No nation in modern history has had a more powerful sense of its own distinctiveness than the United States. Yet few Americans understand the immensely varied sources of that sense and the fascinating debates that have always swirled around our attempts to define America with greater precision. In this introduction to the study of American history, Wilfred M. McClay invites us to experience the perennial freshness and vitality of this great subject as he explores some of the enduring commitments and persistent tensions that have made America what it is. Author: Wifred M. McClayPages: 96, PaperbackPublisher

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Wilfred M. McClay - A Student's Guide To U.S. Hi story (2000).pdf

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Meghana Nayak, Eric Selbin - Decentering Internati onal Relations (2010).jpg

Decentering International Relations seeks to actively confront, resist, and rewrite International Relations (IR), a heavily politicized field that is deeply centered in the North/West and privileges certain perspectives, pedagogies, and practices. Is it possible to break the chain of signifiers that always leads IR studies back to the US and its European allies?

Through engagement with a variety of theories (ranging beyond the usual mainstream versus critical/alternative binary), conversations with scholars, activists, and students, and consultation of IR syllabi and conference proceedings, the authors invite the reader to participate in an accessible yet provocative experiment to decenter the North/West when we learn, study and do IR. In particular, they examine how the pressing issues of human rights, globalization, peace and security, and indigeneity are simultaneously normative inventions meant to sustain particular power structures and sites for insurgent and subversive attempts to live IR at the margins.

Selbin and Nayak have written a remarkable and provokative re-envisioning of a globally important subject.

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Meghana Nayak, Eric Selbin - Decentering Internati onal Relations (2010).pdf

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David Holloway - 9-11 and the War on Terror (2010).jpg

This interdisciplinary study of how 9/11 and the 'war on terror' were represented during the Bush era, shows how culture often functioned as a vital resource, for citizens attempting to make sense of momentous historical events that frequently seemed beyond their influence or control. Illustrated throughout, the book discusses representation of 9/11 and the war on terror in Hollywood film, the 9/11 novel, mass media, visual art and photography, political discourse, and revisionist historical accounts of American 'empire,' between the September 11 attacks and the Congressional midterm elections in 2006. As well as prompting an international security crisis, and a crisis in international governance and law, David Holloway suggests the culture of the time also points to a 'crisis' unfolding in the institutions and processes of republican democracy in the United States. His book offers a cultural and ideological history of the period, showing how culture was used by contemporaries to debate, legitimise, qualify, contest, or repress discussion, about the causes, consequences and broader meanings of 9/11 and the war on terror.

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Dennis Smith - Report from Ground Zero (2003).jpg

September 11th changed the face of America, but it also revealed the true face of heroism. The men of the New York Fire Department fought with courage and endurance to save others. This is their story, told by a veteran firefighter.

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Scott Christianson - Condemned, Inside the Sing Si ng Death House (2000).jpg

In the annals of American criminal justice, two prisons stand out as icons of institutionalized brutality and deprivation: Alcatraz and Sing Sing. In the 70 odd years before 1963, when the death sentence was declared unconstitutional in New York, Sing Sing was the site of almost one-half of the 1,353 executions carried out in the state. More people were executed at Sing Sing than at any other American prison, yet Sing Sing's death house was, to a remarkable extent, one of the most closed, secret and mythologized places in modern America.

In this remarkable book, based on recently revealed archival materials, Scott Christianson takes us on a disturbing and poignant tour of Sing Sing's legendary death house, and introduces us to those whose lives Sing Sing claimed. Within the dusty files were mug shots of each newly arrived prisoner, most still wearing the out-to-court clothes they had on earlier that day when they learned their verdict and were sentenced to death. It is these sometimes bewildered, sometimes defiant, faces that fill the pages of Condemned, along with the documents of their last months at Sing Sing.

The reader follows prisoners from their introduction to the rules of Sing Sing, through their contact with guards and psychiatrists, their pleas for clemency, escape attempts, resistance, and their final letters and messages before being put to death. We meet the mother of five accused of killing her husband, the two young Chinese men accused of a murder during a robbery and the drifter who doesn't remember killing at all. While the majority of inmates are everyday people, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were also executed here, as were the major figures in the infamous Murder Inc., forerunner of the American mafia. Page upon page, Condemned leaves an indelible impression of humanity and suffering.

