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The Last Prefect
by Franklin A. Díaz LárezOn 31 December 2001, Venezuela’s prefectures were finally abolished. The prefectures were institutions regulated by a law that was unconstitutional, unjust and immoral: the vagrancy law. This was a legal framework which authorised prefects to arrest and detain people for up to seventy-two hours, or have them interned indefinitely and without sentencing in abhorrent prison camps. This law had been inherited from Venezuela’s last dictatorship, that of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez, which had copied it, almost to the letter, from another enforced in Spain under the dictatorship of Franco. Under its terms, anyone with no known occupation could be considered a vagrant, and so be subject to sanction by the prefects. Homosexuals were also placed in this category. Inexplicably, even though the judicial and ethical underpinnings of the law bordered on the absurd, it remained in full force, and the civil servants working within its remit had no authority to refuse to enforce it. As long as it remained in operation, prefects were required to respect it, comply with it, and ensure the public’s compliance. As luck – or misfortune – would have it, I was one of the last of those prefects. These are my memories of some of the most surprising cases I had to contend with.
The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World
by William DrozdiakA revelatory examination of the global impact of Emmanuel Macron's tumultuous presidency.A political novice leading a brand new party, in 2017 Emmanuel Macron swept away traditional political forces and emerged as president of France. Almost immediately he realized his task was not only to modernize his country but to save the EU and a crumbling international order. From the decline of NATO, to Russian interference, to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestors, Macron's term unfolded against a backdrop of social conflict, clashing ambitions, and resurgent big-power rivalries.In The Last President of Europe, William Drozdiak tells with exclusive inside access the story of Macron's presidency and the political challenges the French leader continues to face. Macron has ridden a wild rollercoaster of success and failure: he has a unique relationship with Donald Trump, a close-up view of the decline of Angela Merkel, and is both the greatest beneficiary from, and victim of, the chaos of Brexit across the Channel. He is fighting his own populist insurrection in France at the same time as he is trying to defend a system of values that once represented the West but is now under assault from all sides. Together these challenges make Macron the most consequential French leader of modern times, and perhaps the last true champion of the European ideal.
The Last Princess
by Galaxy CrazeHappily ever after is a thing of the past.A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless.When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year old Princess Eliza manages to escape. Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope-and love-once more.Now she must risk everything to ensure that she does not become . . .The Last Princess.
The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities
by Frank Donoghue“What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?” asked Columbia’s Andrew Delbanco recently in the New York Times. “There is more and more reason to think: less and less,” he answered. In this provocative book, Frank Donoghue shows how this growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor. Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces—social, political, and institutional—dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. Why? What will universities look like without professors? Who will teach? Why should it matter? The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts —with the humanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails: faculties are to be managed for optimal efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage; casual armies of adjuncts and graduate students now fill the demand for teachers. Bypassing the distractions of the culture wars and other “crises,” Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them. There are no quick fixes in The Last Professors; rather, Donoghue offers his fellow teachers and scholars an essential field guide to making their way in a world that no longer has room for their dreams.
The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities
by Frank Donoghue“What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?” asked Columbia’s Andrew Delbanco recently in the New York Times. “There is more and more reason to think: less and less,” he answered.In this provocative book, Frank Donoghue shows how this growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor.Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces—social, political, and institutional—dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. Why? What will universities look like without professors? Who will teach? Why should it matter? The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts —with thehumanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails: faculties are to be managed for optimal efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage; casual armies of adjuncts and graduate students now fill the demand for teachers.Bypassing the distractions of the culture wars and other “crises,” Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them. There are no quick fixes in The Last Professors; rather, Donoghue offers his fellow teachers and scholarsan essential field guide to making their way in a world that no longer has room for their dreams.First published in 2008, "The Last Professors" have largely had its arguments borne out in the interim, as the percentage of courses taught by tenured professors continues to dwindle. This new edition includes a substantial Preface that elaborates on recent developments and offers tough but productive analysis that will be crucial for today's academics to heed.
