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The Clinton Tapes: Conversations with a President, 1993–2001
Par Taylor Branch. 2009
Taylor Branch’s groundbreaking book about the modern presidency, The Clinton Tapes, invites readers into private dialogue with a gifted, tormented,…
resilient president. Here is what President Clinton thought and felt but could not say in public.This book rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. His friend Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a presidency as it happened. Clinton drew upon the diary transcripts for his memoir in 2004. Branch recorded his own detailed recollections immediately after each session, covering not only the subjects discussed but also the look and feel of each evening with the president. The text engages Clinton from many angles. Readers hear candid stories, feel buffeting pressures, and weigh vivid descriptions of the White House settings. Branch's firsthand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The author admits straying at times from his primary role -- to collect raw material for future historians -- because his discussions with Clinton were unpredictable and intense. What should an objective prompter say when the President of the United States seeks advice, argues facts, or lodges complaints against the press? The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor. President Clinton drives the history, but this story is also about friends. The Clinton Tapes highlights major events of Clinton's two terms, including wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the failure of health care reform, peace initiatives on three continents, the anti-deficit crusade, and titanic political struggles from Whitewater to American history's second presidential impeachment trial. Along the way, Clinton delivers colorful portraits of countless political figures and world leaders from Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II. These unprecedented White House dialogues will become a staple of presidential scholarship. Branch's masterly account opens a new window on a controversial era and Bill Clinton's eventual place among our chief executives.Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910–1960
Par Ross Wetzsteon. 2003
If the twentieth century was the American century, it can be argued that it was more specifically the New York…
century, and Greenwich Village was the incubator of every important writer, artist, and political movement of the period. From the century's first decade through the era of beatniks and modern art in the 1950s and '60s, Greenwich Village was the destination for rebellious men and women who flocked there from all over the country to fulfill their artistic, political, and personal dreams. It has been called the most significant square mile in American cultural history, for it holds the story of the rise and fall of American socialism, women's suffrage, and the commercialization of the avant-garde. One Villager went so far as to say that "everything started in the Village except Prohibition," and in the 1940s, the young actress Lucille Ball said, "The Village is the greatest place in the world." What other community could claim a spectrum ranging from Henry James to Marlon Brando, from Marcel Duchamp to Bob Dylan, from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to Abbie Hoffman? The story of the Village is, in large part, the stories old Villagers have told new Villagers about former Villagers, and to tell its story is in large part to tell its legends. Republic of Dreams presents the remarkable, outrageous, often interrelated biographies of the giants of American journalism, poetry, drama, radical politics, and art who flocked to the Village for nearly half a century, among them Eugene O'Neill, whose plays were first produced by the Provincetown Players on Macdougal Street, for whom Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote; Jackson Pollock, who moved to the Village from Wyoming in 1930 and was soon part of the group of 8th Street painters who would revolutionize Western painting; E. E. Cummings, who lived for years on Patchin Place, as did Djuna Barnes; Max Eastman, who edited the groundbreaking literary and political journal The Masses, which introduced Freud to the American public and also published Sherwood Anderson, Amy Lowell, Upton Sinclair, Maksim Gorky, and John Reed's reporting on the Russian Revolution. Republic of Dreams is beautifully researched, outspoken, wise, hip, exuberant, a monumental, definitive history that will endure for decades to come.The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, volume 38 number 1 (Spring 2024)
Par The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. 2024
This is volume 38 issue 1 of The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. The Social History of Alcohol and…
Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal (SHAD) is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to publishing high-quality original academic research, reflection essays, and reviews in the field of alcohol and drug history, broadly construed. SHAD appears twice annually as an official publication of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, which promotes scholarship and discussions about the history of alcohol and drug use, abuse, production, trade, and regulation across time and space.General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse
Par Joseph Glatthaar. 2009
"You would be surprised to see what men we have in the ranks," Virginia cavalryman Thomas Rowland informed his mother…
