Paul Bontemps decided to move his family to Los Angeles from Louisiana in 1906 on the day he finally submitted to a strictly enforced Southern custom--he stepped off the sidewalk to allow white men who had just insulted him to pass by. Friends of the Bontemps family, like many others beckoning their loved ones West, had written that Los Angeles was "a city called heaven" for people of color. But just how free was Southern California for African Americans?
This splendid history, at once sweeping in its historical reach and intimate in its evocation of everyday life, is the first full account of Los Angeles's black community in the half century before World War II. Filled with moving human drama, it brings alive a time and place largely ignored by historians until now, detailing African American community life and political activism during the city's transformation from small town to sprawling metropolis. Writing with a novelist's sensitivity to language and drawing from fresh historical research, Douglas Flamming takes us from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era, through the Great Migration, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the build-up to World War II. Along the way, he offers rich descriptions of the community and its middle-class leadership, the women who were front and center with men in the battle against racism in the American West. In addition to drawing a vivid portrait of a little-known era, Flamming shows that the history of race in Los Angeles is crucial for our understanding of race in America. The civil rights activism in Los Angeles laid the foundation for critical developments in the second half of the century that continue to influence us to this day.

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2,8 MB
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Douglas Flamming - Bound for Freedom, Black Los An geles in Jim Crow America (2005).pdf

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John D. Hardison - The Megaton Blasters, Story of the 4925th Test Group (1990).jpg

In February, 1950, a double barbed-wire complex was set up within Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to headquarter a new Top Secret U.S. Air Force unit designated the 4925th Test Group (Atomic). A small sign at the gate simply said "Santa Fe Operations". Unauthorized, curious visitors were politely but firmly turned away by armed USAF Air Policemen. The best bomber and fighter pilots in the USAF and all types of expert support personnel were located worldwide and orders were promptly cut transferring them to the elite 4925th.

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45,9 MB
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John D. Hardison - The Megaton Blasters, Story of the 4925th Test Group (1990).pdf

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Irwin M. Wall - The United States and the Making o f Postwar France, 1945-1954 (1991).jpg

This is the first study of French-American relations in the critical postwar period, 1945-1954, which makes use of recently opened diplomatic archives and personal papers in France and the United States. Wall examines the American role in French diplomacy, economic reconstruction, military policy, politics, and the reshaping of French society from labor unions to consumer tastes and films. Particular emphasis is placed on American attempts to combat the influence of French Communism and achieve a stable, centrist regime avoiding the extremes of right and left.

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6,3 MB
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Irwin M. Wall - The United States and the Making o f Postwar France, 1945-1954 (1991).pdf

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115 KB
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Alfred Bendixen, Judith Hamera - The Cambridge Com panion to American Travel Writing (2009).jpg

Travel writing has always been intimately linked with the construction of American identity. Occupying the space between fact and fiction, it exposes cultural fault lines and reveals the changing desires and anxieties of both the traveller and the reading public. These specially-commissioned essays trace the journeys taken by writers from the pre-revolutionary period right up to the present. They examine a wide range of responses to the problems posed by landscapes found both at home and abroad, from the Mississippi and the Southwest to Europe and the Holy Land. Throughout, the contributors focus on the role played by travel writing in the definition and formulation of national identity, and consider the experiences of minority writers as well as canonical authors. This Companion forms an invaluable guide for students approaching this new, important and exciting subject for the first time.

Contents:

Introduction : New worlds and old lands : the travel book and the construction of American identity / Judith Hamera and Alfred Bendixen --
Beginnings : the origins of American travel writing in the pre-revolutionary period / Philip Gould --
"Property in the horizon" : landscape and American travel writing / William W. Stowe --
New York to Niagara by way of the Hudson and the Erie / Christopher Mulvey --
The Mississippi river as site and symbol / Thomas Ruys Smith --
The Southwest and travel writing / Martin Padget --
American travel books about Europe before the Civil War / Alfred Bendixen --
Americans in Europe : Henry James to the present / William Merrill Decker --
Americans in the Holy Land, Israel, and Palestine / Hilton Obenzinger --
Americans in the larger world : beyond the Pacific coast / Christopher McBride --
South of the border : American travel writing in Latin America / Terry Caesar --
African American travel literature / Virginia Whatley Smith --
American women and travel writing / Susan L. Roberson --
Driving that highway to consciousness : late twentieth-century American travel literature / Deborah Paes de Barros.

