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Born in Blackness : Africa, Africans, and the making of the modern world, 1471 to the Second World War / by French, Howard W.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. In a sweeping narrative that traverses 600 years, one that eloquently weaves precise historical detail with poignant personal reportage, Pulitzer Prize finalist Howard W. French retells the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in America, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "darkest" continent. Born in Blackness dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures whose stories have been repeatedly etiolated and erased over centuries, from unimaginably rich medieval African emperors who traded with Asia; to Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers; to ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage. In doing so, French tells the story of gold, tobacco, sugar, and cotton-and the greatest "commodity" of all, the millions of people brought in chains from Africa to the New World, whose reclaimed histories fundamentally help explain our present world"--
Subjects: African diaspora; History, Modern.; Slave trade;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Song of a blackbird [graphic novel] / by Van Lieshout, Maria,author,illustrator.;
Includes bibliographical references."Fictionalized but based on true events, Song of a Blackbird has two intertwined timelines: one is a modern-day family drama, the other a thrilling tale of a WWII-era bank heist carried out by Dutch resistance fighters. In the present day, teenage Annick is desperate to find a bone marrow donor that could save the life of her grandmother, Johanna. She turns to her family history and discovers a photograph taken by Emma Bergsma. Decades earlier, Emma is a young art student about to be drawn into what will become the biggest bank heist in European history: swapping 50 Million Guilders' worth of forged bank notes for real ones--right under the noses of the Nazis! Emma's life--and the lives of thousands, including a young woman named Johanna--hangs in the balance. In this stranger-than-fiction graphic novel, Maria van Lieshout weaves a tale about family, courage, and the power of art. Deeply personal yet universal, Song of a Blackbird sheds light on an untold WWII story and sends a powerful message about compassion and resistance"--Publisher.
Subjects: Graphic novels.; Historical comics.; Families; Grandparent and child; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Native nations : a millennium in North America / by DuVal, Kathleen,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In this magisterial history of the continent, Kathleen DuVal traces the power of Native nations from the rise of ancient cities more than 1000 years ago to the present. She reframes North American history, noting significantly that Indigenous civilizations did not come to a halt when a few wandering explorers or hungry settlers arrived, even when the strangers came well-armed. A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size, but following a period of climate change and instability DuVal shows how numerous nations emerged from previously centralized civilizations. From this urban past, patterns of egalitarian government structures, complex economies and trade, and diplomacy spread across North America. And, when Europeans did arrive in the 16th century, they encountered societies they did not understand and whose power they often underestimated. For centuries, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch -- and influenced global trade patterns -- and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. With the American Revolution, power dynamics shifted, but Indigenous people continued to control the majority of the continent. The Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa built alliances across the continent and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created new institutions to assert their sovereignty to the U.S. and on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their preponderance of power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory. The definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Indigenous nations has been a constant"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Aki-wayn-zih : a person as worthy as the Earth / by Baxter, Eli,author.; Smith, Matthew Ryan,1983-editor.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Members of Eli Baxter's generation are the last of the hunting and gathering societies living on Turtle Island. They are also among the last fluent speakers of the Anishinaabay language known as Anishinaabaymowin. Aki-wayn-zih is a story about the land and its spiritual relationship with the Anishinaabayg, from the beginning of their life on Miss-koh-tay-sih Minis (Turtle Island) to the present day. Baxter writes about Anishinaabay life before European contact, his childhood memories of trapping, hunting, and fishing with his family on traditional lands in Treaty 9 territory, and his personal experience surviving the residential school system. Examining how Anishinaabay Kih-kayn-daa-soh-win (knowledge) is an elemental concept embedded in the Anishinaabay language, Aki-wayn-zih explores history, science, math, education, philosophy, law, and spiritual teachings, outlining the cultural significance of language to Anishinaabay identity. Recounting traditional Ojibway legends in their original language, fables in which moral virtues double as survival techniques, and detailed guidelines for expertly trapping or ensnaring animals, Baxter reveals how the residential school system shaped him as an individual, transformed his family, and forever disrupted his reserve community and those like it. Through spiritual teachings, historical accounts, and autobiographical anecdotes, Aki-wayn-zih offers a new form of storytelling from the Anishinaabay point of view."