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Books > History > World history > From 1900
In 1992, three hundred innocent Haitian men, women, and children
who had qualified for political asylum in the United States were
detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- and told they might never be
freed. Charismatic democracy activist Yvonne Pascal and her fellow
refugees had no contact with the outside world, no lawyers, and no
hope . . . until a group of inspired Yale Law School students vowed
to free them.
Pitting the students and their untested professor Harold Koh
against Kenneth Starr, the Justice Department, the Pentagon, and
Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, this real-life legal
thriller takes the reader from the halls of Yale and the federal
courts of New York to the slums of Port-au-Prince and the windswept
hills of Guantanamo Bay and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Written with grace and passion, "Storming the Court" captures the
emotional highs and despairing lows of a legal education like no
other -- a high-stakes courtroom campaign against the White House
in the name of the greatest of American values: freedom.
"How civil liberties triumphed over national insecurity"
Between the two major red scares of the twentieth century, a
police raid on a Communist Party bookstore in Oklahoma City marked
an important lesson in the history of American freedom.
In a raid on the Progressive Bookstore in 1940, local officials
seized thousands of books and pamphlets and arrested twenty
customers and proprietors. All were detained incommunicado and many
were held for months on unreasonably high bail. Four were tried for
violating Oklahoma's "criminal syndicalism" law, and their
convictions and ten-year sentences caused a nationwide furor. After
protests from labor unions, churches, publishers, academics,
librarians, the American Civil Liberties Union, members of the
literary world, and prominent individuals ranging from Woody
Guthrie to Eleanor Roosevelt, the convictions were overturned on
appeal.
Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand share the compelling
story of this important case for the first time. They reveal how
state power--with support from local media and businesses--was used
to trample individuals' civil rights during an era in which
citizens were gripped by fear of foreign subversion.
Richly detailed and colorfully told, "Books on Trial "is a
sobering story of innocent people swept up in the hysteria of their
times. It marks a fascinating and unnerving chapter in the history
of Oklahoma and of the First Amendment. In today's climate of
shadowy foreign threats--also full of unease about the way
government curtails freedom in the name of protecting its
citizens--the past speaks to the present.
Containing just the twentieth-century chapters from Howard Zinn's bestselling A People's History of the United States, this revised and updated edition includes two new chapters -- covering Clinton's presidency, the 2000 Election, and the "war on terrorism." Highlighting not just the usual terms of presidential administrations and congressional activities, this book provides you with a "bottom-to-top" perspective, giving voice to our nation's minorities and letting the stories of such groups as African Americans, women, Native Americans, and the laborers of all nationalities be told in their own words.
The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German
soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other
in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge
for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced
a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished.
From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and
West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this
book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers
and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to
life by a combination of previously unseen testimony and astute
strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror
and suffering.
Hardcover edition ISBN: 9781849081900
Back from 44 - The Sacrifice and Courage of a Few. Nick Bentas,
Staff Sergeant US Army Air Force, finds himself in a severely
crippled B-26 Marauder, trying to return to base, he remembers the
different times in his life that led him up to this point. From
enlistment to basic training to saying goodbye to his new wife, he
remembers his deadly missions around France, Germany and the wider
Mediterranean. Experience how it was first hand to encounter enemy
flak and fighter attacks, while dealing with the emotional impact
of losing close friends. Back From 44 is an in-depth look into the
bravery and sacrifice of ordinary men who did extraordinary things
during WWII.
Cambridge is one of the most famous universities in the world and
its library is one of only five copyright libraries in the UK. At
the start of the twentieth century it was a privileged life for
some, but many in Cambridge knew that war was becoming truly
inevitable. What the proverbial 'gown' feared communicated itself
to the surrounding 'town'. Terrible rumours were rife, that the
Germans would burn the university library and raise King's College
chapel to the ground, before firing shells along the tranquil
'Backs' of the River Cam until the weeping willows were just
blackened stumps. Frightened but determined, age-old 'town and
gown' rivalries were put aside as the city united against the
common enemy. This book tells Cambridge's fascinating story in the
grim years of the Great War. Thousands of university students,
graduates and lecturers alike enlisted, along with the patriotic
townsfolk. The First Eastern General Military Hospital was
subsequently established in Trinity College and treated more than
80,000 casualties from the Western Front.Though the university had
been the longtime hub of life and employment in the town, many
people suffered great losses and were parted from loved ones,
decimating traditional breadwinners and livelihoods, from the
rationing of food, drink and fuel, to hundreds of restrictions
imposed by DORA. As a result, feelings ran high and eventually led
to riots beneath the raiding zeppelins and ever-present threat of
death. The poet, Rupert Brooke, a graduate of King's College, died
on his way to the Dardanelles in 1915, but his most famous poem The
Soldier became a preemptive memorial and the epitaph of millions.
If I should die Think only this of me That there's some corner of a
foreign field That is forever England.
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