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The War at the Shore: Donald Trump, Steve Wynn, and the Epic Battle to Save Atlantic City
by Richard D. Bronson Andrew Meisler A. M. Silver“With Trump and Wynn, Skip Bronson nails the drama and muscle of a Super Bowl Sunday . . . A manual of strategy and tactics, smeared with sweat and blood” (Steve Tisch, chairman of the New York Giants). From 1995 to 2000, two of the world’s best-known companies―Mirage Resorts and Trump Resorts―run by two of the most flamboyant businessmen of our time, fought a bare-knuckled, high-stakes battle over a prime piece of real estate in one of America’s most famous resort towns. No money was spared, no punch was pulled, no invective went unhurled in what became known as “The War at the Shore.” Now Bronson, who was a member of the board of directors of the Mirage and president of New City Development Company, the Mirage subsidiary whose primary purpose was to build a top-level new casino and hotel complex in Atlantic City, tells the inside story of this epic struggle. Along the way, Bronson weaves in fascinating and inspiring anecdotes from his complicated past. Gripping from beginning to end, The War at the Shore is a rare up-close look at the world of casino development and the essential modern chapter in the history of America’s “Boardwalk Empire.” “Two powerful personalities clash in this first-hand account of Steve Wynn’s bid to open a new casino on Donald Trump’s turf. . . . An engaging insider’s account of the down-and-dirty machinations that go into high-stakes real estate development.” —Kirkus Reviews “Marked by casinos, boardrooms, and double-dealings, Bronson’s account is a vivid portrayal of Atlantic City’s revitalization.” —LA Confidential “What an amazing backstage look into the world of casinos, moguls and politics.” —Peter Morton, chairman & founder of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Hard Rock Cafes
The War for Gaul: A New Translation
by Julius CaesarA new translation that captures the gripping power of one of the greatest war stories ever told—Julius Caesar’s pitiless account of his brutal campaign to conquer GaulImagine a book about an unnecessary war written by the ruthless general of an occupying army—a vivid and dramatic propaganda piece that forces the reader to identify with the conquerors and that is designed, like the war itself, to fuel the limitless political ambitions of the author. Could such a campaign autobiography ever be a great work of literature—perhaps even one of the greatest? It would be easy to think not, but such a book exists—and it helped transform Julius Caesar from a politician on the make into the Caesar of legend. <P><P>This remarkable new translation of Caesar’s famous but underappreciated War for Gaul captures, like never before in English, the gripping and powerfully concise style of the future emperor’s dispatches from the front lines in what are today France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. <P><P>While letting Caesar tell his battle stories in his own way, distinguished classicist James O’Donnell also fills in the rest of the story in a substantial introduction and notes that together explain why Gaul is the “best bad man’s book ever written”—a great book in which a genuinely bad person offers a bald-faced, amoral description of just how bad he has been. <P><P>Complete with a chronology, a map of Gaul, suggestions for further reading, and an index, this feature-rich edition captures the forceful austerity of a troubling yet magnificent classic—a book that, as O’Donnell says, “gets war exactly right and morals exactly wrong.”
The War in the Peninsula and Recollections of the Storming of the Castle of Badajos: Some Letters of a Lancashire Officer
by Ian Fletcher Robert Knowles Captain MacCarthy MacCarthyLieutenant Knowles served in the 7th (Royal) Fusiliers 1811-1813, seeing action in several battles, being wounded at the storming of Badajoz and at the battle of Salamanca. He was killed at Roncesvalles on 25 July 1813 during the Battle of the Pyrenees. By combining the overall picture as painted by Lt Knowles with the specific, bloody narrative of the storming of the Castle by Captain MacCarthy in one volume, this work is not only fantastic value for money but also offers the discerning reader a whole new perspective on the campaign. What did these two men – of different temperaments – make of events? Wellington had watched helplessly at Badajos as the flower of his army was smashed against the ramparts of Badajos: the 4th and Light Divisions attacked no less than 40 times. When they finally succeeded, an orgy of rape, pillage and destruction followed that even the Iron Duke could not quell. What did both men have to say about this? Both of these rare classics are essential reading for students of the period.
