In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

A New York Times BestsellerFrom Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer's advocate Meryl Comer comes a profoundly intimate and unfl inching account of her husband's battle with Alzheimer's disease, one of today's most pressing and least-understood health epidemics.When Meryl Comer's husband, Dr. Harvey Gralnick, chief of hematology and oncology at the National Institutes of Health, began forgetting routine things and demonstrating abrupt changes in behavior, doctors were confounded as to what was wrong. Diagnoses ranged from stress and depression to Lyme disease, from pernicious anemia to mad cow's disease supposedly acquired from a trip to London. Finally, after years of inconclusive tests, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, a seemingly impossible disease for a man in his prime.Comer gave up her television career and for the next two decades cared for Harvey in their home, tending to his every need while watching him regress into an emotionally distant and sometimes violent stranger. The man I live with is not the man I fell in love with and married,she writes. He has slowly been robbed of what we all take for granted the ability to navigate the mundane activities of daily living: bathing, shaving, dressing, feeding, and using the bathroom. His inner clock is confused and can't be reset. His eyes are vacant and unaware. In Slow Dancing with a Stranger, Comer brings readers face-to-face with Alzheimer's, detailing the realities, its stressful emotional and fi nancial hardships for families, as well as the limitations of doctors and assisted living and long term care facilities to manage diffi cult patient behaviors. With candor and grace, Comer chronicles her personal experiences her mistakes, her heartbreaks, her minor victories to paint an intimate and moving portrait of Alzheimer's and, in the process, she reveals the truth about the disease and everyone it affects.One hundred percent of the proceeds from Slow Dancing with a Stranger will support Alzheimer's research.

The Long Season by James P. Brosnan has de*ive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

World War I was a bloodletting so vast and unprecedented that for a generation it was known simply as the Great War. Casualty lists reached unimagined proportions as the same ground -- places like Ypres and the Somme -- was fought over again and again. Other major bloody battles remain vivid in memory to this day: Gallipoli and the Battle of Jutland are but two examples. Europe was at war with itself, and the effect on Western civilization was profound, its repercussions felt even today.World War I saw the introduction of modern technology into the military arena: The tank, airplane, machine gun, submarine, and -- most lethal of all -- poison gas, all received their first widespread use. Professor Stokesbury analyzes these technological innovations and the war's complex military campaigns in lucid detail. At the same time he discusses the great political events that unfolded during the war, such as the Russian Revolution and the end of the Hapsburg dynasty, putting the social and political side of the war into the context of modern European history.A Short History of World War I is the first history of this war to be written in twenty years. It incorporates recent research and current thinking about the war in a highly readable and lively style.

Sometimes I've taken home the trophy, sometimes I've stumbled or tripped over my own feet. But every move I've made has shaped me into the person I am today.Season after season, millions of fans tune into Dancing with the Stars to watch Derek Hough, the talented, consummate competitor whose skill and commitment have made him the show's all-time champion. Whether he's dancing with an Olympic gold medalist, an internationally renowned recording star, or a celebrated actress, Derek has an undeniable talent for bringing out the best in his partners. He does more than just tutor them in the fox-trot and paso doble he teaches them how to see beyond their limits and realize their true potential.Now, for the first time ever, Derek opens up about his transformation from bullied little boy to accomplished performer and coach who lets nothing and no one stand in his way. In Taking the Lead he details how his experiences have taught him to embrace a positive outlook, channel his creativity and drive, and face his fears head-on.From his early training in London beginning at the age of twelve, to grueling dance competitions around the world, to never-before-told stories from behind the scenes of Dancing with the Stars, Derek writes with honesty and insight about his extraordinary journey. And in sharing his own story, he shows all of us how we can take charge of pursuing our goals, overcome obstacles, and become winners not just on the dance floor but in life.

The 1990s saw a shock wave of dynamic new directing talent that took the Hollywood studio system by storm. At the forefront of that movement were six innovative and daring directors whose films pushed the boundaries of moviemaking and announced to the world that something exciting was happening in Hollywood. Sharon Waxman, editor and chief of The Wrap.com and for Hollywood reporter for the New York Times spent the decade covering these young filmmakers, and in Rebels on the Backlot she weaves together the lives and careers of Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction; Steven Soderbergh, Traffic; David Fincher, Fight Club; Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights; David O. Russell, Three Kings; and Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich.

