen the man whose warmth comforted him in his hole through a freezing wet night lying stiff and dead. He had seen two men, one of them his good friend, simply erased from existence in an instant. He had been shot, albeit not badly. It had made him feel, not imagine or think, but feel how temporary was his life, and how, from one breath to the next, it could end. This shift in his thinking was subtle but profound. It moved him from fear to acceptance. At a certain point he stopped fearing death or horrible maiming, he just expected it. And now came this: They might get away! It was the first glimmer of hope in two days. He knew that any attempt to move would be dangerous, probably fatal, but that was okay with him. He had come to grips with that. This was a chance. Anything was better than waiting in that hole trying to figure out what to think about in his last moments on earth. He'd rather die trying to live. *** On the appointed day, early in January, Quang left the city with Ngu to supervise the loading. Into the bottom went piles of AK47s, bazooka tubes, and grenades. The egg baskets were planted with ammo. He stayed behind as Ngu set off. Quang could see how nervous he was, so he suggested that he drink some of the moonshine. "Not enough to get drunk," he said, "but enough to look drunk." Ngu's face flushed whenever he drank even a little alcohol. So he looked the part as he approached the checkpoints, and played it up. He staggered and bellowed and waved to the guards, offering them his presents, and pleading with them to let him pass quickly, "Because I am drunk and I'm worried I'm not going to get to Hue on time, and my wife will kill me." Quang waited back in Kim Do through that entire day. He did not learn until the following afternoon that his "Uncle" had made the trip safely, and that his men had picked up the shipment. His force now was ready, armed. He could hardly believe it. As he saw it, the miracle proved the truth of Ho's teachings, that the Party and the army were not enough. Real victory could only come from the people. Read more

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Review NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, NPR, Vogue, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle Times, Bloomberg, Lit Hub, and Slate “Disturbing and riveting. . . . Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true. . . . It will sear your soul.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review “A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve.”— Financial Times “A shocking whodunit. . . . What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”— USA Today “A master of the detective form. . . . Killers is something rather deep and not easily forgotten.”— Wall St. Journal “The best book of the year so far.” — Entertainment Weekly “David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon is unsurprisingly extraordinary." — Time “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery. . . . Contained within Grann's mesmerizing storytelling lies something more than a brisk, satisfying read. Killers of the Flower Moon offers up the Osage killings as emblematic of America's relationship with its indigenous peoples and the 'culture of killing' that has forever marred that tie.” — The Boston Globe “[C]lose to impeccable. It's confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet. . . . The crime story it tells is appalling, and stocked with authentic heroes and villains. It will make you cringe at man's inhumanity to man.” — The New York Times About the Author DAVID GRANN is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was a finalist for The National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Grann’s storytelling has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 The VanishingIn April, millions of tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and vast prairies in the Osage territory of Oklahoma. There are Johnny-jump-ups and spring beauties and little bluets. The Osage writer John Joseph Mathews observed that the galaxy of petals makes it look as if the “gods had left confetti.” In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms, stealing their light and water. The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage Indians refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon.On May 24, 1921, Mollie Burkhart, a resident of the Osage settlement town of Gray Horse, Oklahoma, began to fear that something had happened to one of her three sisters, Anna Brown. Thirty-four, and less than a year older than Mollie, Anna had disappeared three days earlier. She had often gone on “sprees,” as her family disparagingly called them: dancing and drinking with friends until dawn. But this time one night had passed, and then another, and Anna had not shown up on Mollie’s front stoop as she usually did, with her long black hair slightly frayed and her dark eyes shining like glass. When Anna came inside, she liked to slip off her shoes, and Mollie missed the comforting sound of her moving, unhurried, through the house. Instead, there was a silence as still as the plains.Mollie had already lost her sister Minnie nearly three years earlier. Her death had come with shocking speed, and though doctors had attributed it to a “peculiar wasting illness,” Mollie harbored doubts: Minnie had been only twenty-seven and had always been in perfect health.Like their parents, Mollie and her sisters had their names inscribed on the Osage Roll, which meant that they were among the registered members of the tribe. It also meant that they possessed a fortune. In the early 1870s, the Osage had been driven from their lands in Kansas onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, only to discover, decades later, that this land was sitting above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States. To obtain that oil, prospectors had to pay the Osage for leases and royalties. In the early twentieth century, each person on the tribal roll began receiving a quarterly check. The amount was initially for only a few dollars, but over time, as more oil was tapped, the dividends grew into the hundreds, then the thousands. And virtually every year the payments increased, like the prairie creeks that joined to form the wide, muddy Cimarron, until the tribe members had collectively accumulated millions and millions of dollars. (In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.) The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world. “Lo and behold!” the New York weekly Outlook exclaimed. “The Indian, instead of starving to death . . . enjoys a steady income that turns bankers green with envy.”The public had become transfixed by the tribe’s prosperity, which belied the images of American Indians that could be traced back to the brutal first contact with whites—the original sin from which the country was born. Reporters tantalized their readers with stories about the “plutocratic Osage” and the “red millionaires,” with their brick-and-terra-cotta mansions and chandeliers, with their diamond rings and fur coats and chauffeured cars. One writer marveled at Osage girls who attended the best boarding schools and wore sumptuous French clothing, as if “une très jolie demoiselle of the Paris boulevards had inadvertently strayed into this little reservation town.”At the same time, reporters seized upon any signs of the traditional Osage way of life, which seemed to stir in the public’s mind visions of “wild” Indians. One article noted a “circle of expensive automobiles surrounding an open campfire, where the bronzed and brightly blanketed owners are cooking meat in the primitive style.” Another documented a party of Osage arriving at a ceremony for their dances in a private airplane—a scene that “outrivals the ability of the fictionist to portray.” Summing up the public’s attitude toward the Osage, the Washington Star said, “That lament, ‘Lo the poor Indian,’ might appropriately be revised to, ‘Ho, the rich redskin.’ ”Gray Horse was one of the reservation’s older settlements. These outposts—including Fairfax, a larger, neighboring town of nearly fifteen hundred people, and Pawhuska, the Osage capital, with a population of more than six thousand—seemed like fevered visions. The streets clamored with cowboys, fortune seekers, bootleggers, soothsayers, medicine men, outlaws, U.S. marshals, New York financiers, and oil magnates. Automobiles sped along paved horse trails, the smell of fuel overwhelming the scent of the prairies. Juries of crows peered down from telephone wires. There were restaurants, advertised as cafés, and opera houses and polo grounds.Although Mollie didn’t spend as lavishly as some of her neighbors did, she had built a beautiful, rambling wooden house in Gray Horse near her family’s old lodge of lashed poles, woven mats, and bark. She owned several cars and had a staff of servants—the Indians’ pot-lickers, as many settlers derided these migrant workers. The servants were often black or Mexican, and in the early 1920s a visitor to the reservation expressed contempt at the sight of “even whites” performing “all the menial tasks about the house to which no Osage will stoop.”Mollie was one of the last people to see Anna before she vanished. That day, May 21, Mollie had risen close to dawn, a habit ingrained from when her father used to pray every morning to the sun. She was accustomed to the chorus of meadowlarks and sandpipers and prairie chickens, now overlaid with the pock-pocking of drills pounding the earth. Unlike many of her friends, who shunned Osage clothing, Mollie wrapped an Indian blanket around her shoulders. She also didn’t style her hair in a flapper bob, and instead let her long, black hair flow over her back, revealing her striking face, with its high cheekbones and big brown eyes.Her husband, Ernest Burkhart, rose with her. A twenty-eight-year-old white man, he had the stock handsomeness of an extra in a Western picture show: short brown hair, slate-blue eyes, square chin. Only his nose disturbed the portrait; it looked as if it had taken a barroom punch or two. Growing up in Texas, the son of a poor cotton farmer, he’d been enchanted by tales of the Osage Hills—that vestige of the American frontier where cowboys and Indians were said to still roam. In 1912, at nineteen, he’d packed a bag, like Huck Finn lighting out for the Territory, and gone to live with his uncle, a domineering cattleman named William K. Hale, in Fairfax. “He was not the kind of a man to ask you to do something—he told you,” Ernest once said of Hale, who became his surrogate father. Though Ernest mostly ran errands for Hale, he sometimes worked as a livery driver, which is how he met Mollie, chauffeuring her around town.Ernest had a tendency to drink moonshine and play Indian stud poker with men of ill repute, but beneath his roughness there seemed to be a tenderness and a trace of insecurity, and Mollie fell in love with him. Born a speaker of Osage, Mollie had learned some English in school; nevertheless, Ernest studied her native language until he could talk with her in it. She suffered from diabetes, and he cared for her when her joints ached and her stomach burned with hunger. After he heard that another man had affections for her, he muttered that he couldn’t live without her. It wasn’t easy for them to marry. Ernest’s roughneck friends ridiculed him for being a “squaw man.” And though Mollie’s three sisters had wed white men, she felt a responsibility to have an arranged Osage marriage, the way her parents had. Still, Mollie, whose family practiced a mixture of Osage and Catholic beliefs, couldn’t understand why God would let her find love, only to then take it away from her. So, in 1917, she and Ernest exchanged rings, vowing to love each other till eternity.By 1921, they had a daughter, Elizabeth, who was two years old, and a son, James, who was eight months old and nicknamed Cowboy. Mollie also tended to her aging mother, Lizzie, who had moved in to the house after Mollie’s father passed away. Because of Mollie’s diabetes, Lizzie once feared that she would die young, and beseeched her other children to take care of her. In truth, Mollie was the one who looked after all of them.May 21 was supposed to be a delightful day for Mollie. She liked to entertain guests and was hosting a small luncheon. After getting dressed, she fed the children. Cowboy often had terrible earaches, and she’d blow in his ears until he stopped crying. Mollie kept her home in meticulous order, and she issued instructions to her servants as the house stirred, everyone bustling about—except Lizzie, who’d fallen ill and stayed in bed. Mollie asked Ernest to ring Anna and see if, for a change, she’d come over to help tend to Lizzie. Anna, as the oldest child in the family, held a special status in their mother’s eyes, and even though Mollie took care of Lizzie, Anna, in spite of her tempestuousness, was the one her mother spoiled.When Ernest told Anna that her mama needed her, she promised to take a taxi straight there, and she arrived shortly afterward, dressed in bright red shoes, a skirt, and a matching Indian blanket; in her hand was an alligator purse. Before entering, she’d hastily combed her windblown hair and powdered her face. Mollie noticed, however, that her gait was unsteady, her words slurred. Anna was drunk.Mollie couldn’t hide her displeasure. Some of the guests had already arrived. Among them were two of Ernest’s brothers, Bryan and Horace Burkhart, who, lured by black gold, had moved to Osage County, often assisting Hale on his ranch. One of Ernest’s aunts, who spewed racist notions about Indians, was also visiting, and the last thing Mollie needed was for Anna to stir up the old goat.Anna slipped off her shoes and began to make a scene. She took a flask from her bag and opened it, releasing the pungent smell of bootleg whiskey. Insisting that she needed to drain the flask before the authorities caught her—it was a year into nationwide Prohibition—she offered the guests a swig of what she called the best white mule.Mollie knew that Anna had been very troubled of late. She’d recently divorced her husband, a settler named Oda Brown, who owned a livery business. Since then, she’d spent more and more time in the reservation’s tumultuous boomtowns, which had sprung up to house and entertain oil workers—towns like Whizbang, where, it was said, people whizzed all day and banged all night. “All the forces of dissipation and evil are here found,” a U.S. government official reported. “Gambling, drinking, adultery, lying, thieving, murdering.” Anna had become entranced by the places at the dark ends of the streets: the establishments that seemed proper on the exterior but contained hidden rooms filled with glittering bottles of moonshine. One of Anna’s servants later told the authorities that Anna was someone who drank a lot of whiskey and had “very loose morals with white men.”At Mollie’s house, Anna began to flirt with Ernest’s younger brother, Bryan, whom she’d sometimes dated. He was more brooding than Ernest and had inscrutable yellow-flecked eyes and thinning hair that he wore slicked back. A lawman who knew him described him as a little roustabout. When Bryan asked one of the servants at the luncheon if she’d go to a dance with him that night, Anna said that if he fooled around with another woman, she’d kill him.Meanwhile, Ernest’s aunt was muttering, loud enough for all to hear, about how mortified she was that her nephew had married a redskin. It was easy for Mollie to subtly strike back because as one of the servants attending to the aunt was white—a blunt reminder of the town’s social order.Anna continued raising Cain. She fought with the guests, fought with her mother, fought with Mollie. “She was drinking and quarreling,” a servant later told authorities. “I couldn’t understand her language, but they were quarreling.” The servant added, “They had an awful time with Anna, and I was afraid.”That evening, Mollie planned to look after her mother, while Ernest took the guests into Fairfax, five miles to the northwest, to meet Hale and see Bringing Up Father, a touring musical about a poor Irish immigrant who wins a million-dollar sweepstakes and struggles to assimilate into high society. Bryan, who’d put on a cowboy hat, his catlike eyes peering out from under the brim, offered to drop Anna off at her house.Before they left, Mollie washed Anna’s clothes, gave her some food to eat, and made sure that she’d sobered up enough that Mollie could glimpse her sister as her usual self, bright and charming. They lingered together, sharing a moment of calm and reconciliation. Then Anna said good-bye, a gold filling flashing through her smile.With each passing night, Mollie grew more anxious. Bryan insisted that he’d taken Anna straight home and dropped her off before heading to the show. After the third night, Mollie, in her quiet but forceful way, pressed everyone into action. She dispatched Ernest to check on Anna’s house. Ernest jiggled the knob to her front door—it was locked. From the window, the rooms inside appeared dark and deserted.Ernest stood there alone in the heat. A few days earlier, a cool rain shower had dusted the earth, but afterward the sun’s rays beat down mercilessly through the blackjack trees. This time of year, heat blurred the prairies and made the tall grass creak underfoot. In the distance, through the shimmering light, one could see the skeletal frames of derricks.Anna’s head servant, who lived next door, came out, and Ernest asked her, “Do you know where Anna is?”Before the shower, the servant said, she’d stopped by Anna’s house to close any open windows. “I thought the rain would blow in,” she explained. But the door was locked, and there was no sign of Anna. She was gone.News of her absence coursed through the boomtowns, traveling from porch to porch, from store to store. Fueling the unease were reports that another Osage, Charles Whitehorn, had vanished a week before Anna had. Genial and witty, the thirty-year-old Whitehorn was married to a woman who was part white, part Cheyenne. A local newspaper noted that he was “popular among both the whites and the members of his own tribe.” On May 14, he’d left his home, in the southwestern part of the reservation, for Pawhuska. He never returned. Read more

