This is the definitive biography of rap supergroup, Wu-Tang Clan (WTC). Widely regarded as one of the most influential groups in modern music--hip hop or otherwise--WTC has released seven albums [including four gold and platinum studio albums, as well as the genre-defining Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)] and has launched the careers of famous rappers like RZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and more. Beyond the musicians in the group itself, WTC has also collaborated with many of the biggest names in the game-from Busta Rhymes and Redman to Nas and Kanye West), and one is hard pressed to find a group who's had a bigger impact on the evolution of the hip hop genre. S.H. Fernando, Jr. is a journalist who has interviewed WTC several times over the past several decades for publications like Rolling Stone, Vibe, and The Source. Over the years, he has "built up a formidable archive--including over 100 pages of unpublished transcribed interviews, videos of the group in action in the studio, and several notepads of accumulated memories and observations." The result is a startling portrait of innovation, collaboration, and adversity, giving us unparalleled access to the highs and lows of the WTC's illustrious career so far. And this book doesn't shy away from controversy--along with stories of the group's musical success, we're also privy to stories from their childhoods in the crime-and-cocaine infested hallways of Brooklyn and Staten Island housing projects, stints in Rikers for gun possession and attempted murderer, and million-dollar contracts that led to recklessness and drug overdoses (including Ol' Dirty Bastard's untimely death). Even more than just a history of a single group, this book tells the story of a musical and cultural shift that encapsulates and then expands beyond NYC in the 20th and 21st centuries. Though there have been biographies written about the band, both from members (like RZA) and collaborators (like Cyrus Bozorgmehr), most of the material that's been published so far has either focused on a single member of the group's story, or a narrow timespan of their work. This book will not only feature interviews with all living WTC members and a comprehensive look at their discography, it also includes never-before-revealed insight into their childhoods and the neighborhoods that shaped them growing up. It's unique in its breadth, scope, and access--a must-have for fans of WTC and music bios more generally.

An indelible exploration of the Cultural Revolution and how it shapes China today, Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the rarely heard stories of individuals who lived through Mao's decade of madness. 'Took my breath away.' BARBARA DEMICK 'Haunting.' OLIVER BURKEMAN 'A master class in storytelling and journalism.' GARY YOUNGE Red Memory explores the stories of those who are driven to confront the era, fearing or yearning its return. What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?

In the second half of the nineteenth century, several thousand impoverished young Jewish women from Eastern Europe were forced into prostitution in the frontier colonies of Latin America, South Africa, India, and parts of the United States by the Zwi Migdal, a notorious criminal gang of Jewish mobsters.

Isabel Vincent, acclaimed author of "Hitler's Silent Partners," tells the remarkable true story of three such women--Sophia Chamys, Rachel Liberman, and Rebecca Freedman--who, like so many others, were desperate to escape a hopeless future in Europe's teeming urban ghettos and rural shtetls. "Bodies and Souls" is a shocking and spellbinding account of a monumental betrayal that brings to light a dark and shameful hitherto untold chapter in Jewish history--brilliantly chronicling the heartbreaking plight of women rejected by a society that deemed them impure and detailing their extraordinary struggles to live with dignity in a community of their own creation.

The 20th Century has been one of enduring, rapid and fundamental social and political change. In Southern Africa, innumerable wars, rebellions, uprisings and protests have marked the integration, disintegration and then reintegration of both society and subcontinent during this period.

The century started with a brief but total war. Less than ten years later victorious Britain brought the conquered Boer republics, and the Cape and Natal colonies, together into the Union of South Africa. And the military of this early creation served not only in all of the major wars of the twentieth century, but also in a number of regional struggles: rebellion on the part of Afrikaner nationalists, industrial unrest fanned by syndicalists, and uprisings conducted chiefly but not exclusively by disenfranchised black South Africans.

The century ended as it started, with a war. But this was a limited war, a flashpoint of the Cold War, which embraced more than just the subcontinent and lasted a long, twenty-three years.

