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We
We
Johnson, Robert A.
¥94.10
Provides an illuminating explanation of the origins and meaning of romantic love and shows how a proper understanding of its psychological dynamics can revitalize our most important relationships.
The Wisdom of the Myths
The Wisdom of the Myths
Ferry, Luc
¥94.10
More than 100,000 copies sold in France A fascinating new journey through Greek mythology that explains the myths' timeless lessons and meaning Heroes, gods, and mortals. The Greek myths are the founding narratives of Western civilization: to understand them is to know the origins of philosophy, literature, art, science, law, and more. Indeed, as Luc Ferry shows in this masterful book, they remain a great store of wisdom, as relevant to our lives today as ever before. No mere legends or clichés ("Herculean task," "Pandora's box," "Achilles heel," etc.), these classic stories offer profound and manifold lessons, providing the first sustained attempt to answer fundamental human questions concerning "the good life," the burden of mortality, and how to find one's place in the world. Vividly retelling the great tales of mythology and illuminating fresh new ways of understanding them, The Wisdom of the Myths will enlighten readers of all ages.
50 Children
50 Children
Pressman, Steven
¥94.10
Two Ordinary Americans. Fifty Innocent Lives. One Unforgettable Journey.In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles both in Europe and in the United States Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.Fewer than 1,200 unaccompanied children were allowed into the United States throughout the entire Holocaust, in which 1.5 million children perished. The fifty children saved by the Krauses turned out to be the single largest group of unaccompanied children brought to America.Drawing from Eleanor Kraus's unpublished memoir, rare historical documents, and interviews with more than a dozen of the surviving children, and illustrated with period photographs, archival materials, and memorabilia, 50 Children is a remarkable tale of personal courage and triumphant heroism that offers a fresh, unique insight into a critical period of history.
Shot All to Hell
Shot All to Hell
Gardner, Mark Lee
¥94.10
It was the most famous bank robbery of all time, involving the legendary James-Younger gang's final shocking holdup the infamous Northfield Raid and the thrilling two-week chase that followed. Mark Lee Gardner, author of the critically acclaimed To Hell on a Fast Horse, takes us inside Northfield's First National Bank and outside to the streets as Jesse James and his band of outlaws square off against the heroic citizens who risked their lives to defeat America's most daring criminals. With vivid detail and novelistic verve, Gardner follows the James brothers as they elude both the authorities and the furious citizen posses hell-bent on capturing them in one of the largest manhunts in the history of the United States. He reveals the serendipitous endings of the Younger brothers Cole, Jim, and Bob and explores the James brothers' fates after the dust settled, solving mysteries about the raid that have been hotly debated for more than 130 years.A galloping true tale of frontier justice featuring audacious outlaws and intrepid heroes, Shot All to Hell is a riveting slice of Wild West history that continues to fascinate today.
Charmed Lives
Charmed Lives
Korda, Michael
¥94.10
A Rolls Royce Silver Cloud drove him to airports; the British film industry kowtowed to his power; the great Hollywood studios fawned at his feet.Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboyant movie tycoons, rose from obscurity in rural Hungary to become a legendary filmmaker. With him were his brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, all living charmed lives in circles that included H. G. Wells, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Marlena Dietrich, Vivien Leigh, and Merle Oberon, who was soon to be Alex's wife. But along with Alex's flair for success was an equally powerful impulse for destruction. Now, Vincent's son, Michael Korda, in the first book of his memoirs, recalls the enchanted figures of his childhood...the glory days of the Korda brothers' great films...and then their heartbreaking, tragic end.
I Didn't Do It for You
I Didn't Do It for You
Wrong, Michela
¥94.10
Scarred by decades of conflict and occupation, the craggy African nation of Eritrea has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war. The dogged determination that secured victory against Ethiopia, its giant neighbor, is woven into the national psyche, the product of cynical foreign interventions. Fascist Italy wanted Eritrea as the springboard for a new, racially pure Roman empire; Britain sold off its industry for scrap; the United States needed a base for its state-of-the-art spy station; and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in a proxy war.In I Didn't Do It for You, Michela Wrong reveals the breathtaking abuses this tiny nation has suffered and, with a sharp eye for detail and a taste for the incongruous, tells the story of colonialism itself and how international power politics can play havoc with a country's destiny.