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Scott Christianson - Condemned, Inside the Sing Si ng Death House (2000).pdf

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Frank Joseph - Zaginiona historia starożytnych Ame ryk (2006).jpg

Osady sprzed setek tysięcy lat, narzędzia do cięcia granitu bardziej precyzyjne niż diamentowa piła, monstrualne 6-metrowe niedźwiedzie, zaginieni budowniczowie Michigan z epoki brązu, supernauka w przedhiszpańskim Peru, azteckie „Naczynie Czasu”, piramidy Majów na Jawie to tylko niektóre z ukrywanych faktów, dotyczących przeszłości obu Ameryk. Odkrycia ostatnich lat dowodzą, że historia tych kontynentów była inna, niż przedstawia to oficjalna nauka.

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Giovanna Borradori - The American Philosopher (199 4).jpg

In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar, this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of American philosophy over the past few decades.

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Bruce Wilshire - The Primal Roots of American Phil osophy, Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native Amer ican Thought (2003).jpg

USA Books - Bruce Wilshire - The Primal Roots of American Philosop...atism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought 2003.jpg

An exploration of American philosophy, connecting the work of such thinkers as Thoreau, Emerson, Dewey and James with Native American beliefs and practices. Bruce Wilshire's search is not for exact parallels, but rather for fundamental affinities.

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Bruce Wilshire - The Primal Roots of American Phil osophy, Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native Amer ican Thought (2003).pdf

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Laura Ling, Lisa Ling - Somewhere Inside, One Sist er's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Figh t to Bring Her Home (2010).jpeg

USA Books - Laura Ling, Lisa Ling - Somewhere Inside, One Sisters ...rth Korea and the Others Fight to Bring Her Home 2010.jpeg

On March 17, 2009, Laura Ling and her colleague Euna Lee were working on a documentary about North Korean defectors who were fleeing the desperate conditions in their homeland. While filming on the Chinese–North Korean border, they were chased down by North Korean soldiers who violently apprehended them. Laura and Euna were charged with trespassing and "hostile acts," and imprisoned by Kim Jong Il's notoriously secretive Communist state. Kept totally apart, they endured months of interrogations and eventually a trial before North Korea's highest court. They were the first Americans ever to be sentenced to twelve years of hard labor in a prison camp in North Korea.
When news of the arrest reached Laura's sister, journalist Lisa Ling, she immediately began a campaign to get her sister released, one that led her from the State Department to the higher echelons of the media world and eventually to the White House.
Somewhere Inside reveals for the first time Laura's gripping account of what really happened on the river, her treatment at the hands of North Korean guards, and the deprivations and rounds of harrowing interrogations she endured. She speaks movingly about the emotional toll inflicted on her by her incarceration, including the measures she took to protect her sources and her fears that she might never see her family again.
Lisa writes about her unrelenting efforts to secure Laura and Euna's release. Offering insights into the vast media campaign spearheaded on the women's behalf, Lisa also takes us deep into the drama involving people at the highest levels of government, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Bill Richardson—intense discussions that entailed strategically balancing the agendas and good intentions of the various players. She also describes her role in the back-and-forth between North Korea's demands and the dramatic rescue by former President Bill Clinton.
Though they were thousands of miles apart while Laura was in captivity, the Ling sisters' relationship became a way for the reclusive North Korean government to send messages to the United States government, which helped lead to Laura and Euna's eventual release.
Told in the sisters' alternating voices, Somewhere Inside is a timely, inspiring, and page-turning tale of survival set against the canvas of international politics that goes beyond the headlines to reveal the impact on lives engulfed by forces beyond their control. But it is also a window into the unique bond these two sisters have always shared, a bond that sustained them throughout the most horrifying ordeal of their lives.