Enter a world of breathtaking danger and beauty: In this remarkable memoir, veteran smokejumper Jason Ramos offers a rare inside look at the lives of airborne firefighters, the select few who parachute into the most rugged and remote wild areas to battle nature's blazes.Forest and wildland fires are growing larger, more numerous, and deadlier every year as record drought conditions, decades of forestry mismanagement, and the increasing encroachment of residential housing into the wilderness have combined to create a powder keg that threatens millions of acres and thousands of lives. One small group of men and women are America's frontline defense: smokejumpers.Founded in 1939 and populated in its early days by former World War II paratroopers, today's smokejumper program operates through both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Though jumpers are tremendously skilled and only highly experienced and able wildland firefighters are accepted into the training program, smokejumping is an art that can only be learned on the job. Forest fires often behave in unpredictable ways: spreading almost instantaneously, shooting downhill behind a stiff tailwind, or even flowing like liquid.Featuring a foreword by author John Maclean (Fire on the Mountain), Ramos's unforgettable firsthand account takes readers into his exhilarating and daring world, explores smokejumping's remarkable history, and explains why the services of these brave men and women are more essential than ever before.

An essential, fully illustrated guidebook to day-to-day Goth living There's more to being a Goth than throwing on some black velvet, dyeing your hair, and calling it a day (or a night). How do you dress with morbid flair when going to a job interviewIs there such a thing as growing too old to be a GothHow do you explain to your grandma that it's not just a phase?Jillian Venters, a.k.a. "the Lady of the Manners," knows how to be strange and unusual without sacrificing politeness and etiquette. In Gothic Charm School, she offers the quintessential guide to dark decorum for all those who have ever searched for beauty in dark, unexpected places, embraced their individuality, and reveled in decadence . . . and for families and friends who just don't understand.

Are you a narcissistWhat is narcissismis one of the fastest-rising searches on Google, and articles on the topic routinely go viral. Yet the word narcissism seems to mean something different each time it's uttered. In fact, the more it's slung about, the more elusive its true meaning becomes. The only certainty, it would seem, is that it's bad to be a narcissist really bad. That's terrible news for millennials, who've been branded the most narcissistic generation ever. In Rethinking Narcissism, Dr. Craig Malkin a Harvard Medical School Instructor and clinical psychologist with more than two decades of clinical experience offers a radically new model for understanding this often misused term. Narcissism, argues Dr. Malkin, is essentially a spectrum of self-importance and everyone falls somewhere on the scale between utter selflessness and total arrogance. When we casually invoke the term narcissist most of us are referring to the outer edge of the spectrum, which can shade into dangerous psychopathy. But there are also those who live at the lower end of the spectrum dubbed echoists by Dr. Malkin. These, too, are people we know; people so fearful of attention or acknowledgment that they often seem to have no voice at all. Drawing on his own research as well as on the latest findings in psychology, Dr. Malkin uses vivid stories of people from all walks of life to teach concrete strategies for spotting and coping with excessive narcissism. At the same time, he explains why embracing some degree of narcissism the drive to feel special is essential to maintaining a healthy sense of self-worth. Using his new tool , the Narcissism Test, he not only guides readers through the process of measuring their narcissism, but also offers step-by-step advice to prevent unhealthy narcissism and to nurture healthy narcissism in ourselves as well as in our partners, our colleagues, and our children.As practical as it is wise, Rethinking Narcissism doesn't just help people avoid the temptations and dangers of extreme narcissism and narcissists in both the real world and cyberspace; it helps everyone, including people who don't feel special enough, to find their voices and live a more passionate, fulfilling life.