in May 1861, just after joining the Army of Northern Virginia. His army -- General Robert E. Lee's army -- was a surprise to almost everyone: With daring early victories and an invasion into the North, they nearly managed to convince the North to give up the fight. Even in 1865, facing certain defeat after the loss of 30,000 men, a Louisiana private fighting in Lee's army still had hope. "I must not despair," he scribbled in his diary. "Lee will bring order out of chaos, and with the help of our Heavenly Father, all will be well." Astonishingly, after 150 years of scholarship, there are still some major surprises about the Army of Northern Virginia. In General Lee's Army, renowned historian Joseph T. Glatthaar draws on an impressive range of sources assembled over two decades -- from letters and diaries, to official war records, to a new, definitive database of statistics -- to rewrite the history of the Civil War's most important army and, indeed, of the war itself. Glatthaar takes readers from the home front to the heart of the most famous battles of the war: Manassas, the Peninsula campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, all the way to the final surrender at Appomattox. General Lee's Army penetrates headquarters tents and winter shanties, eliciting the officers' plans, wishes, and prayers; it portrays a world of life, death, healing, and hardship; it investigates the South's commitment to the war and its gradual erosion; and it depicts and analyzes Lee's men in triumph and defeat. The history of Lee's army is a powerful lens on the entire war. The fate of Lee's army explains why the South almost won -- and why it lost. The story of his men -- their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems -- tells it all. Glatthaar's definitive account settles many historical arguments. The Rebels were fighting above all to defend slavery. More than half of Lee's men were killed, wounded, or captured -- a staggering statistic. Their leader, Robert E. Lee, though far from perfect, held an exalted place in his men's eyes despite a number of mistakes and despite a range of problems among some of his key lieutenants. General Lee's Army is a masterpiece of scholarship and vivid storytelling, narrated as much as possible in the words of the enlisted men and their officers.The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and How America Helped Rebuild Europe
Par Greg Behrman. 2008
In this landmark, character-driven history, Greg Behrman tells the story of the Marshall Plan, the unprecedented and audacious policy through…
which America helped rebuild World War II-ravaged Western Europe. With nuanced, vivid prose, Behrman recreates the story of a unique American enterprise that was at once strategic, altruistic and stunningly effective, and of a time when America stood as a beacon of generosity and moral leadership. When World War II ended in Europe, the continent lay in tatters. Tens of millions of people had been killed. Ancient cities had been demolished. The economic, financial and commercial foundations of Europe were in shambles. Western Europe's Communist parties -- feeding off people's want and despair -- were flourishing as, to the east, Stalin's Soviet Union emerged as the sole superpower on the continent. The Marshall Plan was a four-year, $13 billion (more than $100 billion in today's dollars) plan to provide assistance for Europe's economic recovery. More than an aid program, it sought to modernize Western Europe's economies and launch them on a path to prosperity and integration; to restore Western Europe's faith in democracy and capitalism; to enmesh the region firmly in a Western economic association and eventually a military alliance. It was the linchpin of America's strategy to meet the Soviet threat. It helped to trigger the Cold War and, eventually, to win it. Through detailed and exhaustive research, Behrman brings this vital and dramatic epoch to life and animates the personalities that shaped it. The narrative follows the six extraordinary American statesmen -- George Marshall, Will Clayton, Arthur Vandenberg, Richard Bissell, Paul Hoffman and W. Averell Harriman -- who devised and implemented the Plan, as well as some of the century's most important personalities -- Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Joseph McCarthy -- who are also central players in the drama told here. More than a humanitarian endeavor, the Marshall Plan was one of the most effective foreign policies in all of American history, in large part because, as Behrman writes, it was born and executed in a time when American "foreign policy was defined by its national interests and the very best of ideals."Almost Worthy: The Poor, Paupers, and the Science of Charity in America, 1877–1917
Par Brent Ruswick. 2012
A history and analysis of scientific charity organizations that arose in late nineteenth century America.In the 1880s, social reform leaders…
warned that the “unworthy” poor were taking charitable relief intended for the truly deserving. Armed with statistics and confused notions of evolution, these “scientific charity” reformers founded organizations intent on limiting access to relief by the most morally, biologically, and economically unfit. Brent Ruswick examines a prominent national organization for scientific social reform and poor relief in Indianapolis in order to understand how these new theories of poverty gave birth to new programs to assist the poor.“Ruswick’s well-researched monograph traces the history of the charity organization society in the US from its origins in the Gilded Age to its merging with social work in the Progressive Era. . . . Recommended.” —Choice“[This] study provides a welcome insight into the inner workings of charity organization societies and their drive to eliminate poverty.” —Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Volume43, Issue 4, 2014“Almost Worthy offers a lot of interesting detail pulled from COS case files, professional conference proceedings, journals of the field, and more; some possibly fruitful hypotheses about what to make of changes in COS approaches over time; thoughtful new propositions about the relationship between scientific charity and eugenics (including some charity reformers’ apparent remorse); and a fresh, new mini-biography of Oscar McCulloch interspersed throughout.” —H-SHGAPE“Brent Ruswick wants to put the science back into scientific charity. He argues that the essence of organized charity was not its class prejudices and censorious attitude toward the poor, but rather its belief that systematic evidence-gathering could serve to improve the quality of charity work and public policy.” —American Historical Review, Volume119, Issue 4, October 2014Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)