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

Review “Suspenseful. . . . Rollicking. . . . Reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller. . . . The Lost City of Z is at once a biography, a detective story and a wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing that combines Bruce Chatwinesque powers of observation with a Waugh-like sense of the absurd. Mr. Grann treats us to a harrowing reconstruction of Fawcett’s forays into the Amazonian jungle, as well as an evocative rendering of the vanished age of exploration.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Breathtaking. . . . Grann brings Fawcett’s remarkable story to a beautifully written, perfectly paced fruition. . . . Any writer who can breathe life into letters written by scientists in the early 1900s deserves more than a hat tip.” — The Los Angeles Times “Brilliant. . . . Impressively researched and skillfully crafted. . . . Grann makes abundantly clear in this fascinating, epic story of exploration and obsession, [that] the lethal attraction of the Amazon mystery remains strong.” — The Boston Globe “A smart biographical page-turner.” — USA Today “Grann escapes death and tracks down Z, giving the reader the kind of Indiana Jones kicks best experienced vicariously.” — Details “A riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling tale of adventure.” —John Grisham, internationally acclaimed #1 bestselling author “Thoroughly researched, vividly told. . . . Grann recounts Fawcett’s expeditions with all the pace of a white-knuckle adventure story. . . . A thrill ride from start to finish.” — The Washington Post “The story of Z goes to the heart of the central questions of our age. In the battle between man and a hostile environment, who wins? A fascinating and brilliant book.” —Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Talking to Strangers “A spellbinding tale that produces fresh surprises around each turn. . . . An amazing story.” — Dallas Morning News “A fascinating yarn that touches on science, history, and some truly obsessive personalities.” — Entertainment Weekly “There is something about Fawcett’s spirit and self-assurance that captivates. . . . To read The Lost City of Z is to feel grateful that Grann himself bothered to set out for the Amazon in search of the bones of an explorer whose body was long ago reclaimed by the jungle.” — Christian Science Monitor “In a hyperconnected and exhaustively charted world, here is a revelation about wildness and the mad desire to plunge into it. . . . Unfathomably riveting. . . . Grann wildly delivers the goods.” — GQ “A blockbuster tale of adventure.” — New York Observer “Marvelous. . . . [Grann] combines a colorful narrative of Fawcett’s early life, military career, jungle treks, theories and even conversations with a biography of an extraordinary man and an overview of the last great and highly competitive age of exploration.” — Bloomberg News “A blood-stirring reading experience.” — The Denver Post “A deeply satisfying revelation. . . . What could be better—obsession, mystery, deadly insects, shrunken heads, suppurating wounds, hostile tribesmen—all for us to savor in our homes, safely before the fire.” —Erik Larson, bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile and The Devil in the White City “What makes Mr. Grann’s telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero—but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL.” —Simon Winchester, The Wall Street Journal “Fast-paced adventure. . . . Grann delights us with the lure of obsession under a canopy of trees.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer “Absorbing and fair-minded. . . . In restoring a life that history has swallowed from general view, and vindicating a crackpot theory, Mr. Grann has also exposed the toll that explorers often took on those who loved or depended on them.” —Richard B. Woodward, The New York Times “An engrossing book, whose protagonist could outmarch Lara Croft and out-think Indiana Jones. . . . It’s almost enough to make you reach for a backpack.” — The Daily Telegraph (London) “A riveting adventure-mystery in the tradition of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World , said to be inspired by Fawcett.” — The Toronto Star “Perfect for armchair travelers and readers with fond childhood memories of books recounting tales of adventure in the dark wild. . . . What [Grann] found should help change how we think about the Amazon. . . . Read it, shiver with delight and thank your lucky stars you’re never going to get as close to a candirú as Fawcett and Grann did. (Look it up on Wikipedia, if you dare.)” — Richmond Times-Dispatch “Thrilling. . . . What a story. . . . The beauty is that as incredible as it is, it’s true.” — Daily News “Outstanding. . . . A powerful narrative, stiff lipped and Victorian at the center, trippy at the edges, as if one of those stern men of Conrad had found himself trapped in a novel by García Márquez.” —Rich Cohen, The New York Times Book Review “Did Grann find the lost city? . . . It’s worth reading every page of this marvelous book to find out.” — Houston Chronicle “Grann is no hard-as-nails explorer, and his self-deprecating personal narrative . . . serves as a comic counterpoint to the superhuman exploits of Fawcett. Grann may not be able to hack the wilderness very well, but as a storyteller he’s first-rate.” —Outside “Grann has an extraordinary sense of pacing, and his scenes of forest adventure are dispatched in passages of swift, arresting simplicity. . . . A splendid, suspenseful book.” — Bookforum “With this riveting work, David Grann emerges on our national landscape as a major new talent. His superb writing style, his skills as a reporter, his masterful use of historical and scientific documents, and his stunning storytelling ability are on full display here, producing an endlessly absorbing tale about a magical subject that captivates from start to finish. This is a terrific book.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-wiining author “A thrilling yarn. . . . What [Grann] finds is what makes The Lost City of Z so gratifying, and in the end he, and we along with him, find ourselves stunned by what Percy Fawcett discovered.” — The Oregonian “Grann paints a vivid picture of the final days of trail-blazing, Earth-bound grand exploration, before airplanes and radios began stripping the mystery from the unknown parts of the world.” — The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA) “Meticulously researched and spellbinding. . . . Reads like a cross between an Indiana Jones adventure and a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. . . . Gripping.” — The Ottawa Citizen “Irresistible. . . . At once a biography of Fawcett, a history of the era of exploration, a science book on the nature and ethnography of the Amazon and a thrilling armchair adventure. . . . [It] has everything to fire the imagination: Romance, nostalgia, bravery, monomania, hardship, adventure, science, tragedy, mystery.” — South Florida Sun Sentinel “ The Lost City of Z is meticulously researched, riveting and horrifying, guided by a core mystery that seems unimaginable and an author driven into the depths of the jungle by his daring to imagine it.” — Philadelphia City Paper “Absorbing. . . . A wonderful story of a lost age of heroic exploration.” — The Sunday Times (London) “Tantalizing. . . . Grann gives us a glimpse of the vanished age of exploration [as well as] a suspenseful, often very funny account of his own trek as a complete amateur into the ‘green hell’ of the Amazon. . . . Immensely entertaining.” — The Gazette (Montreal) “Thankfully, for those of us who secretly live and breath for the swashbuckling adventure tale, every now and then a book comes along that renews our faith in the epic quest narrative, its ability to inform and enlighten even as it feeds our most primal need for dramatic amusement. [The Lost City of Z] succeeds tremendously in these pursuits.” — The Globe and Mail (Canada) About the Author DAVID GRANN is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was a finalist for The National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Grann's storytelling has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1WE SHALL RETURNOn a cold January day in 1925, a tall, distinguished gentleman hurried across the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey, toward the S.S. Vauban, a five-hundred-and-eleven-foot ocean liner bound for Rio de Janeiro. He was fifty-seven years old, and stood over six feet, his long arms corded with muscles. Although his hair was thinning and his mustache was flecked with white, he was so fit that he could walk for days with little, if any, rest or nourishment. His nose was crooked like a boxer's, and there was something ferocious about his appearance, especially his eyes. They were set close together and peered out from under thick tufts of hair. No one, not even his family, seemed to agree on their color-some thought they were blue, others gray. Yet virtually everyone who encountered him was struck by their intensity: some called them "the eyes of a visionary." He had frequently been photographed in riding boots and wearing a Stetson, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, but even in a suit and a tie, and without his customary wild beard, he could be recognized by the crowds on the pier. He was Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, and his name was known throughout the world. He was the last of the great Victorian explorers who ventured into uncharted realms with little more than a machete, a compass, and an almost divine sense of purpose. For nearly two decades, stories of his adventures had captivated the public's imagination: how he had survived in the South American wilderness without contact with the outside world; how he was ambushed by hostile tribesmen, many of whom had never before seen a white man; how he battled piranha, electric eels, jaguars, crocodiles, vampire bats, and anacondas, including one that almost crushed him; and how he emerged with maps of regions from which no previous expedition had returned. He was renowned as the "David Livingstone of the Amazon," and was believed to have such unrivaled powers of endurance that a few colleagues even claimed he was immune to death. An American explorer described him as "a man of indomitable will, infinite resource, fearless"; another said that he could "outwalk and outhike and outexplore anybody else." The London Geographical Journal, the pre-eminent publication in its field, observed in 1953 that "Fawcett marked the end of an age. One might almost call him the last of the individualist explorers. The day of the aeroplane, the radio, the organized and heavily financed modern expedition had not arrived. With him, it was the heroic story of a man against the forest." In 1916, the Royal Geographical Society had awarded him, with the blessing of King George V, a gold medal "for his contributions to the mapping of South America." And every few years, when he emerged from the jungle, spidery thin and bedraggled, dozens of scientists and luminaries would pack into the Society's hall to hear him speak. Among them was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was said to have drawn on Fawcett's experiences for his 1912 book The Lost World, in which explorers "disappear into the unknown" of South America and find, on a remote plateau, a land where dinosaurs have escaped extinction. As Fawcett made his way to the gangplank that day in January, he eerily resembled one of the book's protagonists, Lord John Roxton:Something there was of Napoleon III, something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence of the English country gentleman._._._._He has a gentle voice and a quiet manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because they are held in leash. None of Fawcett's previous expeditions compared with what he was about to do, and he could barely conceal his impatience, as he fell into line with the other passengers boarding the S.S. Vauban. The ship, advertised as "the finest in the world," was part of the Lamport & Holt elite "V" class. The Germans had sunk several of the company's ocean liners during the First World War, but this one had survived, with its black, salt-streaked hull and elegant white decks and striped funnel billowing smoke into the sky. Model T Fords shepherded passengers to the dock, where longshoremen helped cart luggage into the ship's hold. Many of the male passengers wore silk ties and bowler hats; women had on fur coats and feathered caps, as if they were attending a society event, which, in some ways, they were-the passenger lists of luxury ocean liners were chronicled in gossip columns and scoured by young girls searching for eligible bachelors. Fawcett pushed forward with his gear. His trunks were loaded with guns, canned food, powdered milk, flares, and handcrafted machetes. He also carried a kit of surveying instruments: a sextant and a chronometer for determining latitude and longitude, an aneroid for measuring atmospheric pressure, and a glycerin compass that could fit in his pocket. Fawcett had chosen each item based on years of experience; even the clothes he had packed were made of lightweight, tear-proof gabardine. He had seen men die from the most innocuous seeming oversight-a torn net, a boot that was too tight. Fawcett was setting out into the Amazon, a wilderness nearly the size of the continental United States, to make what he called "the great discovery of the century"-a lost civilization. By then, most of the world had been explored, its veil of enchantment lifted, but the Amazon remained as mysterious as the dark side of the moon. As Sir John Scott Keltie, the former secretary of the Royal Geographical Society and one of the world's most acclaimed geographers at the time, noted, "What is there no one knows." Ever since Francisco de Orellana and his army of Spanish conquistadores descended the Amazon River, in 1542, perhaps no place on the planet had so ignited the imagination-or lured men to their death. Gaspar de Carvajal, a Dominican friar who accompanied Orellana, described woman warriors in the jungle who resembled the mythical Greek Amazons. Half a century later, Sir Walter Raleigh spoke of Indians with "their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts"-a legend that Shakespeare wove into Othello: Of the Cannibals that each other eat,The Anthropophagi and men whose headsDo grow beneath their shoulders.What was true about the region-serpents as long as trees, rodents the size of pigs-was sufficiently beyond belief that no embellishment seemed too fanciful. And the most entrancing vision of all was of El Dorado. Raleigh claimed that the kingdom, which the conquistadores had heard about from Indians, was so plentiful in gold that its inhabitants ground the metal into powder and blew it "thorow hollow canes upon their naked bodies untill they be al shining from the foote to the head." Yet each expedition that had tried to find El Dorado ended in disaster. Carvajal, whose party had been searching for the kingdom, wrote in his diary, "We reached a [state of] privation so great that we were eating nothing but leather, belts and soles of shoes, cooked with certain herbs, with the result that so great was our weakness that we could not remain standing." Some four thousand men died during that expedition alone, of starvation and disease, and at the hands of Indians defending their territory with arrows dipped in poison. Other El Dorado parties resorted to cannibalism. Many explorers went mad. In 1561, Lope de Aguirre led his men on a murderous rampage, screaming, "Does God think that, because it is raining, I am not going to_._._._destroy the world?" Aguirre even stabbed his own child, whispering, "Commend thyself to God, my daughter, for I am about to kill thee." Before the Spanish crown sent forces to stop him, Aguirre warned in a letter, "I swear to you, King, on my word as a Christian, that if a hundred thousand men came, none would escape. For the reports are false: there is nothing on that river but despair." Aguirre's companions finally rose up and killed him; his body was quartered, and Spanish authorities displayed the head of the "Wrath of God" in a steel cage. Still, for three centuries, expeditions continued to search, until, after a toll of death and suffering worthy of Joseph Conrad, most archeologists had concluded that El Dorado was no more than a delusion.Fawcett, however, was certain that the Amazon contained a fabulous kingdom, and he was not another soldier of fortune or a crackpot. A man of science, he had spent years gathering evidence to prove his case-digging up artifacts, studying petroglyphs, and interviewing tribes. And after fierce battles with skeptics Fawcett had received funding from the most respected scientific institutions, including the Royal Geographical Society, the American Geographical Society, and the Museum of the American Indian. Newspapers were proclaiming that Fawcett would soon startle the world. The Atlanta Constitution declared, "It is perhaps the most hazardous and certainly the most spectacular adventure of the kind ever undertaken by a reputable scientist with the backing of conservative scientific bodies." Fawcett had concluded that an ancient, highly cultured people still existed in the Brazilian Amazon and that their civilization was so old and sophisticated it would forever alter the Western view of the Americas. He had christened this lost world the City of Z. "The central place I call 'Z'-our main objective-is in a valley_._._._about ten miles wide, and the city is on an eminence in the middle of it, approached by a barreled roadway of stone," Fawcett had stated earlier. "The houses are low and windowless, and there is a pyramidal temple." Reporters on the dock in Hoboken, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, shouted questions, hoping to learn the location of Z. In the wake of the technological horrors of the Great War, and amid the spread of urbanization and industrialization, few events so captivated the world. One newspaper exulted, "Not since the days when Ponce de Le—n crossed the unknown Florida in search of the Waters of Perpetual Youth_._._._has a more alluring adventure been planned." Fawcett welcomed "the fuss," as he described it in a letter to a friend, but he was careful about how he responded. He knew that his main rival, Alexander Hamilton Rice, a multimillionaire American doctor who commanded vast resources, was already entering the jungle with an unprecedented array of equipment. The prospect of Dr. Rice finding Z terrified Fawcett. Several years earlier, Fawcett had watched as a colleague from the Royal Geographical Society, Robert Falcon Scott, had set out to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole, only to discover, shortly before he froze to death, that his Norwegian rival, Roald Amundsen, had beaten him by thirty-three days. In a recent letter to the Royal Geographical Society, Fawcett wrote, "I cannot say all I know, or even be precise as to locality, for these things leak out, and there can be nothing so bitter to the pioneer as to find the crown of his work anticipated." He was also afraid that if he released details of his route, and others attempted to find Z or rescue him, it would result in countless deaths. An expedition of fourteen hundred armed men had previously vanished in the same region. A news bulletin telegraphed around the globe declared, "Fawcett Expedition_._._._to Penetrate Land Whence None Returned." And Fawcett, who was resolved to reach the most inaccessible areas, did not intend, like other explorers, to go by boat; rather, he planned to hack straight through the jungle on foot. The Royal Geographical Society had warned that Fawcett "is about the only living geographer who could successfully attempt" such an expedition and that "it would be hopeless for any people to follow in his footsteps." Before he left England, Fawcett confided to his younger son, Brian, "If with all my experience we can't make it, there's not much hope for others." As reporters clamored around him, Fawcett explained that only a small expedition would have any chance of survival. It would be able to live off the land, and not pose a threat to hostile Indians. The expedition, he had stated, "will be no pampered exploration party, with an army of bearers, guides and cargo animals. Such top-heavy expeditions get nowhere; they linger on the fringe of civilization and bask in publicity. Where the real wilds start, bearers are not to be had anyway, for fear of the savages. Animals cannot be taken because of lack of pasture and the attack of insects and bats. There are no guides, for no one knows the country. It is a matter of cutting equipment to the absolute minimum, carrying it all oneself, and trusting that one will be able to exist by making friends with the various tribes one meets." He now added, "We will have to suffer every form of exposure._._._._We will have to achieve a nervous and mental resistance, as well as physical, as men under these conditions are often broken by their minds succumbing before their bodies." Fawcett had chosen only two people to go with him: his twenty-one-year-old son, Jack, and Jack's best friend, Raleigh Rimell. Although they had never been on an expedition, Fawcett believed that they were ideal for the mission: tough, loyal, and, because they were so close, unlikely, after months of isolation and suffering, "to harass and persecute each other"-or, as was common on such expeditions, to mutiny. Jack was, as his brother Brian put it, "the reflection of his father": tall, frighteningly fit, and ascetic. Neither he nor his father smoked cigarettes or drank. Brian noted that Jack's "six feet three inches were sheer bone and muscle, and the three chief agents of bodily degeneration-alcohol, tobacco and loose living-were revolting to him." Colonel Fawcett, who followed a strict Victorian code, put it slightly differently: "He is_._._._absolutely virgin in mind and body." Jack, who had wanted to accompany his father on an expedition since he was a boy, had spent years preparing-lifting weights, maintaining a rigid diet, studying Portuguese, and learning how to navigate by the stars. Still, he had suffered little real deprivation, and his face, with its luminescent skin, crisp mustache, and slick brown hair, betrayed none of the hardness of his father's. With his stylish clothes, he looked more like a movie star, which is what he hoped to become upon his triumphant return. Raleigh, though smaller than Jack, was still nearly six feet tall and muscular. (A "fine physique," Fawcett told the R.G.S.) His father had been a surgeon in the Royal Navy and had died of cancer in 1917, when Raleigh was fifteen. Dark-haired, with a pronounced widow's peak and a riverboat gambler's mustache, Raleigh had a jocular, mischievous nature. "He was a born clown," said Brian Fawcett, the "perfect counterpart of the serious Jack." The two boys had been virtually inseparable since they roamed the Devonshire countryside around Seaton, England, where they grew up, riding bicycles and shooting rifles in the air. In a letter to one of Fawcett's confidants, Jack wrote, "Now we have Raleigh Rimell on board who is every bit as keen as I am._._._._He is the only intimate friend I have ever had. I knew him before I was seven years old and we have been more or less together ever since. He is absolutely honest and decent in every sense of the word and we know each other inside out." Read more

