2014, ISBN: 9780307959478

Taschenbuch, Gebundene Ausgabe, Erstausgabe

New York: Harper Perennial [An Ecco book], 2007. First Harper Perennial Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Very good. Paul J. Pugliese (Map). The format is appr… Mehr…

New York: Harper Perennial [An Ecco book], 2007. First Harper Perennial Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Very good. Paul J. Pugliese (Map). The format is approximately 5.25 inches by 8 inches. xx, 284 pages. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. From the author: For ten years, I taught medieval literature for the University of Maryland University College. Since 1999 I've been part of the team at PhotoAssist, Inc., where I've helped the U.S. Postal Service research and develop more than 100 stamps and stamp sheets on a dizzying array of cultural subjects, including military history, Islamic holidays, Hollywood legends, and fine art. I've told the stories of a medieval warlord, a government agency, one of the country's most influential art centers, and a Reconstruction-era African American town. Becoming Charlemagne focused on five years in the reign of the real-life warlord who inspired centuries of legends and lore. From the beginning, I set out to write an accessible narrative, a goal that evolved from the college classes I was teaching at the time. While emphasizing the long-distance diplomacy between kings, emperors, and popes, I tried to portray medieval history on a human scale. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praised Becoming Charlemagne for offering "dazzling glimpses of Charlemagne's life and times." The assessment of Kirkus Reviews was as positive as it was philosophical: "Debunking the myths that surround legendary figures is a tricky business, but Sypeck acknowledges the allure of the ways in which Charlemagne and his era have been romanticized, mitigating the sting and turning it into an educational opportunity." Booklist hailed Becoming Charlemagne as "an inspired, instantly readable work of popular history." On Christmas morning in the year 800, Pope Leo III placed the crown of imperial Rome on the brow of a Germanic king named Karl, a gesture that enabled the man later hailed as Charlemagne to claim his empire and forever shape the destiny of Europe. Becoming Charlemagne tells the story of the international power struggle that led to this world-changing event, illuminating an era that has long been overshadowed by myth. For 1,200 years, the deeds of Charlemagne inspired kings and crusaders, the conquests of Napoléon and Hitler, and the optimistic architects of the European Union. In this engaging narrative, Jeff Sypeck crafts a vivid portrait of the ruler who became a legend, while evoking a long-ago world of kings, caliphs, merchants, and monks. Transporting readers far beyond Europe to the glittering palaces of Constantinople and the streets of medieval Baghdad, Becoming Charlemagne brings alive an age of empire building that continues to resonate to this day. Author Jeff Sypeck considers the history and accomplishments of one of the more famous Frankish kings and Roman emperors in Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800. Charlemagne, whose life has taken on legendary status over the centuries, was indeed a monarch of considerable accomplishment. Although he is referred to in some sources as King Charles, Sypeck calls the great king Karl, noting in an interview with Peter C. Hansen on the Legal History Project Web site: "I went with the K because it's phonetic, it looks more Germanic to English speakers, and it's the spelling on documents from his later, imperial years." In the book, Sypeck "affectionately peers behind the legends surrounding Charlemagne and magnificently chronicles four significant years in the emperor's life," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. During the years 796 to 800 A.D., Charlemagne presided over a consolidation of his kingdom via a combination of military action, political treaty-making, and religious diplomacy with neighboring Muslims. He was a king with a great respect for others, with a reverence for books and education, and with a reputation for being fair but stern when needed. Charlemagne's greatest accomplishments, and the ones that followed him into legend, came after Pope Leo III made him Emperor of Rome in 800. In addition to chronicling the rise of Charlemagne, Sypeck also looks at the lives of the monarch's subjects, and details the everyday labors and activities that formed the underpinning of Charlemagne's restored Roman empire. He considers the emperor's many friends and supporters, and looks at several unique aspects of Charlemagne's personality and rule. Sypeck also uncovers much notable information about Charlemagne, including the fact that he was never referred to by that name when he was alive. "Charlemagne' is a name that the man himself never heard; it's the French contraction of the Latin Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great,'" Sypeck stated in the interview with Hansen. "Charlemagne is a character in medieval poems and modern storybooks. Karl, king of the Franks, was the living, breathing historical figure." "Aimed at a general audience, this short, well-written book tells the story very accessibly," remarked Robert Harbison in the Library Journal. Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor called Becoming Charlemagne "an inspired, instantly readable work of popular history." A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Sypeck's account successfully "illuminates the shadowy corners of an era shrouded in the mists of legend.", Harper Perennial [An Ecco book], 2007, 3, Hardback. New. Iris Barry (1895-1969) was a pivotal modern figure and one of the first intellectuals to treat film as an art form, appreciating its far-reaching, transformative power. Although she had the bearing of an aristocrat, she was the self-educated daughter of a brass founder and a palm-reader from the Isle of Man. An aspiring poet, Barry attracted the attention of Ezra Pound and joined a demimonde of Bloomsbury figures, including Ford Maddox Ford, T. S. Eliot, Arthur Waley, Edith Sitwell, and William Butler Yeats. She fell in love with Pound's eccentric fellow Vorticist, Wyndham Lewis, and had two children by him. In London, Barry pursued a career as a novelist, biographer, and critic of motion pictures. In America, she joined the modernist Askew Salon, where she met Alfred Barr, director of the new Museum of Modern Art. There she founded the museum's film department and became its first curator, assuring film's critical legitimacy. She convinced powerful Hollywood figures to submit their work for exhibition, creating a new respect for film and prompting the founding of the International Federation of Film Archives. Barry continued to augment MoMA's film library until World War II, when she joined the Office of Strategic Services to develop pro-American films with Orson Welles, Walt Disney, John Huston, and Frank Capra. Yet despite her patriotic efforts, Barry's &quot;foreignness&quot; and association with such filmmakers as Luis Bunuel made her the target of an anticommunist witch hunt. She eventually left for France and died in obscurity. Drawing on letters, memorabilia, and other documentary sources, Robert Sitton reconstructs Barry's phenomenal life and work while recasting the political involvement of artistic institutions in the twentieth century., 6, New York, New York, U.S.A. : Alfred A. Knop, Inc., 2014. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. New/New. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vividly written account of his experience serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House in 2006, he thought he'd left Washington politics behind: after working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happy in his role as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty. Now, in this unsparing memoir, meticulously fair in its assessments, he takes us behind the scenes of his nearly five years as a secretary at war: the battles with Congress, the two presidents he served, the military itself, and the vast Pentagon bureaucracy; his efforts to help Bush turn the tide in Iraq; his role as a guiding, and often dissenting, voice for Obama; the ardent devotion to and love for American soldiers-his "heroes"-he developed on the job. In relating his personal journey as secretary, Gates draws us into the innermost sanctums of government and military power during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, illuminating iconic figures, vital negotiations, and critical situations in revealing, intimate detail. Offering unvarnished appraisals of Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Presidents Bush and Obama among other key players, Gates exposes the full spectrum of behind-closed-doors politicking within both the Bush and Obama administrations. He discusses the great controversies of his tenure-surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, how to deal with Iran and Syria, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," Guantánamo Bay, WikiLeaks-as they played out behind the television cameras. He brings to life the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid. And, searingly, he shows how congressional debate and action or inaction on everything from equipment budgeting to troop withdrawals was often motivated, to his increasing despair and anger, more by party politics and media impact than by members' desires to protect our soldiers and ensure their success. However embroiled he became in the trials of Washington, Gates makes clear that his heart was always in the most important theater of his tenure as secretary: the front lines. We journey with him to both war zones as he meets with active-duty troops and their commanders, awed by their courage, and also witness him greet coffin after flag-draped coffin returned to U.S. soil, heartbreakingly aware that he signed every deployment order. In frank and poignant vignettes, Gates conveys the human cost of war, and his admiration for those brave enough to undertake it when necessary. Duty tells a powerful and deeply personal story that allows us an unprecedented look at two administrations and the wars that have defined them. New, unread, first edition, first printing,, in new, mylar-protected dust jacket. 618 pp, with Index. {Not remainder-marked or price-clipped} *Packed careully and shipped in a box to insure arrival in excellent condition. NF73A91/A78, Alfred A. Knop, Inc., 2014, 6<

