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The siege : a six-day hostage crisis and the daring special-forces operation that shocked the world / by Macintyre, Ben,1963-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A brilliant, seat-of-your-pants hostage-taking and daring SAS rescue mission of the Iran Embassy in London in 1980, this is Ben Macintyre at the very height of his story-telling powers. On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There, they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued-all on television, over a Bank Holiday weekend-in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. This mission marked a fundamental turning point in global history, when Middle Eastern terrorism arrived in the West. Britain had experienced IRA terrorism before, but never an international terrorist incident on this scale. It was a precursor to the brutal Iran-Iraq War that would follow, in which millions perished. Yet there exists to this day no full account of the week-long siege and gripping rescue. Drawing on interviews with police, hostages, terrorists and key SAS figures, and cutting through the sensationalism and misinformation, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre (author of Sunday Times #1s Colditz, The Spy and the Traitor and SAS: Rogue Heroes) goes deep into the archives with exclusive access to tell the story of what really happened and give the first definitive account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS-and itself."--
Subjects: Great Britain. Army. Special Air Service.; Iran. Safārat (Great Britain); Embassy takeovers; Special operations (Military science); Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The demon of unrest [text (large print)] : a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War / by Larson, Erik,1954-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them." At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink--a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Large print books.; Personal narratives.; Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.; Presidents;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The great leader and the fighter pilot : the true story of the tyrant who created North Korea and the young lieutenant who stole his way to freedom / by Harden, Blaine.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Introduction: Players and Game -- Part I: Guerrilla and Rich Boy -- Beginnings -- Poodle and Pretender -- Sweet-Talking Stalin -- Part II: War -- The Great Liberation Struggle -- Kicked in the Teeth -- MiGs -- Return to North Korea -- An International Sporting Event -- Attack Maps and Defection Bribes -- Uncle Yoo -- Part III: Flight -- Flying Clear -- Squeezing the Moolah -- Right Stuff and Fake Stuff -- Learning and Purging -- Epilogue."From the bestselling author of Escape from Camp 14, the murderous rise of North Korea's founding dictator and the fighter pilot who faked him out. In The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, New York Times bestselling author Blaine Harden tells the riveting story of how Kim Il Sung grabbed power and plunged his country into war against the United States while the youngest fighter pilot in his air force was playing a high-risk game of deception--and escape. As Kim ascended from Soviet puppet to godlike ruler, No Kum Sok noisily pretended to love his Great Leader. That is, until he swiped a Soviet MiG-15 and delivered it to the Americans, not knowing they were offering a $100,000 bounty for the warplane (the equivalent of nearly one million dollars today). The theft--just weeks after the Korean War ended in July 1953--electrified the world and incited Kim's bloody vengeance. During the Korean War the United States brutally carpet bombed the North, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and giving the Kim dynasty, as Harden reveals, the fact-based narrative it would use to this day to sell paranoia and hatred of Americans. Drawing on documents from Chinese and Russian archives about the role of Mao and Stalin in Kim's shadowy rise, as well as from never-before-released U.S. intelligence and interrogation files, Harden gives us a heart-pounding escape adventure and an entirely new way to understand the world's longest-lasting totalitarian state"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Kim, Il-sŏng, 1912-1994.; No, Kum-Sok.; Defectors; Dictators; Escapes; Fighter pilots; Korean War, 1950-1953; Theft;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Black square : adventures in post-Soviet Ukraine / by Pinkham, Sophie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."This captivating and original narrative blends politics, history, and reportage in a street-level account of a vexing and troubled region. In the tradition of Elif Batuman and Ian Frazier, Black Square presents an evocative, multidimensional portrait of Ukrainian life under the shadow of Putin. In vivid, original prose, Sophie Pinkham draws us into the fascinating lives of her contemporaries--a generation that came of age after the fall of the USSR, only to see protestors shot on Kiev's main square, Maidan; Crimea annexed by Russia; and a bitter war in eastern Ukraine. Amid the rubble, Pinkham tells stories that convey a youth culture flourishing within a tragically corrupt state. We meet a charismatic, drug-addicted doctor helping to smooth the transition to democracy, a Bolano-esque art gallerist prone to public nudity, and a Russian Jewish clarinetist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. With a deep knowledge of Slavic literature and a keen, outsider's eye for the dark absurdity of post-Soviet society, Pinkham delivers an indelible impression of a country on the brink."--Provided by publisher.