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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Historical, political & military
Drawing from recently declassified top-secret material, as well as revelatory eyewitness accounts, Secret Service records, and Jacqueline Kennedy's personal letters, bestselling biographer Barbara Leaming answers the question: what was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Brilliantly researched, Leaming's poignant and powerful chronicle illuminates the tumultuous day-to-day life of a woman who entered the White House at age thirty-one, seven years into a complex and troubled marriage, and left at thirty-four after her husband's assassination. Revealing the full story of the interplay of sex and politics in Washington, Mrs. Kennedy will indelibly challenge our vision of this fascinating woman, and bring a new perspective to her crucial role in the Kennedy presidency.
World War II Memoirs - Ray Paines personal and dramatic account of
his war experiences in a mortar platoon in the British 3rd Division
in World War II. A private in the 2nd Lincolns Regiment, Ray
describes his assault training in Scotland, the D-Day landing on
Sword Beach and his role in the campaign across northern Europe to
the Battle of Bremen.
In fascinating detail, Ivan Solotaroff introduces us to the men who carry out executions. Although the emphasis is on the personal lives of these men and of those they have to put to death, The Last Face You'll Ever See also addresses some of the deeper issues of the death penalty and connects the veiled, elusive figure of the executioner to the vast majority of Americans who, since 1977, have claimed to support executions. Why do we do it? Or, more exactly, why do we want to? The Last Face You'll Ever See is not about the polarizing issues of the death penalty -- it is a firsthand report about the culture of executions: the executioners, the death-row inmates, and everyone involved in the act. An engrossing, unsettling, and provocative book, this work will forever affect anyone who reads it.
A "New York Times" best-seller when it was first published, Rice's
biography is the gripping story of a fierce, magnetic, and
brilliant man whose real-life accomplishments are the stuff of
legend. Rice retraces Burton's steps as the first European
adventurer to search for the source of the Nile; to enter,
disguised, the forbidden cities of Mecca and Medina; and to travel
through remote stretches of India, the Near East, and Africa. From
his spying exploits to his startling literary accomplishments (the
discovery and translation of the Kama Sutra and his
seventeen-volume translation of "Arabian Nights"), Burton was an
engrossing, larger-than-life Victorian figure, and Rice's splendid
biography lays open a portrayal as dramatic, complicated, and
compelling as the man himself.
Thoroughly revised and expanded from the 2012 edition (twice the
number of pages, almost double the number of illustrations) this
book pays tribute to the man and his diverse works and
achievements. James Hutton (1726-1797) was one of the first
environmentalists, a man ahead of his time. He developed a grand
theory of the Earth in which he tried to make sense of a lifetime
of observation and deduction about the way in which our planet
functions. For example, he connected temperature with latitude. His
measurements, with rudimentary thermometers, of temperature changes
between the base and summit of Arthur's Seat, were remarkably
accurate and he studied climate data from other parts of the world.
A leading figure in the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment,
he was also an innovative farmer, successful entrepreneur and a man
with endless intellectual curiosity. The year 2026 will be the
tercentenary of his birth. There will be many special events
leading up to and in that year organised by The James Hutton
Institute, Scotland's premier environmental and agricultural
research organisation.
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Shackleton
(Paperback)
Ranulph Fiennes
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R550
R471
Discovery Miles 4 710
Save R79 (14%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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First Wave
(Paperback)
Kenneth James Stuart Ballantyne
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R357
Discovery Miles 3 570
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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General Sir Gordon MacMillan's five children decided to write this
life of their father to learn more about what he had done, and so
allow their children and grandchildren to draw inspiration from the
great man from whom they are descended. Fascinating details came to
light about his bravery in the First World War, his successes in
command in the Second World War, his good fortune in surviving
three assassination attempts during the last years of the British
Mandate in Palestine, and his disagreement with Churchill over the
handling of delicate issues in Gibraltar. But this is not just a
tale of a soldier and his military exploits, and of his subsequent
engagement in civilian and Clan activities in Scotland. It is a
story that is placed in the broader family setting within which his
children feel fortunate to have been brought up.
Perhaps one of the most memorable sights in the Second World War
was the arrival in Scapa Flow of the Home Fleet after the
successful sinking of Scharnhorst in the last week of 1943. Harry
Semark was one of the few civilians privileged to witness it. This
and other of his eye witness accounts, remembered with such clarity
down the years, add value to the record of what was a monumentous
six years in the history of not only these isles but most of the
world. This book describes with complete accuracy and in a most
unassuming way, the real story of the varied service that one man,
like thousands of others, gave ungrudgingly largely unnoticed and
unrewarded, to keep the Naval War machine, ready to fight and win.
Harry Semark makes light of the hardships the world often worked
in, in biting weather on large guns with practically no assistance,
being expected to analyse and make good faults as requested by the
Gunnery Officer (this was World War II practice). It is to his
credit that he invariably found a way to achieve the aim, be it
converting a fishing drifter for its self-protection to modifying a
battleship's 15" guns to allow it to engage and destroy the enemy.
A technical expert, he makes gunfitting come alive, this obvious
zest for knowledge and life ensures that the cameos he paints are
always vital and fascinating.
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald's only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world's health, economic security and social fabric.
Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents' large, imposing house in New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.
A first-hand witness, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humour to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald's place in the family spotlight and Ivana's penchant for regifting to her grandmother's frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump's favourite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer's. Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists and journalists have sought to explain Donald Trump's lethal flaws. Mary Trump has the education, insight and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick.
She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider's perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world's most powerful and dysfunctional families.
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Becoming
(Paperback)
Michelle Obama
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R345
R270
Discovery Miles 2 700
Save R75 (22%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America - the first African-American to serve in that role - she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations - and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Temperamentally and intellectually, Natan Sharansky is a man very
much like many of us--which makes this account of his arrest on
political grounds, his trial, and ten years' imprisonment in the
Orwellian universe of the Soviet gulag particularly vivid and
resonant.
Since Fear No Evil was originally published in 1988, the Soviet
government that imprisoned Sharansky has collapsed. Sharansky has
become an important national leader in Israel--and serves as
Israel's diplomatic liaison to the former Soviet Union! New York
Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Serge Schmemann reflects on those
monumental events, and on Sharansky's extraordinary life in the
decades since his arrest, in a new introduction to this edition.
But the truths Sharansky learned in his jail cell and sets forth in
this book have timeless importance so long as rulers anywhere on
earth still supress their own peoples. For anyone with an interest
in human rights--and anyone with an appreciation for the resilience
of the human spirit--he illuminates the weapons with which the
powerless can humble the powerful: physical courage, an untiring
sense of humor, a bountiful imagination, and the conviction that
"Nothing they do can humiliate me. I alone can humiliate myself."
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