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The dancer's promise
Par Olivia Horrox. 2024
'Oh my gosh! What a beautifully written story!... I totally loved it... I literally could not stop reading... This is…
a must if you like historical fiction!!' Reader review 5 stars 'A beautifully written and evocative story of love and loss, of family and redemption, that swept me away.' Rachel Burton, author of The Last Party at Silverton Hall When their father loses the family fortune, and their mother locks herself away, sisters Grace and Clementine are left to raise themselves in a grand London house that is slowly falling apart around them. Each of them is determined to one day restore their fortunes and their family name and make a promise to do just that. Clementine dreams of being a star on stage, a celebrated ballerina who will tour the world, earning fame and fortune. She is adamant she won't put her fate into a man's hands but take charge of it herself. Grace, in contrast, sees security in a good marriage. Their eligible new American neighbour, with wealth, charm and looks, seems like the perfect match. But when Clementine falls unexpectedly in love, it throws both sisters' lives into turmoil and forces each of them to ask if they are prepared to break their promise for a chance at true love... A beautifully imagined historical novel about the bond between sisters and a changing world. Perfect for fans of Tracy Rees, Lucinda Riley and Kate Morton. Readers love The Dancer's Promise : ' Brilliant ... I loved the characters Grace and Clementine a true story of sisterly love and support in such difficult times... Truly memorable read ... touching and inspiring' Reader review 5 stars ' What a treat! With its mystery element thrown in to enhance the plot, I found the time sped by and I was lost in another time and place ' Reader review 5 starsBeverly hills spy: The double-agent war hero who helped japan attack pearl harbor
Par Ronald Drabkin. 2024
In the spirit of Ben Macintyre's greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British…
WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who flipped to become a spy for Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI. This ignominy led the disgruntled Rutland to become a spy for the Japanese navy. Plied with riches and given a salary ten times the highest-paid admiral, shuttled between Los Angeles and Tokyo where he lived in large mansions in both Beverly Hills and Yokohama, and insinuating himself into both LA high society and Japan's high command, Rutland would go on to contribute to the Japanese navy with both strategic and technical intelligence. This included scouting trips to Pearl Harbor, investigations of military preparedness, and aircraft technology. All this while living a double life, frequenting private California clubs and hosting lavish affairs for Hollywood stars and military dignitaries in his mansion on the Los Angeles Bird Streets. Supported by recently declassified FBI files and by incorporating unique and rare research through MI5 and Japanese Naval archives that few English speakers have access to, author Ronald Drabkin pieces together to completion, for the first time, this stranger-than-fiction story of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters of espionage history. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobookBig Data, Emerging Technologies and Intelligence: National Security Disrupted (Studies in Intelligence)
Par Miah Hammond-Errey. 2024
This book sets out the big data landscape, comprising data abundance, digital connectivity and ubiquitous technology, and shows how the…
big data landscape and the emerging technologies it fuels are impacting national security. This book illustrates that big data is transforming intelligence production as well as changing the national security environment broadly, including what is considered a part of national security as well as the relationships agencies have with the public. The book highlights the impact of big data on intelligence production and national security from the perspective of Australian national security leaders and practitioners, and the research is based on empirical data collection, with insights from nearly 50 participants from within Australia’s National Intelligence Community. It argues that big data is transforming intelligence and national security and shows that the impacts of big data on the knowledge, activities and organisation of intelligence agencies is challenging some foundational intelligence principles, including the distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence collection. Furthermore, the book argues that big data has created emerging threats to national security; for example, it enables invasive targeting and surveillance, drives information warfare as well as social and political interference, and challenges the existing models of harm assessment used in national security. The book maps broad areas of change for intelligence agencies in the national security context and what they mean for intelligence communities, and explores how intelligence agencies look out to the rest of society, considering specific impacts relating to privacy, ethics and trust. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, technology studies, national security and International Relations.Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIA