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War

Review "An instant classic look at the people, power and politicsthat created a dangerous stage...and then acted on it."-- Chicago Sun-Times "Halberstam is at his very best."-- The Wall Street Journal "He is a peerless reporter of events and facts--with a signature human touch."-- The Seattle Times "His most operatic war story."-- The New York Times Book Review "I could hardly put this book down. Meticulously and thoroughly researched, it is splendidly compelling reading. The Coldest Winter is a superb conjoining of all the factors of this tragic war: the military tactics and strategy of both sides; the international diplomacy; the internal politics; the personalities of the various players. A great work."-- Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.), co-author of We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young "In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance. Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."-- The New York Times About the Author David Halberstam (1934-2007) was the author of twenty-two books, including fifteen bestsellers. Born in New York City, Halberstam spent much of the 1960s as a reporter for the New York Times , covering the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. His Vietnam reporting earned him both a George C. Polk Award and a 1964 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Vanity Fair dubbed Halberstam "the Moses of American journalism," and the subjects of his books reflect his passion and range: war, foreign policy, history, and sports. The Best and the Brightest (1962), his sixth book, a critique of the Kennedy administration's Vietnam policy, became a #1 bestseller. His next book, The Powers that Be , a study of four American media companies, was hailed by the New York Times as a "prodigy of research." Many of Halberstam's books explored themes in professional sports, including bestsellers The Teammates , a portrait of the friendship between baseball players Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr, and The Education of a Coach , a profile of New England Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick.

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

Review “ Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem.  Robert Leckie’s theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who—somehow—survived.”—Tom Hanks“One hell of a book! The real stuff that proves the U.S. Marines are the greatest fighting men on earth!”—Leon Uris, author of Battle Cry About the Author Robert Leckie was the author of more than thirty works of military history as well as Marines , a collection of short stories, and Lord, What a Family! , a memoir. Raised in Rutherford, New Jersey, he started writing professionally at age sixteen, covering sports for The Bergen Evening Record of Hackensack. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor, going on to serve as a machine gunner and as an intelligence scout and participating in all 1st Marine Division campaigns except Okinawa.  Leckie was awarded five battle stars, the Naval Commendation Medal with Combat V, and the Purple Heart. Helmet for My Pillow (Random House, 1957) was his first book; it received the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association award upon publication. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter OneBoot A cutting wind slanted up Church Street in the cheerless dawn of January 5, 1942. That day I departed for the United States Marines.The war with Japan was not yet four weeks old, Wake Island had fallen. Pearl Harbor was a real tragedy, a burning bitter humiliation. Hastily composed war songs were on the lips of everyone, their heavy patriotism failing to compensate for what they lacked in tune and spirit. Hysteria seemed to crouch behind all eyes.But none of this meant much to me. I was aware of my father beside me, bending into the wind with me. I could feel the wound in my lower regions, still fresh, still sore. The sutures had been removed a few days earlier.I had sought to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor, but the Marines had insisted that I be circumcised. It cost me a hundred dollars, although I am not sure to this day whether I paid the doctor or not. But I am certain that few young men went off to war in that fateful time so marked.We had come across the Jersey meadows, riding the Erie commuter line, and then on the ferry over the Hudson River to downtown New York. Breakfast at home had been subdued. My mother was up and about; she did not cry. It was not a heart-rending leave-taking, nor was it brave, resolute—any of those words that fail to describe the thing.It was like so much else in this war that was to produce unbounded heroism, yet not a single stirring song: it was resigned. She followed me to the door with sad eyes and said, “God keep you.”It had been a silent trip across the meadows and it was a wordless good-by in front of the bronze revolving doors at Ninety, Church Street. My father embraced me quickly, and just as quickly averted his face and left. The Irish doorman measured me and smiled.I went inside and joined the United States Marines.The captain who swore us in reduced the ceremony to a jumble. We all held up our hands. We put them down when he lowered his. That way we guessed we were marines.The master gunnery sergeant who became our momentary shepherd made the fact plainer to us. Those rich mellow blasphemous oaths that were to become so familiar to me flowed from his lips with the consummate ease of one who had spent a lifetime in vituperation. I would meet his masters later. Presently, as he herded us across the river to Hoboken and a waiting train, he seemed to be beyond comparison. But he was gentle and kind enough when he said good-by to the thirty or forty of us who boarded the train.He stood at the head of our railroad car—a man of middle age, slender, and of a grace that was on the verge of being ruined by a pot belly. He wore the Marine dress blues. Over this was the regulation tight-fitting overcoat of forest green. Green and blue has always seemed to me an odd combination of colors, and it seemed especially so then; the gaudy dark and light blue of the Marine dress sheathed in sedate and soothing green.“Where you are going it will not be easy,” the gunnery sergeant said. “When you get to Parris Island, you’ll find things plenty different from civilian life. You won’t like it! You’ll think they’re overdoing things. You’ll think they’re stupid! You’ll think they’re the cruelest, rottenest bunch of men you ever ran into! I’m going to tell you one thing. You’ll be wrong! If you want to save yourself plenty of heartache you’ll listen to me right now: you’ll do everything they tell you and you’ll keep your big mouths shut!”He could not help grinning at the end. No group of men ever had a saner counselor, and he knew it; but he could not help grinning. He knew we would ignore his every word.“Okay, Sarge,” somebody yelled. “Thanks, Sarge.”He turned and left us.We called him “Sarge.” Within another twenty-four hours we would not dare address a lowly Pfc. without the cringing “sir.” But today the civilian shine was still upon us. We wore civvies; Hoboken howled around us in the throes of trade; we each had the citizen’s polite deprecation of the soldier, and who among us was not certain that he was not long for the ranks?Our ride to Washington was silent and uneventful. But once we had arrived in the capital and had changed trains the atmosphere seemed to lift. Other Marine recruits were arriving from all over the east. Our contingent was the last to arrive, the last to be crammed aboard the ancient wooden train that waited, puffing, dirty-in-the-dark, smelling of coal—waited to take us down the coast to South Carolina. Perhaps it was because of the dilapidated old train that we brightened and became gay. Such a dingy, tired old relic could not help but provoke mirth. Someone pretended to have found a brass plate beneath one of the seats, and our car rocked with laughter as he read, “This car is the property of the Philadelphia Museum of American History.” We had light from kerosene lamps and heat from a potbellied stove. Draughts seemed to stream from every angle and there was a constant creaking and wailing of wood and wheels that sounded like an endless keening. Strange old train that it was, I loved it.Comfort had been left behind in Washington. Some of us already were beginning to revel in the hardship of the train ride. That intangible mystique of the marine was somehow, even then, at work. We were having it rough, which is exactly what we expected and what we had signed up for. That is the thing: having it rough. The man who has had it roughest is the man to be most admired. Conversely, he who has had it the easiest is the least praiseworthy.Those who wished to sleep could cat-nap on the floor while the train lurched down through Virginia and North Carolina. But these were few. The singing and the talk were too exciting.The boy sitting next to me—a handsome blond-haired youth from south Jersey—turned out to have a fine high voice. He sang several songs alone. There being a liberal leavening of New York Irish among us, he was soon singing Irish ballads.Across the aisle there was another boy, whom I shall call Armadillo because of his lean and pointed face. He was from New York and had attended college there. Being one of the few college men present, he had already established a sort of literary clique.The Armadillo’s coterie could not equal another circle farther down the car. This had at its center a stocky, smiling redhead. Red had been a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and had once hit a home run at the Polo Grounds off the great Carl Hubbell.There was no measuring the impact of such a celebrity on our group, composed otherwise of mediocrities like myself. Red had been in the big time. He had held daily converse with men who were nothing less than the idols of his newfound comrades. It was quite natural they should ring him round; consult him on everything from pitching form to the Japanese General Staff.“Whaddya think it’ll be like at Parris Island, Red?”“Hey, Red—you think the Japs are as tough as the newspapers say they are?”It is an American weakness. The success becomes the sage. Scientists counsel on civil liberty; comedians and actresses lead political rallies; athletes tell us what brand of cigarette to smoke. But the redhead was equal to it. It was plain in his case what travel and headlines can do. He was easily the most poised of us all.But I suspect even Red’s savoir-faire got a rude jolt when we arrived in Parris Island. We had been taken from the railroad station by truck. When we had dismounted and had formed a motley rank in front of the red brick mess hall, we were subjected to the classic greeting.“Boys,” said the sergeant who would be our drill instructor. “Boys—Ah want to tell yawl something. Give youah hearts to Jesus, boys—cause youah ass belongs to me!”Then he fell us in after our clumsy civilian fashion and marched us into the mess hall.There were baloney and lima beans. I had never eaten lima beans before, but I did this time; they were cold.The group that had made the trip from New York did not survive the first day in Parris Island. I never saw the blond singer again, nor most of the others. Somehow sixty of us among the hundreds who had been aboard that ancient train, became a training platoon, were assigned a number and placed under the charge of the drill sergeant who had delivered the welcoming address.Sergeant Bellow was a southerner with a fine contempt for northerners. It was not that he favored the southerners; he merely treated them less sarcastically. He was big. I would say six feet four inches, two hundred thirty pounds.But above all he had a voice.It pulsed with power as he counted the cadence, marching us from the administration building to the quartermaster’s. It whipped us, this ragged remnant, and stiffened our slouching civilian backs. Nowhere else but in the Marine Corps do you hear that peculiar lilting cadence of command.“Thrip-faw-ya-leahft, thrip-faw-ya-leahft.”It sounds like an incantation; but it is merely the traditional “three-four-your-left” elongated by the southern drawl, made sprightly by being sung. I never heard it done better than by our sergeant. Because of this, and because of his inordinate love of drill, I have but one image of him: striding stiff-backed a few feet apart from us, arms thrust out, hands clenched, head canted back, with the whole body following and the great voice ceaselessly bellowing, “Thrip-faw-ya-leahft, thrip-faw-ya-leahft.”Sergeant Bellow marched us to the quartermaster’s. It was there we were stripped of all vestiges of personality. It is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors and marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost; the discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks; gone is a propensity for stripes, or clocks, or checks, or even solids; ended is a tendency to combine purple socks with brown tie. My socks henceforth will be tan. They will neither be soiled, nor rolled, nor gaudy, nor restrained, nor holey. They will be tan. The only other thing they may be is clean.So it is with it all, until one stands naked, struggling with an embarrassment that is entirely lost on the laconic shades who work in quartermaster sheds.Within—in the depths the psychiatrists call subliminal—a human spark still sputters. It will never go quite out. Its vigor or its desuetude is in exact proportion to the number of miles a man may put between himself and his camp. Read more