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Laura Ling, Lisa Ling - Somewhere Inside, One Sist er's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Figh t to Bring Her Home (2010).epub

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Mckay Jenkins - The White Death, Tragedy and Heroi sm in an Avalanche Zone (2001).jpg

By turns gripping, informative, and even frightening, The White Death probes the interplay of human endeavor in the mountains, the fragile beauty of snow, and nature's mysterious power. Jenkins succeeds admirably in melding human drama with the indifference of natural forces, allowing the "avalanche-beast" to build in character through survivors' reports, news clippings, and scientific findings. The book's emotional centerpiece is the tragic story of an avalanche that roared down Mount Cleveland in Glacier National Park, where five young climbers set out to scale the treacherous North Face. Just days into their climb, snow and strong winds set in. "What they saw could not have been inviting: snow clouds covered the mountain's summit...with loose powder avalanches regularly scrubbing it clean." Bud Anderson, older brother to one of the climbers, flew his single-engine plane over the mountain to observe the team's progress. "He hoped, perhaps, to rock his wings at them as a sign of encouragement, or congratulations." Instead, "his breath caught. The tracks ended at the unmistakable edge of a massive fresh avalanche..." Jenkins's stirring account pieces the clues and rescue efforts together to read like a true and terrible mystery being solved.
The horror of being buried alive by snow is vivid and sober among these pages, and is sure to chill climbers as well as those reading from the comforts of central heating. The author's vision is acute and helps better assess the bounds of our human capacity and domain.

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Max Wilk - The Making of The Sound of Music (2007).jpg

The Sound of Music was the last--and most successful--collaboration of two giants of the musical theater, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Enjoying a long run on Broadway and then transformed into a major hit film--recently reissued in a 40th anniversary edition on DVD with new footage--The Sound of Music remains among the most produced musicals by professional and amateur companies around the world.

This book tells the full story of the making of the show, from the first rough ideas through the tryouts, fine tuning, and eventual triumph--all from an eyewitness to the events themselves. Wilk brings a musical theater historian's eye to the work, along with his passionate involvement as a witness to this history. For anyone and everyone who has ever thrilled to The Sound of Music, this book will be a must.

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Max Wilk - The Making of The Sound of Music (2007).pdf

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R. G. Grant - Soldier, A Visual History of the Fig hting Man (2007).jpg

This book presents a warrior's life, on and off the battlefield. From the Samurai of Japan to US rifleman, explore the dramatic experiences of soldiers who've fought battles and paid the price of warfare. Experience life on the frontline through personal accounts of the training, living conditions and engagements from 2,500 years of military history. Learn about fighting techniques and tactics from each era, and see the armour, uniforms, kit and weapons used in the field. Virtual tours take you inside the fortresses, ships, tanks and aircraft in which soldiers have battled, from a Viking longship to the cockpit of a B17 bomber. This book contains foreword from Colonel Tim Collins (OBE), who made headlines with his inspirational 'Eve-of-Battle' speech during the Iraqi conflict. This is an essential visual record of the fighting man.

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Gerald Majer - The Velvet Lounge, On Late Chicago Jazz (2005).jpg

Troubled urban neighborhoods and jazz-club havens were the backdrop of Gerald Majer's life growing up in sixties and seventies Chicago. The Velvet Lounge, an original hybrid of memoir, biography, and musical description, reflects this history and pursues a sustained meditation on jazz along with a probing exploration of race and class and how they defined the material and psychic divides of a city. With the instrument of a supple, lyrical prose style, Majer elaborates the book's themes through literary and intellectual forays as carefully constructed and as passionately articulated as a jazz master's solo. Throughout the work, issues of identity and culture, art and politics achieve a rare immediacy, as does the music itself.

In portraits of Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Sun Ra, and others, Gerald Majer conveys the drama and artistry of their music as well as the personal hardships many of them endured. Vivid descriptions and telling historical anecdotes explore the music's richness through a variety of political, social, and philosophical contexts. The Velvet Lounge, named after the famous Chicago club, is also one of the few works to consider the music of such avant-garde jazz musicians as Fred Anderson, Andrew Hill, and Roscoe Mitchell. In doing so, Majer builds a bridge from the traditionalist view of jazz to the world of contemporary innovators, casts a new light on the music and its makers, and traces connections between jazz art and postmodernist thought.

Present throughout Majer's spirited encounters with the worlds of jazz is Majer himself. We hear and appreciate the music through his individual sensibilities and experiences. Majer recounts growing up in racially divided Chicago -- his trips to the famed Maxwell Street market, his wanderings among its legendary jazz clubs, his riding the El, and his working in a jukebox factory. We witness his awakening to the music at a crossroads of the intimately personal and the intellectually provocative.