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Baxter, Eli.; First Nations; First Nations; First Nations; First Nations; First Nations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Move : the forces uprooting us / by Khanna, Parag,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In the 60,000 years since people began colonizing the continents, a continuous feature of human civilization has been mobility. History is replete with seismic global events--pandemics and plagues, wars and genocides. Each time, after a great catastrophe, our innate impulse toward physical security compels us to move. The map of humanity isn't settled--not now, not ever. The filled-with-crises 21st century promises to contain the most dangerous and extensive experiment humanity has ever run on itself: As climates change, pandemics arrive, and economies rise and fall, which places will people leave and where will they resettle? Which countries will accept or reject them? How will the billions alive today, and the billions coming, paint the next map of human geography? Until now, the study of human geography and migration has been like a weather forecast. Move delivers an authoritative look at the "climate" of migration, the deep trends that will shape the grand economic and security scenarios of the future. For readers, it will be a chance to identify their location on humanity's next map"--
Subjects: Climatic changes; Emigration and immigration; Human beings; Human geography.; Migration, Internal;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Graveyard of the Pacific : shipwreck and survival on America's deadliest waterway / by Sullivan, Randall,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A vivid portrait of the Columbia River Bar that combines maritime history, adventure journalism, and memoir, bringing alive the history--and present--of one of the most notorious stretches of water in the world. Off the coast of Oregon, the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean and forms the Columbia River Bar: a watery collision so turbulent and deadly that it's nicknamed the Graveyard of the Pacific. Two thousand ships have been wrecked on the bar since the first European ship dared to try to cross it in the late eighteenth century. For decades ships continued to make the bar crossing with great peril, first with native guides and later with opportunistic newcomers, as Europeans settled in Washington and Oregon, displacing the natives and transforming the river into the hub of a booming region. Since then, the commercial importance of the Columbia River has only grown, and despite the construction of jetties on either side, the bar remains treacherous, even today a site of shipwrecks and dramatic rescues as well as power struggles between small fishermen, powerful shipowners, local communities in Washington and Oregon, the Coast Guard, and the Columbia River Bar Pilots--a small group of highly skilled navigators who help guide ships through the mouth of the Columbia. When Randall Sullivan and a friend set out to cross the bar in a two-man kayak, they're met with skepticism and concern. But on a clear day in July when the tides and weather seem right, they embark. As they plunge through the waves, Sullivan ponders the generations of sailors that made the crossing before him-including his own abusive father, a sailor himself who also once dared to cross the bar--and reflects on toxic masculinity, fatherhood, and what drives men to extremes. Rich with exhaustive research and propulsive narrative, Graveyard of the Pacific follows historical shipwrecks through the moment-by-moment details that often determined whether sailors would live or die, exposing the ways in which boats, sailors, and navigation have changed over the decades. As he makes his way across the bar, floating above the wrecks and across the same currents that have taken so many lives, Randall Sullivan faces the past, both in his own life and on the Columbia River Bar"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Sullivan, Randall.; Shipwrecks;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Four who dared : inspiring stories of Canadian airmen in the Second World War / by Cothliff, Kenneth B.,1944-author.; Cothliff, Kenneth B.,1944-Under the maple leaf.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The sacrifice of Canadian soldiers in the Second World War was staggering. Over the course of the conflict, more than one million Canadians served in the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Airforce, and in forces across the British Commonwealth, including the Royal Airforce. More than 44,000 Canadians were killed in the war, and more than 54,000 were left wounded. In Four Who Dared, author and historian Ken Cothliff lifts four Canadian volunteer pilots out of obscurity, highlighting their personal stories and acts of heroism. The four pilots in this book were unknown to each other, but they are forever united in their quest to serve their country and its allies in an unprecedented hour of need. Reg Lane joined British Bomber Command relatively early in the War, rising from NCO pilot to become a Master Bomber with the elite Pathfinder Force. Jim Moffat ended his flying combat career after twelve operations, becoming a Resistance fighter on the European mainland. Steve Puskas's comprehensive diaries and unpublished writings provide extraordinary insight into his training as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, an experience familiar to many Commonwealth and British aircrew. Bill Gracie, a Scot who had immigrated to Canada as a boy, was keen to take up the fight when the war began, with the sole aim of becoming aircrew. Sadly, he was one of the over ten thousand Canadian Bomber Command aircrew who never returned home. Equal parts riveting and humbling, Four Who Dared is a must-read for anyone interested in delving into the lives and sacrifices of our unsung Canadian heroes."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command.; Air pilots, Military; Airmen; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Deep as the sky, red as the sea : a novel / by Chang-Eppig, Rita,author.;