Seize the Fire
Seize the Fire
Nicolson, Adam
¥94.10
In Seize the Fire, Adam Nicolson, author of the widely acclaimed God's Secretaries, takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets in October 1805, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the heroic. Is violence a necessary aspect of the heroAnd daringWhy did the cult of the hero flower in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a way it hadn't for two hundred yearsWas the figure of Nelson intemperate, charming, theatrical, anxious, impetuous, considerate, indifferent to death and danger, inspirational to those around him, and, above all, fixed on attack and victory an aberration in Enlightenment EnglandOr was the greatest of all English military heroes simply the product of his time, "the conjurer of violence" that England, at some level, deeply needed?It is a story rich with modern resonance. This was a battle fought for the control of a global commercial empire. It was won by the emerging British world power, which was widely condemned on the continent of Europe as "the arrogant usurper of the freedom of the seas." Seize the Fire not only vividly describes the brutal realities of battle but enters the hearts and minds of the men who were there; it is a portrait of a moment, a close and passionately engaged depiction of a frame of mind at a turning point in world history.
Daughter of Destiny
Daughter of Destiny
Bhutto, Benazir
¥94.10
Daughter of Destiny, the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto, is a historical document of uncommon passion and courage, the dramatic story of a brilliant, beautiful woman whose life was, up to her tragic assassination in 2007, inexorably tied to her nation's tumultuous history. Bhutto writes of growing up in a family of legendary wealth and near-mythic status, a family whose rich heritage survives in tales still passed from generation to generation. She describes her journey from this protected world onto the volatile stage of international politics through her education at Radcliffe and Oxford, the sudden coup that plunged her family into a prolonged nightmare of threats and torture, her father's assassination by General Zia ul-Haq in 1979, and her grueling experience as a political prisoner in solitary confinement. With candor and courage, Benazir Bhutto recounts her triumphant political rise from her return to Pakistan from exile in 1986 through the extraordinary events of 1988: the mysterious death of Zia; her party's long struggle to ensure free elections; and finally, the stunning mandate that propelled her overnight into the ranks of the world's most powerful, influential leaders.
Rough Crossings
Rough Crossings
Schama, Simon
¥94.10
If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, which side would you want to winWhen the last British governor of Virginia declared that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the king would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves fled from farms, plantations, and cities to try to reach the British camp. A military strategy originally designed to break the plantations of the American South had unleashed one of the great exoduses in U.S. history. With powerfully vivid storytelling, Schama details the odyssey of the escaped blacks through the fires of war and the terror of potential recapture, shedding light on an extraordinary, little-known chapter in the dark saga of American slavery.
Morning of Fire
Morning of Fire
Ridley, Scott
¥94.10
Four years after the Revolutionary War, America's independence was still in doubt. To survive, the new nation needed money and a vital surge in trade. In the back rooms of Boston, a daring plan was launched by a group of merchants and ship owners: to send two ships on a desperate mission around Cape Horn and into the Pacific Ocean. They wanted to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish, and find the legendary Northwest Passage the fabled waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The adventure would bring the world to the brink of war.The man chosen to lead the expedition was John Kendrick a master navigator and a charismatic captain of privateers during the Revolution. On the far side of the world, Kendrick would have to rely on his bravery, his charm, and most of all his remarkable resolve to navigate unknown waters, negotiate with cutthroat imperialists from England and Spain, and form alliances with natives hit hard by early encounters with Europeans.Seventeen years before Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific coast, Kendrick established the first American outpost on what would become Vancouver Island. He then traveled into the cauldron of an intertribal war in the Hawaiian Islands before moving into the far ports of Macao, China, and Kushimoto, Japan, where he narrowly escaped capture by a troop of samurai. Throughout the seven-year journey, Kendrick faced a subordinate officer who wanted to usurp his command, Spanish officials who wanted him captured, and a rival British captain who wanted him dead.Morning of Fire follows Kendrick through each perilous turn of his adventures aboard the Lady Washington and the Columbia Rediviva. This meticulously researched story uncovers the full scope of a landmark American voyage that came at the volatile close of the eighteenth century, a time when superpowers Spain and Britain clashed over territory and the fledgling United States stood caught in the middle. As Scott Ridley relates Kendrick's fateful struggle to plant the seed of an "empire of liberty" in the Pacific, he shapes a bold and exciting chronicle of a momentous odyssey. Morning of Fire is popular history at its best.
