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Books > Humanities > History > American history > General
A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From Sunday Times bestselling
historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American
troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and
also the last. The 'Devil Dogs' of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were
part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the
beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942 - the first
US ground offensive of the war - and were present when Okinawa,
Japan's most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops
after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the
'Green Hell' of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and
across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a
campaign described by one K Company veteran as 'thirty days of the
meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict
on each other.' Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and
drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil
Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the
victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most
effective soldiers in world history - and defeat it. This is the
story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds
of brotherhood that still survive today. Remarkably, the company
contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose
first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the colour, emotion, and
context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning
historian Saul David sets the searing experience of K Company into
the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for
the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne.
Gripping, intimate, authoritative and far-reaching, this is a
unique and incredibly personal narrative of war. Saul David's
previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times
Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021.
In the mountains of northern New Mexico above Taos Pueblo lies a
deep, turquoise lake which was taken away from the Taos Indians,
for whom it is a sacred life source and the final resting place of
their souls. The story of their struggle to regain the lake is at
the same time a story about the effort to retain the spiritual life
of this ancient community. Marcia Keegan's text and historic
photographs document the celebration in 1971, when the sacred lake
was returned to Taos Pueblo after a sixty year struggle with the
Federal government.
This revised and expanded edition celebrates the 40th
anniversary of this historic event, and includes forwards from the
1971 edition by Frank Waters, and from the 1991 20th anniversary
edition by Stewart L. Udall. Also contained here is new material:
statements from past and current tribal leaders, reflections from
Pueblo members, historic tribal statements made at the 1970
Congressional hearings and a 1971 photograph o
**NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING ROBERT PATTINSON, CHARLIE HUNNAM AND
SIENNA MILLER** 'A riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling
tale of adventure'JOHN GRISHAM The story of Colonel Percy Harrison
Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle's The Lost World
Fawcett was among the last of a legendary breed of British
explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe
that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El
Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of
Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack,
vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace. For the next
eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying
to find evidence of Fawcett's party or Z. Some died from disease
and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding
true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps
of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest
mysteries of exploration. 'A wonderful story of a lost age of
heroic exploration' Sunday Times 'Marvellous ... An engrossing book
whose protagonist could out-think Indiana Jones' Daily Telegraph
'The best story in the world, told perfectly' Evening Standard 'A
fascinating and brilliant book' Malcolm Gladwell
Startling new insights into the JFK assassination In Killing
Kennedy: Exposing the Plot, the Cover-Up, and the Consequences,
author Jack Roth interviews researchers, scholars, eyewitnesses,
and family members of those who were part of the tangled web of US
intelligence operations associated with the Cold War and the
circumstances surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The
author asks important questions, including why the assassination
still matters today and what the lasting ripple effects have been
since that fateful day. The Kennedy assassination represents one of
the most impactful events in not only American but also world
history, and this book represents an important addendum to
understanding its enduring significance. On November 22, 1963, the
duly elected president of the United States was murdered in cold
blood, forever destroying "Camelot" and national optimism for world
peace. Gleaning a "people's history" of the assassination through
dozens of insightful and heartfelt interviews, Roth presents a
riveting narrative by creating a respectful, well-crafted, and
emotionally charged book from which both older and younger
generations will gain a greater understanding of our nation's
history and current status in the modern world.
2020 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS)
Book Award Winner Honorable Mention, Ramirez Family Award for Most
Significant Scholarly Book, Texas Institute of Letters, 2019
Managed Migrations examines the concurrent development of a border
agricultural industry and changing methods of border enforcement in
the Rio Grande Valley of Texas during the past century. Needed at
one moment, scorned at others, Mexican agricultural workers have
moved back and forth across the US–Mexico border for the past
century. In South Texas, Anglo growers’ dreams of creating a
modern agricultural empire depended on continuous access to Mexican
workers. While this access was officially regulated by immigration
laws and policy promulgated in Washington, DC, in practice the
migration of Mexican labor involved daily, on-the-ground
negotiations among growers, workers, and the US Border Patrol. In a
very real sense, these groups set the parameters of border
enforcement policy. Managed Migrations examines the relationship
between immigration laws and policy and the agricultural labor
relations of growers and workers in South Texas and El Paso during
the 1940s and 1950s. Cristina Salinas argues that immigration law
was mainly enacted not in embassies or the halls of Congress but on
the ground, as a result of daily decisions by the Border Patrol
that growers and workers negotiated and contested. She describes
how the INS devised techniques to facilitate high-volume yearly
deportations and shows how the agency used these enforcement
practices to manage the seasonal agricultural labor migration
across the border. Her pioneering research reveals the great extent
to which immigration policy was made at the local level, as well as
the agency of Mexican farmworkers who managed to maintain their
mobility and kinship networks despite the constraints of grower
paternalism and enforcement actions by the Border Patrol.
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.
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