The first of its kind, A Military History of Modern South Africa provides an overview of South African military history from 1899 to 2000. Focusing on the campaigns and battles, it also brings discussion on the evolving military policy and the development of the South African military as an institution into a single volume.

"I have decided to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion against England."--Adolph Hitler, July 16, 1940
Operation Sealion was the codename for the Nazi invasion of Britain that Hitler ordered his generals to plan after France fell in June 1940. Although the plan ultimately never came to fruition, a few sets of the Germans' detailed strategy documents are housed in the rare book rooms of libraries across Europe. But now the Bodleian Library has made documents from their set available for all to peruse in this unprecedented collection of the invasion planning materials.
The planned operation would have involved landing 160,000 German soldiers along a forty-mile stretch of coast in southeast England. Packets of reconnaissance materials were put together for the invading forces, and the most intriguing parts are now reproduced here. Each soldier was to be given maps and geographical descriptions of the British Isles that broke down the country by regions, aerial photographs pinpointing strategic targets, an extensive listing of British roads and rivers, strategic plans for launching attacks on each region, an English dictionary and phrase book, and even a brief description of Britain's social composition.
Augmenting the fascinating documents is an informative introduction that sets the materials in their historical and political context. A must-have for every military history buff, "German Invasion Plans for the British Isles, 1940" is a remarkable revelation of the inner workings of Hitler's most famous unrealized military campaign.

A powerful collection of journalism on race, racism and black life and death from one of the nation's leading political voices. For the last three decades Gary Younge has had a ringside seat during the biggest events and with the most significant personalities to impact the black diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama's victory, entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina or interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou and Stormzy. He has witnessed how much change is possible and the power of systems to thwart those aspirations. Dispatches from the Diaspora is an unrivalled body of work from a unique perspective that takes you to the frontlines and compels you to engage and to 'imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.'

Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman's works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee.

The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who commanded -- among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell -- developed as leaders and men. Lee's Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South's declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee's command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee's Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian's art as practiced at its very highest level.

The concept of green business originated recently, but the phenomenon has a longer history which offers many lessons for today and the future. This book provides rich new empirical evidence on green business as it examines its variation between industries and nations, and over time. It demonstrates the deep historical origins of endeavors to create for-profit businesses that were more responsible and sustainable, but also how these strategies have faced constraints, trade-offs and challenges of legitimacy. Based on extensive interviews and archives from around the world, the book asks why green business succeeds more in some contexts than others and draws lessons from failure as well as success. This book emphasizes the importance of context for explaining the choices which explain the varieties of green business. Government policies, both local and national, cultural and religious values, and national images, are amongst the contextual factors which are identified. The book's distinctiveness lies in the use of original empirical data and the fact that it considers both successful and unsuccessful cases. An unusually wide geographical scope means that it covers not only the United States and Europe, but also less studied settings, including Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Japan. Scholars and students interested in environmental management; corporate social responsibility; business ethics and trust; and business and environmental history will find this an important and fascinating read.

It was a crime that shocked the nation: the brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were intellectuals--too smart, they believed, for the police to catch them. When they were apprehended, state's attorney Robert Crowe was certain that no defense could save the ruthless killers from the gallows. But the families of the confessed murderers hired Clarence Darrow, entrusting the lives of their sons to the most famous lawyer in America in what would be one of the most sensational criminal trials in the history of American justice.

Set against the backdrop of the 1920s--a time of prosperity, self-indulgence, and hedonistic excess in a lawless city on the brink of anarchy--For the Thrill of It draws the reader into a world of speakeasies and flappers, of gangsters and gin parties, with a spellbinding narrative of Jazz Age murder and mystery.

