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The Wide Wide Sea
Hampton Sides
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R783
R639
Discovery Miles 6 390
Save R144 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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The Wide Wide Sea
Hampton Sides
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R420
R328
Discovery Miles 3 280
Save R92 (22%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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The age of exploration was drawing to a close, yet the mystery of
the North Pole remained. Contemporaries described the pole as the
'unattainable object of our dreams', and the urge to fill in this
last great blank space on the map grew irresistible.In 1879 the USS
Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds and amid a
frenzy of publicity. The ship and its crew, captained by the heroic
George De Long, were destined for the uncharted waters of the
Arctic. But it wasn't long before the Jeannette was trapped in
crushing pack ice. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of
breaking wooden boards, the crew found themselves marooned a
thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies,
facing a seemingly impossible trek across endless ice. Battling
everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms
and frosty labyrinths, the expedition fought madness and starvation
as they desperately strove for survival.
In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa
Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed
by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of "Manifest Destiny," this
land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United
States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge
swath of mountainous desert wilderness.
In "Blood and Thunder," Hampton Sides gives us a magnificent
history of the American conquest of the West. At the center of this
sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose
adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate
mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better
than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would
ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning
more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our
understanding of how the West was really won.
Hampton Sides's extraordinary book brings the history of the
American conquest of the West to ringing life. It is a tale with
many heroes and villains, but at the centre of it all stands the
remarkable figure of Kit Carson - the legendary trapper, scout and
soldier. Carson was an illiterate mountain man who twice married
Indian women and understood the tribes better than any other
American alive; yet he was also a cold-blooded killer and an
unquestioning patriot who willingly followed orders tantamount to
massacre. BLOOD AND THUNDER is a chronicle of one of a pivotal era
in American history: grand in scope, immediate in detail,
impeccably researched and historically revelatory. 'Hampton Sides'
outstanding narrative history has all the virtues: stirring set
pieces, deft character studies, colourful descriptions of battles
and of nature . . . a riveting tale where, for once, the word
"epic" is not hyperbole' Frank McLynn, Independent on Sunday
On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty rugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp, among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March. A recent prison massacre by Japanese soldiers elsewhere in the Philippines made the stakes impossibly high and left little time to plan the complex operation.
In Ghost Soldiers Hampton Sides vividly re-creates this daring raid, offering a minute-by-minute narration that unfolds alongside intimate portraits of the prisoners and their lives in the camp. Sides shows how the POWs banded together to survive, defying the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation, tropical diseases, and torture. Harrowing, poignant, and inspiring, Ghost Soldiers is the mesmerizing story of a remarkable mission. It is also a testament to the human spirit, an account of enormous bravery and self-sacrifice amid the most trying conditions.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Edgar Award Nominee
One of the Best Books of the Year: "O, The Oprah Magazine," "Time,"
"The Washington Post," "The Christian Science Monitor," " St. Louis
Post-Dispatch," "San Francisco Chronicle
"
With a New Afterword
On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King at the
Lorraine Motel. The nation was shocked, enraged, and saddened. As
chaos erupted across the country and mourners gathered at King's
funeral, investigators launched a sixty-five day search for King's
assassin that would lead them across two continents. With a
blistering, cross-cutting narrative that draws on a wealth of
dramatic unpublished documents, Hampton Sides, bestselling author
of "Ghost Soldiers, " delivers a non-fiction thriller in the
tradition of William Manchester's "The Death of a President" and
Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood. "With "Hellhound On His Trail,
"Sides shines a light on the largest manhunt in American history
and brings it to life for all to see.
Do beavers ever get squashed by the trees they're gnawing down? Why
are there so many worms writhing on the sidewalk after a storm?
What good are goosebumps? Why do llamas spit? What is the oldest
living creature on earth? Focusing on natural history and outdoor
lore, this collection ranges from the gothic to the comic to the
cosmic. It includes the sorts of questions that most of us stopped
asking (at least out loud) when we were eight years old. "The Wild
File" is what question-and-answer columns should be but seldom are:
an often surprising, sometimes zany, always insightful and
informative back-and-forth between a devoted readership and its
publication. The result is an enchanting and enriching collection
of answers that open windows to more questions.
Short of near disaster or the sublime, what are our most memorable
outdoor moments made of? The totally surprising, sometimes bizarre
oddball moments that catch our psyches off guard and strike our
funny bones to the core. Call it the wild side factor. The editors
of Outside proudly present outstanding images gleaned from 300
issues of their back-page "Parting Shots" photo feature. It's their
way of celebrating the pratfalls and singular coincidences of an
outdoor life the comic circumstances of relatively tame mammals
(us) spending more and more time closer and closer to large, wild
animals. These images are a rare chance to look into the wide world
outside and laugh at both ourselves and that infinitely wondrous,
entertaining three-ring circus we call the universe."
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