The Spitfire a " there have been many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of books written about this beautiful R.J Mitchell designed, elliptically winged areoplane. But there has yet to be a book published, which has focused solely on the lesser-known two-seat variant of graceful Spitfirea |Until now! In two-seater spitfires, Greg Davis, John Sanderson and Peter Arnold trace the history of this iconic aircraft a " from its initial design through to those still taking to the skies today.

In the summer of 1943, at the height of World War II, battles were exploding all throughout the Pacific theater. In mid-November of that year, the United States waged a bloody campaign on Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll, the most heavily fortified Japanese territory in the entire Pacific. They were fighting to wrest control of the island to stage the next big push toward Japan--and one journalist was there to chronicle the horror.
Dive into war correspondent Robert Sherrod's battlefield account as he goes ashore with the assault troops of the U.S. Marines 2nd Marine Division in Tarawa. Follow the story of the U.S. Army 27th Infantry Division as nearly 35,000 troops take on less than 5,000 Japanese defenders in one of the most savage engagements of the war. By the end of the battle, only seventeen Japanese soldiers were still alive.
This story, a must for any history buff, tells the ins and outs of life alongside the U.S. Marines in this lesser-known battle of World War II. The battle itself carried on for three days, but Sherrod, a dedicated journalist, remained in Tarawa until the very end, and through his writing, shares every detail.

‘The freezing loneliness made one wish for death,’ journalist Joyce Sikakane-Rankin said of solitary confinement. With seven other women, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, she was held for more than a year.

This is the story of these heroic women, their refusal to testify in the ‘Trial of Twenty-Two’ in 1969, their brutal detention and how they picked up their lives afterwards. 

Exploring some of the world's eeriest places, Abandoned Islands features American civil war forts, Europe's last leper colony and South Atlantic whaling stations, along with once grand mansions and colonial settlements and churches, and much more. Arranged geographically, the book takes us from New York's East River to islands off Alaska, from a French Napoleonic-era fort off the coast of Normandy to deserted villages on remote Scottish isles, from Venetian sanatoria to Croatian penal colonies, Japanese mining colonies to Sudanese deserted ports and abandoned atolls in the Indian Ocean. Leafing through these pages, the reasons for abandonment are revealed: climate change sealing off fresh water or river channels, shifting economic forces making life too hard, religious conflict, or wars disrupting daily life - or the absence of war rendering a military settlement unnecessary. With more than 180 outstanding colour photographs and fascinating captions, Abandoned Islands is a brilliant pictorial exploration of lost worlds.

In explaining how developments in the Kruger National Park have been integral to the wider political and socio-economic concerns of South Africa, this text opens an alternative perspective on its history. Nature protection has evolved in response to a variety of stimuli including white self-interest, Afrikaner nationalism, ineffectual legislation, elitism, capitalism and the exploitation of Africans.

Nestled at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers in the first permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory resides one of the most dominant college baseball dynasties in the nation. The Marietta College Pioneers - known as the 'Etta Express for the way they've barreled over opponents for half a century - own a record five NCAA Division III National Championships, including 2011. Finally, the best kept secret in college sports springs to life as author Gary Caruso digs into the personalities behind this incredible success story to reveal the compelling human drama that's made Marietta College baseball a treasure all readers are sure to enjoy.

This book is the result of 45 years of part-time research into the Shropshire Speake families. It describes the history of the author's family through thirteen generations, as well as all other associated Shropshire Speake families. In some cases it follows them across the nearby border into Wales, and the possible reasons for their migration. It focuses on the period prior to the advent of census returns and the civil registration of births, marriage and deaths in the early nineteenth century. Prior to this date research becomes more difficult and time consuming, and the aim of this book is to help Speake family researchers to link their family trees back to this earlier period. This approach has enabled this book to be kept a reasonable size. It is the story of periods of prosperity in the late sixteenth century, with accompanying social advancement. This is contrasted with the problems of two court cases brought against them in the infamous Court of the Star Chamber in London, 150 miles distant. After the mid-seventeenth century they lived the precarious existence of the rural poor, at the mercy of poor harvests, poverty, accidents, chronic illnesses and sudden death. Outline family trees for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are included, to help those interested in their Speake family to connect with the earlier information presented here. In particular, the very large Eaton-under-Heywood and Westbury families are comprehensively shown in outline. This reconstruction was made possible by the use of a large computerised relational database. Shropshire was an early leader in the Industrial Revolution and the new industries in Ironbridge and Ketley provided alternative employment for the rural poor. The later nineteenth century growth of local government also provided new opportunities for employment and increasing prosperity. The advent of the railways made it easier to seek work further afield and many Speake families migrated to the industrial districts of Lancashire, South Wales and the adjacent `Black Country' of the Midlands. More distant migrations were made to Canada, Patagonia, Australia and New Zealand. This book is a record of often short, hard lives, and although documentary evidence is hard to find, their lives can bring surprises. This book contains 130 family trees, nine specially commissioned maps, two original artworks and an extensive index. A comprehensive collection of Appendices contains summaries of all known Speake wills, lay subsidies, marriages licences and hearth tax entries and many other documents. These make this volume an essential addition to the book collection of family historians and others with an interest in Shropshire history and the Speake families.