Par Patrick Winn. 2024
The gripping true story of an indigenous people running the world&’s mightiest narco-state—and America&’s struggle to thwart them. In Asia&’s…
narcotics-producing heartland, the Wa reign supreme. They dominate the Golden Triangle, a mountainous stretch of Burma between Thailand and China. Their 30,000-strong army, wielding missiles and attack drones, makes Mexican cartels look like street gangs. Wa moguls are unrivaled in the region&’s $60 billion meth trade and infamous for mass-producing pink, vanilla-scented speed pills. Drugs finance Wa State, a bona fide nation with its own laws, anthems, schools, and electricity grid. Though revered by their people, Wa leaders are scorned by US policymakers as vicious &“kingpins&” who &“poison our society for profit.&” In Narcotopia, award-winning journalist Patrick Winn uncovers the truth behind Asia&’s top drug-trafficking organization, as told by a Wa commander turned DEA informant. This gripping narrative shreds drug war myths and leads to a chilling revelation: the Wa syndicate&’s origins are smudged with CIA fingerprints. This is a saga of native people tapping the power of narcotics to create a nation where there was none before — and covert US intelligence operations gone wrong.When the United States officially entered World War I in 1917, it was woefully underprepared for chemical warfare, in which…
the British, French, and Germans had been engaged since 1915. In response, the U.S. Army created an entirely new branch: the Chemical Warfare Service. The army turned to trained chemists and engineers to lead the charge—and called on an array of others, including baseball players, to fill out the ranks.The Gas and Flame Men is the first full account of Major League ballplayers who served in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War I. Four players, two club executives, and a manager served in the small and hastily formed branch, six of them as gas officers. Remarkably, five of the seven—Christy Mathewson, Branch Rickey, Ty Cobb, George Sisler, and Eppa &“Jeptha&” Rixey—are now enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. The son of a sixth Hall of Famer, player and manager Ned Hanlon, was a young officer killed in action in France with the First Gas Regiment. Prominent chemical soldiers also included veteran Major League catcher and future manager George &“Gabby&” Street and Boston Braves president and former Harvard football coach Percy D. Haughton.The Gas and Flame Men explores how these famous baseball men, along with an eclectic mix of polo players, collegiate baseball and football stars, professors, architects, and prominent social figures all came together in the Chemical Warfare Service. Jim Leeke examines their service and its long-term effects on their physical and mental health—and on Major League Baseball and the world of sports. The Gas and Flame Men also addresses historical inaccuracies and misperceptions surrounding Christy Mathewson&’s early death from tuberculosis in 1925, long attributed to wartime gas exposure.You&’re no idiot, of course. You know that World War I was &“the Great War,&” and you&’re familiar with its…
images: muddy trenches, poison gas, and a no–man&’s–land of craters and barbed wire.But when it comes to understanding its causes, why it dragged on for four years, and how it set the stage for World War II, you&’re lost behind enemy lines. Don&’t wave the white flag just yet! The Complete Idiot&’s Guide® to World War I gives you a comprehensive overview of the first global war, from the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Treaty of Versailles. In this Complete Idiot&’s Guide®, you get: • Broad coverage of the secret treaties and en-tangling alliances that led to war • Comprehensive analysis of some of history&’s bloodiest battles, including the Somme, Tannenburg, Gallipoli, and Belleau Wood • Expert commentary on the development of weapons such as the tank, the dreadnought battleship, poison gas, and the German U-boat • Valuable insights into the war&’s influence on this century&’s political and cultural developmentWork, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball's Stars Avoid World War I
Par William Ecenbarger. 2024
In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world’s greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid…