The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi
by Kevin Lacz Ethan E. Rocke Lindsey Lacz&“One of the very best books to come out of the war in Iraq,&” (Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, bestselling author of On Killing), The Last Punisher is a gripping and intimate on-the-ground memoir from a Navy SEAL who was part of SEAL Team THREE with American Sniper Chris Kyle. Experience his deployment, from his first mission to his first kill to his eventual successful return to the United States to play himself in the Oscar-nominated film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper.The Last Punisher is a “thoughtful, funny, and raw…always compelling” (Bing West, New York Times bestselling author of No True Glory) first-person account of the Iraq War. With wry humor and moving testimony, Kevin Lacz tells the bold story of his tour in Iraq with SEAL Team THREE, the warrior elite of the Navy. This legendary unit, known as “The Punishers,” included Chris Kyle (American Sniper), Mike Monsoor, Ryan Job, and Marc Lee. These brave men were instrumental in securing the key locations in the pivotal 2006 Battle of Ramadi. Minute by minute, Lacz relays the edge-of-your-seat details of his team’s missions in Ramadi, offering a firsthand glimpse into the heated combat, extreme conditions, and harrowing experiences they faced every day. Through it all, Lacz and his teammates formed unbreakable bonds and never lost sight of the cause: protecting America with their fight. “A rare glimpse into the mind of a Navy SEAL,” (Clint Emerson, New York Times bestselling author of 100 Deadly Skills) Kevin Lacz brings you onto the battlefield and relays the tough realities of war. At the same time, Lacz shares how these experiences made him a better man and how proud he is of his contributions to one of this country’s most difficult military campaigns. The Last Punisher is the story of a SEAL and an “honest-to-God American hero” (Mike Huckabee, #1 bestselling author) who was never afraid to answer the call.
The Last Queen: Elizabeth II's Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor
by Clive IrvingA timely and revelatory new biography of Queen Elizabeth (and her family) exploring how the Windsors have evolved and thrived, as the modern world has changed around them. Clive Irving&’s stunning new narrative biography The Last Queen probes the question of the British monarchy&’s longevity. In 2021, the Queen Elizabeth II finally appears to be at ease in the modern world, helped by the new generation of Windsors. But through Irving&’s unique insight there emerges a more fragile institution, whose extraordinarily dutiful matriarch has managed to persevere with dignity, yet in doing so made a Faustian pact with the media. The Last Queen is not a conventional biography—and the book is therefore not limited by the traditions of that genre. Instead, it follows Elizabeth and her family&’s struggle to survive in the face of unprecedented changes in our attitudes towards the royal family, with the critical eye of an investigative reporter who is present and involved on a highly personal level.
The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and the Battle for Arabia
by Gregory D. Johnsen'Exhausted and on the run, it looked like the end for the small band of men. Looking at the few who had followed him into the desert, Muhammad said, "When disaster threatens, seek refuge in Yemen"... Yemen was the last refuge.' Far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, in an unforgiving corner of Arabia, the US and al-Qaeda are fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers. The battles began in 2006, when twenty-three men tunnelled out of a maximum-security prison in Yemen's capital to their freedom. Later they were joined by a dozen men released from Guantánamo Bay. Together, they formed the core of al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula - and now they and their recruits stand ready to hijack the Arab Spring, from the streets of Syria to hotspots much closer to home. In The Last Refuge, al-Qaeda scholar Gregory D. Johnsen charts the rise, the fall, and the ultimate resurrection of al-Qaeda in Yemen - given new life through a combustion of civil wars, Afghan refugees, and Muhammad's prophetic teachings. Johnsen brings us inside al-Qaeda's training camps and safe houses as the terrorists plot poison attacks and debate how to bring down a plane on Christmas Day. Based on years of on-the-ground interviews and never-before-translated al-Qaeda battle notes, he delivers a riveting and incisive investigation of the state of the Middle East.