"When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband's second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet. But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans--tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung's alliance--have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung's cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life"--
Subjects: Action and adventure fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Pirates; Women pirates;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How the West stole democracy from the Arabs : the Syrian Arab Congress of 1920 and the destruction of its historic liberal-Islamic alliance / by Thompson, Elizabeth F.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When Europe's Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on the promise of an independent Arab state. In October 1918, the Arabs' military leader, Prince Faisal, victoriously entered Damascus and proclaimed a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. Faisal won American support for self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference, but other Entente powers plotted to protect their colonial interests. Under threat of European occupation, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence on March 8, 1920 and crowned Faisal king of a "civil representative monarchy." Sheikh Rashid Rida, the most prominent Islamic thinker of the day, became Congress president and supervised the drafting of a constitution that established the world's first Arab democracy and guaranteed equal rights for all citizens, including non-Muslims. But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government and instead imposed a system of mandates on the pretext that Arabs were not yet ready for self-government. In July 1920, the French invaded and crushed the Syrian state. The fragile coalition of secular modernizers and Islamic reformers that had established democracy was destroyed, with profound consequences that reverberate still. Using previously untapped primary sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, reports of the Syrian-Arab Congress, and letters and diaries from participants, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs is a groundbreaking account of an extraordinary, brief moment of unity and hope-and of its destruction"--
Subjects: Muʼtamar al-Sūrī al-ʻĀmm (1919-1920); Arab nationalism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Paradise of the damned : the true story of an obsessive quest for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold / by Thomson, Keith,1965-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.The transporting account of an obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue and a competition with Spanish conquistadors for the legendary city's treasure. As early as 1530, reports of El Dorado, a city of gold in the South American interior, beckoned to European explorers. Whether there was any truth to the stories remained to be seen, but the allure of unimaginable riches was enough to ensnare dozens of would-be heroes and glory hounds in the desperate hunt. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh: ambitious courtier, confidant to Queen Elizabeth, and, before long, El Dorado fanatic. Entering the Elizabethan court as an upstart from a family whose days of nobility were far behind them, Raleigh used his military acumen, good looks, and sheer audacity to scramble into the limelight. Yet that same swagger proved to be his undoing, as his secret marriage to a lady-in-waiting enraged Queen Elizabeth and landed him in the Tower of London. Between his ensuing grim prospects at court and his underlying lust for adventure, the legend of El Dorado became an unwavering siren song that hypnotized Raleigh. On securing his release, he journeyed across an ocean to find the fabled city, gambling his painstakingly acquired wealth, hard-won domestic bliss, and his very life. What awaited him in the so-called New World were endless miles of hot, dense jungle packed with deadly flora and fauna, warring Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous civilizations, and other unforeseen dangers. Meanwhile, back at home, his multitude of rivals plotted his demise. Paradise of the Damned, like Keith Thomson's critically acclaimed Born to Be Hanged, brings this story to life in lush and captivating detail. The book charts Raleigh's obsessive search for El Dorado -- as well as the many doomed expeditions that preceded and accompanied his -- providing not only an invaluable history but also a gripping narrative of traveling to the ends of the earth only to realize, too late, that what lies at home is the greatest treasure of all.
Subjects: Biographies.; Raleigh, Walter, Sir, 1552?-1618.; El Dorado.; Explorers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 81 to 90 of 111 | « previous |