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Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > Second World War
The extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous
secret life in espionage A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A finalist
for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award "IMPORTANT" (Wall
Street Journal) - "FASCINATING" (New York Review of Books) -
"CAPTIVATING" (Missourian) A riveting international
cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the
liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold
War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy
reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway's secret adventures in
espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including
his role as a Soviet agent code-named "Argo"), a hidden chapter
that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the
historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime
American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and
Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in
mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking
relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with
risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's
meticulously researched and captivating narrative "looks among the
shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before" (London Review of
Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden
side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies
to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short
order by a complex set of secret relationships with American
agencies. Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces
during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the
life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate
commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by
Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and
mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader
Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China;
and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the
late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally
explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for
the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines
with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar;
his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the "Crook Factory"
that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his
on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical
intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the
U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II. As he examines
the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an
author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures
influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's
block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him
during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and
McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same
experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works,
including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea,
while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his
life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography
with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier,
Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life,
work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.
Few escapades of the Second World War have captured the public's
imagination more than the successful abduction of German General
Kreipe from enemy-occupied Crete in 1944. It was an operation
instigated and daringly executed by two British SOE officers -
Patrick Leigh Fermor and William (Billy) Stanley Moss. The war
didn't stop for Billy Moss after this operation though, and it is
his continuing story that is told here. He reflects movingly on
what it means to fight and deal in death, how the success of
operations behind enemy lines in a foreign country is dependent on
the goodwill of local inhabitants, and, surprisingly, on moments of
high humour that punctuate the turmoil of war. War of Shadows is a
book in three parts - each displaying differing aspects of World
War II and its eventual conclusion, and all told with that
tell-tale blend of poignancy and humour so characteristic of the
time.
Allied Fighters 1939-45 offers an highly-illustrated guide to
Allied fighter aircraft that fought in Europe during World War II.
Featuring all the main models flown by the Allied air forces from
1939 to 1945, the book offers a wealth of detail, including unit
markings, organization, numbers of aircraft flown by campaign and
exhaustive specifications for each model. The book is arranged
first by country and then chronologically by campaign so that every
aspect of the air war in Europe is covered. The guide features
fighters from throughout World War II, including early models, such
as the Morane Saulnier MS.406C.1, Hawker Hurricane Mk I and Fokker
D XXI, and the most advanced fighters of the period, such as the
Lavochkin La-7, P-51K Mustang and Gloster Meteor Mk I.The book also
covers aircraft that were used for air-to-air combat (Supermarine
Spitfire), ground attack (P-47 Thunderbolt), bomber escort (P-51B
Mustang), night defence (Bristol Beaufighter) and photographic
reconnaissance (P-38 Lightning). Packed with more than 200 profiles
and dozens of archive photographs of every major Allied fighter
aircraft, Allied Fighters 1939-45 is a core reference volume for
modellers and World War II aviation enthusiasts.
With a New Introduction by Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for
the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Originally
published three years before the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973,
this important book was not a polemic, but a sober account of the
Vietnam conflict from the perspective of international law. Framed
in reference to the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Second World
War, it described problems the United States may have to face due
to its involvement in the Vietnam conflict. After presenting a
general history of war crimes and an account of the Nuremberg
Trials, Taylor turns his attention to Vietnam. Among other points,
he examined parallels between actions committed by American troops
during the then-recent My Lai Massacre of 1968 and Hitler's SS in
Nazi-occupied Europe. Commissioned for this edition, Ferencz's
introduction evaluates Taylor's study and its lessons for the
present and future. When this book was published in 1970, Telford
Taylor had concluded that U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam
was an American tragedy: "Somehow we failed ourselves to learn the
lessons we undertook to teach at Nuremberg." What were those
lessons? How acceptable were they? Which laws of war could
realistically be enforced on a raging battlefield against an
implacable foe? Forty years later, it is worth re-examining how it
came about that this powerful and humanitarian country could have
come to be seen by many as a giant "prone to shatter what we try to
save. -From the Introduction by Benjamin B. FerenczTelford Taylor
1908-1998] was chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg
Trials. Later Professor of Law at Columbia University, he was a
vigorous opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and an outspoken
critic of U.S. actions during the Vietnam War. His books include
Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich (1952),
Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations (1955) and
The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992).
Benjamin Ferencz, a member of Taylor's legal staff, was the Chief
Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial.
He is the author of Defining International Aggression-The Search
for World Peace (1975), Adjunct Professor of International Law,
Pace University and founder of the Pace Peace Center.
Again available in paperback is Eric Sevareid's widely
acclaimed Not So Wild a Dream. In this brilliant first-person
account of a young journalist's experience during World War II,
Sevareid records both the events of the war and the development of
journalistic strategies for covering international affairs. He also
recalls vividly his own youth in North Dakota, his decision to
study journalism, and his early involvement in radio reporting
during the beginnings of World War II.
How does one play bridge in a gas mask? Or enjoy motoring without
consuming petrol? Or deal with a nationwide shortage of pea-sticks?
For this compact little book Heath Robinson joined forces with
writer Cecil Hunt to show civilians 'how to make the best of
things' during the air raids, rationing, allotment tending and
blackouts of the Second World War. The result is a warm celebration
of the British population's ability to 'make do and mend'.
To understand the turnaround in Spain's stance towards Japan during
World War II, this book goes beyond mutual contacts and explains
through images, representations, and racism why Madrid aimed at
declaring war on Japan but not against the III Reich -as London
ironically replied when it learned of Spain's warmongering against
one of the Axis members.
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