Par Christopher Hitchens. 2005
"A balanced, readable portrait. A refreshing perspective.” —New York Times Book ReviewWith intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, bestselling author Christopher…
Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure in American history and his turbulent era.In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father—a man conflicted by power who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as ambassador to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. A masterly writer, Jefferson was an awkward public speaker. A professed proponent of emancipation, he elided the issue of slavery from the Declaration of Independence and continued to own human property. A reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.No Place to Hide
Par Robert O'Harrow Jr.. 2005
In No Place to Hide, award-winning Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow, Jr., lays out in unnerving detail the post-9/11 marriage…
of private data and technology companies and government anti-terror initiatives to create something entirely new: a security-industrial complex. Drawing on his years of investigation, O'Harrow shows how the government now depends on burgeoning private reservoirs of information about almost every aspect of our lives to promote homeland security and fight the war on terror. Consider the following: When you use your cell phone, the phone company knows where you are and when. If you use a discount card, your grocery and prescription purchases are recorded, profiled, and analyzed. Many new cars have built-in devices that enable companies to track from afar details about your movements. Software and information companies can even generate graphical link-analysis charts illustrating exactly how each person in a room is related to every other -- through jobs, roommates, family, and the like. Almost anyone can buy a dossier on you, including almost everything it takes to commit identity theft, for less than fifty dollars. It may sound like science fiction, but it's the routine activity of the nation's fast-growing information industry and, more and more, its new partner the U.S. government. With unrivaled access, O'Harrow tells the inside stories of key players in this new world, from software inventors to counterintelligence officials. He reveals how the government is creating a national intelligence infrastructure with the help of private companies. And he examines the impact of this new security system on our traditional notions of civil liberties, autonomy, and privacy, and the ways it threatens to undermine some of our society's most cherished values, even while offering us a sense of security. This eye-opening examination takes readers behind the walls of secrecy and shows how we are rushing toward a surveillance society with few rules to guide and protect us. In this new world of high-tech domestic intelligence, there is literally no place to hide.Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory
Par Deborah Lipstadt. 1980
The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat. Yet there are…
those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. Sixty years ago, such notions were the province of pseudohistorians who argued that Hitler never meant to kill the Jews, and that only a few hundred thousand died in the camps from disease; they also argued that the Allied bombings of Dresden and other cities were worse than any Nazi offense, and that the Germans were the “true victims” of World War II.For years, those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But as time goes on, they have begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas, and now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how—despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence—this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with organized chapters, “independent” research centers, and official publications that promote a “revisionist” view of recent history.Lipstadt shows how Holocaust denial thrives in the current atmosphere of value-relativism, and argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but undermines the very tenets of objective scholarship that support our faith in historical knowledge. Thus the movement has an unsuspected power to dramatically alter the way that truth and meaning are transmitted from one generation to another.A modern take on a classical icon: this &“luminous book&” (Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Library…
Book) tells the story of when, where, and how Chopin composed his most famous work, uncovering many surprises along the way and showing how his innovative music still animates and thrives in our culture centuries later.In this widely-praised book, Annik LaFarge presents a very different Frédéric Chopin from the melancholy, sickly, Romantic figure that has predominated for so long. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent—and endlessly relevant—spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language; an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher; a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution, pandemic, and exile.One of America&’s foremost pianists, Jeremy Denk, wrote in TheNew York Times: &“It is almost impossible for me to imagine a world in which [Chopin&’s &“Funeral March&”] is both fresh and tragic, where its death is real. LaFarge&’s charming and loving new book attempts to recover this world…This book took me into many unexpected corners…For a book about death, it&’s bursting with life and lively research.