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Return with Honor - USS Stockdale (DDG 106) (2009).jpg

The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer has been in service with the US. Navy since 1991, with construction divided between Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (formerly Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding) in Pascagoula, Miss., and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine. The first 21 ships in the class -DDG 51 through DDG 71 - are categorized as Flight I, the next seven - DDG 72 through DDG 78 - as Flight II, and those from DDG 79 on as Flight IIA. The USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) was to have concluded a build of 62 Arleigh Burke destroyers. However, following cancellation of the DDG 1000 program after the completion of only two vessels, the Navy plans to continue Arleigh Burke construction at least through USS Chandler (DDG 116). Flight IIA improvements over previous flights include hangars for two SH-60B/F LAMPS III (Light Airborne Multipurpose System) Seahawk helicopters, new combat systems software, an enlarged flight deck, the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, the Kingfisher mine detection sonar, a Kollmorgen optronic sight, and an upgraded Aegis 7.1R combat system.

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52,2 MB
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Return with Honor - USS Stockdale (DDG 106) (2009).pdf

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Osprey - Men-at-Arms 454 - Ron Field - The Seminol e Wars 1818–58 (2009).jpg

The Seminole of Florida were one of five so-called ‘Civilized Tribes’ who for many years lived in peace with the settlers. However, by 1815, frontier Americans had grown increasingly envious of their relative wealth and land, and resentful of their harbouring of former slaves. This book reveals the dramatic stories behind the ensuing Seminole wars, examining the dogged resistance displayed by the Seminole as they endured three drawn-out campaigns. Illustrated with careful reconstructions of the colourful and varied clothing and uniforms worn by both sides, the author discusses the organization and history of a tribe that refused to give in, until the sheer weight of the opposing forces ultimately led to their defeat.
Contents

* Introduction
* The First Seminole War 1818–19
* The Second Seminole War 1835–42
* The Third Seminole War 1855–58
* Seminole Dress
* US Uniforms, Weapons and Equipage
* Select Bibliography
* Plate Commentaries
* Index

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Osprey - Men-at-Arms 455 - John Langellier - US Ar med Forces in China 1856–1941 (2009).jpg

This volume reveals the little-known story of the 90-year presence of American forces in China until the fall of Peking in 1941. Included is coverage of the first operations on the Pearl River in 1856 as well as US involvement in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. As China entered a chaotic period in her history, known as the years of the “Warlords”, American marines also participated in numerous small-scale amphibious landings. Finally, during the later Sino-Japanese War and early into World War II, US volunteers of the “Flying Tigers” became renowned for their combat missions in support of Chinese Nationalist forces, and their aerial duels are also recounted by the author John P. Langellier, who has spent several years researching the subject in the US and China. Discover the history of these various actions and the different services involved, recreated in color artwork and illustrated with rare, previously unpublished photographs.

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Concord - Firepower Pictorials 1011 - Yves Debay - USMC Firepower, Armor and Artillery (1992).jpg

As pan of the US. Department of Navy, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) could be considered as a fully autonomous army and could easily be considered the 4th branch of the United States Armed Forces.
With 204,000 all volunteer elite soldiers, the USMC is the First Intervention Force of the U.S.A. The size and firepower of the USMC is equivalent to the firepower of a medium size country or the combination of two smaller countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
Although the primary task of the USMC is the frontal amphibious assault, the same "Leathernecks" are also capable of undertaking intervention missions like hostage rescue or the evacuation of US. citizens on foreign soil threatened by hostile governments.

