8468 results for "History"

Megathreats: ten dangerous trends that imperil our future, and how to survive them

Roubini, Nouriel
"Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini was nicknamed "Dr. Doom," until his prediction of the 2008 housing crisis and Great Recession came true--when it was too late. Now he is back with a much scarier prediction, one that we ignore at our peril. There are no fewer than ten overlapping, interconnected threats that are so serious, he calls them Megathreats. From the worst debt crisis the world has ever seen, to governments pumping out too much money, to borders that are blocked to workers and to many shipments of goods, to the rise of a new superpower competition between China and the U.S., to climate change that strikes directly at our most populated cities, we are facing not one, not two, but ten causes of disaster. There is a slight chance we can avoid them, if we come to our senses--but we must act now." --
Little, Brown and Company 2022 312 pages

Finding Chika A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family

Mitch Albom
"Mitch Albom has done it again with this moving memoir of love and loss. You can't help but fall for Chika. A page-turner that will no doubt become a classic." --Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and The Art of Memoir From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tuesdays With Morrie comes Mitch Albom's most personal story to date: an intimate and heartwarming memoir about what it means to be a family and the young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart. Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and go to school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. Chika's arrival makes a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, "No one in Haiti can help you with." Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism and humor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost. Told in hindsight, and through illuminating conversations with Chika herself, this is Albom at his most poignant and vulnerable. Finding Chika is a celebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond they formed--a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.
HarperCollins Publishers 2021-05-18 256 pages

Auschwitz A Doctor's Eyewitness Account

Miklos Nyiszli
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform “scientific research” on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous “Angel of Death”: Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele’s personal research pathologist. Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account.
Arcade 2011-04-01 240 pages

Apollo 8 The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

Jeffrey Kluger
The untold story of the historic voyage to the moon that closed out one of our darkest years with a nearly unimaginable triumph In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind's first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken. But when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were summoned to a secret meeting and told of the dangerous mission, they instantly signed on. Written with all the color and verve of the best narrative non-fiction, Apollo 8 takes us from Mission Control to the astronaut's homes, from the test labs to the launch pad. The race to prepare an untested rocket for an unprecedented journey paves the way for the hair-raising trip to the moon. Then, on Christmas Eve, a nation that has suffered a horrendous year of assassinations and war is heartened by an inspiring message from the trio of astronauts in lunar orbit. And when the mission is over--after the first view of the far side of the moon, the first earth-rise, and the first re-entry through the earth's atmosphere following a flight to deep space--the impossible dream of walking on the moon suddenly seems within reach. The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger--Jim Lovell's co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13--can do it justice. Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet.
Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company 2017 511 pages

The Last Folk Hero The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson

Jeff Pearlman
A New York Times Bestseller By the author of Showtime--the source for HBO's Winning Time--the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson. "A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." --Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character--and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America's most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth. Then, almost overnight, he was gone. He was Bo Jackson. Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University's transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous "Bo Knows" Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or ... maybe.) Bo Jackson isn't Jim Thorpe. He's not Deion Sanders, either. No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan. The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only "master storyteller" (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.
HarperCollins Publishers 2023-09-26 496 pages

Ghetto Diary

Janusz Korczak
"Janusz Korczak (1879-1942) is one of the legendary figures to emerge from the Holocaust. A successful pediatrician and well-known author in his native Warsaw, he gave up a brilliant medical career to devote himself to the care of orphans. Like so many other Jews, Korczak was sent into the Warsaw Ghetto after the Nazi occupation of Poland. He immediately set up an orphanage for more than 200 children. Many of his admirers, Jewish and gentile, offered to rescue him from the ghetto, but Korczak refused to leave his small charges. When the Nazi's ordered the children to board a train that was to carry them to the Treblinka death camp, Korczak went with them, despite the Nazis' offer of special treatment. His selfless behavior in caring for these children's lives and deaths has made him beloved throughout the world: he has been honored by UNESCO and commemorated on postage stamps in both Poland and Israel."--BOOK JACKET.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 1978-05 198 pages

The dressmaker of Khair Khana: five sisters, one remarkable family, and the woman who risked everything to keep them safe

Lemmon, Gayle Tzemach
The incredible true account of Kamila Sidiqi who, when her father and brother were forced to flee Kabul, became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own and held her family together.
Harper 2011 256 pages

Mossad Exodus

Gad Shimron
The Daring Undercover Rescue of the Lost Jewish Tribe The subject of the movie Red Sea Diving Resort The amazing story told firsthand by Gad Shimron in Mossad Exodus is now the subject of a new movie called Red Sea Diving Resort. In 1977, Israel’s Mossad spy agency was given an assignment far different from its usual cloak and dagger activities. It was ordered by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan. No stranger to action in enemy countries, the agency established a covert forward base in a deserted holiday village in Sudan, and deployed a handful of operatives to launch and oversee the exodus of the refugees to the Promised Land, by sea and by air, in the early 1980s. This book offers a thrilling firsthand account of how the operation was put in place, and how the Mossad team in Sudan brought it off, despite great personal risk, running a partying vacation spot, Arous Holiday Village, for wealthy tourists by day as they stole through the Sudanese desert to rescue desperate refugees by night. Author Gad Shimron was one of the agents based at Arous. Enhanced by his wideranging historical observations and his crisp, incisive prose, this is at once an entertaining read and a powerful tale of idealistic heroism. Gad Shimron joined the Mossad during his student days in Jerusalem. Later he worked as a journalist for Kol Israel, the staterun radio, anchored Good Morning Israel on TV Channel 1 and is currently senior editor and defense commentator for the Tel Avivbased Maariv daily. This is his seventh book.
Jaico Publishing House 2018-12-26 232 pages