&”In this &“entertaining dual music history and memoir&” (Publishers Weekly), a &“seamless blend of the musical and literary verve&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) LaFarge &“brilliantly traces the footsteps of Chopin&’s life&” (Scott Yoo, host of PBS Now Hear This) during the three years, 1837–1840, when he composed the now-iconic Funeral March, using its composition story to illuminate the key themes of Chopin&’s life.As part of her research into Chopin&’s world, then and now, LaFarge visited piano makers, monuments, churches, and archives; she talked to scholars, jazz musicians, video game makers, music teachers, theater directors, and of course dozens of pianists. She has given us, says pianist, author, and New York Times columnist Michael Kimmelman, &“a tour-de-force and journey of the soul.&”It is an engrossing, &“impeccably researched&” (Library Journal) work of musical discovery and an artful portrayal of a man whose work and life continue to inspire artists and cultural innovators in astonishing ways.An acclaimed companion website, WhyChopin, presents links to each piece of music mentioned in the book, organized by chapter, along with photos, resources, and more.In the middle of the eighteenth century, British entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal and the world…
changed forever. Factories, railways and gunboats then propelled the West's rise to power, and computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global supremacy. Today, however, many worry that the emergence of China and India spell the end of the West as a superpower.How long will the power of the West last? In order to find out we need to know: why has the West been so dominant for the past two hundred years?With flair and authority, historian and archaeologist Ian Morris draws uniquely on 15,000 years of history to offer fresh insights on what the future will bring. Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why The West Rules - For Now is a gripping and truly original history of the world.Bedlam: London and Its Mad
Par Catharine Arnold. 2008
'Bedlam!' The very name conjures up graphic images of naked patients chained among filthy straw, or parading untended wards deluded…
that they are Napoleon or Jesus Christ. We owe this image of madness to William Hogarth, who, in plate eight of his 1735 Rake's Progress series, depicts the anti-hero in Bedlam, the latest addition to a freak show providing entertainment for Londoners between trips to the Tower Zoo, puppet shows and public executions. That this is still the most powerful image of Bedlam, over two centuries later, says much about our attitude to mental illness, although the Bedlam of the popular imagination is long gone. The hospital was relocated to the suburbs of Kent in 1930, and Sydney Smirke's impressive Victorian building in Southwark took on a new role as the Imperial War Museum. Following the historical narrative structure of her acclaimed Necropolis, BEDLAMwill examine the capital's treatment of the insane over the centuries, from the founding of Bethlehem Hospital in 1247 through the heyday of the great Victorian asylums to the more enlightened attitudes that prevail today.Who She Was: My Search for My Mother's Life
Par Samuel G. Freedman. 2006
When Samuel G. Freedman was nearing fifty, the same age at which his mother died of breast cancer, he realized…
that he did not know who she was. Of course, he knew that Eleanor had been his mother, a mother he kept at an emotional distance both in life and after death. He had never thought about the entire life she lived before him, a life of her own dreams and disappointments. And now, that ignorance haunted him. So Freedman set out to discover the past, and Who She Was is the story of what he found. It is the story of a young woman's ambitions and yearnings, of the struggles of her impoverished immigrant parents, and of the ravages of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Holocaust. It is also the story of a middle-aged son wracked with regret over the disregard he had shown as a teenage boy for a terminally ill mother, and as an adult incapable for decades of visiting her grave. It is the story of how he healed that wound by asking all the questions he had not asked when his mother was alive. Whom did she love? Who broke her heart? What lifted her spirits? What crushed her hopes? What did she long to become? And did she get to become that woman in her brief time on earth? Who She Was brings a compassionate yet unflinching eye to the American Jewish experience. It recaptures the working-class borough of the Bronx with its tenements and pushcarts, its union halls and storefront synagogues and rooftop-tar beaches. It remembers a time when husbands searched hundreds of miles for steady work and wives sent packages and prayers to their European relatives in the desperate hope they might survive the Nazis. In such a world, Eleanor Hatkin came of age, striving for education, for love, for a way out. Researched as a history, written like a novel, Who She Was stands in the tradition of such classics as Call It Sleep and The Assistant. In bringing to life his mother, Samuel G. Freedman has given all readers a memorable heroine.Breaking the Time Barrier: The Race to Build the First Time Machine
Par Jenny Randles. 2005
IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.... Once widely considered an impossibility--the stuff of science fiction novels--time travel may finally…