Malachy McCourt, bestselling author of A Monk Swimming, shares the extraordinary story of how he went from living the headlong and heedless life of a world-class drunk to becoming a sober, loving father and grandfather, still happily married after thirty-five years.Bawdy and funny, naked and moving, told in the same inimitable voice that left readers all over the world wondering what happened next in A Monk Swimming, Singing My Him Song is "told with the frankness and honesty for which McCourt has become renowned" (New York Daily News).

Khaliah Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, shares her success at overcoming obesity through banding surgery—a minimally invasive, reversible, and extremely effective choice for drastically overweight peopleWhen Muhammad Ali's daughter Khaliah hit 325 pounds, she didn't need to be told again that she was morbidly obese. A lifetime of dieting, of starving, had not helped. Miserable, depressed, and unable to walk up a flight of stairs without losing her breath, she did not know which way to turn—until a friend pointed her toward a new type of surgery called gastric banding. It is just as effective as gastric bypass but with a fraction of potential complications. With the band placed around her stomach and completely taking away her hunger, Khaliah slimmed down to half her former size. Khaliah wraps her story of weight loss in this memoir of what it was like to grow up the daughter of one of the world's most famous men, and teams up with her surgeons at the New York University Medical Center to detail the lifetime of misery suffered by an obese girl; the ins and outs of the banding operation; and the joy, serenity, and health resulting from a solution that until now had eluded her.

Meet Tom Ripple, a man with an uncommon outlook on his common life. Through the vividness of his voice and his growing sense of the sorrow and absurdity of the world, Tom Ripple becomes an unusually appealing antihero, aware of his ordinariness and the limits of his intelligence, with a ribald sense of humor, and a clumsiness in his attempts at emotional connection with others. He is a bewildered everyman navigating his way through modern times. By turns poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and profound, It's All Right Now is a towering achievement and a singular work of the imagination.

Over 140 practical recipes to help you make sense of your data with ease and build production-ready data apps About This Book Analyze Big Data sets, create attractive visualizations, and manipulate and process various data types Packed with rich recipes to help you learn and explore amazing algorithms for statistics and machine learning Authored by Ivan Idris, expert in python programming and proud author of eight highly reviewed books Who This Book Is For This book teaches Python data analysis at an intermediate level with the goal of transforming you from journeyman to master. Basic Python and data analysis skills and affinity are assumed. What You Will Learn Set up reproducible data analysis Clean and transform data Apply advanced statistical analysis Create attractive data visualizations Web scrape and work with databases, Hadoop, and Spark Analyze images and time series data Mine text and analyze social networks Use machine learning and evaluate the results Take advantage of parallelism and concurrency In Detail Data analysis is a rapidly evolving field and Python is a multi-paradigm programming language suitable for object-oriented application development and functional design patterns. As Python offers a range of tools and libraries for all purposes, it has slowly evolved as the primary language for data science, including topics on: data analysis, visualization, and machine learning. Python Data Analysis Cookbook focuses on reproducibility and creating production-ready systems. You will start with recipes that set the foundation for data analysis with libraries such as matplotlib, NumPy, and pandas. You will learn to create visualizations by choosing color maps and palettes then dive into statistical data analysis using distribution algorithms and correlations. You’ll then help you find your way around different data and numerical problems, get to grips with Spark and HDFS, and then set up migration *s for web mining. In this book, you will dive deeper into recipes on spectral analysis, smoothing, and bootstrapping methods. Moving on, you will learn to rank stocks and check market efficiency, then work with metrics and clusters. You will achieve parallelism to improve system performance by using multiple threads and speeding up your code. By the end of the book, you will be capable of handling various data analysis techniques in Python and devising solutions for problem scenarios. Style and Approach The book is written in “cookbook” style striving for high realism in data analysis. Through the recipe-based format, you can read each recipe separately as required and immediately apply the knowledge gained.

This book is intended for software developers who want to use parallel programming techniques to write powerful and efficient code. After reading this book, you will be able to master the basics and the advanced features of parallel computing. The Python programming language is easy to use and allows nonexperts to deal with and easily understand the topics exposed in this book.

