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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
Popular entertainment in antebellum Cincinnati ran the gamut from
high culture to shows barely above the level of the tawdry. Among
the options for those seeking entertainment in the summer of 1856
was the display of a "Wild Woman," purportedly a young woman
captured while living a feral life beyond the frontier. The popular
exhibit, which featured a silent, underdressed woman chained to a
bed, was almost assuredly a hoax. Local activist women, however,
used their influence to prompt a judge to investigate the display.
The court employed eleven doctors, who forcibly subdued and
examined the woman before advising that she be admitted to an
insane asylum. In his riveting analysis of this remarkable episode
in antebellum American history, Michael D. Pierson describes how
people in different political parties and sections of the country
reacted to the exhibit. Specifically, he uses the lens of the Wild
Woman display to explore the growing cultural divisions between the
North and the South in 1856, especially the differing gender
ideologies of the northern Republican Party and the more southern
focused Democrats. In addition, Pierson shows how the treatment of
the Wild Woman of Cincinnati prompted an increasing demand for
women's political and social empowerment at a time when the country
allowed for the display of a captive female without evidence that
she had granted consent.
In 1914, the Associated Newspapers sent correspondent Herbert Corey
to Europe on the day Great Britain declared war on Germany. During
the Great War that followed, Corey reported from France, Britain,
and Germany, visiting the German lines on both the western and
eastern fronts. He also reported from Greece, Italy, Switzerland,
Holland, Belgium, and Serbia. When the Armistice was signed in
November 1918, Corey defied the rules of the American Expeditionary
Forces and crossed into Germany. He covered the Paris Peace
Conference the following year. No other foreign correspondent
matched the longevity of his reporting during World War I. Until
recently, however, his unpublished memoir lay largely unnoticed
among his papers in the Library of Congress. With publication of
Herbert Corey's Great War, coeditors Peter Finn and John Maxwell
Hamilton reestablish Corey's name in the annals of American war
reporting. As a correspondent, he defies easy comparison. He
approximates Ernie Pyle in his sympathetic interest in the American
foot soldier, but he also told stories about troops on the other
side and about noncombatants. He is especially illuminating on the
obstacles reporters faced in conveying the story of the Great War
to Americans. As his memoir makes clear, Corey didn't believe he
was in Europe to serve the Allies. He viewed himself as an
outsider, one who was deeply ambivalent about the entry of the
United States into the war. His idiosyncratic, opinionated, and
very American voice makes for compelling reading.
Near the end of World War II and after, a small-town Nebraska
youth, Jimmy Kugler, drew more than a hundred double-sided sheets
of comic strip stories. Over half of these six-panel tales retold
the Pacific War as fought by "Frogs" and "Toads," humanoid
creatures brutally committed to a kill-or-be-killed struggle. The
history of American youth depends primarily on adult reminiscences
of their own childhoods, adult testimony to the lives of youth
around them, or surmises based on at best a few creative artifacts.
The survival then of such a large collection of adolescent comic
strips from America's small-town Midwest is remarkable. Michael
Kugler reproduces the never-before-published comics of his father's
adolescent imagination as a microhistory of American youth in that
formative era. Also included in Into the Jungle! A Boy's Comic
Strip History of World War II are the likely comic book models for
these stories and inspiration from news coverage in newspapers,
radio, movies, and newsreels. Kugler emphasizes how US propaganda
intended to inspire patriotic support for the war gave this young
artist a license for his imagined violence. In a context of
progressive American educational reform, these violent comic
stories, often in settings modeled on the artist's small Nebraska
town, suggests a form of adolescent rebellion against moral
conventions consistent with comic art's reputation for "outsider"
or countercultural expressions. Kugler also argues that these
comics provide evidence for the transition in American taste from
war stories to the horror comics of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Kugler's thorough analysis of his father's adolescent art explains
how a small-town boy from the plains distilled the popular culture
of his day for an imagined war he could fight on his audacious,
even shocking terms.
Based on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 reveals how and why the Germans won the major battles with one-half to one-third fewer casualties than the Allies, and how American troops in 1918 saved the Allies from defeat and a negotiated peace with the Germans.
This is beautifully slipcased presented collector' s edition of the
best selling title, The Lost World of Bletchley Park, a
comprehensive illustrated history of this remarkable place, from
its prewar heyday as a country estate, its wartime requisition and
how it became the place where modern computing was invented and the
German Enigma code was cracked, to its post-war dereliction and
then rescue towards the end of the twentieth century as a museum.
Removable memorabilia includes: 1938 recruiting memo with a big
tick against Turing' s name Churchill' s ' Action this day' letter
giving code breakers extra resources Handwritten Turing memos Top
Secret Engima decryptions, about the sinking of the Bismark, German
High Command' s assessment of D-Day threat and the message
announcing Hitler' s suicide A wealth of everyday items such as
call-up papers, security notices and propoganda posters Newly
redesigned interiors with 25% new content, high end slipcase
package featuring removable facsimile documents, this is an
essential purchase for everyone interested and wanting to
experience the place where code-breaking helped to win the war.
The 100-foot promontory known as Pointe du Hoc -- where six big
German guns were ensconced -- was the number one target of the
heavy U.S. and British warships poised in the English Channel on
D-Day morning. Facing arguably the toughest task to befall U.S.
forces during the war, the brave men of the Army 2nd Ranger
Battalion boldly took control of the fortified cliff and set in
motion the liberation of Europe.
Based upon recently released documents, here is the first
in-depth, anecdotal remembrance of these fearless Army Rangers.
Acclaimed author and historian Douglas Brinkley deftly moves
between events four decades apart to tell two riveting stories: the
making of Ronald Reagan's historic 1984 speeches about the storming
of the Normandy coast and the actual heroic event that inspired
them and helped to end the Second World War.
The definitive history of Rome's golden age - antiquity's ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness.
The Pax Romana has long been revered as a golden age. At its peak, the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland to Arabia, and contained perhaps a quarter of humanity. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state the world had yet seen.
Beginning in 69AD, a year that saw four Caesars in succession rule the empire, and ending some seven decades later with the death of Hadrian, Pax presents a dazzling history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland portrays the Roman Empire in all its predatory glory. Vivid scene follows vivid scene: the destruction of Jerusalem and Pompeii, the building of the Colosseum and Hadrian's Wall, the conquests of Trajan. Vividly sketching the lives of Romans both ordinary and spectacular, from slaves to emperors, Holland demonstrates how Roman peace was the fruit of unprecedented military violence.
A stunning portrait of Rome's glory days, this is the epic history of the pax Romana.
Sounding Forth the Trumpet brings to life one of the most crucial
epochs in America's history--the events leading up to and
precipitating the Civil War. In this enlightening book, readers
live through the Gold Rush, the Mexican War, the skirmishes of
Bleeding Kansas, and the emergence of Abraham Lincoln, as well as
the tragic issue of slavery.
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