20th Century Books - Page 3

My War: Killing Time in Iraq

Colby Buzzell

List Price: $25.95 By: Putnam Adult Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $7.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A raw, edgy, yet intimate new voice from the front lines in Iraq-the most authentic we have had yet from the war, heralding this generation's Catch-22.

Like many of his generation, Colby Buzzell was jumping from one dead-end job to another, a paycheck away from moving back home. He spent his time skateboarding and killing as many brain cells as humanly possible. Tired of the monotony, he found himself in front of an army recruiter. Within months he was in Iraq, a machine gunner in the controversial Stryker Brigade Combat Team, an army unit on the cutting edge of combat technology, and the first of its kind.

This is the startlingly honest story of a young man and a war. Trapped amid "guerilla warfare, urban-style" in Mosul, Iraq, Buzzell was struck by the bizarre, absurd, often frightening world surrounding him. He began writing an online web log describing the war-not as it was being reported by CNN or in briefings on Capitol Hill, but as he experienced it. The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the fierce firefight in which the resistance came from "men in black"; chain-smoking in the guard tower, counting the tracer rounds fired over the city; the raid on an Iraqi home during which a woman couldn't stop screaming as her husband was being taken away; and the hesitation of a young soldier who had been passed around from platoon to platoon because he was too afraid to fight. As the popularity of his "blog" grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the army couldn't control despite its best-and often hilarious-efforts to do so.

My War is the debut of a fresh and remarkable voice, and it is already being compared to the classics of youth and combat Herr's Dispatches and Heller's Catch-22. But My War is much more than a war story; it is the story of a generation caught between the hyper-reality of a technological age and an ever more complicated and dangerous world.

Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage

Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew

Amazon Price: $12.38 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 87 new & used starting at $1.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Intelligence & Espionage
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Naval
Subjects -> History -> Military -> United States -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 318 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Suspenseful and interesting 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was both suspenseful and interesting account of spying under the waves. While I find most Submarine books be overly simplified in the operation of the sub it's self the same is true here. While more detail is given by the author in our activities of taping the underwater telephone and data cables of the Soviets, more detailed technical information would have been helpful to me. Still an engaging book, which through it's pages let me to yet more books, it was well worth the read. While it might just be me but I want to know more of how the sub got to where it was going rather then just the fact that it did. Then again I like stereo instructions.

Editorial Review:

For decades American submarines have roamed the depths in a dangerous battle for information and advantage in missions known only to a select few. Now, after six years of research, those missions are told in Blind Man's Bluff, a magnificent achievement in investigative reporting. It reads like a spy thriller -- except everything in it is true. This is an epic of adventure, ingenuity, courage, and disaster beneath the sea, a story filled with unforgettable characters who engineered daring missions to tap the enemy's underwater communications cables and to shadow Soviet submarines. It is a story of heroes and spies, of bravery and tragedy.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Richard Rhodes

Amazon Price: $13.60 List Price: $20.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 100 new & used starting at $4.70

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Strategy
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Weapons & Warfare -> Nuclear
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan.

Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers -- Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and yon Neumann -- stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.

Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention. The Making of the Atomic Bomb has been compared in its sweep and importance to William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.

Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul

Karen Abbott

Amazon Price: $19.74 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tantor Media Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $9.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General AAS
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Sexuality -> Human

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

CANNOT PUT IT DOWN 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

For those that love to read a book that grabs them and doesn't let go - Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City is a MUST. Not only does the reader get an enjoyable history lesson- but along the way Karen shows us how so much of what we know and experience today - is not new at all.

The portrait of the Everleigh sisters is simply fascinating, Chicago of the early 1900's was made for Abbott's prose - and the best part is - She's writing another book. People will read again - and Karen is one of the reasons why. Read this book. Its SUPER.

I Love the Naughty Ladies 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What I love about this book:

- Terrific writing with vivid details about the lives of the Everleigh Sisters
- A real feel for what it was like to live and work in the demimonde at the turn of the century
- A sense of drama with the stories of the rivalries between brothels, the religious movement and the machinations of the political and legal systems.
- Excellent insight into the greater social forces in regards to sexuality and women

This is just a fascinating read - if you're like me, you won't put it down until the last page (and i am a notorious half-finisher, so that's quite a feat!) A fantastic choice for book clubs too!

I *highly* recommend this - one chapter in and I guarantee that you will become a rabid fan like me.

Editorial Review:

Karen Abbotta (TM) s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters; their world-famous brothel, the Everleigh Club; and the perennial clash between our nation's hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots culminates in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers. Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity.

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives

Jim Sheeler

Amazon Price: $15.26 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Press HC, The Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $7.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Death & Grief -> Grief & Bereavement
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> By Topic -> Grief
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Jim Sheeler’s unprecedented look at the way our country honors its dead; Final Salute Is a stunning tribute to the brave troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the families who continue to mourn them

They are the troops that nobody wants to see, carrying a message that no military family ever wants to hear. It begins with a knock at the door. “The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They always know,” said Major Steve Beck.