The book starts by covering installation and configuration, before moving on to administration and dashboard usage. It contains step-by-step instructions for setting up and using a working, capable Zenoss system. This book is written primarily for network and systems administrators who are monitoring their IT assets with Zenoss Core or who plan to monitor them. In reality, this book will benefit anyone, regardless of job title, who recognizes the importance of proactively monitoring the servers, routers, computers, websites, and devices that connect companies to customers.

Written as an interactive tutorial, this book covers the core of BackTrack with real-world examples and step-by-step instructions to provide professional guidelines and recommendations to you. The book is designed in a simple and intuitive manner, which allows you to explore the whole BackTrack testing process or study parts of it individually. If you are an IT security professional or network administrator who has a basic knowledge of Unix/Linux operating systems including awareness of information security factors, and you want to use BackTrack for penetration testing, then this book is for you.

A practical tutorial, this book shows you how to set up and configure Dynamics AX 2009 and then how to improve and maintain its performance with clear step-by-step instructions, enabling Dynamics AX to fit your company's needs. If you are a network administrator or IT personnel charged with setting up and configuring Dynamics AX 2009 in your company, then this book is for you. A basic knowledge of Dynamics AX 2009 and general Windows Server Administration is required and familiarity with maintaining a SQL Server database server. Additionally, if you are a VAR tasked with implementing Dynamics AX into companies, then this book will provide you with a good overview and details of the whole Dynamics AX 2009 system.

The book is written so that both experienced and novice Tclers can find useful information inside. It starts with quick introduction to Tcl and its networking support for those who are less familiar with them. Authors focus on showing practical, yet simple examples for each module and command described so that reader understands how to use them when solving the real life problems. The examples given are useful programs that try to solve real-world needs. All sample programs are clear and concise yet nothing essential is left out and the programming style focuses on readability rather than on stylistic rigor or efficiency. This book is for Tcl developers with basic network programming concepts, who want to add networking capabilities to their applications. Working knowledge of Tcl and basic experience of network protocols will be useful. The reader should be familiar with basic concepts used in modern networking – keywords like TCP, HTTP or XML should not be a mystery. The book does not require advanced knowledge of Tcl – the first chapters will swiftly introduce the reader into it, allowing refreshing the information or gaining a quick overview of the Tcl language abilities.

This beginner's guide consists of comprehensive explanation, appropriate screenshots, tips, tricks, and best practices. It offers step-by-step instructions on building your own virtual environment from scratch, supported by the reasoning behind what you do. If you are a System Administrator who has to set up a virtual machine and want to use an open source tool to do it this book will prove invaluable. No prior knowledge of VirtualBox is required, but you should have experience with general system administration.

As part of Packt's Beginner's Guide, this book focuses on teaching by example. The book walks you through every aspect of PDI, giving step-by-step instructions in a friendly style, allowing you to learn in front of your computer, playing with the tool. The extensive use of drawings and screenshots make the process of learning PDI easy. Throughout the book numerous tips and helpful hints are provided that you will not find anywhere else. The book provides short, practical examples and also builds from scratch a small datamart intended to reinforce the learned concepts and to teach you the basics of data warehousing. This book is for software developers, database administrators, IT students, and everyone involved or interested in developing ETL solutions, or, more generally, doing any kind of data manipulation. If you have never used PDI before, this will be a perfect book to start with. You will find this book is a good starting point if you are a database administrator, data warehouse designer, architect, or any person who is responsible for data warehouse projects and need to load data into them. You don't need to have any prior data warehouse or database experience to read this book. Fundamental database and data warehouse technical terms and concepts are explained in easy-to-understand language.

This book is designed to cover the problems that novice DBAs particularly struggle with. This handbook covers a minimal amount of theoretical information before showing you how to overcome common problems through the use of real-life examples. It covers both Oracle 11g R1 and 11g R2 in examples, with material applicable to all versions of Oracle. This book is for you if you find yourself in charge of an Oracle database. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Whether you are a single employee or the DBA manager of several employees, whether you are taking over an existing position or taking up a newly created one – this book is designed to be a sanity check. If you need guidance for migrating to 11g or implementing Oracle's Maximum Availability Architecture, you will find this book very helpful.