"Lieven has a double gift: first, for harvesting details to convey the essence of an era and, second, for finding new, startling, and clarifying elements in familiar stories. This is history with a heartbeat, and it could not be more engrossing." - Foreign AffairsOne of the world's leading scholars offers a fresh interpretation of the linked origins of World War I and the Russian Revolution World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the twentieth century in profound ways. In The End of Tsarist Russia, acclaimed scholar Dominic Lieven connects for the first time the two events, providing both a history of the First World War's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened. Based on exhaustive work in seven Russian archives as well as many non-Russian sources, Dominic Lieven's work is about far more than just Russia.
Viking
|
9780670025589
|
Print book
The Everyday Life of the Clans of the Scottish Highlands
By Newton, Michael Steven
There are millions of people whose ancestors originated in the Scottish Highlands, but few reliable guides about the daily lives of the people of this region, their vibrant culture, and their storied history during the era of the clan system.This book by award-winning scholar Dr. Michael Newton provides keys that unlock the mysteries of Scottish Highland heritage, answering such basic questions as: How did the division between the Highlands and Lowlands emerge in Scotland? Where do Highland surnames come from? What stories did people tell about the origins of clans and how should we interpret them today? How did the clan system really work? How did Highlanders provide food, shelter, and clothing for themselves? What did Highlanders do to commemorate birth, marriage, and death?These questions and others are answered for a general readership, especially by providing primary sources written by Highlanders themselves that open a window into their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Michael Newton
|
9780971385825
|
Paperback
Toys and American Culture
By Scott, Sharon M.
From the origins of favorite playthings to their associations with events and activities, the study of a nation's toys reveals the hopes, goals, values, and priorities of its people. Toys have influenced the science, art, and religion of the United States, and have contributed to the development of business, politics, and medicine. Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia documents America's shifting cultural values as they are embedded within and transmitted by the nation's favorite playthings. Alphabetically arranged entries trace developments in toy making and toy marketing across the evolving landscape of 20th-century America. In addition to discussing the history of America's most influential toys, the book contains specific entries on the individuals, organizations, companies, and publications that gave shape to America's culture of play from 1900 to 2000.
Greenwood
|
9780313347986
|
Hardcover
The White Darkness
By Grann, David
By the New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the nineteenth-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death, and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modeled his military command on Shackleton's legendary skills and was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and power that have led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with more than fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and a spellbinding story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity.
Doubleday
|
9780385544573
|
Hardcover
Revolutions in American Music
By Broyles, Michael
The story of how unexpected connections between music, technology, and race across three tumultuous decades changed American culture.How did a European social dance craze become part of an American presidential election? Why did the recording industry become racially divided? Where did rock 'n' roll really come from? And how do all these things continue to reverberate in today's world?In Revolutions in American Music, award-winning author Michael Broyles shows the surprising ways in which three key decades -- the 1840s, the 1920s, and the 1950s -- shaped America's musical future. Drawing connections between new styles of music like the minstrel show, jazz, and rock 'n' roll, and emerging technologies like the locomotive, the first music recordings, and the transistor radio, Broyles argues that these decades fundamentally remade our cultural landscape in enduring ways.
W. W. Norton & Company
|
9780393634204
|
Hardcover
Gods of War
By Lacey, James
Hannibal vs. Scipio. Grant vs. Lee. Rommel vs. Patton. The greatest battles, commanders, and rivalries of all time come to life in this engrossing guide to the geniuses of military history. "A compelling study of military leadership." - James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom Any meeting of genius may create sparks, but when military geniuses meet, their confrontations play out upon a vast panorama of states or civilizations at war, wielding the full destructive power of a mighty nation's armies. Gods of War is the first single-volume, in-depth examination of the most celebrated military rivalries of all time, and of the rare, world-changing battles in which these great commanders in history matched themselves against true equals.
