Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Wilfrid Israel - German Jewry's...

  Naomi Shepherd

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  Wilfrid Israel was a most unlikely hero. Heir to a Jewish business dynasty in Berlin, he was a contemporary of Einstein and Spender in the cosmopolitan circles of Weimar Berlin, and emerged from his world of privilege to become German Jewry's  chief (and often anonymous) emissary to the outside world and one of the great unsung heroes of the Holocaust.  In the dark days of the 1930s, the ever tightening persecution of German Jews made the diffident Wilfrid Israel assume a major role in their escape. Using his British passport and high connections, he lobbied British diplomats and politicians with plans for Jewish support and rescue. At home he faced down stormtroopers and the Gestapo, enabled the emigration of the Jewish employees of his firm, and ransomed thousands of Jewish and anti-Nazi prisoners from the concentration camps.
  
  When the Nazis finally requisitioned the Israel firm, and the Jewish leadership disintegrated, he ran the Jewish emigration office which enabled thousands to find refuge abroad, partly by his connection with the head of British intelligence in Berlin. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, through the Council for German Jewry in London, and with the help of his Quaker friends and German Jewish women's organisations, he set in motion the famous Kindertransport. This was the admission to Britain without formalities of nearly ten thousand unaccompanied Jewish children. Leaving Germany days before the outbreak of the war, he lobbied on behalf of German Jews interned as enemy aliens.  In 1942 he was recruited by the British Foreign Office to put his extensive knowledge of German politics and economics at the disposal of the government – also his expertise in rescue to its Refugee Department.
  
  Wilfrid Israel was one of the first to warn of the Nazis' plans to exterminate the Jews of Europe and the dimensions of the Holocaust. His final mission, to distribute certificates of admission to Palestine among the Jews of Spain and Portugal, ended when the plane in which he was returning to England was shot down by the Luftwaffe.
  
  This biography, first published in 1984 and now revised with a new foreword, restores Wilfrid Israel to his rightful place in the history of the Holocaust. It also brings into new focus the disturbing indifference of Allied leaders to the plight of the Jews, early arguments over the emerging Palestinian homeland, and questions still unresolved today about the politics of rescue and the practicality of humanist ideals.

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  De Valera: Rule - 1932–1975

  David McCullagh

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  In this, the concluding volume of David McCullagh's monumental new life of the revolutionary and statesman, we join De Valera in 1932 as he takes the reins of power in the first Fianna Fáil government, and follow him as he confronts one challenge after another – the Economic War, the drafting of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Emergency,  the North, the declaration of the Republic, economic stagnation in the 1950s – and sets about gradually remaking a sovereign Ireland in his own image.Beautifully written and deeply researched, McCullagh's De Valera is a provocative and nuanced portrait of Ireland's most enigmatic leader, as well as a balanced assessment of his role in shaping our national self-image.

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  Blue: All Rise: Our Story

  Anthony Costa, Duncan James, Lee...

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  For the first time, more than 15 years after four boys from London were first thrown together to form what would go on to become one of the most successful and infamous groups of the boyband era, Lee, Antony, Duncan and Simon tell their full, no-holds-barred story in their own inimitable words. 
  Blue first rose to fame and mega-stardom in 2001. With 3 UK Number 1 Platinum-selling albums, 2 Brit Awards and 16 million records to their name, they quickly became the crushes of choice for the noughties generation. 
  But their tendency to say exactly what they think, wear their hearts on their sleeves and court controversy (usually unintentionally) has meant that they’ve rarely left the limelight, or public hearts and minds, since. 
  Blue: All Rise: Our Story is the boys’ intimate tell-all account charting the highs and the lows of their incredible career, the stories behind the headlines, and our favourite face-palm-worthy Blue moments. With explosive new reveals, never-before-seen photos, and all the latest updates – including Simon’s engagement and his struggle with depression, Lee’s brush with cancer, Duncan’s devastation at the passing away of his best friend, original It Girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, and how Antony’s adapting to fatherhood all over again, this is the story every 2000s teen has been waiting for, from four lads who’ve come out the other side older, wiser and closer than ever. 
  In Blue, Antony Costa presents an autobiography that delves into the personal lives of the band members, their journey to the top of the pop music world, and their individual styles. The memoirs provide a unique insight into the different genres they explored as musicians. 
  nan

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  The Grandees - America's...

  Stephen Birmingham

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  The New World’s earliest Jewish immigrants and their unique, little-known history: A New York Times bestseller from the author of Life at the Dakota. In 1654, twenty-three Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled from their homeland by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and intensely private community, the Sephardim soon established themselves as businessmen and financiers, earning great wealth. They became powerful forces in society, with some, like banker Haym Salomon, even providing financial support to George Washington’s army during the American Revolution.   Yet despite its major role in the birth and growth of America, this extraordinary group has remained virtually impenetrable and unknowable to outsiders. From author of “Our Crowd” Stephen Birmingham, The Grandees delves into the lives of the Sephardim and their historic accomplishments, illuminating the insulated world of these early Americans. Birmingham reveals how these families, with descendants including poet Emma Lazarus, Barnard College founder Annie Nathan Meyer, and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, influenced—and continue to influence—American society.

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  The Death of My Father the Pope...

  Obed Silva

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  A man mourning his alcoholic father faces a choice: whether to pay tribute, lay scorn upon him, or pour a drink. A wrenching, dazzling, revelatory debut. 
  Weaving between preparations for his father’s funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, Obed Silva chronicles his father’s alcoholism—a lifelong love that ended only at his death at the age of forty-eight, having poisoned himself one Carta Blanca at a time. Addiction respects no borders; the havoc Silva’s father wreaked on his family not only followed them north, where mother and son moved to escape his violent drunken rages, but would make itself felt even from the grave. 
   
  With a wry cynicism; a profane, profound anger; an antic, brutally honest voice; and a hard-won classical frame of reference, Silva channels the heartbreak of mourning while wrestling with the resentment and frustration resulting from addiction. The Death of My Father the Pope is a fluid and dynamic combination of memoir and examination of the power of language—and the introduction of a unique and powerful literary voice.

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  Life in a Day - A Memoir

  Doris Grumbach

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  A look into the daily life of one of America’s great memoirists At seventy-seven Doris Grumbach is as sharp as ever, and in Life in a Day she examines the experiences of her later years, from the dreaded writer’s block to the many hours she has spent reading to the effects of an increasingly modern and interconnected world. Imbued with Grumbach’s characteristic candor and verve, Life in a Day is a celebration of the meaning to be found in the quotidian.

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