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Review "Here is storytelling so authentic, so moving and so intense, and so intense, and so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn't sure I could stand to turn the page. ... There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire." -Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down "I wouldn't be surprised if Matterhorn becomes for the Vietnam War what All Quiet on the Western Front was to World War I." -James Patterson "One of the most profound and devastating novels to come out of Vietnam - or any war." -Sebastian Junger "I've laughed at Catch-22 and wept at The Thin Red Line , but I've never encountered a war novel as stark, honest, and wrenching as Matterhorn . ... I found it nearly impossible to stop reading." -Michael Schaub, NPR "Unforgettable ... A beautifully crafted novel of unrivaled authenticity and power, filled with jungle heroism, crackerjack inventiveness, mud, blood, brotherhood, hatred, healing, terror, bureaucracy, politics, unfathmomable waste, and unfathomable love." -Christina Robb "A powerhouse: tense, brutal, honest." - TIME About the Author A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, KARL MARLANTES served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War . He lives in rural Washington.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Review ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • USA Today • O: The Oprah Magazine • Publishers Weekly • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker •  The Washington Post • The Economist • Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle •  Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch  • The Christian Science Monitor MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER • HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER • DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST “A landmark piece of nonfiction . . . sure to hold many surprises for readers of any race or experience….A mesmerizing book that warrants comparison to The Promised Land, Nicholas Lemann’s study of the Great Migration’s early phase, and Common Ground, J. Anthony Lukas’s great, close-range look at racial strife in Boston….[Wilkerson’s] closeness with, and profound affection for, her subjects reflect her deep immersion in their stories and allow the reader to share that connection.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times “ The Warmth of Other Suns is a brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full half-century of the Great Migration… Wilkerson combines impressive research…with great narrative and literary power. Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath ; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.” — The Wall Street Journal “[A] massive and masterly account of the Great Migration….A narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah’s couch.” — The New York Times Book Review (Cover Review) “[A] deeply affecting, finely crafted and heroic book. . . .Wilkerson has taken on one of the most important demographic upheavals of the past century—a phenomenon whose dimensions and significance have eluded many a scholar—and told it through the lives of three people no one has ever heard of….This is narrative nonfiction, lyrical and tragic and fatalist. The story exposes; the story moves; the story ends. What Wilkerson urges, finally, isn’t argument at all; it’s compassion. Hush, and listen.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker " The Warmth of Other Suns is epic in its reach and in its structure. Told in a voice that echoes the magic cadences of Toni Morrison or the folk wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston’s collected oral histories, Wilkerson’s book pulls not just the expanse of the migration into focus but its overall impact on politics, literature, music, sports — in the nation and the world." — Los Angeles Times “One of the most lyrical and important books of the season." — Boston Globe “[An] extraordinary and evocative work.” — The Washington Post “Mesmerizing. . .” — Chicago Tribune “Scholarly but very readable, this book, for all its rigor, is so absorbing, it should come with a caveat: Pick it up only when you can lose yourself entirely.” —O, The Oprah Magazine "[An] indelible and compulsively readable portrait of race, class, and politics in 20th-century America. History is rarely distilled so finely.” — Entertainment Weekly ( Grade: A) “An astonishing work. . . . Isabel Wilkerson delivers! . . . With the precision of a surgeon, Wilkerson illuminates the stories of bold, faceless African-Americans who transformed cities and industries with their hard work and determination to provide their children with better lives.” —Essence “Isabel Wilkerson’s majestic The Warmth of Other Suns shows that not everyone bloomed, but the migrants—Wilkerson prefers to think of them as domestic immigrants—remade the entire country, North and South. It’s a monumental job of writing and reporting that lives up to its subtitle: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration .” —USA Today “[A] sweeping history of the Great Migration. . . . The Warmth of Other Suns builds upon such purely academic works to make the migrant experience both accessible and emotionally compelling.” —NPR.org “ The Warmth of Other Suns is a beautifully written, in-depth analysis of what Wilkerson calls “one of the most underreported stories of the 20th century. . .  A masterpiece that sheds light on a significant development in our nation’s history.” —The San Jose Mercury News “ The Warmth of Other Suns is a beautifully written book that, once begun, is nearly impossible to put aside. It is an unforgettable combination of tragedy and inspiration, and gripping subject matter and characters in a writing style that grabs the reader on Page 1 and never let’s go. . . . Woven into the tapestry of [three individuals] lives, in prose that is sweet to savor, Wilkerson tells the larger story, the general situation of life in the South for blacks. . . . If you read one only one book about history this year, read this. If you read only one book about African Americans this year, read this. If you read only one book this year, read this.” —The Free Lance Star, Fredericksburg, Va. "A truly auspicious debut. . . . The author deftly intersperses [her characters'] stories with short vignettes about other individuals and consistently provides the bigger picture without interrupting the flow of the narrative…Wilkerson’s focus on the personal aspect lends her book a markedly different, more accessible tone. Her powerful storytelling style, as well, gives this decades-spanning history a welcome novelistic flavor. An impressive take on the Great Migration." — Kirkus, Starred Review “[A] magnificent , extensively researched study of the great migration… The drama, poignancy, and romance of a classic immigrant saga pervade this book, hold the reader in its grasp, and resonate long after the reading is done.” — Publishers Weekly , Starred Review “Not since Alex Haley’s Roots has there been a history of equal literary quality where the writing surmounts the rhythmic soul of fiction, where the writer’s voice sings a song of redemptive glory as true as Faulkner’s southern cantatas.” — The San Francisco Examiner “Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read.” —Toni Morrison “ The Warmth of Other Suns is a sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America’s hidden 20th century history - the long and difficult trek of Southern blacks to the northern and western cities. This is an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our modern nation.” —Tom Brokaw “A seminal work of narrative nonfiction. . . . You will never forget these people.” —Gay Talese “With compelling prose and considered analysis, Isabel Wilkerson has given us a landmark portrait of one of the most significant yet little-noted shifts in American history: the migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to the cities of the North and West.  It is a complicated tale, with an infinity of implications for questions of race, power, politics, religion, and class—implications that are unfolding even now.  This book will be long remembered, and savored.” —Jon Meacham “Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is an American masterpiece, a stupendous literary success that channels the social sciences as iconic biography in order to tell a vast story of a people's reinvention of itself and of a nation—the first complete history of the Great Black Migration from start to finish, north, east, west.” —David Levering Lewis “Isabel Wilkerson’s book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people.  Don’t miss it!” —Cornel West About the Author Isabel Wilkerson won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the Midwest and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for her research into the Great Migration. She has lectured on narrative writing at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and has served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and as the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared. This is her first book. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. In the Land of the ForefathersOur mattresses were made of corn shucksand soft gray Spanish moss that hung from the trees. . . .From the swamps we got soup turtles and baby alligatorsand from the woods we got raccoon, rabbit and possum.—Mahalia Jackson, Movin’ On UpLeavingThis land is first and foremosthis handiwork.It was he who brought orderout of primeval wilderness . . . Wherever one looks in this land,whatever one sees that is the work of man,was erected by the toilingstraining bodies of blacks.—David L. Cohn, God Shakes CreationThey fly from the land that bore them.—W. H. Stillwell1Chickasaw County, Mississippi, Late October 1937ida mae brandon gladneythe night clouds were closing in on the salt licks east of the oxbow lakes along the folds in the earth beyond the Yalobusha River. The cotton was at last cleared from the field. Ida Mae tried now to get the children ready and to gather the clothes and quilts and somehow keep her mind off the churning within her. She had sold off the turkeys and doled out in secret the old stools, the wash pots, the tin tub, the bed pallets. Her husband was settling with Mr. Edd over the worth of a year’s labor, and she did not know what would come of it. None of them had been on a train before—not unless you counted the clattering local from Bacon Switch to Okolona, where, “by the time you sit down, you there,” as Ida Mae put it. None of them had been out of Mississippi. Or Chickasaw County, for that matter.There was no explaining to little James and Velma the stuffed bags and chaos and all that was at stake or why they had to put on their shoes and not cry and bring undue attention from anyone who might happen to see them leaving. Things had to look normal, like any other time they might ride into town, which was rare enough to begin with.Velma was six. She sat with her ankles crossed and three braids in her hair and did what she was told. James was too little to understand. He was three. He was upset at the commotion. Hold still now, James. Lemme put your shoes on, Ida Mae told him. James wriggled and kicked. He did not like shoes. He ran free in the field. What were these things? He did not like them on his feet. So Ida Mae let him go barefoot.Miss Theenie stood watching. One by one, her children had left her and gone up north. Sam and Cleve to Ohio. Josie to Syracuse. Irene to Milwaukee. Now the man Miss Theenie had tried to keep Ida Mae from marrying in the first place was taking her away, too. Miss Theenie had no choice but to accept it and let Ida Mae and the grandchildren go for good. Miss Theenie drew them close to her, as she always did whenever anyone was leaving. She had them bow their heads. She whispered a prayer that her daughter and her daughter’s family be protected on the long journey ahead in the Jim Crow car.“May the Lord be the first in the car,” she prayed, “and the last out.”When the time had come, Ida Mae and little James and Velma and all that they could carry were loaded into a brother-in-law’s truck, and the three of them went to meet Ida Mae’s husband at the train depot in Okolona for the night ride out of the bottomland.2Wildwood, Florida, April 14, 1945george swanson starlinga man named roscoe colton gave Lil George Starling a ride in his pickup truck to the train station in Wildwood through the fruit-bearing scrubland of central Florida. And Schoolboy, as the toothless orange pickers mockingly called him, boarded the Silver Meteor pointing north.A railing divided the stairs onto the train, one side of the railing for white passengers, the other for colored, so the soles of their shoes would not touch the same stair. He boarded on the colored side of the railing, a final reminder from the place of his birth of the absurdity of the world he was leaving.He was getting out alive. So he didn’t let it bother him. “I got on the car where they told me to get on,” he said years later.He hadn’t had time to bid farewell to everyone he wanted to. He stopped to say good-bye to Rachel Jackson, who owned a little café up on what they called the Avenue and the few others he could safely get to in the little time he had. He figured everybody in Egypt town, the colored section of Eustis, probably knew he was leaving before he had climbed onto the train, small as the town was and as much as people talked.It was a clear afternoon in the middle of April. He folded his tall frame into the hard surface of the seat, his knees knocking against the seat back in front of him. He was packed into the Jim Crow car, where the railroad stored the luggage, when the train pulled away at last. He was on the run, and he wouldn’t rest easy until he was out of range of Lake County, beyond the reach of the grove owners whose invisible laws he had broken.The train rumbled past the forest of citrus trees that he had climbed since he was a boy and that he had tried to wrestle some dignity out of and, for a time, had. They could have their trees. He wasn’t going to lose his life over them. He had come close enough as it was.He had lived up to his family’s accidental surname. Starling. Distant cousin to the mockingbird. He had spoken up about what he had seen in the world he was born into, like the starling that sang Mozart’s own music back to him or the starling out of Shakespeare that tormented the king by speaking the name of Mortimer. Only, George was paying the price for tormenting the ruling class that owned the citrus groves. There was no place in the Jim Crow South for a colored starling like him.He didn’t know what he would do once he got to New York or what his life would be. He didn’t know how long it would take before he could send for Inez. His wife was mad right now, but she’d get over it once he got her there. At least that’s what he told himself. He turned his face to the North and sat with his back to Florida.Leaving as he did, he figured he would never set foot in Eustis again for as long as he lived. And as he settled in for the twenty-three-hour train ride up the coast of the Atlantic, he had no desire to have anything to do with the town he grew up in, the state of Florida, or the South as a whole, for that matter. Read more

Bomber Command (Zenith Military Classics)

Book Description Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. More than 56,000 British and Commonwealth aircrew and 600,000 Germans died in the course of the RAF’s attempt to win the war by bombing. In Bomber Command , originally published to critical acclaim in the U.K., famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Now back in print in the U.S., this book is an essential addition to any history reader’s bookshelf. From the Back Cover Sir Max Hastings, recipient of the 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing, has written one of the classic accounts of World War II.  Upon publication, Bomber Command , winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize , attracted controversy but today is widely considered a classic account of one of the longest and bloodiest campaigns of World War II.  This work, in Hastings’s characteristic prose, profiles the harrowing experiences of Bomber Command’s aircrew from 1939–45, the entire length of the air war of Europe, as well as the controversy surrounding the development and implementation of area bombing. Written from a vast collection of documents, letters, diaries, and interviews from many surviving senior officers, Bomber Command remains an important contribution toward understanding one of the most violent struggles of the war. About the Author Sir Max Hastings is a famed British journalist and military historian who has served as a foreign correspondent for the Evening Standard and as editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph . Currently, he writes columns for the New York Review of Books , the Daily Mail , the Guardian , and the Sunday Times and is also the bestselling author of numerous history books on World War II, the Korean War, and the Falkland Islands.www.maxhastings.com Read more

