Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Underground Railroad - in...

  William J Switala

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  A revised and expanded history of Pennsylvania’s role in the Underground Railroad, featuring escape route maps and eyewitness accounts. Organized in antebellum America to help enslaved people escape to freedom, the Underground Railroad was cloaked in secrecy and operated at great peril to everyone involved. The system was extremely active in Pennsylvania, with routes running through cities and towns in all parts of the state.  This revised second edition of Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania retraces the routes with detailed maps, discusses the large city networks, identifies the houses and sites where escapees found refuge, and records the names of the people who risked their lives to support the operation.

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  Edinburgh: A New History

  Alistair Moffat

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  From prehistory to the present day, the story of Edinburgh is packed with incident and drama. As Scotland's capital since 1437, the city has witnessed many of the key events which have shaped the nation. But Edinburgh has always been much more than just a political centre. During the Enlightenment, it was one the intellectual powerhouses of Europe, and in the twentieth century it became the arts capital of the world with the founding of its many festivals. Finance, religion, education and industry are also important parts of the story.
  Alistair Moffat explores these themes and many more, showing how the city has grown, changed and adapted over the centuries. He introduces Edinburgh's famous places and people – including monarchs, murderers, writers and philosophers – as well as the ordinary citizens who have contributed so much to the life of one of the world's best-known and most beautiful cites.

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  The Deep State - A History of...

  Ian Fitzgerald

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  Beneath the outward appearance of legitimate government and accountable officials there lurk hidden agendas, shadowy personalities and special interest groups seeking to seize control of the nation for their own ends. These 'states within a state', unfettered by legal norms and unworried by public opinion, are known as 'deep states'. 
   
  In this fascinating account, Ian Fitzgerald examines what a deep state really is and how they have emerged in various places across the world and throughout history. Ranging from the police state of East Germany in the 1950s to the narco states of Latin America in the 1970s to the institutional corruption of 21st century Nigeria, he explores the many ways people have sought to seize the apparatus of power for themselves while remaining out of sight. 
   
  Now the subject of modern conspiracy theories the world over as a worrying trend toward unelected power emerges, this book is more timely than ever, and helps separate fact from fiction.

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  20th Century’s Most Influential...

  Editors Charles River

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  In their biography of Pablo Picasso, Hans Ludwig and Chris Jaffe note that “for him, art was always adventure: ‘To find is the thing.’” Indeed, there is perhaps no artist who produced more art than Picasso, whose enormous oeuvre (which spanned most of his 91-year life) contained a countless number of paintings and drawings. Picasso also worked in other mediums as well, notably sculpture and lithography, and his constant experimentation with form makes him a useful case study through which to chart the growth of Modernism as an artistic movement and many of the artistic trends that would dominate the 20th century. At the same time, one of the challenges involved in examining Picasso’s body of work is the sheer breadth of it all.  
  	In his review of Salvador Dali’s first autobiography, George Orwell declared that “One ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being.” Whether or not one agrees with the famous author’s assessment, Orwell captures the polarizing nature of Salvador Dali, and the extent to which his undeniable technical virtuosity often brushed against his penchant for provoking his audiences (not to mention provoking long-entrenched standards of “proper” taste).  
  	To truly grasp the significance of Jackson Pollock in 20th century art, it’s necessary to understand the dramatic departure he initiated away from the straightforward compositions associated with the social realist art of the 1930s, a Depression-era period in which political art offered readily comprehensible narratives that were grasped by viewers with little artistic training.  
  Few artists of the 20th century were as enigmatic as Andy Warhol, who once remarked, “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” This statement is hardly out of character for the famous artist.

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  Buddhism in a Value-changing...

  P. D. Premasiri

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  This is an audiobook of Bodhi Leaves No. 148 by P. D. Premasiri, Buddhism in a Value-changing Society narrated by Jayashree Tata Nagaraj. The print edition can be found in the Pariyatti Edition of Collected Bodhi Leaves Vol. 5. The eBook of Bodhi Leaves No. 148 can be downloaded from the BPS website.
   
  Excerpt:
   
  Values can be approached from two different standpoints. Most social scientists prefer to take the standpoint that may be called sociological relativism in dealing with questions of value in relation to different societies. The social scientist’s approach does not involve any absolute standard for judging the goodness or badness of the norms upheld by a particular society. The application of such an approach to examine the existing values of a traditional Buddhist society involves merely a description of the social behaviour of its people and a causal explanation of such behaviour.
   
  The subject under investigation in the present discussion is the question of the relationship between Buddhism and changing values. Where doesBuddhism stand in a value-changing world? Here, we have admitted in some sense that we are living in a world in which values are changing. In this connection it may be questioned whether values themselves are changing or whether it is only our beliefs about values that are changing. I made the point that our beliefs about facts do change. But is there a sense in saying that facts changes?

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  Scram! - The Gripping First-hand...

  Harry Benson

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  *40th anniversary audio edition* 
  In April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21 year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed 'junglies', flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war -- the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines -- is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their 'Boys Own' story, told for the very first time. 
  Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter.  
  None of these pilots has spoken before about: 
  - The two helicopter crashes and eventual rescue following a failed SAS mission high up on an in hospitable glacier in South Georgia 
  - The harrowing story of the Exocet strike that sunk the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor 
  - The daring missile raid on the Argentine high command in Port Stanley 
  - The constant mortar fire faced while supporting troops and evacuating casualties 
  - The hair-raising head-on attacks by Argentine jets on British helicopters 
  - The extraordinary courage shown during the evacuation of the bombed landing ship 'Sir Galahad'  
  If you liked Apache, Vulcan 607 and Chickenhawk, you'll love Scram! The word "Scram" was coined by Falklands helicopter pilots to warn other 'junglies' to go to ground or risk being shot down as Argentinean jets blasted through 'bomb alley'. The term has never been used before or since.

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