The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War
Borneman, Walter R.
¥94.10
In the summer of 1754, deep in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, a very young George Washington suffered his first military defeat, and a centuries-old feud between Great Britain and France was rekindled. The war that followed would be fought across virgin territories, from Nova Scotia to the forks of the Ohio River, and it would ultimately decide the fate of the entire North American continent not just for Great Britain and France but also for the Spanish and Native American populations. Noted historian Walter R. Borneman brings to life an epic struggle for a continent what Samuel Eliot Morison called "truly the first world war" and emphasizes how the seeds of discord sown in its aftermath would take root and blossom into the American Revolution.
Dome of the Hidden Pavilion
Dome of the Hidden Pavilion
Tate, James
¥94.10
The seventeenth book of verse from one of America’s finest and most acclaimed contemporary poets—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Capturing his inimitable voice—provocative, amusing, understated, and riotous all at once—the poems in Dome of the Hidden Pavilion demonstrate James Tate at his finest. Innovative and fresh, they range in subject from a talking blob to a sobering reminiscence of a war and its aftereffects. Though they are diverse in scope, a theme of dialogue and communication—and often miscommunication—links these poems. Accessible yet subtly surrealist, filled with dark wit, dry humor, and a deceptive simplicity, Dome of the Hidden Pavilion confirms Tate’s continuing relevance as one of the most celebrated American poets of the modern age.
A Medieval Family
A Medieval Family
Gies, Frances
¥94.10
The Pastons family of Norfolk, England, has long been known to medieval scholars for its large collection of personal correspondence, which has survived five centuries. Revealing a wealth of information about manners, morals, lifestyle, and attitudes of the late Middle Ages, the letters also tell the story of three generations of the fifteenth-century Paston family that treads like a historical novel full of memorable characters: Margaret Paston, the indomitable wife and mother who fought the family's battles; her husband, John Paston I, tough, hardheaded, and thrice confined to Fleet Prison but never yielding to his enemies; daughter Margery, who scandalized family and friends by falling in love with the Paston bailiff, Richard Calle; lighthearted, chivalric Sir John; and cheerful, sensible John III, who against all odds succeeded in marrying for love.A Medieval Family traces the Pastons history from 1420, through the stormy Wars of the Roses, to the early 1500s. The family's story, extracted from their letters and papers and told largely in their own words, shows a side of history rarely revealed: the lives and fortunes not of kings and queens but of ordinary middle-class people with problems, tragedies, and moments of happiness.
Reign of Iron
Reign of Iron
Nelson, James L.
¥94.10
At the outbreak of the Civil War, North and South quickly saw the need to develop the latest technology in naval warfare, the ironclad ship. After a year-long scramble to finish first, in a race filled with intrigue and second guessing, blundering and genius, the two ships -- the Monitor and the Merrimack -- after a four-hour battle, ended the three-thousand-year tradition of wooden men-of-war and ushered in "the reign of iron."In the first major work on the subject in thirty-five years, novelist, historian, and tall-ship sailor James L. Nelson, acclaimed author of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy, brilliantly recounts the story of these magnificent ships, the men who built and fought them, and the extraordinary battle that made them legend.
The Wild Life of Our Bodies
The Wild Life of Our Bodies
Dunn, Rob
¥94.10
A biologist shows the influence of wild species on our well-being and the world and how nature still clings to us and always will.We evolved in a wilderness of parasites, mutualists, and pathogens, but we no longer see ourselves as being part of nature and the broader community of life. In the name of progress and clean living, we scrub much of nature off our bodies and try to remove whole kinds of life parasites, bacteria, mutualists, and predators to allow ourselves to live free of wild danger. Nature, in this new world, is the landscape outside, a kind of living painting that is pleasant to contemplate but nice to have escaped. The truth, though, according to biologist Rob Dunn, is that while "clean living" has benefited us in some ways, it has also made us sicker in others. We are trapped in bodies that evolved to deal with the dependable presence of hundreds of other species. As Dunn reveals, our modern disconnect from the web of life has resulted in unprecedented effects that immunologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and other scientists are only beginning to understand. Diabetes, autism, allergies, many anxiety disorders, autoimmune diseases, and even tooth, jaw, and vision problems are increasingly plaguing bodies that have been removed from the ecological context in which they existed for millennia. In this eye-opening, thoroughly researched, and well-reasoned book, Dunn considers the crossroads at which we find ourselves. Through the stories of visionaries, Dunn argues that we can create a richer nature, one in which we choose to surround ourselves with species that benefit us, not just those that, despite us, survive.
