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Malta Spitfire Pilot: Ten Weeks of Terror, April–June 1942
by James Holland Denis BarnhamAn RAF fighter pilot’s “intensely vivid” account of the siege of Malta in World War II (The Times Literary Supplement). In the summer of 1942, Malta was vulnerable to air attack from the Germans and Italians, and defended by a handful of Spitfires and a few anti-aircraft guns. Denis Barnham, a young and inexperienced flight lieutenant, spent ten hectic weeks on this indomitable island; he left a well-ordered English aerodrome for the chaos and disillusionment of Luqa. His task was to engage the overwhelming number of enemy bombers, usually protected by fighter escorts, and shoot down as many as possible. The Spitfires were bomb-scarred and battered. Oftentimes they could only get two or three in the air together, and the airfields were riddled with bomb craters, but they managed to keep going and make their mark on enemy operations. Barnham has written a powerful account of his experiences in Malta, starting with his trip in an American aircraft carrier through the ceaseless battle and turmoil during the desperate defense of the island, through his departure by air back to England, having seen the reinforcements safely landed and the tide of battle turning. With thrilling and terrifying descriptions and illustrations of the air action, this account, told with humor and compassion, is one of the best firsthand accounts of aerial combat ever written.
Malta Spitfire: The Diary of an Ace Fighter Pilot
by George Beurling Leslie RobertsAn aviator&’s true story of WWII air combat, including two dramatic weeks in the skies above the besieged island of Malta. Twenty-five thousand feet above Malta—that is where the Spitfires intercepted the Messerschmitts, Macchis, and Reggianes as they swept eastward in their droves, screening the big Junkers with their bomb loads as they pummeled the island beneath: the most bombed patch of ground in the world. One of those Spitfire pilots was George Beurling, nicknamed &“Screwball,&” who in fourteen flying days destroyed twenty-seven German and Italian aircraft and damaged many more. Hailing from Canada, Beurling finally made it to Malta in the summer of 1942 after hard training and combat across the Channel. Malta Spitfire tells his story and that of the gallant Spitfire squadron, 249, which day after day ascended to the &“top of the hill&” to meet the enemy against overwhelming odds. With this memoir, readers experience the sensation of being in the cockpit with him, climbing to meet the planes driving in from Sicily, diving down through the fighter screen at the bombers, dodging the bullets coming out of the sun, or whipping up under the belly of an Me for a deflection shot at the engine. This is war without sentiment or romance, told in terms of human courage, skill, and heroism—a classic of WWII military aviation.
Malta Strikes Back: The Role of Malta in the Mediterranean Theatre 1940–1942
by Ken DelveA detailed account of the air operations based around Malta during the long siege of the island during World War II.Two of the greatest strategic mistakes by Hitler involved failure to take control of two key locations, Gibraltar and Malta; between them these two were able to influence, and at times dominate, the Western Mediterranean area, and surrounding land masses. Malta, with its strategic partner, Alexandria (and Egypt) likewise dominated the Eastern Mediterranean and surrounding land masses.Malta only existed strategically for its ability to attack the enemy Lines of Communication between European bases (now stretching from France to Crete) and North Africa. Every piece of equipment, every man and all supplies had to move from Europe to North Africa, the majority by surface vessel, and had to be gathered at a limited number of port facilities in both locations, which made those locations key choke points and targets. Once in North Africa, everything had to move along the main coastal road from the supply ports to dumps and to units. Every campaign is to a greater or lesser extent one of logistics, the Desert War more so than most. It has often been called a ‘war of airfields’ but it is more accurately described as a ‘war of logistics’, with airfields playing a major role in defending one’s own supply lines whilst striking at the enemy’s lines. If Malta could not attack, then it was a drain on resources; but in order to attack it had to protect the infrastructure and equipment needed for attack.The ability to take a pounding, shake it off and fight back was the key to survival. The Island required determined leadership, external support dedicated to supplying the Island, and the committed resilience of all those on the Island to ensure success. This is the story of how Malta rose to meet the challenges facing its defences during the Second World War; how it struck back and survived one of its darkest eras.
Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925-43 (Military History and Policy)
by Douglas AustinA major reassessment of a key aspect of British strategy and defence policy in the first half of the twentieth century. The main contribution of this new study is an investigation of the role of Malta in British military strategy, as planned and as it actually developed, in the period between the mid 1920s and the end of the war in North Africa in May 1943. It demonstrates that the now widely accepted belief that Malta was 'written off as indefensible' before the war was mistaken, and focuses on Malta's actual wartime role in the Mediterranean war, assessing the numerous advantages, many often ignored, that the British derived from retention of the island. The conclusions made challenge recent assertions that Malta's contribution was of limited value and will be of great interest to both students and professionals in the field.
Malta and the End of Empire (Routledge Library Editions: Colonialism and Imperialism #37)
by Dennis AustinMalta and the End of Empire (1971) examines the now-forgotten moment in 1956 when the people of Malta, Gozo and Comino were asked by the British and Maltese Governments to decide whether they wanted full integration with the United Kingdom – a remarkable proposal which ran quite contrary to colonial policy at the time. This possibility of an end to empire by the absorption of a colony into the state system of the imperial power was being attempted by France and Portugal, but this instance was the sole case in British colonial history.
Malta's Greater Siege & Adrian Warburton DSO* DFC** DFC (USA): The Most Valuable Pilot In The Raf
by Paul McDonaldThis is a true historical account of war in the air, at sea and on land in the battle for Malta's survival in the Second World War. It was a battle which decided the outcome of the war in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Adrian Warburton, the airman described in the subtitle by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder, went missing in 1944 in a single-seat American aircraft. He had flown at least 395 operational missions mostly from Malta. Unusually for a reconnaissance pilot, 'Warby' as he was known was credited with nine aircraft shot down. He lay undiscovered for sixty years. He is the RAF's most highly decorated photo-recce pilot.In Malta, Adrian met Christina, a stranded dancer turned aircraft plotter in the secret world deep beneath Valletta's fortress walls. She too was decorated for heroism. Together, they became part of the island's folklore. How important was Malta and the girl from Cheshire to the man behind the medals? This tale takes the form of a quest opening in a cemetery in Bavaria and closing in another in Malta. In between, the reader is immersed within the tension and drama surrounding Malta's Greater Siege retracing the steps of the main characters over the forever changed face of the island following its heroic victory.
Malta: Island Under Siege (Battleground Mediterranean)
by Paul WilliamsMalta: Island Under Siege not only relates the decisive military action from World War II but also details the religious, historical and political events that led to the Axis forces' attempts to conquer and occupy Malta, putting the reader in the meeting rooms of the military leaders and politicians, on board the convoys, in the cockpits of the bombers and with the civilian population sheltering beneath Malta's fortresses while trying to live as normal a life as possible.Wartime locations on the island, many often ignored by the guidebooks and tourist maps, are explored and their relevance to Malta's resistance examined alongside the people, on both sides of the conflict, who helped shape the Mediterranean island's destiny before, during and after the Second World War. Malta is now a holiday destination to many, but it's easy to forget how much the people of the island, its British garrison and the sailors of the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy had to endure to ensure the Allies kept a toe-hold in North Africa and southern Europe at a time when Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy were threatening to sweep all before them.
Malta: The Last Great Siege, 1940–1943
by David WraggThe strategic importance of Malta sitting astride both the Axis and Allied supply routes in the Mediterranean was obvious to both sides during WW2. As a result the Island became the focal point in a prolonged and dreadful struggle that cost the lives of thousands of servicemen and civilians. After setting the scene for the action, this book tells the story of the Island's stand against the might of the Axis powers that led to the unprecedented award of the George Cross to the whole island by King George VI. It not only covers the struggle by the British and Maltese forces on the ground but the vicious fighting in the skies above. This was indeed a siege involving every man and woman on the Island.David Wragg tells the story using many first -hand accounts and yet skillfully explains the strategic situation. The result is an inspiring book worthy of the courage shown by the Islanders and their defenders.