2014, ISBN: 0307959473

Gebundene Ausgabe, Erstausgabe

[EAN: 9780307959478], Neubuch, [PU: Alfred A. Knop, Inc., New York, New York, U.S.A.], Jacket, From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vividly written account of his ex… Mehr…

[EAN: 9780307959478], Neubuch, [PU: Alfred A. Knop, Inc., New York, New York, U.S.A.], Jacket, From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vividly written account of his experience serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House in 2006, he thought he’d left Washington politics behind: after working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happy in his role as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty. Now, in this unsparing memoir, meticulously fair in its assessments, he takes us behind the scenes of his nearly five years as a secretary at war: the battles with Congress, the two presidents he served, the military itself, and the vast Pentagon bureaucracy; his efforts to help Bush turn the tide in Iraq; his role as a guiding, and often dissenting, voice for Obama; the ardent devotion to and love for American soldiers—his “heroes”—he developed on the job. In relating his personal journey as secretary, Gates draws us into the innermost sanctums of government and military power during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, illuminating iconic figures, vital negotiations, and critical situations in revealing, intimate detail. Offering unvarnished appraisals of Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Presidents Bush and Obama among other key players, Gates exposes the full spectrum of behind-closed-doors politicking within both the Bush and Obama administrations. He discusses the great controversies of his tenure—surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, how to deal with Iran and Syria, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Guantánamo Bay, WikiLeaks—as they played out behind the television cameras. He brings to life the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid. And, searingly, he shows how congressional debate and action or inaction on everything from equipment budgeting to troop withdrawals was often motivated, to his increasing despair and anger, more by party politics and media impact than by members’ desires to protect our soldiers and ensure their success. However embroiled he became in the trials of Washington, Gates makes clear that his heart was always in the most important theater of his tenure as secretary: the front lines. We journey with him to both war zones as he meets with active-duty troops and their commanders, awed by their courage, and also witness him greet coffin after flag-draped coffin returned to U.S. soil, heartbreakingly aware that he signed every deployment order. In frank and poignant vignettes, Gates conveys the human cost of war, and his admiration for those brave enough to undertake it when necessary. Duty tells a powerful and deeply personal story that allows us an unprecedented look at two administrations and the wars that have defined them. New, unread, first edition, first printing, in new, mylar-protected dust jacket. 618 pp, with Index. {Not remainder-marked or price-clipped} *Packed careully and shipped in a box to ins, Books<