be achieved in the twenty-first century. In Breaking the Time Barrier, bestselling author Jenny Randles reveals the nature of recent, breakthrough experiments that are turning this fantasy into reality. The race to build the first time machine is a fascinating saga that began about a century ago, when scientists such as Marconi and Edison and Einstein carried out research aimed at producing a working time machine. Today, physicists are conducting remarkable experiments that involve slowing the passage of information, freezing light, and breaking the speed of light--and thus the time barrier. In the 1960s we had the "space race." Today, there is a "time race" involving an underground community of working scientists who are increasingly convinced that a time machine of some sort is finally possible. Here, Randles explores the often riveting motives of the people involved in this quest (including a host of sincere, if sometimes misguided amateurs), the consequences for society should time travel become a part of everyday life, and what evidence might indicate that it has already become reality. For, if time travel is going to happen--and some Russian scientists already claim to have achieved it in a lab--then its effects may already be apparent.“This ambitious undertaking is concerned with the melodramatic form in theatre and film and its impact on French political culture.”…
—H-France ReviewIn France, both political culture and theatrical performances have drawn upon melodrama. This “melodramatic thread” helped weave the country’s political life as it moved from monarchy to democracy. By examining the relationship between public ceremonies and theatrical performance, James R. Lehning sheds light on democratization in modern France. He explores the extent to which the dramatic forms were present in the public performance of political power. By concentrating on the Republic and the Revolution and on theatrical performance, Lehning affirms the importance of examining the performative aspects of French political culture for understanding the political differences that have marked France in the years since 1789.“In this thoroughly researched and persuasive book, Lehning provides a fascinating reading of public performances in modern France . . . This is an important contribution to the study of French culture and the democratization process . . . Essential.” —Choice“Lehning’s application of the themes of melodrama to French political culture offers new insights into French history. His style is lively, clear, and highly readable.” —Venita Datta, Wellesley College“The analyses in this book make a real contribution to debates about the ways in which art, particularly popular art, and politics interact; how politics itself is theatrical in the French case; and the role of ritual in politics and the function of politics as ritual and ceremony.” —John Gaffney, Aston UniversityWritten &“with passion and insight about the knotted history of racism within women&’s movements and feminist culture&” (Rebecca Traister, New…
York Times bestselling author), this whip-smart, timely, and impassioned call for change is perfect for fans of Good and Mad and Hood Feminism.Addressing today&’s conversation about race, empowerment, and inclusion in America, Koa Beck, writer and former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragists to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. She also examines overlooked communities—including Native American, Muslim, transgender, and more—and their ongoing struggles for social change.With &“intellectually smart and emotionally intelligent&” (Patrisse Cullors, New York Times bestselling author and Black Lives Matter cofounder) writing, Beck meticulously documents how elitism and racial prejudice have driven the narrative of feminist discourse. Blending pop culture, primary historical research, and first-hand storytelling, she shows us how we have shut women out of the movement, and what we can do to correct our course for a new generation.Combining a scholar&’s understanding with hard data and razor-sharp cultural commentary, White Feminism &“is a rousing blueprint for a more inclusive &‘new era of feminism&’&” (TheBoston Globe).Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
Par Robert B. Stinnett. 2000
In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America's greatest secret and our worst military disaster.Drawing…
on twenty years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents, Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. By showing that ample warning of the attack was on FDR's desk and, furthermore, that a plan to push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant events in American history.My Name Is Selma: The Remarkable Memoir of a Jewish Resistance Fighter and Ravensbrück Survivor
Par Selma van de Perre. 2020
An international bestseller, this powerful memoir by a ninety-eight-year-old Jewish Resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor &“shows us how to find…
hope in hopelessness and light in the darkness&” (Edith Eger, author of The Choice and The Gift).Selma van de Perre was seventeen when World War II began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had not been an issue. But by 1941 it had become a matter of life or death. On several occasions, Selma barely avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. While her father was summoned to a work camp and eventually hospitalized in a Dutch transition camp, her mother and sister went into hiding—until they were betrayed in June 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. In an act of defiance and with nowhere else to turn, Selma took on an assumed identity, dyed her hair blond, and joined the Resistance movement, using the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit. For two years &“Marga&” risked it all. Using a fake ID, and passing as Aryan, she traveled around the country and even to Nazi headquarters in Paris, sharing information and delivering papers—doing, as she later explained, what &“had to be done.&”In July 1944 her luck ran out. She was transported to Ravensbrück women&’s concentration camp as a political prisoner. Unlike her parents and sister who she later found out died in other camps—Selma survived by using her alias, pretending to be someone else. It was only after the war ended that she could reclaim her identity and dared to say once again: My name is Selma.&“We were ordinary people plunged into extraordinary circumstances,&” she writes in this &“astonishing, inspirational, and important&” memoir (Ariana Neumann, author of When Time Stopped). Full of hope and courage, this is Selma&’s story in her own words.Who They Were: Inside the World Trade Center DNA Story