Since the start of the war in Iraq, marines like Major Beck found themselves thrown into a different kind of mission: casualty notification. It is a job Major Beck never asked for and one for which he received no training. They are given no set rules, only impersonal guidelines.

Marines are trained to kill, to break down doors, but casualty notification is a mission without weapons. For Beck, the mission meant learning each dead marine’s name and nickname, touching the toys they grew up with and reading the letters they wrote home. He held grieving mothers in long embraces, absorbing their muffled cries into the dark blue shoulder of his uniform. He stitched himself into the fabric of their lives, in the simple hope that his compassion might help alleviate at least the smallest piece of their pain. Sometimes he returned home to his own family unable to keep from crying in the dark.

In Final Salute, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jim Sheeler weaves together the stories of the fallen and of the broken homes they have left behind. It is also the story of Major Steve Beck and his unflagging efforts to help heal the wounds of those left grieving. Above all, it is a moving tribute to our troops, putting faces to the mostly anonymous names of our courageous heroes, and to the brave families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. Final Salute is the achingly beautiful, devastatingly honest story of the true toll of war. After the knock on the door, the story has only begun.

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

Lee Smolin

Amazon Price: $13.00 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 69 new & used starting at $5.29

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> 20th Century
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Professional Science -> Physics -> General
Subjects -> Science -> History & Philosophy -> History of Science

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 104 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this groundbreaking book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that physics — the basis for all other sciences — has lost its way. For more than two centuries, our understanding of the laws of nature expanded rapidly. But today, despite our best efforts, we know nothing more about these laws than we knew in the 1970s. Why is physics suddenly in trouble? And what can we do about it?

One of the major problems, according to Smolin, is string theory: an ambitious attempt to formulate a "theory of everything" that explains all the particles and forces of nature and how the universe came to be. With its exotic new particles and parallel universes, string theory has captured the public's imagination and seduced many physicists.

But as Smolin reveals, there's a deep flaw in the theory: no part of it has been tested, and no one knows how to test it. In fact, the theory appears to come in an infinite number of versions, meaning that no experiment will ever be able to prove it false. As a scientific theory, it fails. And because it has soaked up the lion's share of funding, attracted some of the best minds, and effectively penalized young physicists for pursuing other avenues, it is dragging the rest of physics down with it.

With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin charts the rise and fall of string theory and takes a fascinating look at what will replace it. A group of young theorists has begun to develop exciting ideas that, unlike string theory, are testable. Smolin not only tells us who and what to watch for in the coming years, he offers novel solutions for seeking out and nurturing the best new talent—giving us a chance, at long last, of finding the next Einstein.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Samuel P. Huntington

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 169 new & used starting at $2.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> 20th Century
Subjects -> History -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> International -> Relations

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 242 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Confirmed predictions 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

First published in 1996, this scholarly discussion of future international relations has been a classic from the beginning and will remain so for decades to come. From among the seven most important civilizations the author selected three, which may collide in conflict. Thus, in Moslem eyes Western culture is decadent in various ways and therefore utterly unacceptable. The current resurgence of the Islamic civilization is seen as an evolution no less significant than the Reformation or Marxism, demanding society's complete overhaul, renewal and purification, a movement whose impact on history will grow as the Moslem population will soon represent thirty percent of humanity. At the same time, Islam is seen as the least tolerant of religions, as it promotes peace inside their ranks but hostility toward the infidels outside.
Similarly, in East Asia, the Confucian civilization adheres to commandments like order, discipline, hard work and abstemiousness, where the individual subordinates to the needs of the community. Alien to them is what they call the West's sanctifying of human rights. Whereas we in the West expect our value system soon to become universal, the Confucian world is convinced that "the Anglo-Saxon module is not working" and that their own standards must of necessity apply to the rest of humanity. Here, again, the impact of such convictions will be immense as the center of gravity of economic power is rapidly shifting from the West to the East.
Out of such discordance, there arise economic and political contentions and military ones cannot be ruled out. Huntington believes possible conflicts could arise from a contest between Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance and Sinic assertiveness. The spark igniting material strife, however, will most likely be generated by more prosaic crises such as the youth bulge among the unemployed, terrorism, rivalry in the search of resources such as oil, and the pervasiveness of weapons of mass destruction among those who suffer and rebel.
The main message carried forth from this study is that any military clash in the future will most likely oppose not nations but rather civilizations in what he aptly calls fault-line wars. He points to the danger that such inter-civilizational feuds will be uncompromising and almost impossible to halt.
Huntington advises the reader that cultural universalism, so engrained in the mind of the West, is ill advised and that especially includes the American tendency to be "a nanny if not even a bully" in other civilizations. We must, he says, renounce universalism of values, and instead accept diversity and seek commonalities.
Since these thoughts were first published, much has been confirmed. The power shift toward East Asia is rapidly progressing. Fault-line conflicts in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Chechnya and the Balkans have resisted or defied peacemaking efforts. Our promotion of democracy, civil rights, and individualism has been rejected elsewhere in favor of soft authoritarianism. Most importantly, perhaps, is the West's failure to observe the "abstention rule", that is, for one civilization to abstain from invading the lands of another.
Every prospective world leader should read this book at least once.