During the early twentieth century, professional gamblers were such a scourge in the smoking rooms of trans-Atlantic passenger liners that White Star Line warned its passengers about them. In spring 1912 three professional gamblers travelled from the USA to England for the sole purpose of returning to America on the maiden voyage of Titanic. "Kid" Homer, "Harry" Rolmane and "Boy" Bradley (Harry Homer, Charles Romaine and George Brereton) were grifters with a long history of living on the wrong side of the law, who planned to utilize their skills at the card table to relieve fellow passengers of cash. One swiftly fell under suspicion of being a professional "card mechanic", and was excluded from some poker games, but other games continued apace. This new book, the result of years of research by George Behe, reveals the true identities of these gamblers, their individual backgrounds, the ruses they used, and their ultimate fates after tragedy struck, as well as providing an intriguing insight into a bygone age.

Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l'amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture's enduring gospel of romance.

Basing her delightfully erudite findings on her extensive readings of French literature, as well as memories of her personal experiences in la belle France, Yalom explores the many nuances of love as it has evolved over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. Following along, step-by-step, on her romance-tinged literary detective hunt, the reader discovers how the French invented love, how they have kept it vibrant for more than nine centuries, what is unique in the French love experience, and what is universal.

From Spain to Syria, the thrilling, untold history of Nazi fugitives turned postwar agents-for America, the Soviets, the Third World, or themselves. After the Second World War, the Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals "to the ends of the earth." Yet many slipped away-or were shielded by the West, in exchange for cooperation in the unfolding confrontation with Communism. Reinhard Gehlen, founder of West German foreign intelligence, welcomed SS operatives into the fold, overestimating their supposed capabilities. This shortsighted decision nearly brought down his cherished service, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to turn or expose. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in this cynical strategy; the American, Soviet, French and Israeli secret services-and nationalist organisations and independence movements-all used former Nazi operatives in the early Cold War. Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and assassins, playing crucial roles in the clandestine contest between the superpowers. From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested Yugoslav ports, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain to Damascene safehouses and Egyptian country clubs, these spies created a busy network of influence and information, a uniquely combustible ingredient in the covert struggles of the postwar decades. Unearthing newly declassified revelations from Mossad and other archives, historian Danny Orbach reveals this long-forgotten arena of the Cold War, and its colourful cast of characters. Shrouded in official secrecy, clouded by myth and propaganda, the extraordinary tale of these Nazi agents has never been properly told-until now.

American history and self-understanding have long depended on the notion of a "colonial America", an era that-according to prevailing accounts-laid the foundation for the modern United States. In Indigenous Continent, the acclaimed historian Pekka Hamalainen shatters this Eurocentric narrative by retelling the four centuries between first contacts and the peak of Native power from Indigenous points of view. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth, the American Revolution and other well-worn episodes on the conventional timeline, Hamalainen depicts a sovereign world of distinctive Native nations whose members, far from simple victims of colonial aggression, controlled the continent well into the nineteenth century, fundamentally shaping the actions of the European imperialists and the development of the United States. Indigenous Continent restores Native Americans to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.

This is the true story of how a Jewish navy veteran and his descendants saved one of America's most recognizable architectural landmarks. 8 illustrations.

Henriques of "The New York Times" has written the definitive book on Madoff and his scheme, drawing on unprecedented access and more than 100 interviews, including Madoff's first interviews for publication since his arrest.

This set of 23 volumes, originally published between 1934 and 1994 shed much light on the history of industrial relations and working-class organisation in the UK. They analyse trade union structure, organization and government and look at the pattern of union activity in the workplace. Containing fascinating insider accounts of developments in British industrial relations they analyse the impact of the changing economic and political climate on trade unions in Europe and use a series of comparative case studies to examine change in the government, growth, mergers, character and bargaining structures of British unions. They provide an introduction to the characteristics and styles of trade unionism in Europe and offer a comprehensive guide to the complex structure and administration of British Trade Unions as well as analysing the relationship between political parties and trade unions in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.