Par Robert C. Shaler. 2005
In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, the man who directed the largest and most groundbreaking forensic DNA investigation…
in U.S. history, tells with poignant clarity and refreshing honesty the story behind the relentless effort to identify the 2,749 victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. No part of the investigation into the 9/11 attacks has taken as long or been less discussed than the daunting task of identifying the victims -- and the hijackers -- from the remains in the rubble of Ground Zero. In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, former director of the Forensic Biology Department at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, tells the inside story of the relentless process of DNA identification and depicts the victories and frustrations that he and his team of scientists experienced during more than three years of grueling work. On September 11, 2001, New York City was unprepared for the mass-fatality event that occurred at the World Trade Center. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had to completely reconfigure itself to process and identify the nearly 20,000 remains that would eventually come through its doors. Facing an astonishing array of obstacles -- from political infighting and an overwhelming bureaucracy to the nearly insurmountable task of corralling personnel and supplies to handle the work -- Shaler and his team quickly established an unprecedented network of cooperation among public agencies and private labs doing cutting-edge research. More than a story of innovative science at the frontiers of human knowledge, Who They Were also tells the very human story of how Dr. Shaler and his staff forged important and lasting bonds with the families of those who were lost. He shares the agony of mistakes made in the chaos and unintended misidentifications resulting in the excruciating difficulty of having to retrieve remains from families of the lost. Finally, Dr. Shaler shares how he and the dedicated team of scientists who gave up more than three years of their lives when the rest of the world had moved on had to face the limits of science in dealing with the appalling level of destruction at Ground Zero and concede that no more victims would be sent home to their families. As of April 2005, when the process was suspended, only 1,592 out of the 2,749 who died on that fateful day had been identified. With compelling prose and insight, Who They Were reveals the previously untold stories of the scientists determined to bring closure to devastated families in the wake of America's largest disaster.Overlord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II
Par Thomas Alexander Hughes. 1995
Over Lord is the fascinating story of how American tactical air power was developed by General Elwood "Pete" Quesada during…
World War II, including its decisive role in Operation OVERLORD and the liberation of Europe.Pete Quesada is one of World War II's unsung yet crucial heroes. With his famous "Ninth Tactical Air Command," Quesada established the best air-ground team in the European theater. he pioneered the use of radar in close air support operations, introducing weapons systems specifically geared to tactical operations. He nurtured new flying methods designed for the kind of precision bombing the battlefields of Europe demanded. And more than anything else, Pete Quesada championed efforts to model air and ground officers into a single fighting unit. His relationships with ground leaders like Generals Omar Bradley and "Lightning Joe" Collins were a model for the kind of interservice harmony that was essential for dislodging the entrenched German Army.At war's end everybody from General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower to ordinary infantrymen recognized Pete Quesada as the premier expert and dogged patron of close air support. Allied airplanes over the battlefields of Europe had undoubtedly shortened the war and saved many thousands of lives, and Pete Quesada came home to a hero's welcome in 1945. By then he was the personification of tactical air power. Indeed, he was its over lord.Unfortunately, Quesada's groundbreaking methods were all but forgotten after the war. As the Cold War deepened, Air Force leaders stressed the role of big bombers flying deep into enemy territory and renounced the importance of close air support missions. Quesada himself was shunted into jobs that were both illsuited to his fiery temperament and divorced from his wartime expertise in tactical aviation. Frustrated, he retired from the Air Force in 1951 at forty-seven years of age.Fortunately, the story of Quesada's innovative tactics did not end there for the American military. In Korea in the 1950s and Vietnam in the 1960s, U.S. servicemen struggled -- and died -- relearning and recreating the kinds of tactics that Quesada had made commonplace in 1944-45. Had the U.S. Air Force nurtured its capacity for close air support, those two conflicts may have unfolded differently. Since then, the Air Force has struggled for a better balance between its bombardment missions and its support functions.This is the definitive story of an extraordinary man, whose remarkable efforts to aid foot soldiers in World War II contributed significantly to the Allies' success. America's belated rediscovery of Quesada's precepts some forty years later in conflicts like Operation DESERT STORM only underscores the importance of Quesada's story.