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Books > History > American history
When teams meet on football fields across Georgia, it's more than a
game--it's a battle for bragging rights and dominance in a state
that prizes football above all other sports. Join seasoned Georgia
sports journalist Jon Nelson as he tracks the history of college
football statewide. Whether it's Georgia Southern's glory days with
legendary coach Erk Russell, the bitter rivalry between Georgia
Tech and the University of Georgia, the Mercer College team's
historic beginnings or Shorter University's up-and-coming program,
every team in Georgia makes the cut in this hard-hitting history.
Enhanced by an appendix with each school's records, championship
statistics and coaching accomplishments, this is a book no Peach
State football fan can do without.
An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War.
Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.
Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.
No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.
At the start of his administration John F. Kennedy launched a
personal policy initiative to court African nationalist leaders.
This policy was designed to improve U.S.-African relations and
constituted a dramatic change in the direction of U.S. foreign
relations. The Kennedy administration believed that the Cold War
could be won or lost depending upon whether Washington or Moscow
won the hearts and minds of the Third World. Africa was
particularly important because a wave of independence saw nineteen
newly independent African states admitted into the United Nations
during 1960-61. By 1962, 31 of the UN's 110 member states were from
the African continent, and both Washington and Moscow sought to add
these countries to their respective voting bloc. For Kennedy, the
Cold War only amplified the need for a strong U.S. policy towards
Africa-but did not create it. The Kennedy administration feared
that American neglect of the newly decolonized countries of the
world would result in the rise of anti-Americanism and for this
reason needed to be addressed irrespective of the Cold War. For
this reason, Kennedy devoted more time and effort toward relations
with Africa than any other American president. By making an
in-depth examination of Kennedy's attempt to court African
nationalist leaders, Betting on the Africans adds an important
chapter to the historiography of John F. Kennedy's Cold War
strategy by showing how through the use of personal diplomacy JFK
realigned United States policy towards Africa and to a large extent
won the sympathies of its people while at the same time alienating
more traditional allies.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES
TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY "Full of...lively insights and lucid
prose" (The Wall Street Journal) an epic, sweeping history of Cuba
and its complex ties to the United States-from before the arrival
of Columbus to the present day-written by one of the world's
leading historians of Cuba. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War,
the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a
momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more
than half a century, the stand-off continued-through the tenure of
ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro.
His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor
Raul Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's
future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington-Barack Obama's opening to
the island, Donald Trump's reversal of that policy, and the
election of Joe Biden-have made the relationship between the two
nations a subject of debate once more. Now, award-winning historian
Ada Ferrer delivers an "important" (The Guardian) and moving
chronicle that demands a new reckoning with both the island's past
and its relationship with the United States. Spanning more than
five centuries, Cuba: An American History provides us with a
front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation,
with its dramatic record of conquest and colonization, of slavery
and freedom, of independence and revolutions made and unmade. Along
the way, Ferrer explores the sometimes surprising, often troubled
intimacy between the two countries, documenting not only the
influence of the United States on Cuba but also the many ways the
island has been a recurring presence in US affairs. This is a story
that will give Americans unexpected insights into the history of
their own nation and, in so doing, help them imagine a new
relationship with Cuba; "readers will close [this] fascinating book
with a sense of hope" (The Economist). Filled with rousing stories
and characters, and drawing on more than thirty years of research
in Cuba, Spain, and the United States-as well as the author's own
extensive travel to the island over the same period-this is a
stunning and monumental account like no other.
Nestled at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers in the
first permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory resides one
of the most dominant college baseball dynasties in the nation. The
Marietta College Pioneers - known as the 'Etta Express for the way
they've barreled over opponents for half a century - own a record
five NCAA Division III National Championships, including 2011.
Finally, the best kept secret in college sports springs to life as
author Gary Caruso digs into the personalities behind this
incredible success story to reveal the compelling human drama
that's made Marietta College baseball a treasure all readers are
sure to enjoy.
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