The War of Our Childhood: Memories of World War II
by Colonel Wolfgang W. SamuelOne survivor tells of the fire-bombing of Dresden. Another survivor recounts the pervasive fear of marauding Russian and Czech bandits raping and killing. Children recall fathers who were only photographs and mothers who were saviors and heroes. These are typical in the stories collected in The War of Our Childhood: Memories of World War II. For this book Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, a childhood refugee himself after the fall of Nazi Germany, interviewed twenty-seven men and women who as children—by chance and sheer resilience—survived Allied bombs, invading armies, hunger, and chaos. “Our eyes carried no hate, only recognition of what was,” Samuel writes of his childhood. “Peace was an abstraction. The world we Kinder knew nearly always had the word ‘war’ appended to it.” Samuel's heartfelt narratives from these innocent survivors are invariably riveting and often terrifying. Each engrossing story has perilous and tragic moments—school children in Leuna who are sent home during an air raid but are strafed as moving targets; fathers who exist only as distant figures, returning to their families long after the war—or not at all; mothers who are raped and tortured; families who are forced into a seemingly endless relocation that replicates the terrors of war itself. In capturing such experiences from nearly every region of Germany and involving people of every socio-economic class, this is a collection of unique memories, but each account contributes to a cumulative understanding of the war that is more personal than strategic surveys and histories. For Samuel and the survivors he interviewed, agony and fright were part of everyday life, just as were play, wondrous experience, and above all perseverance. “My focus,” Samuel writes, “is on the astounding ability of a generation of German children to emerge from debilitating circumstances as sane and productive human beings.”
The War of the Motor Gun Boats: One Man's Personal War at Sea with the Coastal Forces, 1943–1945
by A. J. ChapmanTony Chapman was born in Southampton in 1924. Aged 16 he watched with horror as the historic High Street of Southampton burnt to the ground in a firestorm caused by a heavy German bombing raid on the night of 30 November 1940. He vowed to join up and fight back. Tony joined the Navy.Within hours of being posted to his first Motor Gun Boat, Telegraphist Tony Chapman was involved in an epic Coastal Forces engagement when his flotilla took on a force of thirty E-boats. Although their unit of two MGBs sank three E-Boats, it was at a high cost. Half of Tony's shipmates were killed or injured.This was the start of an eventful and dramatic wartime service with these little warships. Tony's flotilla operated in the Mediterranean and Aegean where the Motor Gun Boats played a key role in this important but often neglected theatre.rnDaily life on these small ships is vividly described. The flotilla had a busy time showing the flag in the Levant and on combined operations in the Aegean with the Greek Sacred Regiment of Commandos. The culmination of their efforts was when Tony's boat, ML838, took the surrender of the Island of Kos in 1945.rnrnWritten from the perspective of one of the other ranks, War of the Motor Gun Boats fills an important gap in the literature of the Second World War.As featured in the North Devon Journal and Exmoor Magazine.
The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free
by Pete HegsethReal men fought for our freedoms. It’s time we fought for theirs. <P><P> Pete Hegseth joined the Army to fight extremists. Then that same Army called him one. The military Pete joined twenty years ago was fiercely focused on lethality, competency, and color blindness. Today our brass are following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness. <P><P> Americans with common sense are fighting this on many fronts, but if we can’t save the meritocracy of our military, we’re definitely going to lose everywhere else. <P><P> The War on Warriors uncovers the deep roots of our dysfunction—a society that has forgotten the men who take risks, cut through red tape, and get their hands dirty. The only kind of men prepared to face the dangers that the Left pretends don’t exist. Unlike issues of education or taxes or crime, this problem doesn’t have a zip code solution. We can’t move away from it. We can’t avoid it. We have only one Pentagon. Either we take it back or surrender it altogether. <P><P> Combining his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked, this book is the key to saving our warriors—and winning future wars. The War on Warriors must be won by the good guys, because when the shooting really starts, they’re the only ones who can save us. <p> <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>
The War with Hannibal (Books XXI-XXX of the History of Rome from its Foundation)
by Titus LivyThe author gives us a chronological account about the events of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage. Translated by Aubrey De Selincourt.
The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family
by Ron ChernowBankers, philanthropists, scholars, socialites, artists, and politicians, the Warburgs stood at the pinnacle of German (and, later, of German-American) Jewry. They forged economic dynasties, built mansions and estates, assembled libraries, endowed charities, and advised a German kaiser and two American presidents. But their very success made the Warburgs lightning rods for anti-Semitism, and their sense of patriotism became increasingly dangerous in a Germany that had declared Jews the enemy.Ron Chernow's hugely fascinating history is a group portrait of a clan whose members were renowned for their brilliance, culture, and personal energy yet tragically vulnerable to the dark and irrational currents of the twentieth century.
The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency
by Jeremy LottWhat do you know about America’s vice presidents? An “altogether amusing” history filled with oft-forgotten names and fascinating anecdotes (AV Club).How many vice presidents went on to become president?How many vice presidents shot men while in office? Who was the better shot?Who was the first vice president to assume power when a president died? Why did he return official letters without reading them?What vice president was almost torn limb from limb in Venezuela?Which former VP was tried for treason for trying to start his own empire in the Southwest?How many vice presidents were assassinated?In the next presidential election, should you worry about the candidates for vice president?The vice presidency isn’t worth “a bucket of warm spit.” That’s the prudish version of what John Nance Garner had to say about the office—several years after serving as VP under FDR. Was he right? The vice presidency is one of America’s most historically complicated and underappreciated public offices. And Jeremy Lott’s sweeping, hilarious, and insightful history introduces the unusual, colorful, and sometimes shadowy cast of characters that have occupied it—their bitter rivalries and rank ambitions, glorious victories and tragic setbacks, revealed through hundreds of historical vignettes and drawn from extensive research and interviews. “Full of rich veep history.” —Baltimore Sun
The Warrior
by Frances RicheyA "heart-rending"(Anna Quindlen, Newsweek) memoir-in-verse that speaks to a mother's love for her son When Frances Richey's only child, Ben, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a Green Beret, went on the first of his two deployments to Iraq, she began to write the twenty-eight unflinching poems that make up The Warrior. This urgent and intensely personal collection describes the world of those who wait while their loved ones are in combat or perilous situations; it is universal in its expression of the longing, anguish, love, and hope that constitute close relationships.
The Warrior Code: 11 Principles to Unleash the Badass Inside of You
by Denene Millner Tee Marie HanibleFrom American Grit co-star, former Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tee Marie Hanible comes the story of how she became a warrior...and how you can do it, too.In The Warrior Code, entrepreneur, philanthropist, reality star, and retired Gunnery Sergeant Tee Marie Hanible serves up eleven principles to awaken your inner badass and thrive in the face of adversity.After surviving the death of her father, enduring foster care, and being expelled from school, Tee joined military reform school, where she began uncovering her inner warrior. As part of one of the first female classes of recruits to complete the Marine Corps Crucible and the Marine Combat Training, and as the only woman to deploy with her unit to Iraq in 2003, Tee tested her mettle and learned the key to becoming an unbreakable woman. With insightful honesty and wisdom, and set against the backdrop of Tee’s life, The Warrior Code will help you understand that things can beat us back from realizing our true potential...but the key is finding the way to realize one’s own innate strength.
The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228
by Dick CouchWith a postscript describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan, The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and most relentless military training in the world.What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men with character, courage, and the burning desire to win at all costs, men who would rather die than quit.
The Warrior Generals: Winning the British Civil Wars
by Malcolm WanklynIn this bold history of the men who directed and determined the outcome of the mid-seventeenth-century British wars--from Cromwell, Fairfax, and Essex to many more lesser-known figures--military historian Malcolm Wanklyn offers the first assessment of leadership and the importance of command in the civil wars.