Maltese in Detroit
by Larry Zahr U.O.M. Diane Gale AndreassiMost Maltese immigrants came to the United States during the first decades of the 20th century after the discharge of skilled workers from the Royal British Dockyard in 1919 following the end of World War I. More than 1,300 Maltese came to the United States in the first quarter of 1920. Many people found work in the automobile industry, and with about 5,000 residents, Detroit had the largest Maltese population in the United States. Maltese in Detroit focuses on the many people of Maltese descent who made their homes in Detroit's Corktown area. By the mid-1920s, it is believed that more than 15,000 Maltese had settled in the United States. After World War II , the Maltese government launched a program to pay passage for Maltese willing to immigrate and remain abroad for at least two years. By the mid-1990s, an estimated more than 70,000 Maltese immigrants and descendants were living in the United States, with the largest single community in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.
Malthus: Founder of Modern Demography
by William PetersenThomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), one of the most influential of modern thinkers, is also one of the most misunderstood. Malthus' Essay on Population is a work that everyone cites but typically without having read it. This book offers a comprehensive and accurate exposition of his thought, integrating his better-known theory on population with his somewhat neglected analysis of economic development and social structure.In Petersen's Malthus both the general reader and the social scientist are given a basis for contrasting Malthus with competing theories. As a background to his exposition, Petersen discusses the trends since Malthus' day in fertility, mortality, and population growth. The book also has an accessible comparison of Malthus' economics with that of his contemporary, David Ricardo, as well as the links to the Keynesian thought of recent time.Petersen also comments on Malthus' stand on birth control, as well as on the rise of the neo-Malthusian movement and its successor in today's less developed countries. The review of both population trends and demographic theory over the past century and a half gives the reader a base from which he can judge in what respects Malthus did, or did not, forecast the future accurately. As Petersen points out, Malthus also influenced the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, as well as its offshoot, Social Darwinism. Malthus is an essential work not only for demographers and economists but for anyone interested in intellectual history. The late Robert Nisbet, in his review of the book for the New Republic, called it "the best exposition of Malthus to be found anywhere."William Petersen, Robert Lazarus Professor of Social Demography Emeritus at Ohio State University, is known throughout the profession as a leading demographer. He is also an elegant writer.
Malvern (Images of America)
by Ray Hanley Steven HanleyHot Spring County was established in 1829, and its county seat, Malvern, was laid out as a station on the Cairo and Fulton Railroad in 1873. A remarkable diversity of agricultural, timber, and mineral products spurred the county's growth over the decades, especially the abundant clay deposits that made Malvern the "Brick Capital of the World."
Malvern College
by Roy Allen"I remember the 25th January very well. Theonly house finished was McDowall's (No. 1)and about fourteen of us assembled there.It had snowed all night, and in the morningwas about two feet deep and drifted againstthe bank in places five and six feet. We cutour way up with improvised shovels andfinally got to the Coll. where we found twoboys who were in lodgings with Mr. Drew,and about ten day boys. We were roughlyexamined and classed and were then given ahalf holiday, which I spent with a few more,wallowing in the snow."So the story of Malvern College began in 1865with twenty-four boys, a headmaster and sixassistant masters attempting to create a newschool in one of "the fairest parts of England."This new College history traces how that infantschool has matured into one of the country'sleading independent schools, welcomingstudents from across the world to enjoy amodern education in historical and beautifulsurroundings. The first half of the book is achronological survey showing how the schooldeveloped its own style and character and howits fortunes mirrored the drama of our nation'shistory. The remainder of the book explores aseries of themes charting how the educationalvision of the founders has evolved in teachingand learning, the arts and sport, and in religious,charitable and military service. Attention is paidto the changing social structure of the school andhow it has embraced new visions of leadership,coeducation, and the challenge of preservinginherited virtues and the essence of an Englishboarding school while preparing pupils for aglobalised world. Memories of life in the school,features on masters and pupils, the achievementof Old Malvernains and remarkable illustrationscombine to make this a fitting celebration of aunique school.