The Proud Tower A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890 1914

Review “[Barbara W. Tuchman’s] Pulitzer Prize–winning The Guns of August was an expert evocation of the first spasm of the 1914–1918 war. She brings the same narrative gifts and panoramic camera eye to her portrait of the antebellum world.” — Newsweek “A rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish . . . It would be impossible to read The Proud Tower without pleasure and admiration.” — The New York Times “An exquisitely written and thoroughly engrossing work . . . The author’s knowledge and skill are so impressive that they whet the appetite for more.” — Chicago Tribune “[Tuchman] tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding.” — Time From the Publisher THE PROUD TOWER by Barbara Tuchman examines the Western World of approximately 100 years ago. Technologically the world was a very different from today, but the strifes between economic groups and among nations bears many similarities to our own time. Tuchman examines the economic, social, political, and technological world of the period 1890-1914. By this period, the United States had become an important player in world affairs. The Haymarket Affair in Chicago fueled the development of international anarchism which led to the assasinations of political figures in Russia, Italy, France and lastly President McKinley in the United States. Tuchman's unraveling of the the Dreyfus Affair is, in itself, worth the price of the book. In THE PROUD TOWER Tuchman describes the western world that exploded into The Great War (which she describes in THE GUNS OF AUGUST).Randy Hickernell, Ballantine Sales Rep. From the Inside Flap "The diplomatic origins, so-called, of the War are only the fever chart of the patient; they do not tell us what caused the fever. To probe for underlying causes and deeper forces one must operate within the framework of a whole society and try to discover what moved the people in it."--Barbara W. TuchmanThe fateful quarter-century leading up to the World War I was a time when the world of Privilege still existed in Olympian luxury and the world of Protest was heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate. The age was the climax of a century of the most accelerated rate of change in history, a cataclysmic shaping of destiny.In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on society rather than the state. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman bings to vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War: the Edwardian aristocracy and the end of their reign; the Anarchists of Europe and America, who voiced the protest of the oppressed; Germany, as portrayed through the figure of the self-depicted Hero, Richard Strauss; the sudden gorgeous blaze of Diaghilev's Russian Ballet and Stravinsky's music; the Dreyfus Affair; the two Peace Conferences at the Hague; and, finally, the youth, ideals, enthusiasm, and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized in the moment when the heroic Jean Jaurès was shot to death on the night the War began and an epoch ended."Tuchman [was] a distinguished historian who [wrote] her books with a rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish. . . . It would be impossible to read The Proud Tower without pleasure and admiration."--The New York Times"Tuchman proved in The Guns of August that she could write better military history than most men. In this sequel, she tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding, eschewing both the sweeping generalizations of a Toynbee and the minute-by-minute simplicisms of a Walter Lord."--Time About the Author Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmermann Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August —a huge bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Her other works include Bible and Sword, The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (for which Tuchman was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize), Notes from China, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, and The First Salute . Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. IThe PatriciansThe last government in the Western world to possess all the attributes of aristocracy in working condition took office in England in June of 1895. Great Britain was at the zenith of empire when the Conservatives won the General Election of that year, and the Cabinet they formed was her superb and resplendent image. Its members represented the greater landowners of the country who had been accustomed to govern for generations. As its superior citizens they felt they owed a duty to the State to guard its interests and manage its affairs. They governed from duty, heritage and habit—and, as they saw it, from right.The Prime Minister was a Marquess and lineal descendant of the father and son who had been chief ministers to Queen Elizabeth and James I. The Secretary for War was another Marquess who traced his inferior title of Baron back to the year 1181, whose great-grandfather had been Prime Minister under George III and whose grandfather had served in six cabinets under three reigns. The Lord President of the Council was a Duke who owned 186,000 acres in eleven counties, whose ancestors had served in government since the Fourteenth Century, who had himself served thirty-four years in the House of Commons and three times refused to be Prime Minister. The Secretary for India was the son of another Duke whose family seat was received in 1315 by grant from Robert the Bruce and who had four sons serving in Parliament at the same time. The President of the Local Government Board was a pre-eminent country squire who had a Duke for brother-in-law, a Marquess for son-in-law, an ancestor who had been Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Charles II, and who had himself been a Member of Parliament for twenty-seven years. The Lord Chancellor bore a family name brought to England by a Norman follower of William the Conqueror and maintained thereafter over eight centuries without a title. The Lord Lieutenant for Ireland was an Earl, a grandnephew of the Duke of Wellington and a hereditary trustee of the British Museum. The Cabinet also included a Viscount, three Barons and two Baronets. Of its six commoners, one was a director of the Bank of England, one was a squire whose family had represented the same county in Parliament since the Sixteenth Century, one—who acted as Leader of the House of Commons—was the Prime Minister’s nephew and inheritor of a Scottish fortune of £4,000,000, and one, a notable and disturbing cuckoo in the nest, was a Birmingham manufacturer widely regarded as the most successful man in England.Besides riches, rank, broad acres and ancient lineage, the new Government also possessed, to the regret of the Liberal Opposition and in the words of one of them, “an almost embarrassing wealth of talent and capacity.” Secure in authority, resting comfortably on their electoral majority in the House of Commons and on a permanent majority in the House of Lords, of whom four-fifths were Conservatives, they were in a position, admitted the same opponent, “of unassailable strength.”Enriching their ranks were the Whig aristocrats who had seceded from the Liberal party in 1886 rather than accept Mr. Gladstone’s insistence on Home Rule for Ireland. They were for the most part great landowners who, like their natural brothers the Tories, regarded union with Ireland as sacrosanct. Led by the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquess of Lansdowne and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, they had remained independent until 1895, when they joined with the Conservative party, and the two groups emerged as the Unionist party, in recognition of the policy that had brought them together. With the exception of Mr. Chamberlain, this coalition represented that class in whose blood, training and practice over the centuries, landowning and governing had been inseparable. Ever since Saxon chieftains met to advise the King in the first national assembly, the landowners of England had been sending members to Parliament and performing the duties of High Sheriff, Justice of the Peace and Lord Lieutenant of the Militia in their own counties. They had learned the practice of government from the possession of great estates, and they undertook to manage the affairs of the nation as inevitably and unquestionably as beavers build a dam. It was their ordained role and natural task.But it was threatened. By a rising rumble of protest from below, by the Radicals of the Opposition who talked about taxing unearned increment on land, by Home Rulers who wanted to detach the Irish island from which so much English income came, by Trade Unionists who talked of Labour representation in Parliament and demanded the legal right to strike and otherwise interfere with the free play of economic forces, by Socialists who wanted to nationalize property and Anarchists who wanted to abolish it, by upstart nations and strange challenges from abroad. The rumble was distant, but it spoke with one voice that said Change, and those whose business was government could not help but hear.Planted firmly across the path of change, operating warily, shrewdly yet with passionate conviction in defence of the existing order, was a peer who was Chancellor of Oxford University for life, had twice held the India Office, twice the Foreign Office and was now Prime Minister for the third time. He was Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury, ninth Earl and third Marquess of his line.Lord Salisbury was both the epitome of his class and uncharacteristic of it—except insofar as the freedom to be different was a class characteristic. He was six feet four inches tall, and as a young man had been thin, ungainly, stooping and shortsighted, with hair unusually black for an Englishman. Now sixty-five, his youthful lankiness had turned to bulk, his shoulders had grown massive and more stooped than ever, and his heavy bald head with full curly gray beard rested on them as if weighted down. Melancholy, intensely intellectual, subject to sleepwalking and fits of depression which he called “nerve storms,” caustic, tactless, absent-minded, bored by society and fond of solitude, with a penetrating, skeptical, questioning mind, he had been called the Hamlet of English politics. He was above the conventions and refused to live in Downing Street. His devotion was to religion, his interest in science. In his own home he attended private chapel every morning before breakfast, and had fitted up a chemical laboratory where he conducted solitary experiments. He harnessed the river at Hatfield for an electric power plant on his estate and strung up along the old beams of his home one of England’s first electric light systems, at which his family threw cushions when the wires sparked and sputtered while they went on talking and arguing, a customary occupation of the Cecils.Lord Salisbury cared nothing for sport and little for people. His aloofness was enhanced by shortsightedness so intense that he once failed to recognize a member of his own Cabinet, and once, his own butler. At the close of the Boer War he picked up a signed photograph of King Edward and, gazing at it pensively, remarked, “Poor Buller [referring to the Commander-in-Chief at the start of the War], what a mess he made of it.” On another occasion he was seen in prolonged military conversation with a minor peer under the impression that he was talking to Field Marshal Lord Roberts.For the upper-class Englishman’s alter ego, most intimate companion and constant preoccupation, his horse, Lord Salisbury had no more regard. Riding was to him purely a means of locomotion to which the horse was “a necessary but extremely inconvenient adjunct.” Nor was he addicted to shooting. When Parliament rose he did not go north to slaughter grouse upon the moors or stalk deer in Scottish forests, and when protocol required his attendance upon royalty at Balmoral, he would not go for walks and “positively refused,” wrote Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, “to admire the prospect or the deer.” Ponsonby was told to have his room in the dismal castle kept “warm”—a minimum temperature of sixty degrees. Otherwise he retired for his holidays to France, where he owned a villa at Beaulieu on the Riviera and where he could exercise his fluent French and lose himself in The Count of Monte Cristo, the only book, he once told Dumas fils, which allowed him to forget politics.His acquaintance with games was confined to tennis, but when elderly he invented his own form of exercise, which consisted in riding a tricycle through St. James’s Park in the early mornings or along paths cemented for the purpose in the park of his estate at Hatfield. Wearing for the occasion a kind of sombrero hat and a short sleeveless cloak with a hole in the middle in which he resembled a monk, he would be accompanied by a young coachman to push him up the hills. At the downhill slopes, the young man would be told to “jump on behind,” and the Prime Minister, with the coachman’s hands on his shoulders, would roll away, cloak flying and pedals whirring.Hatfield, twenty miles north of London in Hertfordshire, had been the home of the Cecils for nearly three hundred years since James I had given it, in 1607, to his Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, in exchange for a house of Cecil’s to which the King had taken a fancy. It was the royal residence where Queen Elizabeth had spent her childhood and where, on receiving news of her accession, she held her first council, to swear in William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as her chief Secretary of State. Its Long Gallery, with intricately carved paneled walls and gold-leaf ceiling, was 180 feet in length. The Marble Hall, named for the black and white marble floor, glowed like a jewel case with painted and gilded ceiling and Brussels tapestries. The red King James Drawing Room was hung with full-length family portraits by Romney and Reynolds and Lawrence. The library was lined from floor to gallery and ceiling with 10,000 volumes bound in leather and vellum. In other rooms were kept the Casket Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, suits of armor taken from men of the Spanish Armada, the cradle of the beheaded King, Charles I, and presentation portraits of James I and George III. Outside were yew hedges clipped in the form of crenelated battlements, and the gardens, of which Pepys wrote that he never saw “so good flowers, nor so great gooseberries as big as nutmegs.” Over the entrance hall hung flags captured at Waterloo and presented to Hatfield by the Duke of Wellington, who was a constant visitor and devoted admirer of the Prime Minister’s mother, the second Marchioness. In her honor Wellington wore the hunt coat of the Hatfield Hounds when he was on campaign. The first Marchioness was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds and hunted till the day she died at eighty-five, when, half-blind and strapped to the saddle, she was accompanied by a groom who would shout, when her horse approached a fence, “Jump, dammit, my Lady, jump!”It was this exceptional person who reinvigorated the Cecil blood, which, after Burghley and his son, had produced no further examples of superior mentality. Rather, the general mediocrity of succeeding generations had been varied only, according to a later Cecil, by instances of “quite exceptional stupidity.” But the second Marquess proved a vigorous and able man with a strong sense of public duty who served in several mid-century Tory cabinets. His second son, another Robert Cecil, was the Prime Minister of 1895. He in turn produced five sons who were to distinguish themselves. One became a general, one a bishop, one a minister of state, one M.P. for Oxford, and one, through service to the government, won a peerage in his own right. “In human beings as in horses,” Lord Birkenhead was moved to comment on the Cecil record, “there is something to be said for the hereditary principle.”At Oxford in 1850 the contemporaries of young Robert Cecil agreed that he would end as Prime Minister either because or in spite of his remorselessly uncompromising opinions. Throughout life he never bothered to restrain them. His youthful speeches were remarkable for their virulence and insolence; he was not, said Disraeli, “a man who measures his phrases.” A “Salisbury” became a synonym for political imprudence. He once compared the Irish in their incapacity for self-government to Hottentots and spoke of an Indian candidate for Parliament as “that black man.” In the opinion of Lord Morley his speeches were always a pleasure to read because “they were sure to contain one blazing indiscretion which it is a delight to remember.” Whether these were altogether accidental is open to question, for though Lord Salisbury delivered his speeches without notes, they were worked out in his head beforehand and emerged clear and perfect in sentence structure. In that time the art of oratory was considered part of the equipment of a statesman and anyone reading from a written speech would have been regarded as pitiable. When Lord Salisbury spoke, “every sentence,” said a fellow member, “seemed as essential, as articulate, as vital to the argument as the members of his body to an athlete.”Appearing in public before an audience about whom he cared nothing, Salisbury was awkward; but in the Upper House, where he addressed his equals, he was perfectly and strikingly at home. He spoke sonorously, with an occasional change of tone to icy mockery or withering sarcasm. When a recently ennobled Whig took the floor to lecture the House of Lords in high-flown and solemn Whig sentiments, Salisbury asked a neighbor who the speaker was and on hearing the whispered identification, replied perfectly audibly, “I thought he was dead.” When he listened to others he could become easily bored, revealed by a telltale wagging of his leg which seemed to one observer to be saying, “When will all this be over?” Or sometimes, raising his heels off the floor, he would set up a sustained quivering of his knees and legs which could last for half an hour at a time. At home, when made restless by visitors, it shook the floor and made the furniture rattle, and in the House his colleagues on the front bench complained it made them seasick. If his legs were at rest his long fingers would be in motion, incessantly twisting and turning a paper knife or beating a tattoo on his knee or on the arm of his chair.He never dined out and rarely entertained beyond one or two political receptions at his town house in Arlington Street and an occasional garden party at Hatfield. He avoided the Carlton, official club of the Conservatives, in favor of the Junior Carlton, where a special luncheon table was set aside for him alone and the library was hung with huge placards inscribed silence. He worked from breakfast to one in the morning, returning to his desk after dinner as if he were beginning a new day. His clothes were drab and often untidy. He wore trousers and waistcoat of a dismal gray under a broadcloth frock coat grown shiny. But though careless in dress, he was particular about the trimming of his beard and carefully directed operations in the barber’s chair, indicating “just a little more off here” while “artist and subject gazed fixedly in the mirror to judge the result.” Read more