The Warrior King: Hawaii's Kamehameha the Great
by Richard TregaskisThe classic, full-length biography of Hawaii&’s first king by the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of Guadalcanal Diary. King Kamehameha I is the most monumental figure in Hawaiian history. A glorious warrior, a wise diplomat, and a keen administrator, he established peace among warring tribes and was the first Polynesian ruler to conquer, unite, and rule over all the Hawaiian Islands. He grew to be a giant of a man at six feet, six inches, and his natural athletic and amorous prowess could not be denied. Kamehameha epitomized the highest Hawaiian values of pure beauty, freedom, and power. In The Warrior King, author Richard Tregaskis threads his way through legend and history to recreate the life of Kamehameha. He recounts the king&’s youth spent in exile and his exciting career as a leader and fighter in bloody battles featuring hand-to-hand combat and cannons. He examines Kamehameha&’s stormy love life, including his twenty-two wives, his fifty children, and his marriage to his most beloved queen, Ka&‘ahumanu. Through it all, Kamehameha remained faithful to the mores of his culture and religion, even as native Hawaiian life changed with the arrival of Europeans and Americans. First published in 1973, this colorful and compelling biography captures the life and achievements of the legendary young man who fulfilled prophecy by moving the Naha Stone, a massive black lava rock that foretold the coming of a great king, and went on to unite his people.
The Warrior's Heart: Becoming a Man of Compassion and Courage
by Eric Greitens Navy SEALIn this adaptation of his best-selling book, The Heart and the Fist, Eric speaks directly to teen readers, interweaving memoir and intimate second-person narratives that ask the reader to put themselves in the shoes of himself and others. Readers will share in Eric's evolution from average kid to globe-traveling humanitarian to warrior, training and serving with the most elite military outfit in the world: the Navy SEALs. Along the way, they'll be asked to consider the power of choices, of making the decision each and every day to act with courage and compassion so that they grow to be tomorrow's heroes. Sure to inspire and motivate.
The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History)
by Kate FullagarA portrait of empire through the biographies of a Native American, a Pacific Islander, and the British artist who painted them both Three interconnected eighteenth-century lives offer a fresh account of the British Empire and its intrusion into Indigenous societies. This engaging history brings together the stories of Joshua Reynolds and two Indigenous men, the Cherokee Ostenaco and the Raiatean Mai. Fullagar uncovers the life of Ostenaco, tracing his emergence as a warrior, his engagement with colonists through war and peace, and his eventual rejection of imperial politics during the American Revolution. She delves into the story of Mai, his confrontation with conquest and displacement, his voyage to London on Cook’s imperial expedition, and his return home with a burning ambition to right past wrongs. Woven throughout is a new history of Reynolds, growing up in Devon near a key port in England, becoming a portraitist of empire, rising to the top of Britain’s art world and yet remaining ambivalent about his nation’s expansionist trajectory.
The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay
by Christopher ClareyFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Master comes an intimate biography of tennis&’s enduring champion Rafael Nadal. In The Warrior, Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal&’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Open titles on cushioned acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game&’s playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his tactical skills, whipping topspin forehand and gladiatorial mindset. Clay is to Rafael Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps, which helps explain one of the most impressive individual sports achievements of the 21st century. Clarey draws on interviews over many years with Nadal and his team and with rivals like Roger Federer. Not just a book about tennis, The Warrior draws much wider lessons from Nadal&’s approach to competition.
The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay
by Christopher ClareyFrom the bestselling author of The Master, longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.An intimate, original biography of tennis legend Rafael Nadal, and the first to cover his entire career.After his award-winning look at Roger Federer, Christopher Clarey, one of the world's pre-eminent tennis writers, focuses his lens on Nadal, the Spanish force of nature. When he arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for men's singles titles at the French Open stood at six. Nadal more than doubled that total to a mind-blowing fourteen titles: one of the greatest sporting achievements in history. Nadal won big and won often on all of tennis's surfaces: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and six on the US Open and Australian Open hard courts. But clay, the grittiest of the game's playgrounds, is where it all came together best for his whipping forehand and warrior mindset. Clarey, who has covered Nadal since he was seventeen, draws on interviews over twenty years with Nadal, his team and rivals like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the story of a global sporting icon, interlacing man and place in a unique, must-read account of the evolution of excellence.