Malvinas, la ilusión y la pérdida: Luis Vernet y María Sáez, una historia de amor
by Silvia Plager Elsa Fraga VidalEsta novela es, además de un exquisito viaje al pasado, la historia deamor de dos seres excepcionales que imaginaron un futuro próspero,feliz, en el lugar más lejano e inhóspito de nuestro territorio. «Aquí el aire es frío pero no apaga las pasiones», escribe María Sáezen su diario. La protagonista de esta epopeya fue una mujer admirableque por amor a su marido, Luis Vernet, un americanista de espírituaventurero, aceptó trasladarse al extremo sur del mundo, sin sospecharque las islas se adueñarían de su corazón. Los Vernet fueron los últimosgobernadores argentinos en Malvinas, entre 1829 y 1831. Auténticospioneros, lograron vencer la geografía salvaje y el clima hostil paracrear un hogar. El salón de María, con su araña de caireles, subiblioteca y su piano, reproducía los de las tertulias porteñas delsiglo XIX. Pero hacia 1832 los Vernet debieron abandonar las costas enlas que habían invertido su fortuna y depositado sus sueños. Eldesembarco de naves británicas dispuestas a conseguir el control de lasrutas del Atlántico destruyó todo lo que ellos pacientemente habíanconstruido.
Malvinas. Identidad de héroes
by Daniel Santa CruzEste libro cuenta la historia de una amistad, la de Julio Aro y Geoffrey Cardozo, que pasaron de ser enemigos en 1982 a amigos unidos por una causa justa. Un vínculo que permitió que 121 familias pudieran identificar el lugar donde descansan sus hijos en el cementerio de Darwin, en Malvinas, y así lograr el cierre de un duelo demasiado largo y para poder decir que sus familiares dejaron de ser "Soldados argentinos solo conocido por Dios", recuperar su identidad y convertirse en lo que nunca debieron dejar de ser: héroes con nombre. El final de la guerra de Malvinas fue especialmente doloroso para la Argentina. Después de ese amargo 10 de junio de 1982, el silencio cayó pesadamente sobre el tema. No se habló de la guerra perdida, ni de los caídos, que quedaron allí, en sepulturas improvisadas, sin ceremonias, ni honores y, sobre todo, sin nombre. En diciembre de 1982, las autoridades británicas le encomendaron al capitán Geoffrey Cardozo una tarea penosa: exhumar e identificar los restos de los soldados argentinos caídos y elaborar un informe. Varios años más tarde, el veterano argentino Julio Aro decidió que había que hacer algo por las 121 familias que tenían a sus muertos enterrados bajo la frase: "Soldado argentino solo conocido por Dios". El azar quiso que conociera a Cardozo en Londres y, a partir de ese encuentro, la historia cambió. Malvinas. Identidad de héroes narra con pulso vibrante la iniciativa que se conoció como Plan Programa Humanitario Malvinas, ofrece fragmentos del célebre Informe Cardozo y rinde homenaje a todos los protagonistas de esta historia: los que removieron cielo y tierra, de un lado y otro del Atlántico, para reparar esas omisiones y los combatientes, que gracias a un plan colectivo, superador de cualquier grieta, recuperaron su tan postergada identidad.
Mama
by Adam CassIn August 2017, Melbourne's La Mama Theatre celebrates 50 years since the premiere of its first production, Jack Hibberd's 'Three Old Friends'. La Mama commemorates the rich life story of the theatre so far, tracking the history and chronology of the work that has been made and the many careers that have been born, raised and cherished there. Complemented by hundreds of wonderful photographs, the book is woven together through a series of rowdy yarns spun by the La Mama community, capturing a sense of the magic that has been inspiring audiences for fifty years.
