A remarkable bandleader, composer and clarinetist, Artie Shaw's popularity defined the American music scene between the years of 1938-1945. Apart from his work during the Swing Era, Shaw led a fascinating, tumultuous personal life, including a difficult childhood and marriages to starlets such as Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. This biography covers Shaw's life and career, and is based in part on interviews with Shaw conducted by the author during the 1970s and 1980s. Chapters cover such topics as the Swing Era, his time performing in the Navy during WWII and the Shaw Orchestra. Some analytic chapters dig deeper into the meaning behind his recordings, highlighting the growth within his music.

This engaging, knowledgeable book traces the American path France has followed since resolving its searing Algerian conflict in 1962. Barnett Singer convincingly demolishes two pervasive cliches about modern France: first, that the country never has been fit to fight wars, including wars on terror; and second, that the French have always been and remain overwhelmingly anti-American. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, Barnett Singer clearly demonstrates that a serious and organized France fought strongly until its own divisions, international pressures, and the actions of de Gaulle ended the conflict with tragic consequences. The outcome led to an important sea change, clearing the way for France to embrace American culture, especially rock 'n' roll, and more generally, an American-style emphasis on personal happiness. The author argues that today's France, wounded by the loss of traditions and stability, is increasingly pro-American, clinging to trends from across the Atlantic as to a lifeline.

Actress and sex symbol Brigitte Bardot had a stunning career in France and America in the mid-20th century. Since the 1970s, she has dedicated her life to the welfare and protection of animals, with much personal involvement. In this book the author makes the case that far from being just a pretty face or a spotlight grabber, Bardot was an accomplished actress and has always been an intelligent, sensitive individual. Chapters acquaint readers with her Paris childhood and her rebellious coming of age in a Catholic bourgeois family, who disapproved when she appeared on the cover of Elle magazine and was offered a screen test. The book examines her years in film (with careful analysis of her films) and also covers her tumultuous personal life, including suicide attempts, and the beginnings of her interest in animal protection. Final chapters detail her efforts in worldwide animal welfare activism, including the work of her own international foundation.

At the end of World War I, during the armistice proceedings in Germany and at the Peace Conference after the war, French General Maxime Weygand served as chief aid to Marshal Foch. Called out of retirement in the mid - 1930s, Weygand again served his country during World War II, first as French chief of the Mediterranean theater and later as commander in chief of the French Army. His forward-looking military theory, which called for enhanced French unity, military preparedness, and adaptation to a new kind of war dominated by tank mobility, would have likely saved France the humiliating 1940 defeat at the hand of the Nazis, had it been heeded. This ahead-of-its-time military strategy along with Weygand's immediate recognition of the Nazi threat earned him the respect of contemporary world leaders such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.Weygand's Vichy Resistance led to his imprisonment from late 1942 through the end of the war. French archival sources, available oral testimony and Weygand's private papers, particularly his detailed World War I diary, contribute to a fascinating biography of one of World War II's unsung heroes.

Merriam Press Memoir Series. "Turbulent Seas" takes the reader back to the rousing American high sea memoirs that began 180 years ago with Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast." From the mid-1960s until his retirement, Merchant Marine Captain Lance Orton led an adventurous life on ships that crossed the globe's oceans and served ports in wartime Vietnam, India, the old Soviet Union, Alaska, and beyond. Co-authors Orton and Professor Barnett Singer tell of Captain Orton's career in an engaging narrative that, at times, could serve as a script for an action-adventure movie. Readers will be entertained while learning fascinating details about a career in the U.S. Merchant Marine. This book will make an excellent gift to the family "history buff" and any of those who enjoy real-life adventures. -Michael Allen, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, Tacoma. Co-author of the #1 Amazon.com and New York Times Bestseller, "A Patriot's History of the United States," 2014.

"I agree with Singer and Langdon who point out over and over again that the conquerors and the conquered shared in both the benefits and the sacrifices of imperialism. All this makes for a notable work."--William A. Hoisington, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Modern European & French Colonial History, University of Illinois at Chicago
Bridging gaps between intellectual history, biography, and military/colonial history, Barnett Singer and John Langdon provide a challenging, readable interpretation of French imperialism and some of its leading figures from the early modern era through the Fifth Republic. They ask us to rethink and reevaluate, pulling away from the usual shoal of simplistic condemnation. In a series of finely-etched biographical studies, and with much detail on both imperial culture and wars (including World War I and II), they offer a balanced, deep, strong portrait of key makers and defenders of the French Empire, one that will surely stimulate much historical work in the field.
""Cultured Force" is a revisionist work, first because it takes vigorous issue with prevalent negative views of colonial activity, second because it presents most of the military figures who are the heroes of the tale as cultivated, sensitive, all-round men. And its focus on individual personalities brings the story to life, filling it with anecdotes and color. . . The result is intriguing, mostly convincing, sometimes demanding, and quite fascinating."--Eugen Weber, Professor Emeritus of Modern European History, UCLA
"Scholarly and yet passionately personal--without in any way drifting from the essential bibliographic and archival moorings. . . . A splendid overall additionto the always growing literature."--John C. Cairns, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Toronto