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Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900
"An author's quest to discover what really happened to his uncle
in World War II"
To all appearances, Anthony "Tony" Korkuc was just another
casualty of World War II. A gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress,
Korkuc was lost on a bombing mission over Germany, and his family
believed that his body had never been recovered. But when they
learned in 1995 that Tony was actually buried at Arlington National
Cemetery, his nephew Bob Korkuc set out on a seven-year quest to
learn the true fate of an uncle he never knew.
"Finding a Fallen Hero" is a compelling story that blends a
wartime drama with a primer on specialized research. Author Bob
Korkuc initially set out to learn how his Uncle Tony came to rest
at Arlington. In the process, he also unraveled the mystery of what
occurred over the skies of Germany half a century ago.
Korkuc dug up military documents and private letters and
interviewed people in both the United States and Germany. He
tracked down surviving crewmembers and even found the brother of
the Luftwaffe pilot who downed the B-17. Dozens of photographs help
readers envision both Tony Korkuc's fateful flight and his nephew's
dogged search for the truth.
A gripping chronicle of exhaustive research, "Finding a Fallen
Hero" will strike a chord with any reader who has lost a family
member to war. And it will inspire others to satisfy their own
unanswered questions.
Revealing the lives of migrant couples and transnational
households, this book explores the dark side of the history of
migration in Argentina during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Using court records, censuses, personal correspondence
and a series of case studies, Maria Bjerg offers a portrayal of the
emotional dynamics of transnational marital bonds and intimate
relationships stretched across continents. Using microhistories and
case studies, this book shows how migration affected marital bonds
with loneliness, betrayal, fear and frustration. Focusing primarily
on the emotional lives of Italian and Spanish migrants, this book
explores bigamy, infidelity, adultery, domestic violence and murder
within official and unofficial unions. It reveals the complexities
of obligation, financial hardship, sacrifice and distance that came
with migration, and explores how shame, jealousy, vengeance and
disobedience led to the breaking of marital ties. Against a
backdrop of changing cultural contexts Bjerg examines the emotional
languages and practices used by adulterous women against their
offended husbands, to justify domestic violence and as a defence
against homicide. Demonstrating how migration was a powerful
catalyst of change in emotional lives and in evolving social
standards, Emotions and Migration in Early Twentieth-century
Argentina reveals intimate and disordered lives at a time when
female obedience and male honour were not only paramount, but
exacerbated by distance and displacement.
"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER In the second volume of his epic
trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer
Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the
campaigns in Sicily and Italy In "An Army at Dawn"--winner of the
Pulitzer Prize--Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative
history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in "The Day of
Battle," he follows the strengthening American and British armies
as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile,
fight their way north toward Rome.
The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact,
Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated
debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly
of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment
to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the
agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte
Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months
passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the
Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the
war's most complex and controversial commanders, American officers
and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And
with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last
began to seem inevitable.
Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with
great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank.
With "The Day of Battle," Atkinson has once again given us the
definitive account of one of history's most compelling military
campaigns.
First published in 1990, Songs of the Doomed is back in print -- by popular demand! In this third and most extraordinary volume of the Gonzo Papers, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson recalls high and hideous moments in his thirty years in the Passing Lane -- and no one is safe from his hilarious, remarkably astute social commentary. With Thompson's trademark insight and passion about the state of American politics and culture, Songs of the Doomed charts the long, strange trip from Kennedy to Quayle in Thompson's freewheeling, inimitable style. Spanning four decades -- 1950 to 1990 -- Thompson is at the top of his form while fleeing New York for Puerto Rico, riding with the Hell's Angels, investigating Las Vegas sleaze, grappling with the "Dukakis problem," and finally, detailing his infamous lifestyle bust, trial documents, and Fourth Amendment battle with the Law. These tales -- often sleazy, brutal, and crude -- are only the tip of what Jack Nicholson called "the most baffling human iceberg of our time." Songs of the Doomed is vintage Thompson -- a brilliant, brazen, bawdy compilation of the greatest sound bites of Gonzo journalism from the past thirty years.
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