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Books > Biography > Historical, political & military
Eva Tichauer was born in Berlin at the end of the First World War into a socialist Jewish family. After a happy childhood in a well-off intellectual milieu, the destiny of her family was turned upside-down by the rise of Hitler in 1933. They emigrated to Paris in July of that year, and life started to become difficult. Eva was in her second year of medical studies in 1939 when war was declared, with fatal consequences for her and her family: they sere forced to the Spanish frontier, then returned to Paris to a flat which had been searched by the Gestapo. Eva was then compelled to break off her studies due to a quota system being imposed on Jewish students.
This delightful memoir of Mike Williams life and times will stir many memories. Cranwellians of the late 1950s and early 60s engaged in their jet conversion to Vampires will recall a good looking and sympathetic instructor who had the time and sense to make this testing time a pleasure rather than a trial. Mike stood out then as a man with charm and style. Throughout his career, Mike retained that charm and easy going approach which made him so popular in the Royal Air Force, with the other services and in the civilian world. But behind that aura lay a great professionalism and strength of character, so necessary for a test pilot, the operations floor at the Ministry of Defence and Station Commander at the Central Flying School. Without that inner core of steel, it is unlikely he would have continued to fly after the loss of one eye, and in the process become something of a legend. Looking through his Record of Service, from 1954 Initial Training at Kirton Lindsey to his retirement as Deputy Commandant at Cranwell 1984, one is struck by the number of bases no longer in being with the RAF. Kirton Lindsey, Middleton St George, Chivenor, Stradishall, Waterbeach, Little Rissington, Aden, Manby-all of them in their day lively, important stations and ones which had a profound influence on the many young men and women who spent time there. The ghosts of those days peep out from the pages of this book. They bear witness to just how great the changes have been to the RAF and how much smaller it is today. It would be easy to suggest that the era Mike Williams describes was more fun, more varied and more interesting than the essentially UK based service of today despite the fact that the RAF has been almost permanently on operations abroad since 1991. In reality, the world has changed and the armed services have had to change with it. But young men and women still join the military for much the same reason as did Mike, and they still get the satisfaction from achievements in the air and on the ground as did he. What I hope those of the modern generation who read this book will learn is that professionalism can accommodate graciousness and charm, a life outside the service without in any way compromising excellence.
Cecil John Rhodes lived from 1853 to 1902, a brief span, and was the renowned and world-famous founder of Rhodesia (1890-1980), the leading personality and figure in the Victorian world’s late nineteenth-century Africa empire. Rhodes’ endeavours shaped the domains of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Zambesia, and set down the trajectories marking southern Africa, while the Great Powers’ record of empire in Africa proved greatly inferior to Rhodesia’s. Zambesia’s long history of continuous turbulence on a troubled plateau was reversed by Rhodes’ Pioneer Column in 1890 when the ‘First Rhodesians’ arrived following five decades of itinerant white presence in Zambesia. The Occupation of Mashonaland in 1890, conquest of Matabeleland in 1893 and the end of native rebellions in 1896-97 set the stage for decades of enduring prosperity in Rhodesia, Rhodes’ most enduring legacy. Pax Rhodesiana lasted ninety years, ending in a civil war. Then, Rhodes’ memorabilia and many memorials were subjected to modern cultural cleansing, the inheritor state in time eroding and declining into a failing state.
Eleanor Roosevelt's character was shaped by the history and culture of the Hudson Valley. More than that, Eleanor Roosevelt loved the Hudson Valley. A woman who knew and cared for the whole world chose this place, Val-Kill, as her home in a cottage by a stream. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Hudson Valley Remembrance reflects her unaffected simplicity and caring interest in her neighbors' concerns. Remembered by friends, colleagues, neighbors, and young people, these qualities inspired a community-based group to lead efforts to save her home in 1977 as the country's first national historic site dedicated to a First Lady. The Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill continues her work on issues that affect life today.
This highly revelatory book, based on original research and completely
new analysis, presents a compelling new suspect as the most notorious
serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper.
Born in 1930 on a farm near Colenso in Natal, South Africa, Ben Magubane would almost certainly have grown up to be a farm worker had his father not moved the family suddenly to the city of Durban following a clash with the farm owner. In Durban, the family lived in the Cato Manor squatter settlement and Magubane began his education in the Catholic schools that flourished before the imposition of Bantu Education.In this fascinating autobiography, Ben Magubane relates how as a child he was radicalised by the conditions apartheid imposed on the majority of the country's people. He became a teacher and rubbed shoulders with many of the country's great educationists, his passion for learning leading him on to the University of Natal and eventually to the United States of America, in 1961, for postgraduate studies in the social sciences.As a critical thinker, Magubane was schooled by eminent scholars within the liberal-pluralist paradigm, but he migrated towards an understanding of South African and African history and sociology through Marxism, a journey that shaped him as a leading African intellectual.Magubane became closely involved with various members of the African National Congress in exile, including Oliver Tambo, and he played a vital role in the anti-apartheid struggle in the United States and beyond.Ben Magubane is the Director of South African Democracy Education Trust.