service in the Great War, teams employed “ringers” like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as “safe shelter” leagues. In Work, Fight, or Play Ball, William Ecenbarger fondly recounts this little-known story of how dozens of athletes faced professional conflicts and a difficult choice in light of public perceptions and war propaganda. Some players used the steel mill and shipyard leagues to avoid wartime military duty, irking Major League owners, who saw their rosters dwindling. Bethlehem Steel President Charles Schwab (no relation to the financier) saw the league as a means to stave off employee and union organizing. Most fans loudly criticized the ballplayers, but nevertheless showed up to watch the action on the diamond. Ecenbarger traces the 1918 Steel League’s season and compares the fates of the players who defected to industry or continued to play stateside with the travails of the Major Leaguers, such as Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, who served during the war. Work, Fight, or Play Ball reveals the home field advantage brought on by the war, which allowed companies to profit from Major League players.A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War
Par Anna Reid. 2023
The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the…
relationship between Russia and the West Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia&’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West&’s relations with Russia, and set a pattern for other interventions to come.The NSA Report: Liberty and Security in a Changing World
Par President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, The, Richard A. Clarke, Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein, Peter Swire. 2014
The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance"We cannot discount the risk, in light of the…
lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA ReportThis is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort
Par Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kirchheimer. 2013
A groundbreaking book that gathers key wartime intelligence reportsDuring the Second World War, three prominent members of the Frankfurt School—Franz…
Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer—worked as intelligence analysts for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime forerunner of the CIA. This book brings together their most important intelligence reports on Nazi Germany, most of them published here for the first time.These reports provide a fresh perspective on Hitler's regime and the Second World War, and a fascinating window on Frankfurt School critical theory. They develop a detailed analysis of Nazism as a social and economic system and the role of anti-Semitism in Nazism, as well as a coherent plan for the reconstruction of postwar Germany as a democratic political system with a socialist economy. These reports played a significant role in the development of postwar Allied policy, including denazification and the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. They also reveal how wartime intelligence analysis shaped the intellectual agendas of these three important German-Jewish scholars who fled Nazi persecution prior to the war.Secret Reports on Nazi Germany features a foreword by Raymond Geuss as well as a comprehensive general introduction by Raffaele Laudani that puts these writings in historical and intellectual context.Beginning in the fall of 1914, every French soldier on the Western Front received a daily ration of wine from…
the army. At first it was a modest quarter litre, but by 1917 it had increased to the equivalent of a full bottle each day. The wine ration was intended to sustain morale in the trenches, making the men more willing to endure suffering and boredom. The army also supplied soldiers with doses of distilled alcohol just before attacks to increase their ferocity and fearlessness. This strategic distribution of alcohol was a defining feature of French soldiers’ experiences of the war and amounted to an experimental policy of intoxicating soldiers for military ends.A Thirst for Wine and War explores the French army’s emotional and behavioural conditioning of soldiers through the distribution of a mind-altering drug that was later hailed as one of the army’s “fathers of victory.” The daily wine ration arose from an unexpected set of factors including the demoralization of trench warfare, the wine industry’s fear of losing its main consumers, and medical consensus about the benefits of wine drinking. The army’s related practice of distributing distilled alcohol to embolden soldiers was a double-edged sword, as the men might become unruly. The army implemented regulations and surveillance networks to curb men’s drinking behind the lines, in an attempt to ensure they only drank when it was useful to the war effort. When morale collapsed in spring 1917, the army lost control of this precarious system as drunken soldiers mutinied in the thousands. Discipline was restored only when the army regained command of soldiers’ alcohol consumption.Drawing on a range of archives, personal narratives, and trench journals, A Thirst for Wine and War shows how the French army’s intoxication of its soldiers constituted a unique exercise of biopower deployed on a mass scale.Atrocity on the Atlantic: Attack on a Hospital Ship During the Great War