Bantam
|
9780345547552
|
Hardcover
Dragon's Jaw
By Coonts, Stephen
A riveting Vietnam War story--and one of the most dramatic in aviation history--told by a New York Times bestselling author and a prominent aviation historianEvery war has its "bridge"--Old North Bridge at Concord, Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, the railway bridge over Burma's River Kwai, the bridge over Germany's Rhine River at Remagen, and the bridges over Korea's Toko Ri. In Vietnam it was the bridge at Thanh Hoa, called Dragon's Jaw.For seven long years hundreds of young US airmen flew sortie after sortie against North Vietnam's formidable and strategically important bridge, dodging a heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire and enemy MiG planes. Many American airmen were shot down, killed, or captured and taken to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp. But after each air attack, when the smoke cleared and the debris settled, the bridge stubbornly remained standing. For the North Vietnamese it became a symbol of their invincibility; for US war planners an obsession; for US airmen a testament to American mettle and valor.Using after-action reports, official records, and interviews with surviving pilots, as well as untapped Vietnamese sources, Dragon's Jaw chronicles American efforts to destroy the bridge, strike by bloody strike, putting readers into the cockpits, under fire. The story of the Dragon's Jaw is a story rich in bravery, courage, audacity, and sometimes luck, sometimes tragedy. The "bridge" story of Vietnam is an epic tale of war against a determined foe.
Da Capo Press
|
9780306903472
|
Hardcover
The Nixon Tapes
By Brinkley, Douglas
The blueprint for Nixon's downfall, based on tapes released from 2010 to 2013, most of which have never been published When The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 was published in August of 2014, it jumped immediately onto the New York Times bestseller list and captivated media attention for its many revelations. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter's heroic efforts to transcribe and annotate the highlights of more than 3,700 hours of recorded conversations provided an unprecedented and fascinating window into the inner workings of a momentous presidency. Now, with a concluding volume to cover the final year of the Nixon taping system, Brinkley and Nichter tell the rest of the story - once again with revelations on every page, including: how Nixon and Kissinger knew privately that the January 1973 Vietnam peace agreement would not hold, even as the ink was still dryinghow Nixon and Kissinger anticipated the Yom Kippur War in the Middle EastNixon's threat to send a "division" of tanks to kill Native Americans at the Wounded Knee standoffand more .
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.
|
9780544610538
|
Print book
Tripping on Utopia
By Breen, Benjamin
A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley.. "It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the first era of widespread drug experimentation. It was their parents." Far from the repressed traditionalists they are often painted as, the generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the '40s and '50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach dolphins to talk.
Grand Central Publishing
|
9781538722374
|
Hardcover
The Ride of Her Life
By Letts, Elizabeth
and The Eighty-Dollar Champion.In 1954, sixty-three year old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money, no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor's advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn't even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways.
The End of Tsarist Russia
By Lieven, D C B
"Lieven has a double gift: first, for harvesting details to convey the essence of an era and, second, for finding new, startling, and clarifying elements in familiar stories. This is history with a heartbeat, and it could not be more engrossing." - Foreign AffairsOne of the world's leading scholars offers a fresh interpretation of the linked origins of World War I and the Russian Revolution World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the twentieth century in profound ways. In The End of Tsarist Russia, acclaimed scholar Dominic Lieven connects for the first time the two events, providing both a history of the First World War's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened. Based on exhaustive work in seven Russian archives as well as many non-Russian sources, Dominic Lieven's work is about far more than just Russia.
The Everyday Life of the Clans of the Scottish Highlands
By Newton, Michael Steven
There are millions of people whose ancestors originated in the Scottish Highlands, but few reliable guides about the daily lives of the people of this region, their vibrant culture, and their storied history during the era of the clan system.This book by award-winning scholar Dr. Michael Newton provides keys that unlock the mysteries of Scottish Highland heritage, answering such basic questions as: How did the division between the Highlands and Lowlands emerge in Scotland? Where do Highland surnames come from? What stories did people tell about the origins of clans and how should we interpret them today? How did the clan system really work? How did Highlanders provide food, shelter, and clothing for themselves? What did Highlanders do to commemorate birth, marriage, and death?These questions and others are answered for a general readership, especially by providing primary sources written by Highlanders themselves that open a window into their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Toys and American Culture
By Scott, Sharon M.
From the origins of favorite playthings to their associations with events and activities, the study of a nation's toys reveals the hopes, goals, values, and priorities of its people. Toys have influenced the science, art, and religion of the United States, and have contributed to the development of business, politics, and medicine. Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia documents America's shifting cultural values as they are embedded within and transmitted by the nation's favorite playthings. Alphabetically arranged entries trace developments in toy making and toy marketing across the evolving landscape of 20th-century America. In addition to discussing the history of America's most influential toys, the book contains specific entries on the individuals, organizations, companies, and publications that gave shape to America's culture of play from 1900 to 2000.