Whiteshift: populism, immigration and the future of white majorities

Kaufmann, Eric P.
This is the century of whiteshift. As Western societies are becoming increasingly mixed-race, demographic change is transforming politics. Over half of American babies are non-white, and by the end of the century, minorities and those of mixed race are projected to form the majority in the UK and other countries. The early stages of this transformation have led to a populist disruption, tearing a path through the usual politics of left and right. One of the most crucial challenges of our time is to enable conservatives as well as cosmopolitans to view whiteshift as a positive development. In this groundbreaking book, political scientist Eric Kaufmann examines the evidence to explore ethnic change in Western Europe and North America.
Allen Lane 2018 617 pages

The kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

Kertzer, David I.
Discusses the cause célèbre of Edgardo Mortara, who in 1858, at the age of six, was taken by force from his Jewish home in Bologna by the pontifical police on the grounds that he had been baptized as an infant by a family servant. Despite the efforts of his family, Jews in Italy and abroad, and foreign ambassadors and rulers, he was never returned to his family. Pope Pius IX defended the Church's policy of remaining true to its salvationist ideology, and refused to surrender the boy. Edgardo ultimately chose not to return to Judaism but to become a priest. (He died in a Belgian abbey in March 1940.) The case is shown to be pivotal in terms of the unification of Italy and the loss of papal power. Describes the various ways Jews attempted, unsuccessfully, to free Mortara: quiet diplomacy, legal means, the involvement of influential Jews, the Jewish and non-Jewish press, and self-defense organizations (the Alliance Israélite Universelle was founded in reaction to the kidnapping). Reveals much about Christian-Jewish relations on the political and social level, one aspect of which was relations between Jewish employers and Christian servants.
Alfred Knopf 1997 350 pages

A Picture Book of Patrick Henry

David A. Adler
Adler tells the story of Patrick Henry from his childhood on a tobacco plantation through his career as a lawyer, politician, and governor of Virginia. The author skillfully integrates quotations from primary sources into the narrative. There is no fictionalizing of thoughts or dialogue. Since Henry was known for his oratory prowess, excerpts from his most famous speeches are included and put into context with events of the time. Personal details, such as his wife's mental illness and his ownership of slaves, are mentioned but not explored in great detail. The subject matter is presented in a manner appropriate to its intended audience. The illustrations, all on double-page spreads, are softly colored and full of historical detail. Although the pictures do not have the stiff and formal look of period portraits, they do reflect the clothing styles and furnishings of the time. Teachers and students will appreciate this introduction to the patriot's life.This famous patriot served five terms as governor of Virginia.
Holiday House, Incorporated 2001-06 32 pages

Russian Roulette

Anthony Horowitz
Every story has a beginning. For teen secret-agent Alex Rider, that beginning occurred prior to his first case for MI6, known to all as Stormbreaker. By the time that mission came to be, Alex's father, a secret-agent in his own right, has been murdered. And when Alex's uncle was murdered by the assassin Yassen Gregoravich, Alex was essentially left orphaned. Yet at the conclusion of the novel, when Yassen has the chance to kill a vengeful-minded Alex, he chooses not to. This story tells us why. Much in the way that Alex's uncle mentored Alex, preparing him for a life in espionage, Alex's father once mentored Yassen. Yassen was the original Alex Rider--a teenager meant to work for MI6. Instead, he turned rogue assassin. This web of emotion and deceit forms the basis of the last of the Alex Rider novels, a spy thriller in the vein of classic James Bond for teens.
Walker Books 2013-09-12 416 pages

Wilson

A. Scott Berg
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a brilliant biography"* of the 28th president of the United States. *Doris Kearns Goodwin One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize–winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson —the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the twenty-eighth President. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details—even several unknown events—that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character, and cast new light on his entire life. From the visionary Princeton professor who constructed a model for higher education in America to the architect of the ill-fated League of Nations, from the devout Commander in Chief who ushered the country through its first great World War to the widower of intense passion and turbulence who wooed a second wife with hundreds of astonishing love letters, from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity—and the subterfuges around it—were among the century’s greatest secrets, from the trailblazer whose ideas paved the way for the New Deal and the Progressive administrations that followed to the politician whose partisan battles with his opponents left him a broken man, and ultimately, a tragic figure—this is a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon—but Wilson the man. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS
Penguin 2014-09-02 880 pages