Mama Africa! How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song
by Kathryn ErskineMiriam Makeba, a Grammy Award–winning South African singer, rose to fame in the hearts of her people at the pinnacle of apartheid—a brutal system of segregation similar to American Jim Crow laws. Mama Africa, as they called her, raised her voice to help combat these injustices at jazz clubs in Johannesburg; in exile, at a rally beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and before the United Nations. Set defiantly in the present tense, this biography offers readers an intimate view of Makeba’s fight for equality. Kathryn Erskine’s call-and-response style text and Charly Palmer’s bold illustrations come together in a raw, riveting duet of protest song and praise poem. A testament to how a single voice helped to shake up the world—and can continue to do so.
Mama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song
by Kathryn ErskineAn inspiring picture-book biography of iconic singer and activist Miriam Makeba by National Book Award winner Kathryn Erskine.Miriam Makeba, a Grammy Award–winning South African singer, rose to fame in the hearts of her people at the pinnacle of apartheid—a brutal system of segregation similar to American Jim Crow laws. Mama Africa, as they called her, raised her voice to help combat these injustices at jazz clubs in Johannesburg; in exile, at a rally beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and before the United Nations. Set defiantly in the present tense, this biography offers readers an intimate view of Makeba’s fight for equality. Kathryn Erskine’s call-and-response style text and Charly Palmer’s bold illustrations come together in a raw, riveting duet of protest song and praise poem. A testament to how a single voice helped to shake up the world—and can continue to do so.
Mama Africa: Reinventing Blackness in Bahia
by Patricia de Santana PinhoOften called the "most African" part of Brazil, the northeastern state of Bahia has the country's largest Afro-descendant population and a black culture renowned for its vibrancy. In Mama Africa, Patricia de Santana Pinho examines the meanings of Africa in Bahian constructions of blackness. Combining insights from anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies, Pinho considers how Afro-Bahian cultural groups, known as blocos afro, conceive of Africanness, blackness, and themselves in relation to both. Mama Africa is a translated, updated, and expanded edition of an award-winning book published in Brazil in 2004. Central to the book, and to Bahian constructions of blackness, is what Pinho calls "the myth of Mama Africa," the idea that Africa exists as a nurturing spirit inside every black person. Pinho explores how Bahian cultural production influences and is influenced by black diasporic cultures and the idealization of Africa--to the extent that Bahia draws African American tourists wanting to learn about their heritage. Analyzing the conceptions of blackness produced by the blocos afro, she describes how Africa is re-inscribed on the body through clothes, hairstyles, and jewelry; once demeaned, blackness is reclaimed as a source of beauty and pride. Turning to the body's interior, Pinho explains that the myth of Mama Africa implies that black appearances have corresponding black essences. Musical and dance abilities are seen as naturally belonging to black people, and these traits are often believed to be transmitted by blood. Pinho argues that such essentialized ideas of blackness render black culture increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by the state and commercial interests. She contends that the myth of Mama Africa, while informing oppositional black identities, overlaps with a constraining notion of Bahianness promoted by the government and the tourist industry.
Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein's Avant-Garde Theatre (Studies in Modern Drama)
by Sarah Bay-ChengMama Dada is the first book to examine Gertrude Stein's drama within the history of the theatrical and cinematic avant-gardes. Since the publication of Stein's major writings by the Library of America in 1998, interest in her dramatic writing has escalated, particularly in American avant-garde theaters. This book addresses the growing interest in Stein's theater by offering the first detailed analyses of her major plays, and by considering them within a larger history of avant-garde performance. In addition to comparing Stein's plays and theories to those generated by Dadaists, Surrealists, and Futurists, this study further explores the uniqueness of Stein via these theatrical movements, including discussions of her interest in American life and drama, which argues that a significant and heretofore unrecognized relationship exists among the histories of avant-garde drama, cinema, and homosexuality. By examining and explaining the relationship among these three histories, the dramatic writings of Stein can best be understood, not only as examples of literary modernism, but also as influential dramatic works that have had a lasting effect on the American theatrical avant-
Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen: An Ordinary Family’s Extraordinary Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in Congo
by Lisa J. ShannonInternational human rights activist Lisa Shannon spent many afternoons at the kitchen table having tea with her friend Francisca Thelin, who often spoke of her childhood in Congo. Thelin would conjure vivid images of lush flower gardens, fish the size of small children, and of children running barefoot through her family’s coffee plantation, gorging on fruit from the robust and plentiful mango trees. She urged Shannon to visit her family in Dungu, to get a taste of real Congo, peaceful Congo; a place so different than the conflict-ravaged places Shannon knew from her activism work. But then the nightly phone calls from Congo began: static-filled, hasty reports from Francisca’s mother, #147;Mama Koko,” of gunmen#151;Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army#151; who had infested Dungu and began launching attacks. Night after night for a year, Mama Koko delivered the devastating news of Fransisca’s cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, and neighbors, who had been killed, abducted, burned alive on Christmas Day. In an unlikely journey, Shannon and Thelin decided to travel from Portland, Oregon to Dungu, to witness first-hand the devastation unfolding at Joseph Kony’s hands. Masquerading as Francisca’s American sister-in-law, Shannon tucked herself into Mama Koko’s raw cement living room and listened to the stories of Mama Koko and her husband, Papa Alexander#151;as well as those from dozens of other friends and neighbors (#147;Mama Koko’s War Tribunal”)#151;who lined up outside the house and waited for hours, eager to offer their testimony. In Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen, Shannon weaves together the family’s tragic stories of LRA encounters with tales from the family’s history: we hear of Mama Koko’s early life as a gap-toothed beauty plotting to escape her inevitable fate of wife and motherhood; Papa Alexander’s empire of wives he married because they cooked and cleaned and made good coffee; and Francisca’s childhood at the family #147;castle” and coffee plantation. These lively stories transport Shannon from the chaos of the violence around her and bring to life Fransisca’s kitchen-table stories of the peaceful Congo. Yet, as the LRA camp out on the edge of town grew, tensions inside the house reach a fever pitch and Shannon and Thelin’s friendship was fiercely tested. Shannon was forced to confront her limitations as an activist and reconcile her vision of what it means to affect meaningful change in the lives of others. Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen is at once an illuminating piece of storytelling and an exploration of what it means to truly make a difference. It is an exquisite testimony to the beauty of human connection and the strength of the human spirit in times of unimaginable tragedy.
Mama Learned Us to Work
by Lu Ann JonesFarm women of the twentieth-century South have been portrayed as oppressed, worn out, and isolated. Lu Ann Jones tells quite a different story in Mama Learned Us to Work. Building upon evocative oral histories, she encourages us to understand these women as consumers, producers, and agents of economic and cultural change.As consumers, farm women bargained with peddlers at their backdoors. A key business for many farm women was the "butter and egg trade--small-scale dairying and raising chickens. Their earnings provided a crucial margin of economic safety for many families during the 1920s and 1930s and offered women some independence from their men folks. These innovative women showed that poultry production paid off and laid the foundation for the agribusiness poultry industry that emerged after World War II. Jones also examines the relationships between farm women and home demonstration agents and the effect of government-sponsored rural reform. She discusses the professional culture that developed among white agents as they reconciled new and old ideas about women's roles and shows that black agents, despite prejudice, linked their clients to valuable government resources and gave new meanings to traditions of self-help, mutual aid, and racial uplift.
Mama Lola: a Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (Updated and Expanded Edition)
by Karen Mccarthy BrownAlourdes, known as Mama Lola, is a veritable survival artist. She is gifted in the art of cultural bricolage, that is, in making use of whatever cultural elements serve to support her and her family, regardless of whether they are Haitian or "American" or come from any of the other peoples and cultures she routinely encounters in New York City. Her current religious commitments include Haitian Vodou and Puerto Rican Santeria, as well as Vatican II Catholicism as interpreted by first-generation Irish immigrant priests. Alourdes's people-sense functions, with remarkably few translation problems, across multiple cultural divides. Her sensitivity and her skill at working with people are, at minimum, transnational talents. They have had to be because Lola, the Vodou Priestess, lives in the midst of religious and cultural pluralism. This is apparent in both her healing work and her day-to-day life. A life as culturally dynamic, flexible, and responsive to change as Alourdes's evades neat ethnographic description. This has made me especially aware of the role my choices have played in shaping her overall story.