The White Darkness
By Grann, David
By the New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the nineteenth-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death, and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modeled his military command on Shackleton's legendary skills and was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and power that have led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with more than fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and a spellbinding story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity.
Revolutions in American Music
By Broyles, Michael
The story of how unexpected connections between music, technology, and race across three tumultuous decades changed American culture.How did a European social dance craze become part of an American presidential election? Why did the recording industry become racially divided? Where did rock 'n' roll really come from? And how do all these things continue to reverberate in today's world?In Revolutions in American Music, award-winning author Michael Broyles shows the surprising ways in which three key decades -- the 1840s, the 1920s, and the 1950s -- shaped America's musical future. Drawing connections between new styles of music like the minstrel show, jazz, and rock 'n' roll, and emerging technologies like the locomotive, the first music recordings, and the transistor radio, Broyles argues that these decades fundamentally remade our cultural landscape in enduring ways.
Gods of War
By Lacey, James
Hannibal vs. Scipio. Grant vs. Lee. Rommel vs. Patton. The greatest battles, commanders, and rivalries of all time come to life in this engrossing guide to the geniuses of military history. "A compelling study of military leadership." - James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom Any meeting of genius may create sparks, but when military geniuses meet, their confrontations play out upon a vast panorama of states or civilizations at war, wielding the full destructive power of a mighty nation's armies. Gods of War is the first single-volume, in-depth examination of the most celebrated military rivalries of all time, and of the rare, world-changing battles in which these great commanders in history matched themselves against true equals.
Dragon's Jaw
By Coonts, Stephen
A riveting Vietnam War story--and one of the most dramatic in aviation history--told by a New York Times bestselling author and a prominent aviation historianEvery war has its "bridge"--Old North Bridge at Concord, Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, the railway bridge over Burma's River Kwai, the bridge over Germany's Rhine River at Remagen, and the bridges over Korea's Toko Ri. In Vietnam it was the bridge at Thanh Hoa, called Dragon's Jaw.For seven long years hundreds of young US airmen flew sortie after sortie against North Vietnam's formidable and strategically important bridge, dodging a heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire and enemy MiG planes. Many American airmen were shot down, killed, or captured and taken to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp. But after each air attack, when the smoke cleared and the debris settled, the bridge stubbornly remained standing. For the North Vietnamese it became a symbol of their invincibility; for US war planners an obsession; for US airmen a testament to American mettle and valor.Using after-action reports, official records, and interviews with surviving pilots, as well as untapped Vietnamese sources, Dragon's Jaw chronicles American efforts to destroy the bridge, strike by bloody strike, putting readers into the cockpits, under fire. The story of the Dragon's Jaw is a story rich in bravery, courage, audacity, and sometimes luck, sometimes tragedy. The "bridge" story of Vietnam is an epic tale of war against a determined foe.
The Nixon Tapes
By Brinkley, Douglas
The blueprint for Nixon's downfall, based on tapes released from 2010 to 2013, most of which have never been published When The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 was published in August of 2014, it jumped immediately onto the New York Times bestseller list and captivated media attention for its many revelations. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter's heroic efforts to transcribe and annotate the highlights of more than 3,700 hours of recorded conversations provided an unprecedented and fascinating window into the inner workings of a momentous presidency. Now, with a concluding volume to cover the final year of the Nixon taping system, Brinkley and Nichter tell the rest of the story - once again with revelations on every page, including: how Nixon and Kissinger knew privately that the January 1973 Vietnam peace agreement would not hold, even as the ink was still dryinghow Nixon and Kissinger anticipated the Yom Kippur War in the Middle EastNixon's threat to send a "division" of tanks to kill Native Americans at the Wounded Knee standoffand more .
Tripping on Utopia
By Breen, Benjamin
A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley.. "It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the first era of widespread drug experimentation. It was their parents." Far from the repressed traditionalists they are often painted as, the generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the '40s and '50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach dolphins to talk.
The Ride of Her Life
By Letts, Elizabeth
and The Eighty-Dollar Champion.In 1954, sixty-three year old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money, no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor's advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn't even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways.