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Beneath the Surface: My Story
by Michael Phelps Bob Costas Brian CazeneuveJust in time for the 2012 Olympics--prepare to peek into the mind of a champion with this newly updated edition of Michael Phelps' autobiography, Beneath the Surface.In this candid memoir, Phelps talks openly about his battle with attention deficit disorder, the trauma of his parents' divorce, and the challenges that come with being thrust into the limelight. Readers worldwide will relive all the heart-stopping glory as Phelps completes his journey from the youngest man to ever set a world swimming record in 2001, to an Olympic powerhouse in 2008, and the most decorated Olympian in 2012. Athletes and fans alike will be fascinated by insights into Phelps' training, mental preparation, and behind-the-scenes perspective on international athletic competitions. A chronicle of Phelps' evolution from awkward teenager to media-savvy superstar, Beneath the Surface is a must-read for any sports fan.
Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram
by Isha Sesay“It is no accident that the places in the world where we see the most instability are those in which the rights of women and girls are denied. Isha Sesay’s indispensable and gripping account of the brutal abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists provides a stark reminder of the great unfinished business of the 21st century: equality for girls and women around the world.”— Hillary Rodham ClintonThe first definitive account of the lost girls of Boko Haram and why their story still matters—by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay.In the early morning of April 14, 2014, the militant Islamic group Boko Haram violently burst into the small town of Chibok, Nigeria, and abducted 276 girls from their school dorm rooms. From poor families, these girls were determined to make better lives for themselves, but pursuing an education made them targets, resulting in one of the most high-profile abductions in modern history. While the Chibok kidnapping made international headlines, and prompted the #BringBackOurGirls movement, many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night remain about the girls’ experiences in captivity, and where many of them are today. In Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Isha Sesay tells this story as no one else can. Originally from Sierra Leone, Sesay led CNN’s Africa reporting for more than a decade, and she was on the front lines when this story broke. With unprecedented access to a group of girls who made it home, she follows the journeys of Priscilla, Saa, and Dorcas in an uplifting tale of sisterhood and survival. Sesay delves into the Nigerian government’s inadequate response to the kidnapping, exposes the hierarchy of how the news gets covered, and synthesizes crucial lessons about global national security. She also reminds us of the personal sacrifice required of journalists to bring us the truth at a time of growing mistrust of the media. Beneath the Tamarind Tree is a gripping read and a story of resilience with a soaring message of hope at its core, reminding us of the ever-present truth that progress for all of us hinges on unleashing the potential of women.
Benedict Arnold
by Susan R. GregsonThis book follows the rise and fall of Benedict Arnold, America's most famous traitor. It traces Arnold's life from his wealthy, upper-class childhood to his betrayal of the American Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
Benedict Arnold at Saratoga
by Emma Nelson Rick WhippleA fictional account of Benedict Arnold during the early years of the revolutionary war.
Benedict Arnold: Battlefield Hero or Selfish Traitor?
by Jessica GundersonSoldier and commander. Traitor and turncoat. Benedict Arnold has been called many names throughout history. But who was the real Benedict Arnold? Explore Arnolds life as he fights his way through the American Revolution. Then decide for yourself whether he was a hero or a villain.
Benedict's Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of Saint Benedict
by Patrick Henry David Steindl-RastSaint Benedict's Rule--a set of guidelines that has governed Christian monastic life since the sixth century--continues to fascinate laypeople and monastics alike. Buddhist monks and nuns have been intrigued by Benedict's insights into human nature and by the similarities between Christian and Buddhist traditions. Now, through personal anecdotes and thoughtful comparison, four prominent Buddhist scholars--including Joseph Goldstein and Yifa--reveal how the wisdom of each tradition can revitalize the other. Benedict's Dharma is a lively and compelling dialogue which will appeal not only to Buddhists and Christians, but to anyone interested in rediscovering the value of an ancient discipline in the modern world.
Benghazi!: A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink
by Ethan ChorinIn recognition of the 10th anniversary of the attack in Benghazi, a noted Libya expert and eyewitness to the attack provides a startling reconsideration of one of the defining controversies of our era. Ten years after an attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, cries of "Benghazi!" still echo across America. But instead of a landmark event to be taken seriously, it has become a punchline, an empty word, or a code for controversy and political theatre. In this thrilling retelling, Ethan Chorin reveals Benghazi as a watershed moment in American history, one that helped create the world America lives in today: polarized, fearful, and dangerously unstable. Here, Benghazi is not a story contained in 13 hours, but a decades-long history beginning with the rise of Muammar Gaddafi, stretching through 9/11, the War on Terror, and the Arab Spring, and reaching into the present day, as the impact of the attack and ensuing controversy remain visible in America and around the world. Chorin draws on his own bone-chilling experience during the Benghazi attack, his expertise as a former diplomat and scholar of Libyan history, and new interviews with Libyan insiders, eyewitnesses, and key players like Hillary Clinton and Ben Rhodes. With this ambitious, engaging narrative, Chorin makes clear why Benghazi still matters so much ten years later—and why we can&’t afford to continue overlooking and misunderstanding it.
Benito Juárez Fights for Justice
by Beatriz Gutierrez HernandezFrom the incredible illustrator of Dreams from Many Rivers comes the story of Benito Juárez, a man who devoted himself to his country and became president of Mexico.Juárez grew up in a village filled with orange trees, surrounded by the mountains of Oaxaca. As he got older, he wondered: How could such a paradise be home to hungry children, temples in ruins, and shacks made out of straw and branches? Armed with a deep-seated belief in justice, he set out to make a difference.Following Juárez from his childhood to his career in politics, this is a story of hope and determination.Godwin Books
Benito Mussolini: Fascist Italian Dictator
by Brenda HaugenFrom 1900 to the present day, humanity and the world have undergone major changes. Drastic shifts in theories and practice tested the standards of personal freedoms and religious conventions as well as science, technology, and industry. The new mind-set of the modern world includes a focus on humanitarianism and the belief that a global economy has made the world a more connected place. Starting as a fascist newspaper editor in the early 1900s, Benito Mussolini rallied enough support to become prime minister of Italy in 1922. He would go on to lead Italy into World War II and befriend Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany. Even with the help of his powerful ally, Mussolini's war efforts would not succeed. Mussolini resigned from power and was executed by his own countrymen
Benito Santiago Behind the Mask: My Life of Baseball
by Benito Santiago Charlie HudsonAll-Star Catcher Benito Santiago, the man who could throw from his knees to second base to get a runner out, reveals personal and professional stories of his baseball career. The unusual circumstances of the first few months of Benito’s life were not revealed to him until age ten. The young boy who then stood in a Puerto Rican courtroom made two choices. One was to remain with his adopted family. The other, beyond those walls, was a determination to be a professional baseball player. How closely those choices were connected may never be truly known and perhaps he was always destined to achieve his dream. Tall, lean, with long fingers and a strong throwing arm, his favored position of shortstop gave way to being a catcher. That too, came about through an unexpected situation. The 1980s was a time when more Latin players were following after the great Roberto Clemente and Benito’s talent stood out among young players. He signed with the San Diego Padres in 1982 and at age seventeen entered the Minor League system. There were times in the four years he felt as if he could not deal with language and cultural barriers he hadn’t expected. Other players were packing their bags to go home and when the call came for him to move up, the next twenty years were filled with great moments and unanticipated pitfalls. Benito, 1987 National League Rookie of the Year and five-time selectee to the All-Star Game, went on to play for nine different teams (Cincinnati twice). For two decades he thrilled crowds and in the midst of his career he suffered a devastating accident that should have ended everything. His mangled body was put to the greatest physical tests he had ever endured, but skilled help and perseverance prevailed. Scarred and working to regain his strength, one of the dreams he’d almost given up on was still waiting for him. His choices were not without certain regrets as well. In the decade that passed after his retirement in 2005, he now tells his story of the man behind the mask.
Benjamin Banneker
by Catherine A. WelchAn introduction to the life of Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), known as the first major African American scientist. Banneker was a mathematician and astronomer. He published almanacs, built clocks, and surveyed the land that became Washington, D. C. He was also an outspoken opponent of slavery.
Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family
by Rachel Jamison WebsterA family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker’s grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry when America was still a conglomerate of colonies under British rule. These stories shed light on the legal construction of race and display the brilliance and resistance of early African Americans in the face of increasingly unjust laws, some of which are still in effect in the present day.
Benjamin Banneker: American Scientific Pioneer
by Myra S. WeatherlyA biography profiling the life of scientist and mathematician Benjamin Banneker. Includes source notes and timeline.
Benjamin Banneker: Astronomer and Mathematician
by Laura Baskes LitwinExplore both the personal and professional lives of this exemplary scientist and mathematician.
Benjamin Banneker: Astronomer and Scientist
by Margaret Goff ClarkA biography of Benjamin Banneker, a black astronomer and scientist.
Benjamin Banneker: Pioneering Scientist
by Ginger WadsworthIntroduces Benjamin Banneker, a free black man of the eighteenth century who loved to learn and used his knowledge and observations to build a wooden clock, write an almanac, and help survey the streets of Washington. D.C.
Benjamin Banneker: Self-Made Man
by Jody Jensen ShafferThe Primary Source Readers series will ignite students' interest in history through the use of intriguing primary sources. This nonfiction reader features purposefully leveled text to increase comprehension for different learner types. Students will learn about the life of Benjamin Banneker, the self-educated African American man who became an important land surveyor and almanac writer. Text features include captions, a glossary, and an index to help build academic vocabulary and increase reading comprehension and literacy. This book prepares students for college and career readiness and aligns with state standards including NCSS/C3, McREL, and WIDA/TESOL.
Benjamin Britten (Penguin Specials)
by Igor Toronyi-LalicBenjamin Britten was one of the most important and unusual figures in twentieth-century music. This is the perfect introduction to his many wonderful works and his fascinating, controversial life.Benjamin Britten single-handedly transformed the reputation of British classical music. The enormous popular appeal of his great works, such as Peter Grimes (1945) and the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946), make him the most successful opera composer of any born in the twentieth century. But his success was not without controversy and pain: he was accused of fleeing Britain to avoid military service, he was widely known to be sexually obsessed with boys and he suffered an astonishing array of illnesses. This short book combines a colourful overview of his life with pithy descriptions of all of his major musical works, providing an intimate portrait of this highly unusual man and a persuasive account of his influences, reputation and importance.Each chapter tackles a key episode and theme in his life, from his first compositions at the age of 5, his early friendship and collaboration with W H Auden and the beginnings of his life-long relationship with the tenor Peter Pears, through to his great musical successes and the establishment of the influential, if tempestuous, Aldeburgh Festival, as well as his failures, such as his coronation opera Gloriana (known as 'Boriana') and being satirised by Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe - and ending with frank discussions of his naïve politics, his troubling sexuality and his glorious musical legacy.Published to coincide with his 100th anniversary of his birth, this is the perfect introduction to a towering figure of British culture.Igor Toronyi-Lalic is a critic and curator. He writes regularly on music for, among others, The Times and Sunday Telegraph. He is a founder of theartsdesk.com, the author of What's That Thing? (2012), a report on public art, and co-director of the London Contemporary Music Festival.
Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music
by Neil PowellThis spellbinding centenary biography by Neil Powell looks at the music, the life, and the legacy of the greatest British composer of the twentieth centuryBenjamin Britten was born on November 22, 1913, in the East Suffolk town of Lowestoft. Displaying a passion and proficiency for music at an early age, to the delight of his mother, Edith, a talented amateur musician herself, he began composing music when he was only five years old. After studying at the Royal College of Music, Britten went on to write documentary scores for the General Post Office Film Unit, where he met and collaborated with the poet W. H. Auden.Of more lasting importance was Britten's introduction in 1937 to the tenor Peter Pears, who was to become the inspirational center of his emotional and musical life. Their partnership lasted nearly four decades, during a dangerous time when homosexuality was illegal in England. Conscientious objectors, Britten and Pears followed Auden to America before the war began in 1939. While there, they joined the extraordinary Brooklyn ménage of George Davis, Louis MacNeice, and Paul Bowles.Eventually intense homesickness, provoked in part by George Crabbe's poem "Peter Grimes," drove the pair home to East Anglia in 1942 and gave Britten the inspiration for his finest opera. Throughout his career, Britten did not want modern music to be just for "the cultured few" and instead always composed his music to be "listenable-to." The shared quotidian lives of Britten and Pears unfold in this intimate biography and the story of two men who created a truly remarkable legacy.
Benjamin Disraeli
by Adam KirschNew York-based poet and critic Kirsch presents a biography of British novelist and politician Disraeli (1804-81) emphasizing his support for what would become Zionism and the impact of his prominence on the portrayal of Jews in Britain. No index or bibliography is provided.
Benjamin Disraeli Letters
by Ellen L. Hawman Michael W. Pharand M. G. Wiebe Mary S. Millar Sandra Den OtterIn February 1868 Benjamin Disraeli became the fortieth prime minister of Great Britain. The tenth volume of the Benjamin Disraeli Letters series is devoted exclusively to Disraeli's copious correspondence during that momentous year. The volume contains 648 of Disraeli's letters, 510 of them never before published and all copiously annotated - often with the other side of the correspondence included.This volume constitutes a unique record of Disraeli's rise to power and of the inner workings of the Victorian political scene, all of it recorded in intimate detail. A vast project which the Times Literary Supplement has called "a monument to scholarship," the Benjamin Disraeli Letters volumes are an essential resource for the study of nineteenth-century politics, history, literature, and the arts.