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror
by David W. Orr"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" -SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1775 "a tightly reasoned, excellently written book that should be lethally effective in helping readers who aren't experts understand the contours of the crisis." -TOLEDO BLADE Updated and revised following the 2004 elections, The Last Refuge describes the current state of American politics against the backdrop of mounting ecological and social problems, the corrosive influence of money, the corruption of language, and the misuse of terrorism as a political issue. Setting out an agenda that transcends conventional ideological labels, David Orr contends that partisan wrangling is only a symptom of a deeper dysfunction: The whole political machinery that connects Americans' fundamentally honorable ideals with public policy is broken. The book offers a withering critique of the failings of the Bush administration, supplemented by new essays that look at the national-level dominance of the Republican Party and examine the fallacy that the evangelical right represents a Christian majority. After analyzing the challenges of reforming the current system, Orr offers an empowering vision of a second American Revolution that peaceably achieves sustainability and charts a hopeful course for forward-looking citizens.
The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush
by Mark K. UpdegroveA groundbreaking look at the lives of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, the most consequential father-son pair in American history, often in their own words. In this revealing, often poignant work, presidential historian Mark K. Updegrove tracks the two Bush presidents from their formative years through their post-presidencies and the failed presidential candidacy of Jeb Bush, derailing the Bush presidential dynasty. Drawing extensively on exclusive access and interviews with both Bush presidents, Updegrove reveals for the first time their influences and perspectives on each other’s presidencies; their views on family, public service, and America’s role in the world; and their unvarnished thoughts on Donald Trump and the radical transformation of the Republican Party he now leads.In 2016 George W. Bush lamented privately that he might be “the last Republican president.” Donald Trump’s election marked the end not only to the Bushes’ hold on the White House, but of a rejection of the Republican principles of civility and international engagement and leadership that the Bushes have long championed.The Last Republicans offers illuminating, moving portraits of the forty-first and forty-third presidents, as well as an elegy for the Republican “establishment,” which once stood for putting the interests of the nation over those of any single man.
The Last Resistance
by Jacqueline RoseA bravura exploration of politics and writing in dark times In The Last Resistance, Jacqueline Rose explores the power of writing to create and transform our political lives. In particular, she examines the role of literature in the Zionist imagination: here, literature is presented as a unique form of dissidence, with the power to expose the unconscious of nations, and often proposing radical alternatives to their dominant pathways and beliefs. While Israel–Palestine is the repeated focus, The Last Resistance also turns to post-apartheid South Africa, to American national fantasy post-9/11, and to key moments for the understanding of Jewish culture and memory. Rose also underscores the importance of psychoanalysis, both historically in relation to the unfolding of world events, and as a tool of political understanding. Examining topics ranging from David Grossman, through W.G. Sebald, Freud, Nadine Gordimer, the concept of evil, and suicide bombers, The Last Resistance offers a unique way of responding to the crises of the times.
Last Resort: The Financial Crisis and the Future of Bailouts
by Eric A. PosnerThe bailouts during the recent financial crisis enraged the public. They felt unfair—and counterproductive: people who take risks must be allowed to fail. If we reward firms that make irresponsible investments, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, aren’t we encouraging them to continue to act irresponsibly, setting the stage for future crises? And beyond the ethics of it was the question of whether the government even had the authority to bail out failing firms like Bear Stearns and AIG. The answer, according to Eric A. Posner, is no. The federal government freely and frequently violated the law with the bailouts—but it did so in the public interest. An understandable lack of sympathy toward Wall Street has obscured the fact that bailouts have happened throughout economic history and are unavoidable in any modern, market-based economy. And they’re actually good. Contrary to popular belief, the financial system cannot operate properly unless the government stands ready to bail out banks and other firms. During the recent crisis, Posner agues, the law didn’t give federal agencies sufficient power to rescue the financial system. The legal constraints were damaging, but harm was limited because the agencies—with a few exceptions—violated or improvised elaborate evasions of the law. Yet the agencies also abused their power. If illegal actions were what it took to advance the public interest, Posner argues, we ought to change the law, but we need to do so in a way that also prevents agencies from misusing their authority. In the aftermath of the crisis, confusion about what agencies did do, should have done, and were allowed to do, has prevented a clear and realistic assessment and may hamper our response to future crises. Taking up the common objections raised by both right and left, Posner argues that future bailouts will occur. Acknowledging that inevitability, we can and must look ahead and carefully assess our policy options before we need them.
