"From thunderous broadsides traded between wooden sailing ships on Lake Erie, to the carrier battles of World War II, to the devastating high-tech action in the Persian Gulf, here is a gripping history of five key battles that defined the evolution of naval warfare-and the course of the American nation. Acclaimed military historian Craig Symonds offers spellbinding narratives of crucial engagements, showing how each battle reveals the transformation of technology and weaponry from one war to the next; how these in turn transformed naval combat; and how each event marked a milestone in American history. Oliver Hazard Perry's heroic victory at Lake Erie, one of the last great battles of the Age of Sail, which secured the Northwestern frontier for the United States The brutal Civil War duel between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia, which sounded the death knell for wooden-hulled warships and doomed the Confederacy's hope of besting the Union navy Commodore Dewey's stunning triumph at Manila Bay in 1898, where the U.S. displayed its "new navy" of steel-hulled ships firing explosive shells and wrested an empire from a fading European power The hairsbreadth American victory at Midway, where aircraft carriers launched planes against enemies 200 miles away-and where the tide of World War II turned in the space of a few furious minutes Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf, where computers, ship-fired missiles, and "smart bombs" not only changed the nature of warfare at sea, but also marked a new era, and a new responsibility, for the United States. Symonds records these encounters in detail so vivid that readers can hear the wind in the rigging and feel the pounding of the guns. Yet he places every battle in a wide perspective, revealing their significance to America's development as it grew from a new Republic on the edge of a threatening frontier to a global superpower. Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives-and the fate of nations-hanging in the balance."
The fascinating story of the most powerful source of energy the earth can yieldUranium is a common element in the earth’s crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order—whoever could master uranium could master the world.Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse. Slave labor camps in Africa and Eastern Europe were built around mine shafts and America would knowingly send more than six hundred uranium miners to their graves in the name of national security.Fortunes have been made from this yellow dirt; massive energy grids have been run from it. Fear of it panicked the American people into supporting a questionable war with Iraq and its specter threatens to create another conflict in Iran. Now, some are hoping it can help avoid a global warming catastrophe.In Uranium, Tom Zoellner takes readers around the globe in this intriguing look at the mineral that can sustain life or destroy it.
"In the 25 years since its original publication, But for the Lovers has acquired an underground reputation as one of the most remarkable novels about World War II, doing for the Pacific war theater what Joseph Heller's Catch-22 did for the European one. Set in the Philippines, But for the Lovers depicts the survival of a cross-section of Filipinos during the Japanese Occupation and the American Liberation. The cast is enormous, including an old man who used to wander the countryside entertaining children, a young girl raped by Japanese soldiers, guerrilla messengers bringing word of the coming of the American army, and a Japanese major who views the war as the first step of the liberation of the Asian people from Western civilization."--BOOK JACKET. "This extraordinary novel is no less remarkable for the power and the beauty of its language than for the exotic and magical world it creates. Ranging from hallucinatory lyricism to documentary realism, from black humor sketches to scenes of horror and degradation, But for the Lovers is a rich and complex exploration of language, history, and mythology. The hardcover edition (Dutton, 1970) was praised by the New York Times Book Review as "stunning"; this is the first paperback edition, for which novelist Robert Coover has written an appreciative foreword."--BOOK JACKET.
Nearly half of all Americans now reside in suburbia. Lured by the prospect of the "golden mean" of city and country, privacy and community, nature and designed space, city dwellers, for more than a century, have been fleeing the crush of urban life in greater and greater numbers for suburban developments. Unfortunately, the American suburb has rarely succeeded in delivering on its promise of the "best of both worlds," with a more intimate sense of community and enhanced personal freedom. Yard Street Park was designed to help suburban community designers and planners deliver on the traditional promise of the best of both worlds. The authors take a hard look at more than a century of suburban planning and reconsider aspects of most developer-designed suburbs. They offer design alternatives based on open space planning methods that can be applied to new or existing developments to transform them into sustainable, livable communities. A central feature of the authors' planning approach is a comprehensive system of open space networks linking the private world of yards to parks and commons of all scales - from neighborhood tot lots, to local and regional park systems - well-connected by greenways and streets designed for pedestrian and bike traffic. In their explorations of the problems inherent to most suburban developments, Professors Girling and Helphand take a broad historical perspective. They critically examine various planning theories and bring to light the historical roots of modern suburbia, including nineteenth- and early twentieth-century and post-World War II developments, such as Riverside, Garden Cities, Radburn, and Levittown. They also analyze a number of "classic" successes such as Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland. They closely examine new trends in suburban design to see what lessons can be learned from Technoburbs like Irvine, California and Scottsdale, Arizona, Ecoburbs such as The Woodlands in Texas and Village Homes in Davis, California, and the neotraditional communities designed by Calthorpe and Duany/Plater-Zyberk. Offering the prospect of a fresh start for suburban communities, Yard Street Park is a valuable resource for landscape architects, architects, planners, and developers.
"By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: what kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world's leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, Citino charts the inevitable path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a 'war of movement,' inexorably led to Nazi Germany's defeat. The Wehrmacht's Last Stand analyzes the German Totenritt, or 'death ride,' from January 1944--with simultaneous Allied offensives at Anzio and Ukraine--until May 1945, the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the field, and the Soviet storming of Berlin. In clear and compelling prose, and bringing extensive reading of the German-language literature to bear, Citino focuses on the German view of these campaigns. Often very different from the Allied perspective, this approach allows for a more nuanced and far-reaching understanding of the last battles of the Wehrmacht than any now available. With Citino's previous volumes, Death of the Wehrmacht and The Wehrmacht Retreats, The Wehrmacht's Last Stand completes a uniquely comprehensive picture of the German army's strategy, operations, and performance against the Allies in World War II"--Dust jacket flap.
Decision at Sea by Craig L. Symonds | Literally Just Books
