![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Historical, political & military
"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.
Scholar, reverend, politician, and perhaps aristocrat... James Arthur Stanley Harley was certainly a polymath. Born in a poor village in the Caribbean island of Antigua, he went on to attend Howard, Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities, was ordained a priest in Canterbury Cathedral and was elected to Leicestershire County Council. He was a choirmaster, a pioneer Oxford anthropologist, a country curate and a firebrand councillor. This remarkable career was all the more extraordinary because he was black in an age - the early twentieth century - that was institutionally racist. Pamela Roberts' meticulously researched book tells Harley's hitherto unknown story from humble Antiguan childhood, through elite education in Jim Crow America to the turbulent England of World War I and the General Strike. Navigating the complex intertwining of education, religion, politics and race, his life converged with pivotal periods and events in history: the birth of the American New Negro in the 1900s, black scholars at Ivy League institutions, the heyday of Washington's black elite and the early civil rights movement, Edwardian English society, and the Great War. Based on Harley's letters, sermons and writings as well as contemporary accounts and later oral testimony, this is an account of an individual's trajectory through seven decades of dramatic social change. Roberts' biography reveals a man of religious conviction, who won admirers for his work as a vicar and local councillor. But Harley was also a complex and abrasive individual, who made enemies and courted controversy and scandal. Most intriguingly, he hinted at illicit aristocratic ancestry dating back to Antigua's slave-owning past. His life, uncovered here for the first time, is full of contradictions and surprises, but above all illustrates the power and resilience of the human spirit.
Aged fifteen, armed with a credit card stolen from his father, Jonny Oates ran away from home and boarded a plane to Addis Ababa. His plan? To save the Ethiopian people from the devastating 1985 famine. Discovering that demand for the assistance of unskilled fifteen-year-old English boys was limited, he swiftly learned that you can't change the world by pure force of will - a lesson that would prove invaluable in politics. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden charts Oates's journey from his darkest moments alone in Ethiopia, struggling with his sexuality and mental health, to the heart of Westminster, where, as Nick Clegg's chief of staff, he grapples with the compromises and concessions of coalition. Shot through with a captivating warmth and humour, this heart-stoppingly candid memoir reflects on the challenges of balancing idealism and pragmatism, illustrating how lasting change comes from working together rather than standing alone.
The Roosevelts is a brilliant and controversial account of twentieth-century American political culture as seen through the lens of its preeminent political dynasty. Peter Collier shows how Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, along with their descendants, scrambled to define the direction that American politics would take. The Oyster Bay clan, influenced by the flamboyant Teddy, was extroverted, eccentric, tradition-bound, and family-oriented. They represented an age of American innocence that would be replaced by Franklin's Hyde Park Roosevelts, who were aloof and cold yet individualistic and progressive. Drawing on extensive interviews and brimming with trenchant anecdotes, this historical portrait casts new light on the pivotal events and personalities that shaped the Roosevelt legacy -- from Eleanor's often brutal relationship with her children and Theodore Jr.'s undoing in the 1924 New York gubernatorial race, to the heroism of Teddy's sons during both World Wars and FDR's loveless marriage. The Roosevelts is history at its most penetrating, a crucial work that illuminates the foundations of contemporary, American politics.
IN 1501, ENGLAND HAD BEEN RAVAGED FOR DECADES by conspiracy, coups,
and violence. Through luck, guile, and ruthlessness, Henry VII, the
first of the Tudor kings, emerged as ruler--but as a fugitive with
a flimsy claim to England's throne, he remained a usurper and false
king to many, and his hold on power was precarious.
Equal parts freedom fighter and statesman, Nelson Mandela bestrode the world stage for the past three decades, building a legacy that places him in the pantheon of history's most exemplary leaders. As a foreign correspondent based in South Africa, author John Carlin had unique access to Mandela during the post-apartheid years when Mandela faced his most daunting obstacles and achieved his greatest triumphs. Carlin witnessed history as Mandela was released from prison after twenty-seven years and ultimately ascended to the presidency of his strife-torn country. Drawing on exclusive conversations with Mandela and countless interviews with people who were close to him, Carlin has crafted an account of a man who was neither saint nor superman. Mandela's seismic political victories were won at the cost of much personal unhappiness and disappointment. Knowing Mandela offers an intimate understanding of one of the most towering and remarkable figures of our age.
The sensational tale of the first mixed-race girl introduced to high-society England and raised as a lady... The illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman, Dido Belle was raised by her great-uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, one of the most powerful men of the time and a leading opponent of slavery. When the portrait he commissioned of his two wards, Dido and her white cousin, Elizabeth, was unveiled, eighteenth-century England was shocked to see a black woman and white woman depicted as equals. Inspired by the painting, Belle vividly brings to life this extraordinary woman caught between two worlds, and illuminates the great civil rights question of her age: the fight to end slavery. The feature film Belle is produced by Damian Jones (The Iron Lady, The History Boys, Welcome to Sarajevo), written by Misan Sagay, and directed by Amma Asante, and stars the extraordinary Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido Belle, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Reid, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Tom Felton, Matthew Goode, and Emily Watson. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
HPV Infection in Head and Neck Cancer
Wojciech Golusinski, C Rene Leemans, …
Hardcover
R4,706
Discovery Miles 47 060
An Inspector Calls: York Notes for GCSE…
John Scicluna, J Priestley
Paperback
![]() R197 Discovery Miles 1 970
|