Last Rights: The Road to Redemption Series (The\road To Redemption Ser. #6)
by James GreenSixth in the Road To Redemption series that was shortlisted for the Specsavers Crime Thriller AwardsJimmy Costello has lived his life on both sides of the law but, when it comes to the art world, he's out of his depth.When a stolen art scandal envelopes the Catholic Church in Vancouver, Jimmy's boss in Rome sends him to clear it up. Jimmy works hard but he's tired and fears he's losing his touch. There's only one way to unravel this tightly-wound knot - someone has to cut it.
Last Rights: The Road to Redemption Series (The Road to Redemption #6)
by James GreenSixth in the Road To Redemption series that was shortlisted for the Specsavers Crime Thriller AwardsJimmy Costello has lived his life on both sides of the law but, when it comes to the art world, he's out of his depth.When a stolen art scandal envelopes the Catholic Church in Vancouver, Jimmy's boss in Rome sends him to clear it up. Jimmy works hard but he's tired and fears he's losing his touch. There's only one way to unravel this tightly-wound knot - someone has to cut it.
The Last Romantic: A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania
by Hannah PakulaThis book is about why a woman, much less a Queen, who was a symbol of success and beauty in her own generation, should have fallen into obscurity and even disrepute within fifty years of her death.
Last Scene Underground: An Ethnographic Novel of Iran
by Roxanne VarziLeili could not have imagined that arriving late to Islamic morals class would change the course of her life. But her arrival catches the eye of a young man, and a chance meeting soon draws Leili into a new circle of friends and artists. Gathering in the cafes of Tehran, these young college students come together to create an underground play that will wake up their generation. They play with fire, literally and figuratively, igniting a drama both personal and political to perform their play--just once. From the wealthy suburbs and chic coffee shops of Tehran to subterranean spaces teeming with drugs and prostitution to spiritual lodges and saints' tombs in the mountains high above the city, Last Scene Underground presents an Iran rarely seen. Young Tehranis navigate their way through politics, art, and the meaning of home and in the process learn hard lessons about censorship, creativity, and love. Their dangerous discoveries ultimately lead to finding themselves. Written in the hopeful wake of Iran's Green Movement and against the long shadow of the Iran-Iraq war, this unique novel deepens our understanding of an elusive country that is full of misunderstood contradictions and wonder.
The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty (Council on Foreign Relations Books)
by Ray TakeyhThe surprising story of Iran&’s transformation from America&’s ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries Offering a new view of one of America&’s most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran&’s political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events—including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran&’s complex and difficult history.
Last Snow (Jack McClure Series #2)
by Eric Van LustbaderNew York Times bestselling sensation Eric Van Lustbader created the legendary Nicholas Linnear of The Ninja and brought Jason Bourne into the twenty-first century. Now Lustbader brings us Jack McClure, a street-smart ATF agent who saved the president's daughter from a criminal mastermind. Jack is now a special advisor to President Edward Carson, and Carson's daughter refuses to let Jack out of her sight. When an American senator, supposedly on a political trip to the Ukraine, turns up dead on the island of Capri, the president asks McClure to find out how and why. Jack sets out from Moscow across Eastern Europe, following a perilous trail of diplomats, criminals, and corrupt politicians. He takes on a personal mission along with his official one: protecting his two unlikely, unexpected, and incompatible companions--Annika, a rogue Russian FSB agent, and Alli, the president's daughter. Thrust into the midst of a global jigsaw puzzle, Jack uses his dyslexic mind to put together the pieces that others can't even see. As he struggles to keep both women safe and to unearth the answers he seeks, Jack learns just how far up the American and Russian political ladders corruption and treachery have reached. And though Jack's abilities are as good as it gets, there is much more to gain--and lose--on this journey than the truth about the senator....
