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  Warren Hastings

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Warren Hastings is Chapter IV of Thomas Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, vol. III. It first appeared in the Edinburgh Review of October 1841 as a review of Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1841.This essay on is generally considered to be one of the finest by the great historian and great literary stylist, Thomas Babington Macalay. Macaulay himself served in India from 1834 to 1838, and as a Whig and a believer in progress in the nineteenth century sense, he urged that Indians be trained in useful knowledge -- western, that is, and particularly British learning, easily dismissing traditional Indian education as of no value. Though he is well aware of Hastings’s flaws, he nevertheless greatly admires him as one of the creators of Britain’s Asian empire. Today’s critics, of course, can easily dismiss both men as “Orientalists” (to use Edwin Said’s terminology) but they both remain essential to an understanding of nineteenth century British history and culture.( Nicholas Clifford)

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  Fancies Versus Fads

  G. K. Chesterton

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  I have strung these things together on a slight enough thread; but as the things themselves are slight, it is possible that the thread (and the metaphor) may manage to hang together. These notes range over very variegated topics and in many cases were made at very different times. They concern all sorts of things from lady barristers to cave-men, and from psycho-analysis to free verse. Yet they have this amount of unity in their wandering, that they all imply that it is only a more traditional spirit that is truly able to wander. The wild theorists of our time are quite unable to wander. When they talk of making new roads, they are only making new ruts. Each of them is necessarily imprisoned in his own curious cosmos; in other words, he is limited by the very largeness of his own generalization. The explanations of the Marxian must not go outside economics; and the student of Freud is forbidden to forget sex. To see only the fanciful side of these serious sects may seem a very frivolous pleasure—and I will not dispute that these are very frivolous criticisms. I only submit that this frivolity is the last lingering form of freedom.

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  Shadow Commander - The Epic...

  Mike Guardia

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  The true story of the US Army legend who organized “Blackburn’s Headhunters” against Japan in WWII and went on to initiate Special Forces operations in Vietnam. The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942—illuminating the white flags of surrender against the dark sky. Outnumbered and outgunned, remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet US Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms. With future Special Forces legend Russell Volckmann, Blackburn escaped to the jungles of North Luzon, where they raised a private army of 22,000 men against the Japanese. His organization of native tribes into guerrilla fighters would lead to the destruction of the enemy’s naval base at Aparri. But Blackburn’s amazing accomplishments would not end with the victory in the Pacific. He would go on to play a key role in initiating Army Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia, spearheading Operation White Star in Laos as commander of the 77th Special Forces Group and eventually taking command of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG), charged with performing secret missions now that main-force Communist incursions were on the rise. In the wake of the CIA’s disastrous Leaping Lena program, in 1964, Blackburn revitalized the Special Operations campaign in South Vietnam. Sending reconnaissance teams into Cambodia and North Vietnam, he discovered the clandestine networks and supply nodes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Taking the information directly to General Westmoreland, Blackburn was authorized to conduct full-scale operations against the NVA and Viet Cong in Laos and Cambodia. In combats large and small, the Communists realized they had met a master of insurgent tactics—and he was on the US side. Following his return to the US, Blackburn was the architect of the infamous Son Tay Prison Raid, officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the largest prisoner-of-war rescue mission—and, indeed, the largest Army Special Forces operation—of the Vietnam War. During a period when US troops in Southeast Asia faced guerrilla armies on every side, America had a superb covert commander of its own. This book follows Blackburn through both his youthful days of desperate combat and his time as a commander, imparting his lessons to the new ranks of Army Special Forces.

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  Disassembly Required - A Memoir...

  Beverly Willett

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  After a small-town southern girl turned New Yorker watches her American Dream implode, she musters the courage to begin again—resurrecting the powerful woman her daughters had glimpsed during their family's darkest times. 
  A raw and riveting memoir, Disassembly Required invites listeners along, moment by gut-wrenching moment, on one woman's journey from betrayal and devastation to resilience and recovery. From learning of her husband's affair, to family court, to life as a single mother, Beverly Willett perseveres in resisting injustice, the loss of her family unit, and the sale of the beautiful Brooklyn Brownstone her family had called home. 
  Willett knows selling her house will require taking inventory of her possessions; she does not realize it will require taking inventory of herself. But as she surrenders her hopes for a life that hasn't turned out the way she imagined, the world opens back up. And Willett leaps toward it, embracing uncertainty. 
  Disassembly Required is a story of quiet struggle and persistence. Unflinchingly honest in its examination of the discomforts of change, it celebrates the opportunities for transformation.

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  Sometimes I Cry - My Journey of...

  Jill Strasburg, Robbie Tripp

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  A biography about Jill Strausburg, four-time Oprah guest and her journey of weight-loss surgery. 
  This is the painful story of weight loss, acceptance of self, yearning for the love of family, death, healing, and ultimately forgiveness. Jill Strasburg shares the intimate details of her life's journey as she struggled to find her place in the world. Given three months to live, she fought through the medical issues and beat the odds. 

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  Frank Julian Sprague -...

  William D. Middleton

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  “[This] biography of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ details the life and times of an exceptional engineer, maverick innovator, [and] entrepreneur.” —NMRA Magazine 
   
  Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857–1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His innovations would help transform the urban space of the 20th century, enabling cities to grow larger and skyscrapers taller. The Middletons’ generously illustrated biography is an engrossing study of the life and times of a maverick innovator. 
   
  “The authors weave this biography through time, with technological and political details that make Sprague human, a creative soul pressing his ideas with a sports-like outcome—some wins, some losses, and some ties . . . I recommend this well-written book detailing the life of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ to explain the development of what we so casually take for granted.” —Trains 
   
  “No one has previously used Sprague’s personal papers in a published biography . . . Recommended.” —Choice 
   
  “Frank Sprague . . . is a major historical figure who for decades lacked a significant biography. This void has been ably and engagingly filled in this book by the dean of electric traction authors, William D. Middleton, and his son, William III.” —Classic Trains

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