The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay
by Christopher ClareyFrom the bestselling author of The Master, longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.An intimate, original biography of tennis legend Rafael Nadal, and the first to cover his entire career.After his award-winning look at Roger Federer, Christopher Clarey, one of the world's pre-eminent tennis writers, focuses his lens on Nadal, the Spanish force of nature. When he arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for men's singles titles at the French Open stood at six. Nadal more than doubled that total to a mind-blowing fourteen titles: one of the greatest sporting achievements in history. Nadal won big and won often on all of tennis's surfaces: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and six on the US Open and Australian Open hard courts. But clay, the grittiest of the game's playgrounds, is where it all came together best for his whipping forehand and warrior mindset. Clarey, who has covered Nadal since he was seventeen, draws on interviews over twenty years with Nadal, his team and rivals like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the story of a global sporting icon, interlacing man and place in a unique, must-read account of the evolution of excellence.
The Wars of Watergate
by Stanley I. KutlerThis is the first truly comprehensive history of the political explosion that shook America in the 1970s, and whose aftereffects are still being felt in public life today. Drawing on contemporary documents, personal interviews, memoirs, and a vast quantity of new material, Stanley Kutler shows how President Nixon's obstruction of justice from the White House capped a pattern of abuse that marked his entire tenure in office. He makes clear how the drama of Watergate is rooted not only in the tumultuous events and social tensions of the 1960s but also in the personality and history of Richard Nixon. Kutler examines Nixon's confrontations with the institutions he feared and resented--the Congress, the federal agencies, the news media, the Washington establishment--and how they mobilized to topple the President. He considers the arguments of Nixon's defenders, who insisted that Watergate was a minor affair, and the contention that the President did nothing worse than his predecessors had done. He offers compelling portraits of the President's men--H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, Charles Colson, John Dean; of his adversaries--Judge John Sirica, the U.S. Attorneys, Special Prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski; and of the legislators who would stand in judgment--Sam Ervin and Peter Rodino. In the course of his engrossing narrative, Stanley Kutler illuminates the constitutional crisis brought on by Watergate. He shows how Watergate diminished the moral level of American political life, and illustrates its continuing detrimental impact on the credibility, authority, and prestige of the Presidency in particular and the government in general. His book underlines for the American electorate the significance of Watergate for the future of our political ethics and the maintenance of our constitutional system, as well as for the place of Richard Nixon in American history.
The Wars of the Roosevelts: The Ruthless Rise of America's Greatest Political Family
by William J. MannThe award-winning author presents a provocative, thoroughly modern revisionist biographical history of one of America’s greatest and most influential families—the Roosevelts—exposing heretofore unknown family secrets and detailing complex family rivalries with his signature cinematic flair.Drawing on previously hidden historical documents and interviews with the long-silent "illegitimate" branch of the family, William J. Mann paints an elegant, meticulously researched, and groundbreaking group portrait of this legendary family. Mann argues that the Roosevelts’ rise to power and prestige was actually driven by a series of intense personal contest that at times devolved into blood sport. His compelling and eye-opening masterwork is the story of a family at war with itself, of social Darwinism at its most ruthless—in which the strong devoured the weak and repudiated the inconvenient. Mann focuses on Eleanor Roosevelt, who, he argues, experienced this brutality firsthand, witnessing her Uncle Theodore cruelly destroy her father, Elliott—his brother and bitter rival—for political expediency. Mann presents a fascinating alternate picture of Eleanor, contending that this "worshipful niece" in fact bore a grudge against TR for the rest of her life, and dares to tell the truth about her intimate relationships without obfuscations, explanations, or labels.Mann also brings into focus Eleanor’s cousins, TR’s children, whose stories propelled the family rivalry but have never before been fully chronicled, as well as her illegitimate half-brother, Elliott Roosevelt Mann, who inherited his family’s ambition and skill without their name and privilege. Growing up in poverty just miles from his wealthy relatives, Elliott Mann embodied the American Dream, rising to middle-class prosperity and enjoying one of the very few happy, long-term marriages in the Roosevelt saga. For the first time, The Wars of the Roosevelts also includes the stories of Elliott’s daughter and grandchildren, and never-before-seen photographs from their archives.Deeply psychological and finely rendered, illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photographs, The Wars of the Roosevelts illuminates not only the enviable strengths but also the profound shame of this remarkable and influential family.