Par Nate Hendley. 2024
How a German submarine sank a Canadian military hospital ship during the First World War and sparked outrage.On the evening…
of June 27, 1918, the Llandovery Castle — an unarmed, clearly marked hospital ship used by the Canadian military — was torpedoed off the Irish Coast by U-Boat 86, a German submarine.Sinking hospital ships violated international law. To conceal his actions, the U-86 commander had the submarine deck guns fire on survivors. One lifeboat escaped with witnesses to the atrocity. Global outrage over the attack ensued.The sinking of the Llandovery Castle was adjudicated at the Leipzig War Crimes Trials, an attempt to establish justice after hostilities ceased. The Llandovery Castle case resulted in a historic legal precedent that guided subsequent war crime prosecutions, including the Nuremberg Trials.Atrocity on the Atlantic explores the Llandovery Castle sinking, the people impacted by the attack, and the reasons why this wartime atrocity was largely forgotten.John Lisle reveals the untold story of the OSS Research and Development Branch—The Dirty Tricks Department—and its role in World…
War II.In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D.C. When he arrived, he was led to a barren room where he waited to meet the man who had summoned him. After a disconcerting amount of time, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), walked in the door. “You know your Sherlock Holmes, of course,” Donovan said as an introduction. “Professor Moriarty is the man I want for my staff…I think you’re it.”Following this life-changing encounter, Lovell became the head of a secret group of scientists who developed dirty tricks for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Their inventions included Bat Bombs, suicide pills, fighting knives, silent pistols, and camouflaged explosives. Moreover, they forged documents for undercover agents, plotted the assassination of foreign leaders, and performed truth drug experiments on unsuspecting subjects.Based on extensive archival research and personal interviews, The Dirty Tricks Department tells the story of these scheming scientists, explores the moral dilemmas that they faced, and reveals their dark legacy of directly inspiring the most infamous program in CIA history: MKULTRA.The Road to Passchendaele: The Heroic Year in Soldiers' Own Words and Photographs
Par Richard Van Emden. 2017
Passchendaele is the next volume in the highly regarded series of books from the best-selling First World War historian Richard…
van Emden. Once again, using the winning formula of diaries and memoirs, and above all original photographs taken on illegally held cameras by the soldiers themselves, Richard tells the story of 1917, of life both in and out of the line culminating in perhaps the most dreaded battle of them all, the Battle of Passchendaele. His pervious book, The Somme, has now sold nearly 20,000 copies in hardback and softback, proving that the public appetite is undiminished for new, original stories illustrated with over 150 rarely or never-before-seen battlefield images. The author has an outstanding collection of over 5,000 privately taken and overwhelmingly unpublished photographs, revealing the war as it was seen by the men involved, an existence that was sometimes exhilarating, too often terrifying, and occasionally even fun. Richard van Emden interviewed 270 veterans of the Great War, has written extensively about the soldiers' lives, and has worked on many television documentaries, always concentrating on the human aspects of war, its challenge and its cost to the millions of men involved. This book will be published in June 2017, in time for the 100th anniversary of the epic Battle of Passchendaele which began on 31st July 1917 Richard van Emdens books sold over 650,000 books and have appeared in The Times bestseller chart on a number of occasions. He lives in West London and regularly appears on television, mostly recently as BBC1s historian for the national commemorations of the Somme Battle. He has appeared on over forty television documentaries and has written nineteen books on the First World War.Great Power Cyber Competition: Competing and Winning in the Information Environment (Routledge Advances in Defence Studies)
Par David V. Gioe, Margaret W. Smith. 2024
This volume conceptualizes the threats, challenges, opportunities, and boundaries of great power cyber competition of the 21st century. This book…