Ken Thompson served as Sarasota's city manager from 1950 to 1988, making him the longest-serving manager in United States history. During these years, Sarasota experienced a population explosion and an unprecedented modernization of city services. The city moved from a sleepy little town to an independent city with an identifiable economy. This period of growth gave residents a vastly improved bayfront that included Island Park and the Marina Jack development and saw the creation of the current city hall and the Van Wetzel Theater. In thirty-eight years, Sarasota moved from the Circus City to the multifaceted city it is today. Follow well-known Sarasota historian Jeff LaHurd as he recounts the sometimes controversial era of Sarasota's greatest growth.
Every few weeks in British politics, a columnist will reach for the
word ‘unprecedented’ as a cabinet minister resigns or yet another
inquiry is called. We have become so accustomed to turmoil that it is
impossible to take a breath and see where we are headed.
Legendary for an unusual combination of spiritual power, beauty, charisma, showmanship, intimidation, and shrewd business sense, Marie Leveau also was known for her kindness and charity, nursing yellow fever victims and ministering to condemned prisoners, and her devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. In separating verifiable fact from semi-truths and complete fabrication, Carolyn Morrow Long explores the unique social, political, and legal setting in which the lives of Laveau's African and European ancestors became intertwined in nineteenth-century New Orleans.
"An uncharacteristic warning from one of the most respected, non-partisan journalists in the world" -Jake Tapper, CNN "It was riveting. I couldn't get enough of it." -Gayle King, CBS Mornings The Trump Tapes explodes with the exclusive, inside story of Trump's performance as president-in his own words as he is questioned, even interrogated by Woodward, on the president's key responsibilities from managing foreign relations to crisis management of the coronavirus pandemic. This is the job Trump seeks again. How did he do the first time? This is the authentic answer, laying bare his repeated failures, obsessions, and grievances. The Woodward interviews take a reader to a reporter's laboratory meticulously examining the Trump presidency like never before-spellbinding and devastating. *Including all 27 letters between President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un
A deep-dive into the art, science and practice of leadership around the
world and across the ages by a Harvard professor and historian -
essential reading for our turbulent times.
Marion is proverbially the great master of strategy?the wily fox of the swamps?never to be caught, never to be followed, ?yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected. South Carolina's ?Swamp Fox, ? Francis Marion, is one of the most celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Marion's cunning exploits in the Southern theater of the Revolution earned him national renown and a place in history as an American hero and master of modern guerilla warfare. Although dozens of works have been written about Marion's life over the years, this biography -- written by William Gilmore Simms, South Carolina's greatest author -- remains the best. First published in 1844, The Life of Francis Marion was Simms's most commercially successful work of nonfiction. It offers a treatment of Marion's life that is unparalleled in its scope and accuracy, all in Simms's inimitable style.
Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku made a vow to smile every day and now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’. In his inspirational memoir, he pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story and sharing his wisdom. Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. The Happiest Man on Earth is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.
Louis Botha was ’n briljante Boeregeneraal wie se taktiese vernuf en intuïtiewe aanslag vir etlike oorwinnings oor die Britse magte in die Anglo-Boereoorlog gesorg het. Maar dit was sy enigmatiese karakter en vaste oortuiging om te hou by wat hy geglo het reg was, wat hom as ’n leier van die Boerevolk bevestig het. Richard Steyn gee op meesterlike wyse insae in die lewe van hierdie grootse Suid-Afrikaanse krygsman en staatsman. Hy beskryf verhelderend hoe Botha saam met sy hegte vriend, Jan Smuts, die vier Suid-Afrikaanse kolonies na Uniewording in 1910 gelei het waarna Botha as die eerste eerste minister van die Unie aangewys is. Gedurende die Eerste Wêreldoorlog was Botha aan die voorpunt van die Suid-Afrikaanse magte se suksesvolle inval van Duits-Suidwes-Afrika. Tog is hy deur talle Afrikaners verkwalik vir sy steun aan Brittanje, en die Afrikaner-rebellie van 1914, waartydens hy teen voormalige makkers moes optree, het sy hart gebreek. Botha se groothartig en vrygewige omgang met mense – van Vereeniging tot Versailles – het hom bo sy tydgenote laat uitstaan.
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