The Wars of the Roses
by Antonia Fraser Anthony CheethamEach of these lavishly illustrated books serves up a brief and manageable portion of the Fraser-edited and much-touted Lives of the Kings and Queens of England. A set of six jewels for Fraser's crown.
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
by Dan JonesThe author of the New York Times bestseller The Plantagenets chronicles the next chapter in British history--the historical backdrop for Game of ThronesThe crown of England changed hands five times over the course of the fifteenth century, as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. In this riveting follow-up to The Plantagenets, celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest-reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors.Some of the greatest heroes and villains of history were thrown together in these turbulent times, from Joan of Arc to Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt marked the high point of the medieval monarchy, and Richard III, who murdered his own nephews in a desperate bid to secure his stolen crown. This was a period when headstrong queens and consorts seized power and bent men to their will. With vivid descriptions of the battles of Towton and Bosworth, where the last Plantagenet king was slain, this dramatic narrative history revels in bedlam and intrigue. It also offers a long-overdue corrective to Tudor propaganda, dismantling their self-serving account of what they called the Wars of the Roses.
The Wars of the Roses: The Wars Of The Roses
by Alison WeirLancaster and York. For much of the fifteenth century, these two families were locked in battle for control of the British monarchy. Kings were murdered and deposed. Armies marched on London. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. The war between the royal House of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy. In The Wars of the Roses, Alison Weir reconstructs this conflict with the same dramatic flair and impeccable research that she brought to her highly praised The Princes in the Tower.The first battle erupted in 1455, but the roots of the conflict reached back to the dawn of the fifteenth century, when the corrupt, hedonistic Richard II was sadistically murdered, and Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, seized England's throne. Both Henry IV and his son, the cold warrior Henry V, ruled England ably, if not always wisely--but Henry VI proved a disaster, both for his dynasty and his kingdom. Only nine months old when his father's sudden death made him king, Henry VI became a tormented and pathetic figure, weak, sexually inept, and prey to fits of insanity. The factional fighting that plagued his reign escalated into bloody war when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, laid claim to the throne that was rightfully his--and backed up his claim with armed might.Alison Weir brings brilliantly to life both the war itself and the historic figures who fought it on the great stage of England. Here are the queens who changed history through their actions--the chic, unconventional Katherine of Valois, Henry V's queen; the ruthless, social-climbing Elizabeth Wydville; and, most crucially, Margaret of Anjou, a far tougher and more powerful character than her husband,, Henry VI, and a central figure in the Wars of the Roses.Here, too, are the nobles who carried the conflict down through the generations--the Beauforts, the bastard descendants of John of Gaunt, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known to his contemporaries as "the Kingmaker"; and the Yorkist King, Edward IV, a ruthless charmer who pledged his life to cause the downfall of the House of Lancaster.The Wars of the Roses is history at its very best--swift and compelling, rich in character, pageantry, and drama, and vivid in its re-creation of an astonishing, dangerous, and often grim period of history. Alison Weir, one of the foremost authorities on the British royal family, demonstrates here that she is also one of the most dazzling stylists writing history today.
The Wartime Irish Marine Service: The first-hand experiences of broadcaster Norris Davidson
by Daire Brunicardi‘It was a farewell to all my pleasant life, a farewell to the enjoyment of summer. My theme was that we were all about to undergo a change. The hills and the streams would remain, the sun would set as redly on the western sea, but they would not ever be quite the same for us again.’In the 1930s, Norris Davidson was based in London, where he was involved in pioneering work on film, radio and documentaries. By the start of the 1940s, he was working in the wartime Marine Service. Davidson’s informative account of his experience in the Irish Marine Service during the Second World War gives a refreshing insight into many aspects of the defence forces preparing to defend the state to the best of its ability. Often humorous and sometimes moving, it is an engaging account that will appeal to all who are interested in Irish maritime and military history, as well as day-to-day life in 1940s Ireland.Before his death, Norris entrusted the manuscript to ex-naval officer Daire Brunicardi, who has added to the manuscript with a foreword to set the scene, as well as providing some fascinating photos and wartime ephemera.