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Concord - Firepower Pictorials 1011 - Yves Debay - USMC Firepower, Armor and Artillery (1992).pdf

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49,7 MB
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Osprey - New Vanguard 123 - David Fletcher - Swim ming Shermans, Sherman DD Amphibious Tank of World War II (2006).pdf

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50,5 MB
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Osprey - New Vanguard 139 - David Fletcher - Sher man Crab Flail Tank (2007).pdf

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Squadron - Armor 18 - Steven J Zaloga - Stuart U.S . Light Tanks in Action (1979).jpg

At the time of the outbreak of the European War in September 1939, the U.S. Army found itself with fewer tanks than even a small European country like Poland. While the Poles were able to field over 700 armored vehicles during the September Campaign, the U.S. Army had only about 400 worthwhile tanks, if the several hundred worn-out and useless 6-Ton Tanks of World War I vintage are discounted. Even these 400 tanks were of dubious value since virtually all were merely machine gun armed. This lamentable state of affairs can be traced not only to the penurious budgets of an isolationist Congress, but to the absence of a bureaucratic structure within the Army or the Department of War to lobby for funds for tank development and procurement.

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Squadron - Armor 18 - Steven J Zaloga - Stuart U.S . Light Tanks in Action (1979).pdf

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Squadron - Armor 25 - Jim Mesko - M-24 Chaffee in Action (1988).jpg

During the early 1930s the Army Chief of Staff, GEN Douglas MacArthur, had begun a push to mechanize the Army and felt that the Cavalry should be equipped with tanks. He envisioned an armored Cavalry capable of moving ahead of the infantry to disrupt enemy forces. As a result of his efforts approval was granted to equip the Cavalry with tanks. To circumvent the 1920 Defense Act. which had allocated control of tanks lo the Infantry, vehicles were procured for the Cavalry as "combat cars'. Due to the economic constraints of the Depression, the Army was forced to concentrate funds on a modified version of the infantry tank, instead of a new design.
The late 1930s saw infantry tank units equipped with the M2A2 and M2A3. while Cavalry units used two combat cars, the Ml and M2. The basic difference between these vehicles were the number of turrets carried by each. Infantry tanks had twin side by side turrets while Cavalry models had single turrets.

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Squadron - Armor 25 - Jim Mesko - M-24 Chaffee in Action (1988).pdf

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Wendy Kline - Building a Better Race, Gender, Sexu ality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century t o the Baby Boom (2001).jpg

USA Books1 - Wendy Kline - Building a Better Race, Gender, Sexualit...cs from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom 2001.jpg

Wendy Kline's lucid cultural history of eugenics in America emphasizes the movement's central, continuing interaction with popular notions of gender and morality. Kline shows how eugenics could seem a viable solution to problems of moral disorder and sexuality, especially female sexuality, during the first half of the twentieth century. Its appeal to social conscience and shared desires to strengthen the family and civilization sparked widespread public as well as scientific interest.
Kline traces this growing public interest by looking at a variety of sources, including the astonishing "morality masque" that climaxed the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition; the nationwide correspondence of the influential Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California; the medical and patient records of a "model" state institution that sterilized thousands of allegedly feebleminded women in California between 1900 and 1960; the surprising political and popular support for sterilization that survived initial interest in, and then disassociation from, Nazi eugenics policies; and a widely publicized court case in 1936 involving the sterilization of a wealthy young woman deemed unworthy by her mother of having children.
Kline's engaging account reflects the shift from "negative eugenics" (preventing procreation of the "unfit") to "positive eugenics," which encouraged procreation of the "fit," and it reveals that the "golden age" of eugenics actually occurred long after most historians claim the movement had vanished. The middle-class "passion for parenthood" in the '50s had its roots, she finds, in the positive eugenics campaign of the '30s and '40s. Many issues that originated in the eugenics movement remain controversial today, such as the use of IQ testing, the medical ethics of sterilization, the moral and legal implications of cloning and genetic screening, and even the debate on family values of the 1990s. Building a Better Race not only places eugenics at the center of modern reevaluations of female sexuality and morality but also acknowledges eugenics as an essential aspect of major social and cultural movements in the twentieth century.