focuses on a key dimension of contemporary great power competition that is often less understood due to its intangible character: the competition taking place in the cyber domain, including information and cyber operations. Democracies across the globe find themselves in an unrelenting competition with peer and near-peer competitors, with a prevailing notion that no state is "safe" from the informational contest. Adversarial powers, particularly China and Russia, recognize that most competition is principally non-kinetic but dominates the information environment and cyberspace, and the volume articulates the Russian and Chinese strategies to elevate cyber and information competition to a central position. Western governments and, in particular, the U.S. government have long conceived of a war–peace duality, but that perspective is giving way to a more nuanced perception of competition. This volume goes beyond analyzing the problems prevalent in the information space and offers a roadmap for Western powers to compete in and protect the global information environment from malicious actors. Its genesis is rooted in the proposition that it is time for the West to push back against aggression and that it needs a relevant framework and tools to do so. The book demonstrates that Western democratic states currently lack both the strategic and intellectual acumen to compete and win in the information and cyber domains, and argues that the West needs a strategy to compete with near-peer powers in information and cyber warfare. This book will be of much interest to students of cyber-warfare, information warfare, defense studies, and international relations in general, as well as practitioners.Cashing Out: The Flight of Nazi Treasure, 1945–1948
Par Neill Lochery. 2023
When Nazis looked to flee Europe with stolen art, gems, and gold in tow, certain &“neutral&” countries were all too…
willing to assist them. By the end of January 1945, it was clear to Germany that the war was lost. The Third Reich was in freefall, and its leaders, apart from those clustered around Hitler in his Berlin bunker, sought to abscond before they were besieged. But they wanted to take their wealth with them. Their escape routes were diverse: Sweden and Switzerland boasted proximity, banking, and industrial closeness, while Spain and Portugal offered an inviting Atlantic coastline and shipping routes to South America. And in various ways, each of these so-called neutral nations welcomed the Nazi escapees, along with the clandestine wealth they carried. Cashing Out tells the riveting history of the race to intercept the stolen assets before they disappeared, and before the will to punish Germany was replaced by the political considerations of the fast-approaching Cold War. Bestselling author Neill Lochery here brilliantly recounts the flight of the Nazi-looted riches—the last great escape of World War II—and the Allied quest for justice.Ethical Hacking (Law, Technology and Media)
Par Alana Maurushat. 2019
How will governments and courts protect civil liberties in this new era of hacktivism? Ethical Hacking discusses the attendant moral…
and legal issues. The first part of the 21st century will likely go down in history as the era when ethical hackers opened governments and the line of transparency moved by force. One need only read the motto “we open governments” on the Twitter page for Wikileaks to gain a sense of the sea change that has occurred. Ethical hacking is the non-violent use of a technology in pursuit of a cause—political or otherwise—which is often legally and morally ambiguous. Hacktivists believe in two general but spirited principles: respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression and personal privacy; and the responsibility of government to be open, transparent and fully accountable to the public. How courts and governments will deal with hacking attempts which operate in a grey zone of the law and where different ethical views collide remains to be seen. What is undisputed is that Ethical Hacking presents a fundamental discussion of key societal questions. A fundamental discussion of key societal questions. This book is published in English. - La première moitié du XXIe siècle sera sans doute reconnue comme l’époque où le piratage éthique a ouvert de force les gouvernements, déplaçant les limites de la transparence. La page twitter de Wikileaks enchâsse cet ethos à même sa devise, « we open governments », et sa volonté d’être omniprésent. En parallèle, les grandes sociétés de technologie comme Apple se font compétition pour produire des produits de plus en plus sécuritaires et à protéger les données de leurs clients, alors même que les gouvernements tentent de limiter et de décrypter ces nouvelles technologies d’encryption. Entre-temps, le marché des vulnérabilités en matière de sécurité augmente à mesure que les experts en sécurité informatique vendent des vulnérabilités de logiciels des grandes technologies, dont Apple et Google, contre des sommes allant de 10 000 à 1,5 million de dollars. L’activisme en sécurité est à la hausse. Le piratage éthique est l’utilisation non-violence d’une technologie quelconque en soutien d’une cause politique ou autre qui est souvent ambigue d’un point de vue juridique et moral. Le hacking éthique peut désigner les actes de vérification de