The Last Soldiers of the Cold War
by Fernando MoraisHere is the story of political prisoners finally freed in December 2014, after being held captive by the United States since the late 1990s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, violent anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out hundreds of military attacks on Cuba, bombing hotels and shooting up Cuban beaches with machine guns. The Cuban government struck back with the Wasp Network--a dozen men and two women--sent to infiltrate those organizations.The Last Soldiers of the Cold War tells the story of those unlikely Cuban spies and their eventual unmasking and prosecution by US authorities. Five of the Cubans received long or life prison terms on charges of espionage and murder. Global best-selling Brazilian author Fernando Morais narrates the riveting tale of the Cuban Five in vivid, page-turning detail, delving into the decades-long conflict between Cuba and the US, the growth of the powerful Cuban exile community in Florida, and a trial that eight Nobel Prize winners condemned as a travesty of justice.The Last Soldiers of the Cold War is both a real-life spy thriller and a searching examination of the Cold War's legacy.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Last Stone: A Masterpiece Of Criminal Interrogation
by Mark BowdenThe true story of a cold case, a compulsive liar, and five determined detectives, from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author and &“master journalist&” (The Wall Street Journal). On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyons, ages ten and twelve, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, DC As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and the mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware. The acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968 had been a cub reporter for a Baltimore newspaper at the time of the original disappearance, and covered the frantic first weeks of the story. In The Last Stone, he returns to write its ending. Over months of intense questioning and extensive investigation of Welch&’s sprawling, sinister Appalachian clan, five skilled detectives learned to sift truth from determined lies. How do you get a compulsive liar with every reason in the world to lie to tell the truth? The Last Stone recounts a masterpiece of criminal interrogation, and delivers a chilling and unprecedented look inside a disturbing criminal mind. &“One of our best writers of muscular nonfiction.&” —The Denver Post &“Deeply unsettling . . . Bowden displays his tenacity as a reporter in his meticulous documentation of the case. But in the story of an unimaginably horrific crime, it&’s the detectives&’ unwavering determination to bring Welch to justice that offers a glimmer of hope on a long, dark journey.&” —Time
The Last Sunrise: A Novel (The Post-War Trilogy #2)
by Robert RyanThe real history of World War II&’s most daring fighter squadron is the inspiration for this riveting novel of adventure and romance in the Far East Three years after the liberation of Singapore, transport pilot Lee Crane is finally ready to leave. The Berlin airlift is on, and there&’s decent money to be made if you possess both your own plane and a practiced disregard for safety. One last drink with his Indo-Air fly buddies at the Long Bar in Raffles hotel and Crane is gone. Then he sees her: the tall, beautiful redhead he had every reason to believe was dead. If Elsa is alive—and still angry, judging by the sock to the jaw she greets him with—what else might Crane have gotten wrong about the past? In 1941, Lee Crane was a Flying Tiger, one of dozens of American pilots recruited to join the Chinese Air Force in the fight against the Japanese. Wild in the air and on the ground, the Tigers broke hearts all over Burma, and Crane was no different—until he fell in love with a stunning Anglo-Indian widow. But in the chaos of war, Crane lost track of the woman of his dreams, and spent the next seven years convincing himself it wasn&’t meant to be. Now a chance encounter with another long-lost beauty has him ready to plunge back into the past, praying he will come up with a different answer this time. The Last Sunrise is the 2nd book in the Post-War Trilogy, which also includes After Midnight and Dying Day.
The Last Supper: The Plight of Christians in Arab Lands
by Mark Kline Klaus Wivel"A central question that animates Wivel is why those in the West, who profess a belief in such universal values as freedom and equality, have not done more to defend the human rights of this severely beleaguered minority."--University Bookman"Revealing, shocking, and well-researched reading."--Jyllands-PostenIn 2013, alarmed by scant attention paid to the hardships endured by the 7.5 million Christians in the Middle East, journalist Klaus Wivel traveled to Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories on a quest to learn more about their fate. He found an oppressed minority, constantly under threat of death and humiliation, increasingly desperate in the face of rising Islamic extremism and without hope that their situation will improve, or anyone will come to their aid. Wivel spoke with priests whose churches have been burned, citizens who feel like strangers in their own countries, and entire communities whose only hope for survival may be fleeing into exile. With the increase of religious violence in the past few years, this book is a prescient and unsettling account of a severely beleaguered religious group living, so it seems, on borrowed time. Wivel asks, why have we not done more to protect these people? Klaus Wivel is a Danish journalist who has been the New York correspondent for Weekendavisen, one of Denmark's most prestigious newspapers. He has written on a wide range of topics, with a focus on the Middle East.