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The evolution of Charles Darwin : the epic voyage of the Beagle that forever changed our view of life on earth / by Preston, Diana,1952-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831 with his microscopes and specimen bottles-invited by ship's captain Robert FitzRoy who wanted a travel companion at least as much as a ship's naturalist-he hardly thought he was embarking on what would become perhaps the most important and epoch-changing voyage in scientific history. Nonetheless, over the course of the five-year journey around the globe in often hard and hazardous conditions, Darwin would make observations and gather samples that would form the basis of his revolutionary theories about the origin of species and natural selection. Drawing on a rich range of revealing letters, diary entries, recollections of those who encountered him, and Darwin's and FitzRoy's own accounts of what transpired, Diana Preston chronicles the epic voyage as it unfolded, tracing Darwin's growth from untested young man to accomplished adventurer and natural scientist in his own right. Darwin often left the ship to climb mountains or ride hundreds of miles, accompanied by local guides whose languages he barely understood, across pampas and through rainforests in search of further unique specimens. From the wilds of Patagonia to the Galápagos and other Atlantic and Pacific islands, as Preston vibrantly relates, he collected and contrasted giant fossils and volcanic rocks, observed the Argentinian rhea, Falklands fox, and Galápagos finch, through which he began to discern connections between deep past and present. Darwin never left Britain again after his return in 1836, though his mind journeyed far and wide to develop the theories that were first revealed, after great delay and with trepidation about their reception, in 1859 with the publication of his epochal book On the Origin of Species. Offering a unique portrait of one of history's most consequential figures, The Evolution of Charles Darwin is a vital contribution to our understanding of life on Earth"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.; Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Evolution (Biology); Natural history.; Naturalists;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Searching for Franklin : new answers to the great Arctic mystery / by McGoogan, Ken,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Arctic historian Ken McGoogan approaches the legacy of nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin from a contemporary perspective and offers a surprising new explanation of an enduring Northern mystery. Two of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin's expeditions were monumental failures--the last one leading to more than a hundred deaths, including his own. Yet many still see the Royal Navy man as a heroic figure who sacrificed himself to discovering the Northwest Passage. This book, McGoogan's sixth about Arctic exploration, challenges that vision. It rejects old orthodoxies, incorporates the latest discoveries, and interweaves two main narratives. The first treats the Royal Navy's Arctic Overland Expedition of 1819, a harbinger-misadventure during which Franklin rejected the advice of Dene and Metis leaders and lost eleven of his twenty-one men to exhaustion, starvation, and murder. The second discovers a startling new answer to that greatest of Arctic mysteries: what was the root cause of the catastrophe that engulfed Franklin's last expedition? The well-preserved wrecks of Erebus and Terror--located in 2014 and 2016--promise to yield more clues about what cost the lives of the expedition members, some of whom were reduced to cannibalism. Contemporary researchers, rejecting theories of lead poisoning and botulism, continue to seek conclusive evidence both underwater and on land. Drawing on his own research and Inuit oral accounts, McGoogan teases out many intriguing aspects of Franklin's expeditions, including the explorer's lethal hubris in ignoring the expert advice of the Dene leader Akaitcho. Franklin disappeared into the Arctic in 1845, yet people remain fascinated with his final doomed voyage: what happened? McGoogan will captivate readers with his first-hand account of traveling to relevant locations, visiting the graves of dead sailors, and experiencing the Arctic--one of the most dramatic and challenging landscapes on the planet."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Franklin, John, 1786-1847.; Great Britain. Royal Navy.; John Franklin Arctic Expedition (1845-1851); Explorers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The forbidden garden : the botanists of besieged Leningrad and their impossible choice / by Parkin, Simon,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad-now St. Petersburg-and began the longest blockade in recorded history, one that would ultimately claim the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million people. At the center of the besieged city stood a converted palace that housed the world's largest collection of seeds-more than 250,000 samples hand-collected over two decades from all over the globe by world-famous explorer, geneticist, and dissident Nikolai Vavilov, who had recently been disappeared by the Soviet government. After attempts to evacuate the priceless collection failed and supplies dwindled amongst the three million starving citizens, the employes at the Plant Institute were left with a terrible choice. Should they save the collection? Or themselves? These were not just any seeds. The botanists believed they could be bred into heartier, disease-resistant, and more productive varieties suited for harsh climates, therefore changing the future of food production and preventing famines like those that had plagued their countrymen before. But protecting the seeds was no idle business. The scientists rescued potato samples under enemy fire, extinguished bombs landing on the seed bank's roof, and guarded the collection from scavengers, the bitter cold, and their own hunger. Then in the war's eleventh hour, Nazi plunderers presented a new threat to the collection ... Drawing from previously unseen sources, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin-who has "an inimitable capacity to find the human pulse in the underbelly of war" (The Spectator)-tells the incredible true story of the botanists who held their posts at the Plant Institute during the 872-day siege and the remarkable sacrifices they made in the name of science"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Brücher, Heinz, 1915-1991.; Ivanov, N. R. (Nikolaĭ Rodionovich); Vavilov, N. I. (Nikolaĭ Ivanovich), 1887-1943.; Vsesoi͡uznyĭ institut rastenievodstva (Soviet Union); Botanical specimens; Botanists; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Anatomy of a cover-up : the truth about the RCMP and the Nova Scotia massacres / by Palango, Paul,1950-author.;