Editorial Review:

Based on the author's seminal article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism. In this incisive work, the renowned political scientist explains how "civilizations" have replaced nations and ideologies as the driving force in global politics today and offers a brilliant analysis of the current climate and future possibilities of our world's volatile political culture.

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

John M. Barry

List Price: $16.00 By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 100 new & used starting at $0.18

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> 20th Century
Subjects -> History -> General AAS
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Infectious Disease -> Communicable Diseases

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 177 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

informative but "wordy" 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book contains some excellent information, but i would recommend the abridged version. I don't feel the personal lives & quirks of all of the scientists involved in the story added any insight to this pandemic.

Editorial Review:

In the winter of 1918, at the height of WWI, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, John M. Barry weaves together multiple narratives, with characters ranging from William Welch (founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School) to John D. Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson. Ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, this crisis provides a precise and sobering model for our world as we confront AIDS, bioterrorism, and other, as yet unknown, diseases.

Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who'Ve Lived It

Studs Terkel

Amazon Price: $16.50 List Price: $25.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Pr Amazon Marketplace: 110 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> 20th Century
Subjects -> History -> World -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A poignant step back from the new millennium... 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Studs Terkel captures in this volume what few children of the new millennium will ever learn about or experience: how our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents grew up, grew old, and left footprints on the twentieth century. His vignettes of life throughout the century, focused on the lives of amazing Americans from coast to coast, are quite profound. Terkel did not profile famous athletes, politicians, and CEOs; his interviews capture the lives of those who have made - and continue to make - an impact on our local communities.

It did not take very long to become addicted to this book. Terkel captures some of the most valuable American minds at just the right moment. The interviews give a first-hand look at history while capturing pearls of wisdom for the future. I recommend this volume as a gift and as a textbook for students. What Studs Terkel has captured here is worthy reading for any generation.

Editorial Review:

Arguably the century's most gifted chronicler of what Americans really think, Studs Terkel has been called "a national resource. . . who gets to the deeper heart of our history and our national life" by John Kenneth Galbraith. Terkel's widely praised, best-selling books Hard Times, Working, Race, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Good War" probe the innermost attitudes in this country toward the Great Depression, work, race, and World War II.

Profiles in Courage (slipcased edition): Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americans

John F. Kennedy

Amazon Price: $24.85 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HarperCollins Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $7.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kennedy, John F.

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1954-1955, John F. Kennedy's active role as a Senator in the affairs of the nation was interrupted for the better part of a year by his convalescence from an operation to correct a disability incurred as skipper of a World War II torpedo boat. He used his "idle" hours to great advantage; he rediscovered, and did intensive research into, the courage and patriotism of a handful of Americans who at crucial moments in history had revealed a special sort of greatness: men who disregarded dreadful consequences to their public and private lives to do that one thing which seemed right in itself. These men ranged from the extraordinarily colorful to the near-drab; from the born aristocrats to the self-made. They were men of various political and regional allegiances—their one overriding loyalty was to the United States and to the right as God gave them to see it.

There was John Quincy Adams, who lost his Senate seat and was repudiated in Boston for his support of his father's enemy Thomas Jefferson; Sam Houston, who performed political acts of courage as dramatic as his heroism on the field of battle; Thomas Hart Benton, whose proud and sarcastic tongue fought against the overwhelming odds that insured his political death; and Edmond Ross who "looked down into his open grave" as he saved President Johnson from an impeachment; and Norris of Nebraska; and Taft of Ohio; and Lamar of Mississippi (who did as much as any one man to heal the wounds of civil war). There was Daniel Webster, scourged for his devotion to Union by the most talented array of constituents ever to attack a Senator. For the most part Kennedy's patriots are United States Senators, but he also pays tribute to such men as Governor Altgeld of Illinois and Charles Evans Hughes of New York.

And in the opening and closing chapters, which are as inspiring as they are revealing, Kennedy draws on his personal experience to tell something of the satisfactions and burdens of a Senator's job—of the pressures, both outward and inward—and of the standards by which a man of principle must work and live.

John F. Kennedy has used wonderful skill in transforming the facts of history into dramatic personal stories. There are suspense, color and inspiration here, but first of all there is extraordinary understanding of that intangible thing called courage. Courage such as these men shared, Kennedy makes clear, is central to all morality—a man does what he must in spite of personal consequences—and these exciting stories suggest the thought that, without in the least disparaging the courage with which men die, we should not overlook the true greatness adorning those acts of courage with which men must live.