pénétration professionnelle ou d’experts en sécurité informatique, de même que d’autres formes d’actions émergentes, comme l’hacktivisme et la désobéissance civile en ligne. L’hacktivisme est une forme de piratage éthique, mais également une forme de militantisme des droits civils à l’ère numérique. En principe, les adeptes du hacktivisme croient en deux grands principes : le respect des droits de la personne et les libertés fondamentales, y compris la liberté d’expression et à la vie privée, et la responsabilité des gouvernements d’être ouverts, transparents et pleinement redevables au public. En pratique, toutefois, les antécédents comme les agendas des hacktivistes sont fort diversifiés. Il n’est pas clair de quelle façon les tribunaux et les gouvernements traiteront des tentatives de piratage eu égard aux zones grises juridiques, aux approches éthiques conflictuelles, et compte tenu du fait qu’il n’existe actuellement, dans le monde, presque aucune exception aux provisions, en matière de cybercrime et de crime informatique, liées à la recherche sur la sécurité ou l’intérêt public. Il sera également difficile de déterminer le lien entre hacktivisme et droits civils. Ce livre est publié en anglais.A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WWII's Most Dangerous Spy
Par Sonia Purnell. 2019
'A METICULOUS HISTORY THAT READS LIKE A THRILLER' BEN MACINTYRE, TEN BEST BOOKS TO READ ABOUT WORLD WAR II An…
astounding story of heroism, spycraft, resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity. 'A rousing tale of derring-do' THE TIMES * 'Riveting' MICK HERRON * 'Superb' IRISH TIMES THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn September 1941, a young American woman strides up the steps of a hotel in Lyon, Vichy France. Her papers say she is a journalist. Her wooden leg is disguised by a determined gait and a distracting beauty. She is there to spark the resistance.By 1942 Virginia Hall was the Gestapo's most urgent target, having infiltrated Vichy command, trained civilians in guerrilla warfare and sprung soldiers from Nazi prison camps. The first woman to go undercover for British SOE, her intelligence changed the course of the war - but her fight was still not over. This is a spy history like no other, telling the story of the hunting accident that disabled her, the discrimination she fought and the secret life that helped her triumph over shocking adversity.'A cracking story about an extraordinarily brave woman' TELEGRAPH'Gripping ... superb ... a rounded portrait of a complicated, resourceful, determined and above all brave woman' IRISH TIMESWINNER of the PLUTARCH AWARD FOR BEST BIOGRAPHY"Exceptional military history worthy of its heroic subject." —Matthew J. DavenportIn the vein of Band of Brothers and American Sniper, a…
riveting history of Alvin York, the World War I legend who killed two dozen Germans and captured more than 100, detailing York's heroics yet also restoring the unsung heroes of his patrol to their rightful place in history—from renowned World War I historian James Carl Nelson.October 8, 1918 was a banner day for heroes of the American Expeditionary Force. Thirteen men performed heroic deeds that would earn them Medals of Honor. Of this group, one man emerged as the single greatest American hero of the Great War: Alvin Cullum York. A poor young farmer from Tennessee, Sergeant York was said to have single-handedly killed two dozen Germans and captured another 132 of the enemy plus thirty-five machine guns before noon on that fateful Day of Valor. York would become an American legend, celebrated in magazines, books, and a blockbuster biopic starring Gary Cooper. The film, Sergeant York, told of a hell-raiser from backwoods Tennessee who had a come-to-Jesus moment, then wrestled with his newfound Christian convictions to become one of the greatest heroes the U.S. Army had ever known. It was a great story—but not the whole story.In this absorbing history, James Carl Nelson unspools, for the first time, the complete story of Alvin York and the events that occurred in the Argonne Forest on that day. Nelson gives voice, in particular, to the sixteen “others” who fought beside York. Hailing from big cities and small towns across the U.S. as well as several foreign countries, these soldiers included a patrician Connecticut farmer whose lineage could be traced back to the American Revolution, a poor runaway from Massachusetts who joined the Army under a false name, and a Polish immigrant who enlisted in hopes of expediting his citizenship. The York Patrol shines a long overdue spotlight on these men and York, and pays homage to their bravery and sacrifice. Illustrated with 25 black-and-white images, The York Patrol is a rousing tale of courage, tragedy, and heroism.An account of Germany's little known U-boat campaign against merchant shipping along the North American Atlantic coast during the first…
six months of 1942. It also documents the failure of the US Navy to meet the German attack.