History

  • Oil, Politics and Violence Nigeria's Military Coup Culture, 1966–1976

    Creator

    Siollun, Max

    Abstract

    The author names names, and explores how British influence aggravated indigenous rivalries. He shows how various factions in the military were able to hold onto power and resist civil and international pressure for democratic governance by exploiting the country's oil wealth and ethnic divisions to its advantage. Africa is more and more in the headlines as developed countries and China clash over the need for the continent's resources. Yet there are few serious books to help us understand any aspect of the never-ending cascade of wars and conflicts.

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  • A Ruinous and Unhappy War New England and the War of 1812

    Creator

    Ellis, James H.

    Abstract

    Anticipating the harm another war with England would bring, New England's regional leaders opposed it from the outset. Party politics played a major role. Federalists, dominant in the northeast, at every turn badgered and challenged the war policies of the administration and its majority Democratic Republican Party. New England's churchmen, still heavily influenced by Puritanism, railed against the ungodly actions of the national government. But economic issues proved to be a greater source of dissension. From earliest times, New England had been tied to the sea.

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  • Rules of Engagement? A Social Anatomy of an American War Crime Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq

    Creator

    Mestrovic, Stjepan G.

    Abstract

    Coalition and Iraqi troops raided an insurgent training camp southwest of Tikrit as part of Operation Iron Triangle May 9-11, 2006. After intelligence sources identified the 60-square-mile Muthana Chemical Complex, 200 soldiers from the fourth Iraqi Army Division and about 230 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division assaulted the complex. The operation resulted in the detention of 200 suspected terrorists and the confiscation of weapons and propaganda materials.

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  • Hatshepsut Queen of Sheba

    Creator

    Scott, Emmet

    Abstract

    Over the centuries the figure of the Queen of Sheba has loomed large in poetry and romance. The mysterious Queen, who is said to have visited Solomon in Jerusalem, has cast her spell over poets, painters and storytellers of many lands. The people of Ethiopia have always claimed her as her own, and to this day boast that her son Menelik fruit of the union between the Queen and Solomon stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple in Jerusalem after Solomon's death.

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  • George Westinghouse Gentle Genius

    Creator

    Skrabec, Quentin R.

    Abstract

    George Westinghouse's story is rich in drama and in breadth, a story of power, city building, and applying the Golden Rule in business. His biography intersects with those of many great personalities of the Gilded Age, such as J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie, the Mellon Family, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Nikola Tesla. One of the most successful industrialists in America, George Westinghouse was a wizard who took a much different approach than Thomas Edison. Westinghouse became a manager of innovation.

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  • William McKinley Apostle of Protectionism

    Creator

    Skrabec, Quentin R.

    Abstract

    William McKinley was the first U.S. president to address globalization; his legacy in protectionism and immigrant labor offer lessons for the current era. He orchestrated an alliance between big business and the American worker that ushered in one of the greatest periods of growth ever known in the U.S. economy. Yet McKinley has been in the shadow of his successor Theodore Roosevelt for over a hundred years. As Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, McKinley had forged a tariff bill in 1888 that united a nation that was still divided between North and South, East and West.

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  • Memoirs of a Cold Warrior The Struggle for Nuclear Parity

    Creator

    Carpenter, Lee

    Abstract

    A defense analyst who served on the front lines of the struggle for military parity, the author was intensely engaged in the efforts of the U.S. technical, military and diplomatic communities to assess, counter and of course to seek to outperform the Soviet Union from 1952 to 1989. His studies, tested by many and refuted by none, show that the Soviets had established overwhelming strategic military superiority in the 1970s and 1980s. His analyses of planned U.S.

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  • Neutral Ground A Political History of Espionage Fiction

    Creator

    Woods, Brett F.

    Abstract

    Espionage fiction is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the literate world and, since its widespread acceptance in the early 20th century, it has sought to pursue the secret politics of Western social order. Drawn from reality, exposing what is generally concealed, it provides a unique glimpse into the darker, more conspiratorial affairs of state through the use of fictional covert actions, double agents, treason, and international intrigues.

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  • A Dimly Burning Wick Memoir From the Ruins of Hiroshima

    Creator

    Okuda, Sadako Teiko

    Vergun, Pamela Bea Wilson

    Abstract

    Sadako Okuda was a sewing teacher on a small island some 35 miles outside of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. At the heart of A Dimly Burning Wick is her searing diary recording the final moments of dying civilians and their distinctive perspective on this horrific event. The first part of the book presents a series of immediate, sickening and amazing impressions as the sufferers extend gestures of enormous humanity and generosity amid hell-like conditions.

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  • The Ramessides, Medes and Persians Volume Four, Ages in Alignment Series / Volume 4

    Creator

    Sweeney, Emmet

    Abstract

    Ages in Alignment argues for a complete reconstruction of ancient chronology. The histories of the Near Eastern civilizations are now believed to have commenced around 3300 BC, about 2,000 years before those of China and the New World. Yet Ages in Alignment demonstrates that the Near Eastern cultures had no 2,000-year head start. All the ancient civilizations arose simultaneously around 1100 BC, in the wake of a terrible natural catastrophe recalled in legend as the Flood, or Deluge.

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