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

Review New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice “ The best book about the CIA I’ve ever read. Its revelations are eye-popping, alternately exhilarating and depressing…How Whipple managed to pull so much history together, how he extracted such a wealth of detail from his principal sources—the CIA leaders themselves—is quite simply mind-boggling. This is an important book. And one hell of a story.” —Christopher Buckley, New York Times bestselling author of The White House Mess and Thank You for Smoking “A genial, engaging portrait of the men and one woman who have run the C.I.A. over the past six decades….[Contains] a richly textured account of the operation targeting the Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah….In weighing success and failure, Whipple offers measured, sympathetic, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand tallies of the merits and demerits for each of his spymasters.” — The New York Times “A study of how the C.I.A. has at different times over the decades been both a target of presidential animus and a clandestine presidential plaything….All of this can make for some great reading….Whipple’s interviews give plenty of rope for some of the former spy chiefs to hang themselves.” — Mark Mazzetti, Washington investigative correspondent for The New York Times and author of The Way of the Knife, writing in the digital weekly Air Mail " A page-turner. Chris Whipple gives the reader tales of intrigue and masterfully tells the history of the nation’s spymasters and their relationships to presidents, and how those interactions shaped history…..An engaging read of politics, off-the-books plots, and struggles for CIA identity and access…Rating: 3.5 out of 4 trench coats." —The Cipher Brief “If you’re an American, The Spymasters is required reading.” — Chicago Review of Books “Whipple’s access and interviews are impressive [and his] exploration of the different dynamics of the directors themselves, the presidents they served, and the challenges each faced is fascinating….[The] writing is breezy, accessible, and compelling.” —The Diplomatic Courier “Compelling…Chris Whipple does for the CIA and Washington DC what Plutarch did for those whose job it was to expand and defend the glory of Rome—paint an indelible portrait of how the servants of government seek to know and control the world….One theme emerges from the career of each director—how difficult it is to tell presidents anything they don’t want to hear.” —Thomas Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA "An expert chronicle of the CIA through the actions of its directors….This lively, opinionated history makes it clear that presidents and CIA directors sometimes deserve each other.” —Kirkus Reviews “Riveting…a timely reminder of the outsized influence of our nation’s intelligence bureaucracy—and the men and women who live in this wilderness of mirrors. ‘They were all asked to do things they shouldn’t do,’ says Cynthia Helms, wife of the legendary CIA Director Richard Helms. Whipple explores these ethical quandaries with nuance and fairness.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames “Fascinating…Whipple parts the curtains on the dark art to show the triumphs and failures, the personalities and rivalries of those who work in the shadows of espionage.” —Tom Brokaw, Special Correspondent for NBC News and bestselling author of The Greatest Generation “Chris Whipple is an accomplished historian, hard-nosed journalist, and master storyteller…A must-read for anyone interested in America’s intelligence gathering and national security.” —James A. Baker, III, 61st U.S. Secretary of State “Whipple makes excellent use of insider accounts and provides enough color to keep readers turning the pages. This well-written and accessible survey illuminates a neglected role in American history.” —Publishers Weekly “Provides astute profiles of the men, and one woman, in charge of the modern Central Intelligence Agency, and the presidents for whom they have worked…Accurate, fair and informative.” —John W. Dean, Nixon Administration White House Counsel and bestselling author of Conservatives Without Conscience “Better than anyone, Chris Whipple knows how to root out the secrets buried deeply in the federal bureaucracy…When he gives the most secret of our agencies a good shaking the headline stories and secrets come tumbling out…This is the CIA with the bark off, and Washington reporting at its best.” —Bob Schieffer, CBS News “Engrossing…Whipple is at once clear-eyed and fair-minded while giving us a riveting read.” —Evan Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA “A highly readable, fair, and well researched history of the CIA over the past fifty years. Whipple comes neither to pillory the CIA nor to praise it but, rather, to understand it—and he fully succeeds.” —Max Boot, New York Times bestselling author The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam About the Author Chris Whipple is an author, political analyst, and Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker. He is a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR, and has contributed essays to The New York Times , The Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , and Vanity Fair . His first book, The Gatekeepers , an analysis of the position of White House Chief of Staff, was a New York Times bestseller. His follow-up, The Spymasters , was based on interviews with nearly every living CIA Director and was critically acclaimed. Whipple lives in New York City with his wife Cary. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1: “Stay the hell away from the whole damned thing.” CHAPTER ONE “Stay the hell away from the whole damned thing.” Richard Helms, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon At his transition headquarters on the thirty-ninth floor of New York City’s Pierre Hotel, in a suite with a panoramic view of Central Park, Richard M. Nixon was preparing to become president of the United States. It was Friday, November 15, 1968, and Nixon had been huddling with his closest advisers, meeting with candidates for his cabinet, plotting to bend the Washington establishment to his will. The president-elect was “in the mood of a general about to occupy an enemy town,” wrote author Thomas Powers, “bringing with him a visceral dislike and suspicion of the federal bureaucracy… because it was in his character to see himself always as surrounded by Read more

Huey Long

Review "A brilliant, bawdy, unforgettable picture of the most colorful, as well as the most dangerous man to engage in American politics." — Washington Post From the Inside Flap Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this work describes the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in American political history. From the Back Cover Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this work describes the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in American political history. About the Author T. Harry Williams was born in Vinegar Hill, Illinois, in 1909. He taught at the universities of Wisconsin, Omaha, and West Virginia before becoming Professor of History of Louisiana State University, and was the author of many books on military and political history. The T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History was established at Louisiana State University in 1992. Read more

The Obesity Code - Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (Book 1)

Review “Not only full of insights but also surprisingly funny. Read it to understand why the world became fat, how to reverse the epidemic—and how to stay thin yourself.”— Andreas Eenfeldt , MD, Founder of Dietdoctor.com“Dr. Jason Fung’s explanation of insulin resistance and the accompanying insulin model of obesity is original, brilliant and game changing.”— Zoë Harcombe , Obesity researcher, author of The Harcrombe Diet “A fantastic book that exposes some of the world's most pervasive myths about obesity and weight management. A must read for anyone interested in the science of diet.”— Kris Gunnars , nutrition researcher“In The Obesity Code , Dr. Jason Fung triumphs in explaining the core underlying causes of obesity and manages to simplify it in a way that anybody can understand. If more doctors and people were able to understand these causes and implement Dr. Fung's actionable advice then we would be able to start reversing the obesity epidemic tomorrow.”— Sam Feltham , USA Today World Fitness Elite Trainer of the Year About the Author Dr. Jason Fung is a New York Times -bestselling author whose books include The Obesity Code , The Diabetes Code , The Obesity Code Cookbook , The PCOS Plan , Life in the Fasting Lane , and The Complete Guide to Fasting . Dr. Fung completed medical school at the University of Toronto and a fellowship in nephrology at the University of California. Dr. Fung is also the co-founder of The Fasting Method, a program to help people lose weight and reverse Type 2 Diabetes naturally with fasting. He lives in Toronto. Timothy Noakes is Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Cape Town, a marathon runner, and the author of the bestseller The Lore of Running . After discovering research supporting a high fat, low carb diet as the healthiest option for many people, he started the Noakes Foundation in 2012, and has dedicated his life to opening people's eyes to the myth of low-fat eating and the nutritional and environmental crisis it has led us to.

