Si Klegg, Book 1 (of 6) - His Transformation From A Raw Recruit To A Veteran is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by John McElroy is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of John McElroy then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. Views: 563
Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 years contained some of the most catastrophic events Western civilization has ever known.
No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.
The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.
This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.
The accounts of how the United States got involved and how Hitler used Mussolini and Japan are astonishing, and the coverage of the war-from Germany's early successes to her eventual defeat-is must reading Views: 563
The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider.
Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.
As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society? Views: 562
Robert E. Howard is one of the most famous and influential pulp authors of the twentieth century. Though largely known as the man who invented the sword-and-sorcery genre-and for his iconic hero Conan the Cimmerian-Howard also wrote horror tales, desert adventures, detective yarns, epic poetry, and more. This spectacular volume, gorgeously illustrated by Jim and Ruth Keegan, includes some of his best and most popular works.
Inside, readers will discover (or rediscover) such gems as "The Shadow Kingdom," featuring Kull of Atlantis and considered by many to be the first sword-and-sorcery story; "The Fightin'est Pair," part of one of Howard’s most successful series, chronicling the travails of Steve Costigan, a merchant seaman with fists of steel and a head of wood; "The Grey God Passes," a haunting tale about the passing of an age, told against the backdrop of Irish history and legend; “Worms of the Earth,” a brooding narrative featuring Bran Mak Morn, about which H. P. Lovecraft said, "Few readers will ever forget the hideous and compelling power of this] macabre masterpiece"; a historical poem relating a momentous battle between Cimbri and the legions of Rome; and "Sharp's Gun Serenade," one of the last and funniest of the Breckinridge Elkins tales.
These thrilling, eerie, compelling, swashbuckling stories and poems have been restored to their original form, presented just as the author intended. There is little doubt that after more than seven decades the voice of Robert E. Howard continues to resonate with readers around the world. "From the Trade Paperback edition." Views: 562
In a short story that stretches back through pre-colonial America through modern day and beyond, a construction worker, a soldier, and a young boy all discover the same strange object. Each one sees the artifact through the lens of his own life and time, but can any of them discover its hidden power?Raul is a prince and the leader of his father's army. When he attacks an evil wizard he is transformed into a bear. Searching for a way to return to his human form he meets Juanita and falls in love. See what happens next in this short story. Views: 562
A humorous look at the YTS or YOPS schemes of the nineteen seventies by someone who worked in them for several years in what was then Avon County.This book is a comedy, but the reader needs to understand a little of the background of Youth Opportunities as they were known. In the late seventies the Thatcher Government determined for once and for all to destroy the power of the Trade Unions who they felt were holding the country to ransom and to be fair, the majority of people in the country at least half agreed with her. However, what the Thatcherites actually achieved with their monetarist policies was the destruction of the countries manufacturing base, which slid rapidly downhill and has been diminishing ever since. Apprenticeships and other types of trade learning practically vanished overnight as companies cut down on all possible expenditures and then went to the wall in droves, buried under an interest rate that finally topped out at eighteen percent as Thatcher determinedly pursued her policies.There is no doubt that this did severely curb union power. However, it also removed the livelihood and job opportunities of thousands upon thousands of school leavers. This was especially true for the less able kids who had relied on jobs in the manufacturing industries. And so in Avon County, now vanished from the face of the earth, ACYOPS was invented, (Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme), to give these unemployed kids something to do. The idea was that they should be paid a minimum wage by the state and placed with kindly employers who would teach them the ropes in return for their prepaid labour. In other words free workers from the government in return for giving them real world experience. Some, the more able, were put straight with employers. The rest were first of all put with Supervisors in groups to learn such skills as building and painting and decorating. They practiced on community halls, church halls and other buildings whose owners were very happy to have the work done, however slowly, for only the cost of the materials. Views: 561
What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the ancient world's greatest conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs the life of Alexander the Great in this magisterial revisionist portrait."Reads as easily as a novel . . . Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India—all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly... Views: 561
In Pompeii, in the summer of A.D. 79, Julia and Sura appear to lead opposite lives. Julia is the daughter of a wealthy ship-builder; Sura is an orphan. Julia bears the Curse of Venus a withered arm; Sura s beauty turns heads. Julia is free; Sura is her slave. Then Julia learns that her parents are planning to put her in the service of the Temple of Damia, the center of a cultish new religion, and Sura will be sold to an awful man who plans to make her his concubine.
But when Mt. Vesuvius erupts, Julia s and Sura s fates are forever altered, forcing them both to face the true meaning of freedom.