This history of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union, the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo, analyses a period much neglected in historical research: from the end of the civil war in 1939 to the period of democratic change from 1976 to 1979, when the organisation was reconstructed after Francos death. The Franco years were characterised by extraordinary division within the CNT and by the bureaucratisation and ossification of the organisation now part in exile in France. The decimation of the Spanish CNT in 1947 by draconian repression enhanced the role of the exiled CNT, which was now the sole representative of the historic Anarchist movement in Spain. The moribund notion of Anarchism held by the exiled organisation could not attract recruits, and thus new forces drawn to Anarchism in 1960s Spain came through different routes, related, in large part, to the crisis within Marxism. Some of these local activists became convinced of the possibility for a reconstructed CNT, but only if the organisation were renewed. However, the exiled CNT opposed such ideas and used all possible means to undermine the movement for a new CNT. Although the reconstruction of the CNT from 1976 was characterised by the struggle between these two principal forces, the Spanish CNT captured the feelings and enthusiasm of Spanish youth, after the long dark night of Francoism. The libertarian boom was short-lived however, and by 1978 the CNT was in deep crisis, calling for the dissolution of the exiled organisation. The latter, and its allies in Spain, could not allow such a development and organised the Congress of 1979 to prevent this happening. The subsequent irrevocable division of the CNT sheds lights on the political, social and economic fractures that Spain still experiences today. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies, LSE

Fountain-Pens - The Super-Pen for Our Super-Men Ladies! Learn To Drive! Your Country Needs Women Drivers! Do you drink German water? When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, companies wasted no time in seizing the commercial opportunities presented by the conflict. There was no radio or television. The only way in which the British public could get war news was through newspapers and magazines, many of which recorded rising readerships. Advertising became a new science of sales, growing increasingly sophisticated both in visual terms and in its psychological approach. This collection of pictorial advertisements from the Great War reveals how advertisers were given the opportunity to create new markets for their products and how advertising reflected social change during the course of the conflict. It covers a wide range of products, including trench coats, motor-cycles, gramophones, cigarettes and invalid carriages, all bringing an insight into the preoccupations, aspirations and necessities of life between 1914 and 1918. Many advertisements were aimed at women, be it for guard-dogs to protect them while their husbands were away, or soap and skin cream for 'beauty on duty'. At the same time, men's tailoring evolved to suit new conditions. Aquascutum advertised 'Officers' Waterproof Trench Coats' and one officer, writing in the Times in December 1914, advised others to leave their swords behind but to take their Burberry coat. Sandwiched between the formality of the Victorian era and the hedonism of the 1920s, these charged images provide unexpected sources of historical information, affording an intimate glimpse into the emotional life of the nation during the First World War.

When Chinese alchemists fashioned the first manmade explosion sometime during the tenth century, no one could have foreseen its full revolutionary potential. Invented to frighten evil spirits rather than fuel guns or bombs,neither of which had been thought of yet,their simple mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal went on to make the modern world possible. As word of its explosive properties spread from Asia to Europe, from pyrotechnics to battleships, it paved the way for Western exploration, hastened the end of feudalism and the rise of the nation state, and greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution.With dramatic immediacy, novelist and journalist Jack Kelly conveys both the distant time in which the devil's distillate" rose to conquer the world, and brings to rousing life the eclectic cast of characters who played a role in its epic story, including Michelangelo, Edward III, Vasco da Gama, Cortes, Guy Fawkes, Alfred Nobel, and E. I. DuPont. A must-read for history fans and military buffs alike, Gunpowder brings together a rich terrain of cultures and technological innovations with authoritative research and swashbuckling style.

At factory gates and cottage doors, co-operative guilds and trade union branches, the radical suffragists of turn-of-the-century Britain took their message to women at the grassroots level in order to advance demands for equal pay, educational opportunities, better birth control, child allowances, and the right to work. Their strength lay in their democratic approach: opposed to violence, they felt that the vote was the key to wider rights for women.

One Hand Tied Behind Us draws from a wealth of unpublished material, local newspaper accounts. diaries, handwritten minute books, forgotten biographies, and interviews. It creates a vivid and moving portrait of the women who, almost 100 years ago, envisaged freedoms that are not secure even today. Widely acclaimed, it has become a suffrage classic, and to mark its twenty-first anniversary, Rivers Oram presents this revised edition with a new introduction by Jill Liddington.