"The truth about the deadliest criminal incident in Canadian history has remained untold--until now. How does one tell a story that nobody involved is willing to talk about? Investigative journalist Paul Palango's #1 national bestselling 22 Murders examined in forensic detail the shooting spree committed in April 2020 by Gabriel Wortman that began in tiny Portapique Bay, Nova Scotia, and ended thirteen hours later when Wortman was shot dead by RCMP officers. The episode left numerous serious questions in its wake--most especially why was the killer able to evade police in such limited geography for an entire night and much of the following morning? Theories emerged, in particular the likelihood that the killer or someone very close to him was acting as a police agent. Though Palango unearthed a treasure trove of evidence pointing to this possibility, the Mass Casualty Commission evaded all the big questions about the RCMP handling of the crime spree. To this day, no one has been held accountable. In this new book, Palango continues to crack the case while also delving deeper into many of the big questions that 22 Murders asked not only about the RCMP's relationship to the killer and his crimes, but also about the wall of secrecy and deceptions constructed by the RCMP and the criminal justice system. Drawing on his vast experience as an investigative reporter who'd found himself at the centre of many high-profile controversies over decades, he takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the sordid and largely unknown history of cover-ups in Canada, exposing new facts about each of them that may alter the public's perception of what really happened. As Palango fearlessly undresses politicians, police and journalists, his tour-de-force of reportage reveals to the world how the stories we think we know are often a complete facade."--
Subjects: True crime stories.; Mass Casualty Commission.; Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Governmental investigations; Mass murder investigation; Mass murder; Mass shootings; Police corruption; Political corruption;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Vanderbilt : the rise and fall of an American dynasty / by Cooper, Anderson,author.; Howe, Katherine,1977-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family--the Vanderbilts. When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father's small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires-one in shipping and another in railroads-that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by "the Commodore," subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers-the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius's grandson and namesake had built-the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all. Now, the Commodore's great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family's empire, basked in the Commodore's wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other. Written with a unique insider's viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.
Subjects: Biographies.; Vanderbilt family.; Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 1794-1877.; Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 1794-1877; Vanderbilt, Gloria, 1924-2019; Businessmen; Millionaires; Railroads; Rich people; Socialites; Steamboats; Upper class families; Upper class; Wealth;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Degrees of separation [graphic novel] : a decade north of 60 / by McCreesh, Alison,author,illustrator.;
At age 21, Alison hitchhiked to the Yukon and spent the summer living in a tent. 10 years later, in the deep of winter and seven months pregnant, she returns. Degrees of Separation is about what happened in between. Over the course of a decade, artist Alison McCreesh lived, worked, and travelled north of the 60th parallel. Through a combination of autobiographical stories, drawings and sketches, Degrees of Separation offers an intimate and understated glimpse of the North as Alison experienced it. From frigid days spent killing time while stranded in the High Arctic, to the challenges of raising a baby in a small shack with no running water, it is one young woman's personal experience of both passing through and of setting down roots. Tinged with McCreesh's characteristic blend of humour and humanity, Degrees of Separation is about the north and its vastness and its diversity. While the backdrop may seem foreign to many, this collection is also a universal exploration of those transformative years from young-adulthood to motherhood. It's a graphic novel navigating themes of connection and disconnect, between the north and the south, but also between different norths and between our different selves.
Subjects: Biographical comics.; Nonfiction comics.; Autobiographical comics.; Graphic novels.; Personal narratives.; Travel comics.; McCreesh, Alison; McCreesh, Alison; McCreesh, Alison; McCreesh, Alison; Artists; Travelers' writings, Canadian; Women cartoonists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 101 to 110 of 120 | « previous |