Destined to Witness
Destined to Witness
Massaquoi, Hans
¥94.10
This is a story of the unexpected.In Destined to Witness, Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir -- an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer's spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door -- or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic,, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi's account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence.
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
Trapp, Maria Augusta
¥94.10
With nearly 1,500 Broadway performances, six Tony Awards, more than three million albums sold, and five Academy Awards, The Sound of Music, based on the lives of Maria, the baron, and their singing children, is as familiar to most of us as our own family history. But much about the real-life woman and her family was left untold.Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.Now with photographs from the original edition.
Primetime Propaganda
Primetime Propaganda
Shapiro, Ben
¥94.10
The inside story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history has become a propaganda tool for the LeftPrimetime Propaganda is the story told in their own words of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftistimage.In this thoroughly researched and detailed history of the television industry, conservative columnist and author Ben Shapiro argues that left-leaning entertainment kingpins in Los Angeles and New York have leveraged and continue to use their positions and power to push liberal messages and promote the Democratic Party while actively discriminating against their opponents on the right. According to Shapiro, television isn't just about entertainment it's an attempt to convince Americans that the social, economic, and foreign policy shaped by leftism is morally righteous.But don't take his word for it. Shapiro interviewed more than one hundred of the industry's biggest players, including Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), Fred Silverman (former president of ABC Entertainment, NBC, and vice president of programming at CBS), Marta Kauffman (Friends), David Shore (House), and Mark Burnett (Survivor). Many of these insiders boast that not only is Hollywood biased against conservatives, but that many of the shows being broadcast have secret political messages. With this groundbreaking expose, readers will never watch television the same way again.
Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen
Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen
Maltin, Leonard
¥94.10
What 151 movies have you never seen but should?What French film could teach Hollywood how to make a smart, sexy romantic comedy(page 233)Where will you find a female-centric Western with a gender-bending protagonist(page 10)What film won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance and then fell off the radar(page 261)What farcical comedy includes such real-life characters as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger(page 50)In what unsung comedy will you find Michael Douglas giving his all-time best performance(page 130)What debut film from the director of The Dark Knight creates palpable chills despite a shoestring budget and a no-name cast(page 79)What John Wayne movie was out of circulation for thirty years and still qualifies as a sleeper(page 121)What terrific Heath Ledger movie was released the same month as Brokeback Mountain and flopped(page 26)What clever modern-day film noir was made for just half a million dollars(page 18)What captivating film stars one of the seminal artists of the twentieth century(page 203)
Founding Mothers
Founding Mothers
Roberts, Cokie
¥94.10
Cokie Roberts's number one New York Times bestseller, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, examined the nature of women's roles throughout history and led USA Today to praise her as a "custodian of time-honored values." Her second bestseller, From This Day Forward, written with her husband, Steve Roberts, described American marriages throughout history, including the romance of John and Abigail Adams. Now Roberts returns with Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families -- and their country -- proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. Roberts brings us the women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. While the men went off to war or to Congress, the women managed their businesses, raised their children, provided them with political advice, and made it possible for the men to do what they did. The behind-the-scenes influence of these women -- and their sometimes very public activities -- was intelligent and pervasive.Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha Washington -- proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might never have survived.Social history at its best, Founding Mothers unveils the drive, determination, creative insight, and passion of the other patriots, the women who raised our nation. Roberts proves beyond a doubt that like every generation of American women that has followed, the founding mothers used the unique gifts of their gender -- courage, pluck, sadness, joy, energy, grace, sensitivity, and humor -- to do what women do best, put one foot in front of the other in remarkable circumstances and carry on.
How the States Got Their Shapes
How the States Got Their Shapes
Stein, Mark
¥94.10
Why does Oklahoma have that panhandleDid someone make a mistakeWe are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities the entire state of Maryland(!) have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey. How the States Got Their Shapes examines: Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.