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George F. Hofmann - Through Mobility We Conquer, T he Mechanization of U.S. Cavalry (2006).jpg

The U.S. Cavalry, which began in the nineteenth century as little more than a mounted reconnaissance and harrying force, underwent intense growing pains with the rapid technological developments of the twentieth century. From its tentative beginnings during World War I, the eventual conversion of the traditional horse cavalry to a mechanized branch is arguably one of the greatest military transformations in history.

Through Mobility We Conquer recounts the evolution and development of the U.S. Army’s modern mechanized cavalry and the doctrine necessary to use it effectively, and explores the debates over how best to use cavalry. Having reviewed thousands of official records and manuals, military journals, personal papers, memoirs, and oral histories—many of which were only recently declassified—George F. Hofmann now presents a detailed study of the doctrine, equipment, structure, organization, tactics, and strategy of U.S. mechanized cavalry during the first half of the twentieth century.

Illustrated with dozens of photographs, maps, and charts, Through Mobility We Conquer examines how technology revolutionized U.S. forces in the twentieth century, and demonstrates how perhaps no branch of the military underwent greater changes during this time than the cavalry.

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George F. Hofmann - Through Mobility We Conquer, T he Mechanization of U.S. Cavalry (2006).pdf

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Karl Samson - Frommer's Washington State (2010).jpg

More than 14 million visitors a year and hordes of international visitors have made Washington the 11th most popular U.S. state for foreign tourists. This guide hits all the highlights, from the exciting restaurant and nightlife scenes in Seattle to the pristine beauty of the San Juan islands. It also offers complete coverage of Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Olympic National Park, which hosts more than 4 million visitors annually, making it the 3rd most popular park in the country. With candid, in-depth reviews; detailed color maps; and choices for every taste and budget, Frommers is the premier guide to the best of the Northwest!

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Karl Samson - Frommer's Washington State (2010).pdf

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Loren C. Steffy - Drowning in Oil, BP & the Reckle ss Pursuit of Profit (2010).jpg

As night settled on April 20, 2010, a series of explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, the immense semisubmersible drilling platform leased by British Petroleum, located 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The ensuing inferno claimed 11 lives, and it would rage uncontained for two days, until its wreckage sank to a final resting place nearly a mile beneath the waves. On the ocean floor, the unit's wellhead erupted. Over the next ten weeks, as repeated attempts to cap the geyser failed, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil—the equivalent of 20 Exxon Valdez spills—spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually lapping up on beaches as far away as Florida.

Drowning in Oil, by award-winning Houston Chronicle business reporter and columnist Loren Steffy—considered by many to be the writer with the best access to the story—is an unprecedented and gripping narrative of this catastrophe and how BP's winner-take-all business culture made it all but inevitable.

Through never-before-published interviews with BP executives and employees, environmental experts, and oil industry insiders, Steffy takes us behind the scenes of 100 years of BP corporate history. Beginning with the conglomerate's early gambits in the Middle East to its recent ascent among energy titans, Steff unearths the roots of the Gulf oil spill in the unwritten bargain between oil producers and consumers, whose insatiable appetites drive the search for new supplies faster, farther, and deeper.

Beyond this, the Deepwater Horizon disaster took place after a history of cost cutting in pursuit of profits, particularly under the guidance of its two most recent ex-CEOs, John Browne and Anthony Hayward.

Exhaustively researched and documented, Drowning in Oil is the first in-depth examination of how a lack of corporate responsibility and government oversight led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. It is an objective, no-punches-pulled account of the energy industry: its environmental impact and the intense competition among stakeholders in today's oil markets.

This book puts all the pieces together, offering a definitive account of BP's pursuit of outsized profits as the industrial world awakens to the grim realities of Peak Oil.

"They fumbled around the darkened room and found an instruction manual. By flashlight, they read the starting procedures. They were doing everything right. After five or six futile tries, they gave up and headed back toward the bridge. Back on the bridge, alarms were shrieking and the captain knew they were running out of time. The subsea engineer had hit the emergency disconnect for the well, and although the control panel showed the rig should be free, it wasn't. The hydraulics were dead. Fire continued to shoot from the top of the derrick. The rig had no power, and without power, it had no pumps for the firefighting equipment, no way to shut off the flow of gas from the well, and no way to disconnect the rig from the flaming umbilical that had it tethered to the wellhead." —from Drowning in Oil

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Loren C. Steffy - Drowning in Oil, BP & the Reckle ss Pursuit of Profit (2010).pdf