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Wendy Kline - Building a Better Race, Gender, Sexu ality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century t o the Baby Boom (2001).pdf

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Alan Dobson - US Foreign Policy Since 1945 (2000).jpg

US Foreign Polict Since 1945 is an essential and concise introduction to postwar US foreign policy. The authors explore the key questions of who makes policy, why, in what style or tradition, under what kinds of democratic controls and in what kind of international environment.
Readers will find challenging and thought-provoking analysis of the crucial issues, including:
* containment
*Presidential war powers
*realism and idealism
*the Cuban missle crisis
*Viet Nam, Panama, Yugoslavia and Kosovo
*the New World Order
*US interventionism and exit strategies

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Alan Dobson - US Foreign Policy Since 1945 (2000).pdf

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Jonathan Rieder, Stephen Steinlight - The Fractiou s Nation, Unity and Division in Contemporary Ameri can Life (2003).jpg

USA Books1 - Jonathan Rieder, Stephen Steinlight - The Fractious N...Unity and Division in Contemporary American Life 2003.jpg

What are we to make of the speed with which the new climate of national solidarity emerged after September 11? Does it not look strange against a backdrop of the much-touted divisiveness of American life? In truth, The Fractious Nation? makes clear, the contrast of the time of divisiveness before and the time of unity that followed is much too stark, indeed. Less than a year before two planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the 2000 presidential election produced not just the starkly blue and red electoral map but also the two tribal Americas those totemic colors emblazoned. And from the cultural wars to immigration restriction, from the Christian right to political correctness, recent decades have witnessed much hand-wringing on the left and the right about the fragmentation of American life. The Fractious Nation? enlists the critical intelligence of fourteen distinguished contributors who illuminate the schisms in American life and the often volatile debates they have inspired in the realms of culture, ethnic and racial pluralism, and political life.

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1,7 MB
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Jonathan Rieder, Stephen Steinlight - The Fractiou s Nation, Unity and Division in Contemporary Ameri can Life (2003).pdf

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Xiaoyuan Liu - A Partnership for Disorder, China, the United States, and their Policies for the Pos twar Disposition of the Japanese Empire, 1941-1945 (1996).jpg

USA Books1 - Xiaoyuan Liu - A Partnership for Disorder, China, th...ar Disposition of the Japanese Empire, 1941-1945 1996.jpg

A Partnership of Disorder examines the American-Chinese foreign policy planning in World War II for decolonizing the Japanese Empire and controlling Japan after the war. The study reveals how their disagreements on many concrete issues prevented the two governments from forging an effective partnership. Among these issues were the role of the Soviet Union and the meaning of Asian nationalism. At the war's end, the victorious Allies were neither in cooperation among themselves nor in a position to cope with the upheavals in Asia.

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Xiaoyuan Liu - A Partnership for Disorder, China, the United States, and their Policies for the Pos twar Disposition of the Japanese Empire, 1941-1945 (1996).pdf

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Richard Stivers - The Illusion of Freedom and Equa lity (2008).jpg

Arguing that the ideology of freedom and equality today bears little resemblance to its eighteenth-century counterpart, Richard Stivers examines how these values have been radically transformed in a technological civilization. Once thought of as a kind of personal property and an aspect of the dignity of the individual, the context of freedom and equality today is technological before it is political and economic and is also now largely thought of in collective terms. Focusing on the work of Jacques Ellul and Max Weber, Stivers traces the development of freedom and equality in Enlightenment thought and American history and then proceeds to discuss their current ideologies, realities, and illusions.

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