Benjamin Disraeli Letters, 1865-1867 #9
by Ellen L. Hawman Michael W. Pharand M. G. Wiebe Mary S. Millar Sandra Den OtterThe Times Literary Supplement recently praised the Benjamin Disraeli Letters volumes as 'a remarkable series ... on its way to becoming one of the landmarks of Victorian-era scholarship.' Each volume provides a unique record of Disraeli's daily activities as well as rare glimpses into his decision-making process and his relationships with colleagues and political foes.This latest volume covers 1865 to 1867, crucial years leading up to Disraeli's first ministry in 1868. During this period, the prime minister, Lord Derby, and Disraeli, chancellor of the exchequer, grappled with a number of challenges. Their greatest accomplishment, however, was the passage of a landmark franchise reform bill that expanded the electorate in England to an unprecedented extent.The story is told through 697 letters, of which 525 have never before been published and 78 only in part. Thoroughly annotated, the notes often include the other side of Disraeli's correspondence - including many letters from Derby and Queen Victoria. Finally, this volume is cross-referenced with the previous ones to obtain as complete a picture as possible of political events during Disraeli's lifetime.
Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1815-1834, Volume I
by John Matthews Benjamin Disraeli John Gunn Donald Schurman Melvin WiebeThe private letters of a statesman are always inviting material for historians and when he has claim to literary fame as well the correspondence assumes a double significance. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) belonged to an age that gave pride of place to the written word as an instrument of both business and pleasure. This volume includes 363 letters (many previously unpublished) from his school boy days to his establishment in the Tory camp under the patronage of Lord Lyndhurst. Most prominent are Disraeli's letters to his sister, Sarah, with whom he corresponded frequently over several decades. To her he confided his hopes, interspersed with his observations and descriptions of social, literary and political events. The letters to Sarah supply a skeleton around which Disraeli's young manhood can be reconstructed and shed valuable light on the remaining documents in the volume. The correspondence also includes accounts of his tour of the Low Countries and the Rhine in 1824, his adventurous trip to Spain, Greece, the Near East and Egypt in 1830, his tense negotiations with publishers and his campaign to shine as a member of aristocratic society and win political patronage. The letters demonstrate the fine eye for detail and the capacity for self-dramatization and literary conceits which mark his novels. With their annotations they also provide a remarkably detailed account of life in the upper reaches of English society as viewed from below, and of Disraeli's ambitions to enter that life.
Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Volume II
by John Matthews Benjamin Disraeli John Gunn Donald Schurman Melvin WiebeThe 334 letters in this volume cover the period from Disraeli's establishment in the Tory camp under the patronage of Lord Lyndhurst to his election to parliament in 1837. The most important issue to which they speak is the course of Disraeli's political ambitions. In 1835 the road to parliament was not yet clear, for he continued to be haunted by troubles from his past. He was beset by charges of opportunism in his Taunton campaign of 1835, and the longest letters here are those to Edwards Beadon written in justification of past conduct; Disraeli had still to learn the truth of his later dictum, 'never explain.' Also, debts contracted many years before continued to plague him, as they would in years to come. He was tempted by a variety of money-making schemes and the later correspondence makes clear just how close he came to permanent ruin at the hands of his creditors in the spring of 1837. Had the fate of debtors' prison materialized it is doubtful that he would ever have been eligible, in law or in reputation, for a parliamentary career. Disraeli's eventual election for Maidstone in the summer of 1837 marked the emergence of his formal public role. Because he set out early and was a long time in attaining his goals, one is tempted to laud his patience. But the record here suggests that it was instead a matter of energy and endurance. This volume of the Letters brings Disraeli to the threshold of the Victorian era and the beginning of his career as a politician. In late 1837 he failed in his maiden speech, but all major successes lay ahead.
Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement
by Randal Maurice JelksIn this first full-length biography of Benjamin Mays (1894-1984), Randal Maurice Jelks chronicles the life of the man Martin Luther King Jr. called his "spiritual and intellectual father." Dean of the Howard University School of Religion, president of Morehouse College, and mentor to influential black leaders, Mays had a profound impact on the education of the leadership of the black church and of a generation of activists, policymakers, and educators. Jelks argues that Mays's ability to connect the message of Christianity with the responsibility to challenge injustice prepared the black church for its pivotal role in the civil rights movement. From Mays's humble origins in Epworth, South Carolina, through his doctoral education, his work with institutions such as the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the national YMCA movement, and his significant career in academia, Jelks creates a rich portrait of the man, the teacher, and the scholar. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement is a powerful portrayal of one man's faith, thought, and mentorship in bringing American apartheid to an end.