Maria Beasley and life rafts

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Hiroshi Masuda

"General Douglas MacArthur's storied career is inextricably linked to Asia. His father, Arthur, served as Military Governor of the Philippines while Douglas was a student at West Point, and the younger MacArthur would serve several tours of duty in that country over the next four decades, becoming friends with several influential Filipinos, including the country's future president, Emanuel L. Quezon. In 1935, he became Quezon's military advisor, a post he held after retiring from the U.S. Army and at the time of Japan's invasion of 1941. As Supreme Commander for the Southwest Pacific, MacArthur led American forces throughout the Pacific War. He officially accepted Japan's surrender in 1945 and would later oversee the Allied occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. He then led the UN Command in the Korean War from 1950 to 1951, until he was dismissed from his post by President Truman. In MacArthur in Asia, the distinguished Japanese historian Hiroshi Masuda offers a new perspective on the American icon, focusing on his experiences in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea and highlighting the importance of the general's staff - the famous "Bataan Boys" who served alongside MacArthur throughout the Asian arc of his career - to both MacArthur's and the region's history. First published to wide acclaim in Japanese in 2009 and translated into English for the first time, this book uses a wide range of sources - American and Japanese, official records and oral histories - to present a complex view of MacArthur, one that illuminates his military decisions during the Pacific campaign and his administration of the Japanese Occupation."--pub. desc.

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Peter Hanson

"When Steven Soderbergh exploded onto the movie screen with sex, lies, and videotape in 1989, it represented more than the arrival of an important new director - it represented the arrival of an entire generation of important new directors. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), Kevin Smith (Dogma), David Fincher (Fight Club), M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), Ben Stiller (Reality Bites), Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor), and dozens of others are all Generation Xers, the much talked about but much misunderstood successors to baby boomers.". "This book is a critical study of the films directed by Generation Xers and how those directors have been influenced by their generational identity. Topics include the influence of popular culture, postmodern narrative devices, "slackerdom" and the lack of direction, disenfranchisement and nihilism, the ever-evolving role of technology, gender issues and sexuality, the question of race, international peers, the influence of older filmmakers, and visions for the future."--BOOK JACKET.

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Stuart Stirling

"Francisco Pizarro is possibly one of the best known but least understood figures of world history. In 1530, at the age of fifty-four, he set out on his successful and bloody conquest of Peru, thus changing the future of a continent and its peoples forever. It was a long way from his humble beginnings as an illiterate, illegitimate pig-herder. Within these pages Stuart Stirling tells the story of adversity and tragedy which was the life of Francisco Pizarro.". "By the standards of the time, Pizarro was an elderly man when he conquered Peru. He had served as a foot soldier in Spain's Italian wars and later earned a living as an Indian fighter and slaver. Audacious, ruthless and cruel, Pizarro had a surprising and almost fatalistic belief in the Indies as an escape from his illegitimacy. Luck also played a major part in his invasion of Peru - Pizarro's 200 men should not have been able to defeat the indigenous army of more than 30,000, but they did. However, the Spanish conquest saw few happy endings, even for Pizarro, who was now rich beyond his wildest dreams. Eleven years after the conquest, he was assassinated by his one-time Spanish allies.". "Stuart Stirling's researches in the Archives of the Indies in Seville enable him to present an accurate portrait of Pizarro as a man of his time, and to place even his most infamous act - the killing of the Inca king Atahualpa - within context. This book brings the man to life against a turbulent background of exploration, discovery, empire building and a clash of cultures."--BOOK JACKET.

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William F. McConnell

He was acclaimed by his contemporaries as an outstanding Civil War military leader, and his troops possibly saved the nation's capital from capture. Often confused with another Reno, who was part of the Little Big Horn expedition, Major General Jesse Lee Reno was, in fact, a true hero of two of America's wars. After his death, the cities of Reno, Nevada and El Reno, Oklahoma were named in his honor. He led two future presidents in battle and threatened to place one of them in irons. He was a friend of West Point classmate Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, but later fought him in two battles. Whether friend's or foe's bullet caused his death in 1862 has long been a matter of controversy among historians. He was buried with a famous Barbara Fritchie flag. These, and his many other achievements would seem to be the attributes for lasting fame, but it was not to be. Jesse Lee Reno is now nearly forgotten except for a few scholars and researchers. This biography is an attempt to illuminate the often overlooked accomplishments of this American hero. "Remember Reno" was shouted by his soldiers at the Battle of Antietam as they stormed across Burnside Bridge.