Mama's Chicken and Dumplings
by Dionna L. MannGrowing up in segregated 1930&’s Charlottesville, ten-year-old Allie is determined to find a man for her mama to marry— but not just any man will do!Allie&’s life with Mama isn&’t bad, but she knows it could be better if Mama would find someone to marry. Allie&’s worst enemy, her NOT-friend Gwen, has a daddy, and Allie wants someone like that—someone to fix things when they break, someone who likes to sing, and has a kind-smile. So Allie makes a plan—her super secret Man-For-Mama plan. She has a list of candidates with a clear top choice: Mr. Johnson, who owns the antique store. Best of all, Mr. Johnson went to school with Mama, and he wants to get reacquainted! The battle&’s half won, and Allie is sure that when he tries Mama&’s yummy chicken and dumplings, he&’ll be head over heels. But someone else is interested in Mama: Mr. Coles, Allie&’s teacher, who&’s also Gwen&’s uncle! Mama can&’t marry him—no way is Allie going to be related to Gwen. On top of it all, Allie&’s best friend is moving to Chicago; Allie keeps getting in trouble; and everyone seems to think she&’s jealous of Gwen, for some reason. Nothing is going how she planned, but Allie is determined to get things back on track toward the life she knows she and Mama both deserve. . . even if Mama doesn&’t agree yet.A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
Mamluk 'Askari 1250-1517
by David Nicolle Peter DennisNew archaeological material and research underpin this extensive, detailed and beautifully illustrated account of the famous Mamluk Askars.The Mamluk army is credited with finally defeating and expelling the Crusaders from the Middle East, with defeating and halting the Mongol invasion of the Islamic Middle East, and with facing down - though not defeating - Tamerlane. Their state was an essentially military one but was for centuries also the Protector of the Holy Places, which gave it supreme prestige within the later medieval Islamic world.The mamluk troops (askaris) of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria were probably the ultimate professional soldiers of the medieval period. They were supposedly recruited as adolescent slaves, though recent research has begun to undermine this oversimplified interpretation of what has been called the "mamluk phenomenon".The Mamluk Sultanate and its army lasted for a remarkably long time, from the mid-13th to early 16th century, long enough to resist the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, before finally being defeated and overthrown by the Ottoman Sultanate. Indeed the mamluk phenomenon lasted even longer in Ottoman-ruled Egypt, until the final years of the 18th century. It was so embedded in Egyptian, and to a lesser extent Syrian, society and politics that the modern Egyptian army of the 19th century has, during its first decades, been described as a neo-mamluk force.
Mamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Robert IrwinMamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen brings together a series of studies, based mainly on medieval Arabic sources, of Middle Eastern history and society in the late Middle Ages. Several of these studies deal with the confrontation between the Mamluks and the Crusaders. Others deal with aspects of Mamluk society and culture in Egypt and Syria from the 13th to the early 16th centuries. There are articles on such matters as Crusader feudalism and Mamluk iqta', Crusader and Mamluk currency, the last years of the Crusader states, Mamluk faction fighting, the size of the Mamluk army, the image of the Crusaders and other Europeans in Arabic popular literature, a neglected source on the sex life of the Mamluks, the ritual consumption of horse meat by Mamluks and Mongols, the table talk of the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri, the deployment of gunpowder and firearms in the Middle East, gangsterism in Cairo and the shared interest of Ibn Khaldun and al-Maqrizi in the occult. Finally, several studies deal with questions of historiography, in both Crusader and Mamluk studies.