Lonesome Dove: A Novel

Review “If you read only one western novel in your life, read Lonesome Dove .”— USA Today “Everything about Lonesome Dove feels true . . . These are real people, and they are still larger than life.”—Nicholas Lemann, The New York Times Book Review “ Lonesome Dove is Larry McMurtry’s loftiest novel."— Los Angeles Times "A marvelous novel . . . moves with joyous energy . . . amply imagined and crisply, lovingly written. I haven't enjoyed a book more this year . . . a joyous epic."-- Newsweek "The finest novel that McMurtry has yet accomplished . . . Lonesome Dove has all the action anyone could possibly imagine . . . [and] both in general and in details, the authority of exact authenticity . . . superb."-- Chicago Tribune About the Author Larry McMurtry (1936–2021) was the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lonesome Dove , three memoirs, two collections of essays, and more than thirty screenplays. He lived in Archer City, Texas. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1. WHENAUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rat-tlesnake—not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck, and the shoat had the tail.“You pigs git,” Augustus said, kicking the shoat. “Head on down to the creek if you want to eat that snake.” It was the porch he begrudged them, not the snake. Pigs on the porch just made things hotter, and things were already hot enough. He stepped down into the dusty yard and walked around to the springhouse to get his jug. The sun was still high, sulled in the sky like a mule, but Augustus had a keen eye for sun, and to his eye the long light from the west had taken on an encouraging slant.Evening took a long time getting to Lonesome Dove, but when it came it was a comfort. For most of the hours of the day—and most of the months of the year—the sun had the town trapped deep in dust, far out in the chaparral flats, a heaven for snakes and horned toads, roadrunners and stinging lizards, but a hell for pigs and Tennesseans. There was not even a respectable shade tree within twenty or thirty miles; in fact, the actual location of the nearest decent shade was a matter of vigorous debate in the offices—if you wanted to call a roofless barn and a couple of patched-up corrals offices—of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, half of which Augustus owned.His stubborn partner, Captain W. F. Call, maintained that there was excellent shade as close as Pickles Gap, only twelve miles away, but Augustus wouldn’t allow it. Pickles Gap was if anything a more worthless community than Lonesome Dove. It had only sprung up because a fool from north Georgia named Wesley Pickles had gotten himself and his family lost in the mesquites for about ten days. When he finally found a clearing, he wouldn’t leave it, and Pickles Gap came into being, mainly attracting travelers like its founder, which is to say people too weak-willed to be able to negotiate a few hundred miles of mesquite thicket without losing their nerve.The springhouse was a little lumpy adobe building, so cool on the inside that Augustus would have been tempted to live in it had it not been for its popularity with black widows, yellow jackets and centipedes. When he opened the door he didn’t immediately see any centipedes but he did immediately hear the nervous buzz of a rattlesnake that was evidently smarter than the one the pigs were eating. Augustus could just make out the snake, coiled in a corner, but decided not to shoot it; on a quiet spring evening in Lonesome Dove, a shot could cause complications. Everybody in town would hear it and conclude either that the Comanches were down from the plains or the Mexicans up from the river. If any of the customers of the Dry Bean, the town’s one saloon, happened to be drunk or unhappy—which was very likely—they would probably run out into the street and shoot a Mexican or two, just to be on the safe side.At the very least, Call would come stomping up from the lots, only to be annoyed to discover it had just been a snake. Call had no respect whatsoever for snakes, or for anyone who stood aside for snakes. He treated rattlers like gnats, disposing of them with one stroke of whatever tool he had in hand. “A man that slows down for snakes might as well walk,” he often said, a statement that made about as much sense to an educated man as most of the things Call said.Augustus held to a more leisurely philosophy. He believed in giving creatures a little time to think, so he stood in the sun a few minutes until the rattler calmed down and crawled out a hole. Then he reached in and lifted his jug out of the mud. It had been a dry year, even by the standards of Lonesome Dove, and the spring was just springing enough to make a nice mud puddle. The pigs spent half their time rooting around the springhouse, hoping to get into the mud, but so far none of the holes in the adobe was big enough to admit a pig.The damp burlap the jug was wrapped in naturally appealed to the centipedes, so Augustus made sure none had sneaked under the wrapping before he uncorked the jug and took a modest swig. The one white barber in Lonesome Dove, a fellow Tennessean named Dillard Brawley, had to do his barbering on one leg because he had not been cautious enough about centipedes. Two of the vicious red-legged variety had crawled into his pants one night and Dillard had got up in a hurry and had neglected to shake out the pants. The leg hadn’t totally rotted off, but it had rotted sufficiently that the family got nervous about blood poisoning and persuaded he and Call to saw it off.For a year or two Lonesome Dove had had a real doctor, but the young man had lacked good sense. A vaquero with a loose manner that everybody was getting ready to hang at the first excuse anyway passed out from drink one night and let a blister bug crawl in his ear. The bug couldn’t find its way out, but it could move around enough to upset the vaquero, who persuaded the young doctor to try and flush it. The young man was doing his best with some warm salt water, but the vaquero lost his temper and shot him. It was a fatal mistake on the vaquero’s part: someone blasted his horse out from under him as he was racing away, and the incensed citizenry, most of whom were nearby at the Dry Bean, passing the time, hung him immediately.Unfortunately no medical man had taken an interest in the town since, and Augustus and Call, both of whom had coped with their share of wounds, got called on to do such surgery as was deemed essential. Dillard Brawley’s leg had presented no problem, except that Dillard screeched so loudly that he injured his vocal cords. He got around good on one leg, but the vocal cords had never fully recovered, which ultimately hurt his business. Dillard had always talked too much, but after the trouble with the centipedes, what he did was whisper too much. Customers couldn’t relax under their hot towels for trying to make out Dillard’s whispers. He hadn’t really been worth listening to, even when he had two legs, and in time many of his customers drifted off to the Mexican barber. Call even used the Mexican, and Call didn’t trust Mexicans or barbers.Augustus took the jug back to the porch and placed his rope-bottomed chair so as to utilize the smidgin of shade he had to work with. As the sun sank, the shade would gradually extend itself across the porch, the wagon yard, Hat Creek, Lonesome Dove and, eventually, the Rio Grande. By the time the shade had reached the river, Augustus would have mellowed with the evening and be ready for some intelligent conversation, which usually involved talking to himself. Call would work until slap dark if he could find anything to do, and if he couldn’t find anything he would make up something—and Pea Eye was too much of a corporal to quit before the Captain quit, even if Call would have let him.The two pigs had quietly disregarded Augustus’s orders to go to the creek, and were under one of the wagons, eating the snake. That made good sense, for the creek was just as dry as the wagon yard, and farther off. Fifty weeks out of the year Hat Creek was nothing but a sandy ditch, and the fact that the two pigs didn’t regard it as a fit wallow was a credit to their intelligence. Augustus often praised the pigs’ intelligence in a running argument he had been having with Call for the last few years. Augustus maintained that pigs were smarter than all horses and most people, a claim that galled Call severely.“No slop-eating pig is as smart as a horse,” Call said, before going on to say worse things.As was his custom, Augustus drank a fair amount of whiskey as he sat and watched the sun ease out of the day. If he wasn’t tilting the rope-bottomed chair, he was tilting the jug. The days in Lonesome Dove were a blur of heat and as dry as chalk, but mash whiskey took some of the dry away and made Augustus feel nicely misty inside—foggy and cool as a morning in the Tennessee hills. He seldom got downright drunk, but he did enjoy feeling misty along about sundown, keeping his mood good with tasteful swigs as the sky to the west began to color up. The whiskey didn’t damage his intellectual powers any, but it did make him more tolerant of the raw sorts he had to live with: Call and Pea Eye and Deets, young Newt, and old Bolivar, the cook.When the sky had pinked up nicely over the western flats, Augustus went around to the back of the house and kicked the kitchen door a time or two. “Better warm up the sowbelly and mash a few beans,” he said. Old Bolivar didn’t answer, so Augustus kicked the door once or twice more, to emphasize his point, and went back to the porch. The blue shoat was waiting for him at the corner of the house, quiet as a cat. It was probably hoping he would drop something—a belt or a pocketknife or a hat—so he could eat it.“Git from here, shoat,” Augustus said. “If you’re that hungry go hunt up another snake.” It occurred to him that a leather belt couldn’t be much tougher or less palatable than the fried goat Bolivar served up three or four times a week. The old man had been a competent Mexican bandit before he ran out of steam and crossed the river. Since then he had led a quiet life, but it was a fact that goat kept turning up on the table. The Hat Creek Cattle Company didn’t trade in them, and it was unlikely that Bolivar was buying them out of his own pocket—stealing goats was probably his way of keeping up his old skills. His old skills did not include cooking. The goat meat tasted like it had been fried in tar, but Augustus was the only member of the establishment sensitive enough to raise a complaint. “Bol, where’d you get the tar you fried this goat in?” he asked regularly, his quiet attempt at wit falling as usual on deaf ears. Bolivar ignored all queries, direct or indirect.Augustus was getting about ready to start talking to the sow and the shoat when he saw Call and Pea Eye walking up from the lots. Pea Eye was tall and lank, had never been full in his life, and looked so awkward that he appeared to be about to fall down even when he was standing still. He looked totally helpless, but that was another case of looks deceiving. In fact, he was one of the ablest men Augustus had ever known. He had never been an outstanding Indian fighter, but if you gave him something he could work at deliberately, like carpentering or blacksmithing, or well-digging or harness repair, Pea was excellent. If he had been a man to do sloppy work, Call would have run him off long before.Augustus walked down and met the men at the wagons. “It’s a little early for you two to be quittin’, ain’t it, girls?” he said. “Or is this Christmas or what?”Both men had sweated their shirts through so many times during the day that they were practically black. Augustus offered Call the jug, and Call put a foot on a wagon tongue and took a swig just to rinse the dry out of his mouth. He spat a mouthful of perfectly good whiskey in the dust and handed the jug to Pea Eye.“Girls yourself,” he said. “It ain’t Christmas.” Then he went on to the house, so abruptly that Augustus was a little taken aback. Call had never been one for fine manners, but if the day’s work had gone to his satisfaction he would usually stand and pass the time a minute.The funny thing about Woodrow Call was how hard he was to keep in scale. He wasn’t a big man—in fact, was barely middle-sized—but when you walked up and looked him in the eye it didn’t seem that way. Augustus was four inches taller than his partner, and Pea Eye three inches taller yet, but there was no way you could have convinced Pea Eye that Captain Call was the short man. Call had him buffaloed, and in that respect Pea had plenty of company. If a man meant to hold his own with Call it was necessary to keep in mind that Call wasn’t as big as he seemed. Augustus was the one man in south Texas who could usually keep him in scale, and he built on his advantage whenever he could. He started many a day by pitching Call a hot biscuit and remarking point-blank, “You know, Call, you ain’t really no giant.”A simple heart like Pea could never understand such behavior. It gave Augustus a laugh sometimes to consider that Call could hoodwink a man nearly twice his size, getting Pea to confuse the inner with the outer man. But of course Call himself had such a single-track mind that he scarcely realized he was doing it. He just did it. What made it a fascinating trick was that Call had never noticed that he had a trick. The man never wasted five minutes appreciating himself; it would have meant losing five minutes off whatever job he had decided he wanted to get done that day.“It’s a good thing I ain’t scairt to be lazy,” Augustus told him once.“You may think so. I don’t,” Call said.“Hell, Call, if I worked as hard as you, there’d be no thinking done at all around this outfit. You stay in a lather fifteen hours a day. A man that’s always in a lather can’t think nothin’ out.”“I’d like to see you think the roof back on that barn,” Call said.A strange little wind had whipped over from Mexico and blown the roof off clean as a whistle, three years before. Fortunately it only rained in Lonesome Dove once or twice a year, so the loss of the roof didn’t result in much suffering for the stock, when there was stock. It mostly meant suffering for Call, who had never been able to locate enough decent lumber to build a new roof. Unfortunately a rare downpour had occurred only about a week after the wind dropped the old roof in the middle of Hat Creek. It had been a real turd-floater, and also a lumber-floater, washing much of the roof straight into the Rio Grande.“If you think so much, why didn’t you think of that rain?” Call asked. Ever since, he had been throwing the turd-floater up to Augustus. Give Call a grievance, however silly, and he would save it like money.Pea Eye wasn’t spitting out any mash whiskey. He had a skinny neck— his Adam’s apple bulged so when he drank that it reminded Augustus of a snake with a frog stuck in its gullet.“Call looks mad enough to kick the stump,” Augustus said, when Pea finally stopped to breathe.“She bit a hunk out of him, that’s why,” Pea said. “I don’t know why the Captain wants to keep her.”“Fillies are his only form of folly,” Augustus said. “What’s he doing letting a horse bite him? I thought you boys were digging the new well?”“Hit rock,” Pea said. “Ain’t room for but one man to swing a pick down in that hole, so Newt swung it while I shod horses. The Captain took a ride. I guess he thought he had her sweated down. He turned his back on her and she bit a hunk out.”The mare in question was known around town as the Hell Bitch. Call had bought her in Mexico, from some caballeros who claimed to have killed an Indian to get her—a Comanche, they said. Augustus doubted that part of the story: it was unlikely one Comanche had been riding around by himself in that part of Mexico, and if there had been two Comanches the caballeros wouldn’t have lived to do any horse trading. The mare was a dapple gray, with a white muzzle and a white streak down her forehead, too tall to be pure Indian pony and too short-barreled to be pure thoroughbred. Her disposition did suggest some time spent with Indians, but which Indians and how long was anybody’s guess. Every man who saw her wanted to buy her, she was that stylish, but Call wouldn’t even listen to an offer, though Pea Eye and Newt were both anxious to see her sold. They had to work around her every day and suffered accordingly. She had once kicked Newt all the way into the blacksmith’s shop and nearly into the forge. Pea Eye was at least as scared of her as he was of Comanches, which was saying a lot.“What’s keeping Newt?” Augustus asked.“He may have went to sleep down in that well,” Pea Eye said.Then Augustus saw the boy walking up from the lots, so tired he was barely moving. Pea Eye was half drunk by the time Newt finally made the wagons.“’I god, Newt, I’m glad you got here before fall,” Augustus said. “We’d have missed you during the summer.”“I been throwin’ rocks at the mare,” Newt said, with a grin. “Did you see what a hunk she bit out of the Captain?”Newt lifted one foot and carefully scraped the mud from the well off the sole of his boot, while Pea Eye continued to wash the dust out of his throat.Augustus had always admired the way Newt could stand on one leg while cleaning the other boot. “Look at that, Pea,” he said. “I bet you can’t do that.”Pea Eye was so used to seeing Newt stand on one leg to clean his boot that he couldn’t figure out what it was Gus thought he couldn’t do. A few big swigs of liquor sometimes slowed his thinking down to a crawl. This usually happened at sundown, after a hard day of well-digging or horseshoeing; at such times Pea was doubly glad he worked with the Captain, rather than Gus. The less talk the Captain had to listen to, the better humor he was in, whereas Gus was just the opposite. He’d rattle off five or six different questions and opinions, running them all together like so many unbranded cattle—it made it hard to pick out one and think about it carefully and slowly, the only ways Pea Eye liked to think. At such times his only recourse was to pretend the questions had hit him in his deaf ear, the left one, which hadn’t really worked well since the day of their big fight with the Keechis—what they called the Stone House fight. It had been pure confusion, since the Indians had been smart enough to fire the prairie grass, smoking things up so badly that no one could see six feet ahead. They kept bumping into Indians in the smoke and having to shoot point-blank; a Ranger right next to Pea had spotted one and fired too close to Pea’s ear.That was the day the Indians got away with their horses, which made Captain Call about as mad as Pea had ever seen him. It meant they had to walk down the Brazos for nearly two hundred miles, worrying constantly about what would happen if the Comanches discovered they were afoot. Pea Eye hadn’t noticed he was half deaf until they had walked most of the way out.Fortunately, while he was worrying the question of what it was he couldn’t do, old Bolivar began to whack the dinner bell, which put an end to discussion. The old dinner bell had lost its clapper, but Bolivar had found a crowbar that somebody had managed to break, and he laid into the bell so hard that you couldn’t have heard the clapper if there had been one.The sun had finally set, and it was so still along the river that they could hear the horses swishing their tails, down in the lots—or they could until Bolivar laid into the bell. Although he probably knew they were standing around the wagons, in easy hearing distance, Bolivar continued to pound the bell for a good five minutes. Bolivar pounded the bell for reasons of his own; even Call couldn’t control him in that regard. The sound drowned out the quiet of sunset, which annoyed Augustus so much that at times he was tempted to go up and shoot the old man, just to teach him a lesson.“I figure he’s calling bandits,” Augustus said, when the ringing finally stopped. They started for the house, and the pigs fell in with them, the shoat eating a lizard he had caught somewhere. The pigs liked Newt even better than Augustus—when he didn’t have anything better to do he would feed them scraps of rawhide and scratch their ears.“If them bandits were to come, maybe the Captain would let me start wearing a gun,” Newt said wistfully. It seemed he would never get old enough to wear a gun, though he was well into his teens.“If you was to wear a gun somebody would just mistake you for a gunfighter and shoot you,” Augustus said, noting the boy’s wistful look. “It ain’t worth it. If Bol ever calls up any bandits I’ll lend you my Henry.”“That old man can barely cook,” Pea Eye remarked. “Where would he get any bandits?”“Why, you remember that greasy bunch he had,” Augustus said. “We used to buy horses from ’em. That’s the only reason Call hired him to cook. In the business we’re in, it don’t hurt to know a few horsethieves, as long as they’re Mexicans. I figure Bol’s just biding his time. As soon as he gains our trust his bunch will sneak up some night and murder us all.”He didn’t believe anything of the kind—he just liked to stimulate the boy once in a while, and Pea too, though Pea was an exceptionally hard man to stimulate, being insensitive to most fears. Pea had just sense enough to fear Comanches—that didn’t require an abundance of sense. Mexican bandits did not impress him.Newt had more imagination. He turned and looked across the river, where a big darkness was about to settle. Every now and then, about sundown, the Captain and Augustus and Pea and Deets would strap on guns and ride off into that darkness, into Mexico, to return about sunup with thirty or forty horses or perhaps a hundred skinny cattle. It was the way the stock business seemed to work along the border, the Mexican ranchers raiding north while the Texans raided south. Some of the skinny cattle spent their lives being chased back and forth across the Rio Grande. Newt’s fondest hope was to get old enough to be taken along on the raids. Many a night he lay in his hot little bunk, listening to old Bolivar snore and mumble below him, peering out the window toward Mexico, imagining the wild doings that must be going on. Once in a while he even heard gunfire, though seldom more than a shot or two, from up or down the river—it got his imagination to working all the harder.“You can go when you’re grown,” the Captain said, and that was all he said. There was no arguing with it, either—not if you were just hired help. Arguing with the Captain was a privilege reserved for Mr. Gus.They no sooner got in the house than Mr. Gus began to exercise the privilege. The Captain had his shirt off, letting Bolivar treat his mare bite. She had got him just above the belt. Enough blood had run down into his pants that one pants leg was caked with it. Bol was about to pack the bite with his usual dope, a mixture of axle grease and turpentine, but Mr. Gus made him wait until he could get a look at the wound himself.“’I god, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “As long as you’ve worked around horses it looks like you’d know better than to turn your back on a Kiowa mare.”Call was thinking of something and didn’t answer for a minute. What he was thinking was that the moon was in the quarter—what they called the rustler’s moon. Let it get full over the pale flats and some Mexicans could see well enough to draw a fair bead. Men he’d ridden with for years were dead and buried, or at least dead, because they’d crossed the river under a full moon. No moon at all was nearly as bad: then it was too hard to find the stock, and too hard to move it. The quarter moon was the right moon for a swing below the border. The brush country to the north was already thick with cattlemen, making up their spring herds and getting trail crews together; it wouldn’t be a week before they began to drift into Lonesome Dove. It was time to go gather cattle.“Who said she was Kiowa?” he said, looking at Augustus.“I’ve reasoned it out,” Augustus said. “You could have done the same if you ever stopped working long enough to think.”“I can work and think too,” Call said. “You’re the only man I know whose brain don’t work unless it’s in the shade.”Augustus ignored the remark. “I figure it was a Kiowa on his way to steal a woman that lost that mare,” he said. “Your Comanche don’t hunger much after señoritas. White women are easier to steal, and don’t eat as much besides. The Kiowa are different. They fancy señoritas.”“Can we eat or do we have to wait till the argument’s over?” Pea Eye asked.“We starve if we wait for that,” Bolivar said, plunking a potful of sowbelly and beans down on the rough table. Augustus, to the surprise of no one, was the first to fill his plate.“I don’t know where you keep finding these Mexican strawberries,” he said, referring to the beans. Bolivar managed to find them three hundred and sixty-five days a year, mixing them with so many red chilies that a spoonful of beans was more or less as hot as a spoonful of red ants. Newt had come to think that only two things were certain if you worked for the Hat Creek Cattle Company. One was that Captain Call would think of more things to do than he and Pea Eye and Deets could get done, and the other was that beans would be available at all meals. The only man in the outfit who didn’t fart frequently was old Bolivar himself—he never touched beans and lived mainly on sourdough biscuits and chickory coffee, or rather cups of brown sugar with little puddles of coffee floating on top. Sugar cost money, too, and it irked the Captain to spend it, but Bolivar could not be made to break a habit. Augustus claimed the old man’s droppings were so sugary that the blue shoat had taken to stalking him every time he went to shit, which might have been true. Newt had all he could do to keep clear of the shoat, and his own droppings were mostly bean.By the time Call got his shirt on and came to the table, Augustus was reaching for a second helping. Pea and Newt were casting nervous glances at the pot, hoping for seconds themselves but too polite to grab before everyone had been served. Augustus’s appetite was a kind of natural calamity. Call had watched it with amazement for thirty years and yet it still surprised him to see how much Augustus ate. He didn’t work unless he had to, and yet he could sit down night after night and out-eat three men who had put in a day’s labor.In their rangering days, when things were a little slow the boys would sit around and swap stories about Augustus’s eating. Not only did he eat a lot, he ate it fast. The cook that wanted to hold him at the grub for more than ten minutes had better have a side of beef handy.Call pulled out a chair and sat down. As Augustus was ladling himself a big scoop of beans, Call stuck his plate under the ladle. Newt thought it such a slick move that he laughed out loud.“Many thanks,” Call said. “If you ever get tired of loafing I guess you could get a job waiting tables.”“Why, I had a job waiting tables once,” Augustus said, pretending he had meant to serve Call the beans. “On a riverboat. I wasn’t no older than Newt when I had that job. The cook even wore a white hat.”“What for?” Pea Eye asked.“Because it’s what real cooks are supposed to wear,” Augustus said, looking at Bolivar, who was stirring a little coffee into his brown sugar. “Not so much a hat as a kind of big white cap—it looked like it could have been made out of a bedsheet.”“I’d be damned if I’d wear one,” Call said.“Nobody would be loony enough to hire you to cook, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “The cap is supposed to keep the cook’s old greasy hairs from falling into the food. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Bol’s hairs have found their way into this sow bosom.”Newt looked at Bolivar, sitting over by the stove in his dirty serape. Bolivar’s hair looked like it had had a can of secondhand lard poured over it. Once every few months Bol would change clothes and go visit his wife, but his efforts at improving his appearance never went much higher than his mustache, which he occasionally tried to wax with grease of some kind.“How come you to quit the riverboat?” Pea Eye asked.“I was too young and pretty,” Augustus said. “The whores wouldn’t let me alone.”Call was sorry it had come up. He didn’t like talk about whores—not anytime, but particularly not in front of the boy. Augustus had little shame, if any. It had long been a sore spot between them.“I wish they’d drownt you then,” Call said, annoyed. Conversation at the table seldom led to any good.Newt kept his eyes on his plate, as he usually did when the Captain grew annoyed.“Drown me?” Augustus said. “Why, if anybody had tried it, those girls would have clawed them to shreds.” He knew Call was mad, but wasn’t much inclined to humor him. It was his dinner table as much as Call’s, and if Call didn’t like the conversation he could go to bed.Call knew there was no point in arguing. That was what Augustus wanted: argument. He didn’t really care what the question was, and it made no great difference to him which side he was on. He just plain loved to argue, whereas Call hated to. Long experience had taught him that there was no winning arguments with Augustus, even in cases where there was a simple right and wrong at issue. Even in the old days, when they were in the thick of it, with Indians and hardcases to worry about, Augustus would seize any chance for a dispute. Practically the closest call they ever had, when the two of them and six Rangers got surprised by the Comanches up the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red and were all digging holes in the bank that could have turned out to be their graves if they hadn’t been lucky and got a cloudy night and sneaked away, Augustus had kept up a running argument with a Ranger they called Ugly Bobby. The argument was entirely about coon dogs, and Augustus had kept it up all night, though most of the Rangers were so scared they couldn’t pass water.Of course the boy lapped up Augustus’s stories about riverboats and whores. The boy hadn’t been anywhere, so it was all romance to him.“Listening to you brag about women don’t improve the taste of my food,” he said, finally.“Call, if you want better food you have to start by shooting Bolivar,” Augustus said, reminded of his own grievance against the cook.“Bol, I want you to quit whackin’ that bell with that crowbar,” he said. “You can do it at noon if you want to but let off doin’ it at night. A man with any sense can tell when it’s sundown. You’ve spoilt many a pretty evening for me, whackin’ that bell.”Bolivar stirred his sugary coffee and held his peace. He whacked the dinner bell because he liked the sound, not because he wanted anybody to come and eat. The men could eat when they liked—he would whack the bell when he liked. He enjoyed being a cook—it was a good deal more relaxing than being a bandit—but that didn’t mean that he intended to take orders. His sense of independence was undiminished.“Gen-eral Lee freed the slaves,” he remarked in a surly tone.Newt laughed. Bol never had been able to get the war straight, but he had been genuinely sorry when it ended. In fact, if it had kept going he would probably have stayed a bandit—it was a safe and profitable profession with most of the Texans gone. But the ones who came back from the war were mostly bandits themselves, and they had better guns. The profession immediately became overcrowded. Bolivar knew it was time to quit, but once in a while he got the urge for a little shooting.“It wasn’t General Lee, it was Abe Lincoln who freed the slaves,” Augustus pointed out.Bolivar shrugged. “No difference,” he said.“A big difference,” Call said. “One was a Yankee and one wasn’t.”Pea Eye got interested for a minute. The beans and sowbelly had revived him. He had been very interested in the notion of emancipation and had studied over it a lot while he went about his work. It was obviously just pure luck that he himself hadn’t been born a slave, but if he had been unlucky Lincoln would have freed him. It gave him a certain admiration for the man.“He just freed Americans,” he pointed out to Bolivar.Augustus snorted. “You’re in over your head, Pea,” he said. “Who Abe Lincoln freed was a bunch of Africans, no more American than Call here.”Call pushed back his chair. He was not about to sit around arguing slavery after a long day, or after a short one either.“I’m as American as the next,” he said, taking his hat and picking up a rifle.“You was born in Scotland,” Augustus reminded him. “I know they brought you over when you was still draggin’ on the tit, but that don’t make you no less a Scot.”Call didn’t reply. Newt looked up and saw him standing at the door, his hat on and his Henry in the crook of his arm. A couple of big moths flew past his head, drawn to the light of the kerosene lamp on the table. With nothing more said, the Captain went out the door.© 1985 Larry McMurtry Read more

Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

Review Praise for Guadalcanal "Brilliant . . . an enormous work based on the most meticulous research. Here is everything you might want to know about Guadalcanal."                  -- Los Angeles Times Book Review "Richard Frank has produced what will surely become the standard history of the U.S. Navy's most important campaign. . . . A stunning debut by a major new talent in American letters."   --Tom Clancy"Guadalcanal is a masterly account of what happened and why. . . . Books of this quality are rare, and Richard B. Frank should be commended for his authoritative  inaugural work."                                                                          -- Chicago Tribune "Mr. Frank's book is impressive in virtually all respects--a vividly and carefully crafted monument that is worthy of the Americans and Japanese who collided . . . on a little-known island named Guadalcanal."-- The New York Times Book Review From the Back Cover Downfall opens with a vivid portrayal of the catastrophic fire raid on Tokyo in March 1945 -- which was to be followed by the utter destruction of almost every major Japanese city -- and ends with the anguished vigil of American and Japanese leaders waiting to learn if Japan's armed forces would obey the Emperor's order to surrender. America's use of the atom bomb has generated more heated controversy than any other event of the whole war: -- Did nuclear weapons save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans poised to invade Japan.?-- Did U.S. leaders know that Japan was urgently seeking peace and needed only assurance about the Emperor's safety to end the war swiftly?-- Was the bomb really used to intimidate the Russians?-- Why wasn't the devastating power of the weapon demonstrated first before being unleashed on a city? Richard B. Frank has brought to life these critical times, working from primary documents, reports, diaries, and newly declassified records. These pages present the untold story of how American leaders learned in the summer of 1945 that their compromise strategy to end the war by blockade and bombardment, followed by invasion, had been shattered; radio intelligence had unmasked a massive Japanese buildup on Kyushu designed to turn the initial invasion into a bloody shambles. Meanwhile, the text and analysis of diplomatic intercepts depicted sterile prospects for negotiation before a final clash of arms. Here also, for the first time, is a full and balanced account of how Japan's leaders risked annihilation by gambling on a military strategy aimed at securing political bargaining leverage to preserve the old order in Japan. Downfall replacesthe myths that now surround the end of the war and the use of the bomb with the stark realities of this great historical controversy. About the Author Richard B. Frank was born in Kansas in 1947. He served for almost four years in the United States Army, including a tour of duty in Vietnam as an aerorifle platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. He is the author of Guadalcanal . Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Tokyo Burns:  Raid of March 9-10"A silver curtain falling"With the night came north winds, blowing bitter and cold across the uneasy city. By 8:00 p.m., great shuddering gusts, at 45 to 67 miles per hour, "violent as a spring typhoon," shoved against the wooden walls and pried at the doors and windows of the dwellings of Tokyo's 4.3 million citizens. Elsewhere, the winds toppled or jammed radar antennas and made mischief with communications. On the pitching seas to the south, picket-boats raised frantic alerts of many approaching bombers, but faulty radio reception--and faulty organization--muffled the alarms.On radios throughout the capital, the voice of Hidetoshi Matsumura, the spokesman for Imperial General Headquarters, hailed the coming day, March 10, as Army Day. His oration ended in the weary cliché: "The darkest hour is just before dawn." His words had barely faded when, at 10:30 p.m., sirens sounded the long, steady wail warning of distant but potentially threatening aircraft. In contrast to the pervasive disorder that had invaded and overwhelmed all aspects of daily life in the capital, the air-raid alert system that roused many from mid-slumber was still respected for its efficiency. With electric lights forbidden after nightfall and cooking gas nonexistent, most families now habitually prepared and ate meals at twilight and then retired early. But even in repose, Tokyo's denizens remained partly dressed, usually in shapeless, loose monpe trousers.Near midnight, coast watchers reported droning noises that were likely from B-29s. The listeners could speak with authority, for the dreaded Superfortresses--known to the Tokyoites as "bikko," "B-san," "Lord B.," "okyakusama" (visitors), and "regular mail"--had come many times to the capital, though only once at night, and never in such numbers or so low. Surprised and confused, civil-defense authorities hesitated, and the sirens did not exclaim the sharp, broken notes of the air-raid alarm, signifying an imminent attack, until 12:15 a.m. By then, bombs had been falling for seven minutes, and rusty red-yellow roses of flame already flowered across eastern Tokyo.A Danish diplomat, Lars Tillitse, dutifully ventured outside to make sure that his property betrayed no light. A "terrific noise" assailed him as the four-motored bombers thundered by overhead. Another Western observer, Robert Guillain, was more exact: A B-29 passed with "an odd, rhythmic buzzing that filled the night with deep, powerful pulsation and made my whole house vibrate." Tillitse observed his neighbors erupting from their homes, animating the dark narrow streets, the men in helmets, everyone else in padded air-raid hoods. "Radios were going full blast and doors and windows were open, so that people in the street could keep informed," recalled Tillitse. "Already we could see fires."Radios proclaimed the approach of another wave of bombers, and Tillitse stayed outside to watch. Energetic searchlight crews fanned the slender, probing white columns of their beams from horizon to zenith. As the diplomat gazed upward, six or seven times a bomber punctured a column of illumination, whereupon five or six other lights converged to hold it. Centered in an aura, the silvery body became the target for gunners, who sent shells skyward. But in each case, the shiny cross glided on unhurt. Then Tillitse heard the crowd cheer and swiveled his head to behold one B-29 alight. The whole body glowed red, but the plane continued its flight until, like lightning, white flames burst from the sides. Enveloped in fire, the Superfortress plummeted to the ground.Everywhere across Tokyo, the night teemed with citizens scurrying from their houses clutching sleeping mats and carefully culled possessions--pots and pans and, above all, treasured hoards of rice and soya paste--seeking refuge. The entire city had only eighteen satisfactory concrete shelters, with a total capacity of five thousand, little more than one space for every thousand persons. The next-best shelters comprised the basements of the relatively few Western-style buildings, constructed to resist earthquakes, and some equally sparse cave shelters. But the mass of citizens lacked any adequate haven. Some families gathered in clothes cupboards within their homes, as the government recommended. Most citizens, however, headed for their bokugo, little holes that had been bored beside their houses or in the little ribbon of earth between street and sidewalk. These were typically crude, two to five meters long, one meter across, and one and one-half to two meters deep, covered with a roof made with a few poles, bamboo rafters, and a thin crust of earth. The citizens provided these rudimentary protections themselves, chanting "oh, one, two, oh, one, two" as they dug, around which many then planted flowers, and into which many a man or woman tripped, breaking bones. Read more

Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement

Review "As of the publication of Critical Race Theory it will be unwise, if not impossible, to do any serious work on race without referencing this splendid collection."―Toni Morrison"A fundamental reference guide to any serious work on race."― Amsterdam News " Critical Race Theory is a compilation of provocative writings that challenges us to consider the relationship between race, the legal system, and society at large."―Senator Bill Bradley About the Author Kimberlé Crenshaw is a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia School of Law in New York. Neil Gotanda is a professor of law at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California. Gary Peller is a professor of law at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C. Kendall Thomas is a professor of law at Columbia School of Law in New York.

Groundhog Weather School: Fun Facts About Weather and Groundhogs

Review “The amusing illustrations, colorful paintings digitally collaged with found objects and papers, set the tone for this inviting introduction to groundhogs and the holiday named for them.”— Booklist "[G]ood fun that will subtly teach in between laughs."— Kirkus Reviews "Each turn of the page provides another surprise."— SLJ About the Author Joan Holub is the author and/or illustrator of many books for children. She lives in North Carolina, where the famous groundhog Sir Walter Wally helps watch the weather at the Museum of Natural Sciences. You can visit Joan at www.joanholub.com. Kristin Sorra studied illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, she now lives just a few miles north of New York City, where she is regularly visited by local groundhogs. You can visit Kristin at www.kristinsorra.com.

The Tickle Squid

Review The Tickle Squid is a recipient of the prestigious Mom's Choice Award. The Mom's Choice Awards® (MCA) evaluates products and services created for parents and educators and is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. Using a rigorous evaluation process, entries are scored on a number of elements including production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal and cost. Around the world, parents, educators, retailers and members of the media trust the MCA Honoring Excellence seal when selecting quality products and services for families and children. About the Author Amy Oettle wrote "The Tickle Squid" in the wee hours of the morning while she was up with her first daughter. She is an author, artist and business leader, but most importantly, she is the mother of two little girls who love to laugh. She currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Delphine Pagès is French and has lived in London and now Austin; traveling is a constant in her life. She loves drawing happy animals with rosy cheeks and when she's not playing with colors, you can find her eating cheese. Follow her @maskedcheesemonster on Instagram!