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One Shot - Matthew Stuges - G.I. Combat Featuring The Haunted Tank 1 (2010).jpg

Tank commander Jeb Stuart gets some lessons about war and death from his ghostly guardian and namesake, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart. This is a good, self-contained story that doesn't try to revamp these old characters or engage in any politically-correct revisionism. It introduces the lead characters and the strange situation of a World War II tank being haunted by a Civil War general and then goes straight to the action. In this story, the tank must hold a deserted town where the Germans can seemingly strike out of nowhere. In this situation, Jeb will need the help of more than one ghost to get out alive. The concise, yet moving story is a refreshing throwback to the days when continued stories were the exceptions rather than the rule at DC Comics. The threat is menacing without being outlandish and the big twist at the end really surprising without being contrived. The art is adequate, especially in its depiction of the tiny size of the Stuart tank but it is also a bit too 'clean' for a war story. There isn't enough grime, dirt, grease and blood in the background, on the military vehicles or even caked on the faces of the protagonists. -- review by Koppy McFad, comicbookbin.com
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Jeb Stuart's gotten used to his tank being haunted by the ghost of his Civil War ancestor, General J.E.B. Stuart, but when he and his crew are pinned down by German soldiers in a walled city, what will happen when he must take the helm of a tank haunted by a very different kind of dead man? -- dccomics.com

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One Shot - Matthew Stuges - G.I. Combat Featuring The Haunted Tank 1 (2010) [JPG x 24].rar

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Concord - Firepower Pictorials Special 1027 - Mich ael Green - M60 Tank (1992).jpg

The U.S. Army's Ml Abrams Main Baffle Tank has dominated the civilian press and the military trade journals since the first production model rolled off the assembly line in February. 1980, with untold numbers of stories about its development, fielding, and problems both real and imagined.
Unfortunately, forgotten by many is the fact that the M60 family of tanks will still make up over fifty percent of the U.S. Army's inventory of main battle tanks until the late 1990s.
With the recent thaw in cold war tensions and the announced defense cutbacks by the U.S. Army, use of the M60 tank could last Into the 21st Century both with the U.S. tank fleet and foreign armies.
The history of the M60 tank begins in 1959 when a modified version of the M48A2 Pafton was introduced with a new front hull, a diesel engine, and a 105mm gun. To highlight the improvement over the earlier vehicle, it was redesignated as the 105mm gun tank M60. The M60 series of tanks had, since the beginning of Its production run in early 1960, been considered to be only an interim vehicle intended to serve the U.S. Army until the ideal tank could be designed and built. But, 15,000 tanks later, the M60 tank is still in service around the world. Numerous development programs helped to extend the useful life of the tank and kept it viable as a combat vehicle. Fortunately, the basic design was sound and easily accommodated the many modifications added to it over the years.
The last production version of the M60 tank was the M60A3, which was first introduced into US Army service In 1978.
The external appearance of the M60A3 tank is not very different from the M60A1 tank model. Only the thermal shroud on the gun tube, the wind sensor on top of the turret bustle, and the laser safety shield on the right side rangefinder blister distinguish it as an A3 model.
Unique features of the A3 are its Ml tank type fire control system, which include a laser rangefinder. solid state electronic computer, and a tank thermal sight (TTS for short).
The (TTS) provides a large improvement over image intensification sights as tound on earlier models of the M60 tank. It employs thermal technology so that its detection range is not dependent on moon or starlight. It "sees" as well in total darkness as it does in daylight and can detect targets through smoke, fog, and dust. It can also penetrate camouflage because it senses the heat of objects hidden by natural or manmade materials.

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Concord - Firepower Pictorials Special 1027 - Mich ael Green - M60 Tank (1992).pdf

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Priscilla Ferguson Clement, Jacqueline S. Reinier - Boyhood in America, An Encyclopedia (2001).jpg

The latest entry in "The American Family" series, which includes such titles as Girlhood in America and Infancy in America, this work is a worthy contribution to the field of men's studies. Clement (history, Pennsylvania State Univ.; Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age) and Reinier (emerita, California State Univ.; From Virtue to Character: American Childhood, 1775-1850) take a multidisciplinary and multicultural approach, offering more than 150 alphabetically arranged entries on the period from childhood through adolescence. Contributed by scholars, the illustrated entries typically include several pages of social history, statistics, analysis, and references.

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