The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway
by Steven HartAn investigative history of Depression Era power brokers and labor wars in the construction of the Pulaski Skyway across the New Jersey Meadowlands. In the 1930s, as America&’s love affair with the automobile began, cars and trucks leaving the nation&’s largest city were dumped out of the Holland Tunnel onto local roads winding through New Jersey swampland. The Pulaski Skyway, America&’s first &“superhighway,&” would change all that by connecting the hub of New York City to the rest of the country. But the corrupt and violent path to its completion would change much more for Jersey City&’s residents and labor unions. Jersey City mayor Frank Hague—dictator of the Hudson County political machine and a national political player—was a prime mover behind the ambitious transit project. Hague&’s nemesis in this undertaking was union boss Teddy Brandle. Construction of the last three miles of the Pulaski Skyway, then simply known as Route 25, marked an epic battle between big labor and big politics, culminating in a murder and the creation of a motorway so flawed it soon became known as &“Death Avenue&”—appropriately featured in the opening sequence of HBO&’s hit series The Sopranos. A book in the tradition of Robert Caro&’s The Power Broker and Henry Petroski&’s Engineers of Dreams, The Last Three Miles brings to vivid life a riveting and bloodstained chapter in the heroic age of public works. &“A revealing look into how local politics can affect the design and construction of our national infrastructure, sometimes with disastrous results. Hart uses his considerable narrative talent to tell an engaging human story about what might seem otherwise to be but an enormous black steel structure.&” —Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams and Success Through Failure
Last Times
by Victor SergeA story of displacement and resistance during the early days of the Nazi occupation of France.Last Times, Victor Serge&’s epic novel of the fall of France, is based—like much of his fiction—on firsthand experience. The author was an eyewitness to the last days of Paris in June 1940 and joined the chaotic mass exodus south to the unoccupied zone on foot with nothing but his manuscripts. He found himself trapped in Marseille under the Vichy government, a persecuted, stateless Russian, and participated in the early French Resistance before escaping on the last ship to the Americas in 1941.Exiled in Mexico City, Serge poured his recent experience into a fast-moving, gripping novel aimed at an American audience. The book begins in a near-deserted Paris abandoned by the government, the suburbs already noisy with gunfire. Serge&’s anti-fascist protagonists join the flood of refugees fleeing south on foot, in cars loaded with household goods, on bikes, pushing carts and prams under the strafing Stukas, and finally make their way to wartime Marseille. Last Times offers a vivid eyewitness account of the city&’s criminal underground and no less criminal Vichy authorities, of collaborators and of the growing resistance, of crowds of desperate refugees competing for the last visa and the last berth on the last—hoped-for—ship to the New World.
The Last to Die
by William HerrickHigh in the towering Andes, a man is on the run, being chased as much by his own raging demons as by encircling army patrols. He is Ramon Cordes, the man many consider the greatest, and perhaps last, romantic revolutionary of our time. Cordes has been betrayed. But by whom? Was it Marguerite, the only woman he has ever loved? Was it Rojos, the Party leader who shares power with no one? Or was it Ramon himself--betrayed by his doubts, by his own mocking intelligence? With the same overwhelming force and savage eloquence that characterized his great Spanish Civil War novel, Hermanos!, William Herrick involves us in the relentless hunt for Ramon Cordes. The Last to Die is a uniquely contemporary and unforgettable story of the hunted and the hunters--and the violent destiny that awaits the man who chooses to live according to his own morality.