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What would have happened if history had been different-if the major events that shaped our times had occurred in a different way-or not at all? From a Confederacy that won the Civil War to a Europe converted to Viking paganism, these bold excursions in time depict bizarre new worlds--oddly familiar, disturbingly different--a glimpse of WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
"A Sleep and a Forgetting" (Robert Silverberg)
"The Old Man and C" (Sheila Finch)
"The Last Article" (Harry Turtledove)
"Mules in Horses' Harness" (Michael Cassutt)
"Lenin in Odessa" (George Zebrowski)
"Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" (James Morrow)
"Another Goddamned Showboat" (Barry N. Malzberg)
"Loose Cannon" (Susan Shwartz)
"A Letter from the Pope" (Harry Harrison and Tom Shippey)
"Roncesvalles" (Judith Tarr)
"His Powder'd Wig, His Crown of Thornes" (Marc Laidlaw)
"Departures" (Harry Turtledove)
"Instability" (Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo)
"No Spot of Ground" (Walter Jon Williams) Views: 561
Barbara W. Tuchman—the acclaimed author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning classic The Guns of August—once again marshals her gift for character, history, and sparkling prose to compose an astonishing portrait of medieval Europe.
The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”
Praise for A Distant Mirror
“Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how *it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books
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“A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal
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“Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.” —Commentary*
NOTE: This edition does not include color images. Views: 560
"Heard whispers of the Dark all my life. It's a strange feeling when a whisper becomes a shout." SONGS OF THE DARK collects all four novellas from the world of Anthony Ryan's internationally best-selling Raven's Shadow trilogy. Centuries before the rise of the Unified Realm, the final battle looms between the city state of Kethia and the Volarian Empire. As told by Imperial Chronicler Lord Verniers, this terrible event is shrouded in many secrets and, some say, wrought by servants of the Dark. When word reaches the north of a fresh outbreak of the dreaded Red Hand, Brother Sollis, the finest swordsman in the Sixth Order, leads a small band to a long-abandoned castle in search of a potential cure, but discovers a far greater threat lurking in the mountains. A quest for bloody vengeance forces Derla, a skilled and deadly veteran of the Varinshold underworld, into the service of the arch schemer King Janus. Veteran Realm Guard Jerhid, newly... Views: 560
This short story (3200 words) is about an old man finding his place in a futuristic world; a world of space travel and space colonization. Earth is suffocating and new worlds are needed. An expedition with the aim of colonizing a new planet is sent out.Road to Gethsemane tells the story of two women Magdalene (Mags) and Eden. Mags is a woman in her prime jilted by her husband, her children have flown the nest. She finds her self in penury living in squalor and in a dead end job. In a moment of madness she decides to accept the offer of a free holiday from a known smuggler. Upon her return she soon begins to realize her error, but has to face the consequences of her actions. She becomes entangled in a group of smugglers. Among them her ex-husband and a crooked copper. Who has become the subject of an internal investigation. The story soon become a game of whose watching who. Mags meet Eden a beautiful young model with a complicated past. the two meet through a mutual acquaintance and instead of becoming victims of the puppet masters they hatch a plan which would leave them rich and their enemies behind bars. But will each wrong demand a reckoning? Views: 560
A woman trapped in an abusive relationship breaks apart in a final act of defiance.How far would you have to be pushed to take another life? What is the cost of having to make such a decision, even if it is to defend yourself? A woman in an abusive relationship confronts these questions in a final act of defiance.A short sample - For some reason all she could hear was ringing in her ears. She could not understand why she smelled fireworks in the living room or why her arms were so heavy. Through a haze she could see him look at her with a look of shock, a growing stain spreading across the faded shirt she had given him for a birthday years ago. His lips formed two words before he fell face first on the floor. “I’m sorry.” As she looked at him on the floor she realized that the growing pool coming from under his body was his blood. She watched as the blood slowly spread across the floor like a lava flow threatening to burn all in its path. Reality seeped in further as she saw that a small pistol was in her hands even as she could not recall how it got there. A small voice in her head told her to leave and run but she could not. The world turned into shades of gray, everything in black and white. Everything but the crimson pool slowly spreading across the floor."A moving story that I enjoyed reading. I found it quite sad, but it mirrors countless real lives, so makes one sit back and think long and hard about the world we live in and our choices.""Was drawn in from beginning to end. I hate reading short stories for this reason, I WANTED MORE, wonderfully told. True gift he has with words.""Wonderful story. It's an age old tale retold in a fascinating and surprising way. The writer has a true gift for storytelling. I was spellbound from the beginning to the end.""I enjoyed reading I'm Sorry. A insightful yet emotional take of a young girl who fell onto an abusive relationship. Reading this short story was like viewing a abusive relationship right from the inside instead of hearing about one." Views: 560
Step back in time to an 18th century world where highwaymen roamed the roads, artists faded in obscure unhappiness, silk-clad poodles held London society enraptured and viscounts couldn't feel their own thumbs. Here be monsters, magic and lonely doctors with a penchant for the work of the old masters, not to mention a cavalcade or rogues, royals and revelry.Step back in time to an 18th century world where highwaymen roamed the roads, artists faded in obscure unhappiness, silk-clad poodles held London society enraptured and viscounts couldn't feel their own thumbs. Here be monsters, magic and lonely doctors with a penchant for the work of the old masters, not to mention a cavalcade or rogues, royals and revelry. These are The Dead London Chronicles.The threads of the tapestry are still being woven, and what the Chronicles contain, we can only guess.The story updates weekly on its own dedicated website or here in collected monthly editions, written by Catherine Curzon and Willow Winsham. Views: 559
