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  Lydia Litvyak: The Life and...

  Editors Charles River

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  Altogether, the Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle in the history of warfare, and the Soviets’ decisive victory there is considered one of the biggest turning points in the entire war, and certainly in the European theater. Over the next two years, the German gains in Russia were steadily reversed, and the Red Army eventually began pushing west towards Berlin. Fittingly, the importance of Stalingrad was commemorated in several ways, from Churchill presenting Stalin with a “Sword of Stalingrad” to the Russians’ decision not to rebuild parts of the battle scarred city as a reminder of what happened there.  
  Partly out of dire circumstances and partly from a cultural worldview, it was the Soviet Union who first pressed female pilots into direct combat when Hitler invaded Russia. Ahead of Stalingrad, Stalin publicly declared that “women should be given the right to fly and fight for their country.” As a result, more than 800,000 women served in the Soviet military during the war years in hospitals, communication units, as road troops, anti-aircraft gunners, and snipers. 
  Of the Soviet female fighter pilots who fought the Nazis in the skies, led raids against ground targets, and stopped supply transports, the iconic Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak stands out as the most distinguished. The most productive and highly decorated of the Soviet Union’s female pilots, Litvyak was an expert aviator by the age of 14 and trained 45 pilots in the years leading up to the war, while still a teenager. She went on to serve in several of the elite air guard regiments, and she would be credited with numerous victories as the Soviets desperately tried to hold off the German onslaught around Stalingrad. The quirky and defiant Litvyak was described as a “silent modest beauty with a blonde shock of hair and blue eyes.” She “walked with a special gait, causing delight among others,” men in particular, and she tended to look neat at all times.

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  The Origins of Elected Strongmen...

  Erica Frantz, Andrea...

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  Since the end of World War II, democracies typically fell apart by coup d'état or through force. Today, however, they are increasingly eroding at the hands of democratically elected incumbents, who seize control by slowly chipping away at democratic institutions. To better understand these developments, this book examines the role of personalist political parties, or parties that exist primarily to further their leader's career as opposed to promote a specific policy platform. Using original data capturing levels of personalism in the parties of democratically elected leaders from 1991 to 2020, The Origins of Elected Strongmen shows that the rise of personalist parties around the globe is facilitating the decline of democracy. 
   
   
   
  Personalist parties lack both the incentive and capacity to push back against a leader's efforts to expand executive power. As such, leaders backed by personalist parties are more likely to succeed in their efforts to dismantle institutional constraints on their rule. Such attacks on state institutions, in turn, reverberate throughout society, deepening political polarization and weakening supporters' commitment to democratic norms of behavior. In these ways, ruling party personalism erodes horizontal and vertical constraints on a leader, ultimately degrading democracy and raising the risk of democratic failure.

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  Goebbels and 'Total War' - The...

  Peter Longerich

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  The Sports Palace speech was the climax of a campaign for 'total war'; the prime example of Nazi 'mass suggestion', a barrage of propaganda, seduction, and manipulation. 
   
  On the 18th of February 1943 Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels made a speech in the Berlin Sports Palace that is regarded as one of the most chilling, and at the same time most effective, rhetorical performances of the twentieth century. 
   
  In this definitive English translation, renowned historian Peter Longerich delves into the historical buildup to Goebbels's most notorious speech, the speech itself, and its lasting effect. Goebbels and 'Total War' singles out the Sports Palace speech to demystify the legend of Nazi propaganda by exposing the reality of the rally as a highly staged and prerecorded event, with a preselected audience and rehearsed reactions made to look spontaneous. For Goebbels, this spectacle was not only his chance to raise support for 'total war' in the German public but also the ultimate test to prove himself to his 'Führer'. Longerich traces Goebbels's path to 'total war' from his questionable demagogue skills and his tenuous relationship with Hitler, to the nation's losing battle at the front, and finally to total defeat.

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  Together We Rise - Behind the...

  Anonymous

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  An audiobook for the ages featuring the voices of Women's March Organizers, as well as Ashley Judd, Jia Tolentino, Cindi Leive, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sister Aisha Al-Adawiya, Melanie Campbell, Judith LeBlanc, Ai-Jen Poo, Robin Miles, January LaVoy, Thérèse Plummer, and James Fouhey.    
  In celebration of the one-year anniversary of Women’s March, this oral history offers an unprecedented, front-row seat to one of the most galvanizing movements in American history, featuring the very women who organized the march, and essays by feminist activists: ROWAN BLANCHARD • SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH • AMERICA FERRERA • ROXANE GAY • ILANA GLAZER • ASHLEY JUDD • VALARIE KAUR • CINDI LEIVE • DAVID REMNICK • JILL SOLOWAY • YARA SHAHIDI • JIA TOLENTINO • CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS • ELAINE WELTEROTH • JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS • AND MORE 
  On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, more than three million marchers of all ages and walks of life took to the streets as part of the largest protest in American history. In red states and blue states, in small towns and major urban centers, from Boise to Boston, Bangkok to Buenos Aires, people from eighty-two countries—on all seven continents—rose up in solidarity to voice a common message: Hear our voice. 
  It became the largest global protest in modern history. 
  Compiled by Women’s March organizers, in partnership with Condé Nast and Glamour magazine Editor in Chief Cindi Leive, Together We Rise—published for the one-year anniversary of the event—is the complete chronicle of this remarkable uprising. For the first time, Women’s March organizers—including Bob Bland, Cassady Fendlay, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Janaye Ingram, Tamika Mallory, Paola Mendoza, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour —tell their personal stories and reflect on their collective journey in an oral history written by Jamia Wilson, writer, activist and director of The Feminist Press. They provide an inside look at how the idea for the event originated, how it was organized, how it became a global movement that surpassed their wildest expectations, and how they are sustaining and building on the widespread outrage, passion, and determination that sparked it. 
  Together We Rise interweaves their stories with ""Voices from the March""—recollections from real women who were there, across the world, and voiced by January LaVoy—and 22 short, thought-provoking essays by esteemed writers, celebrities and artists including those both written and read by Ashley Judd, Jia Tolentino, Cindi Leive, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sister Aisha Al-Adawiya, Melanie Campbell, Judith LeBlanc, and Ai-Jen Poo. It also features the talented voices of Robin Miles as the narrator, Thérèse Plummer, and James Fouhey. An inspirational call to action that reminds us that together, ordinary people can make a difference, Together We Rise is an unprecedented look at a day that made history—and the beginning of a resistance movement to reclaim our future.  
  Women’s March will share proceeds from Together We Rise with three grassroots, women-led organizations: The Gathering for Justice, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and Indigenous Women Rise. 
  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

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  The Library of Ancient Wisdom -...

  Selena Wisnom

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  A tour of an ancient library transports us to Mesopotamia, introducing us to its people, their ideas, and their humanity. The library of Ashurbanipal, Assyria’s last great king, held an astonishing collection at the forefront of knowledge in its day, from ancient traditions in religion and literature to the latest developments in magic and medicine. When the Assyrian empire fell, the library burned to the ground, and its contents, clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing, lay buried for thousands of years until a team of Victorian archaeologists discovered the remnants in modern-day Iraq. The clay had baked and hardened; the very fire that consumed the library had helped its texts to survive for millennia. In The Library of Ancient Wisdom, scholar Selena Wisnom, one of only a few hundred experts able to read cuneiform script today, guides us inside this important collection and, through its contents, brings ancient Mesopotamia and its people to life. Introducing us to Ashurbanipal and his family, scribes, astrologers, physicians, and more, Wisnom explores the library’s tablets and the details they divulge about how these ancient people thought about the world. Like us, they had concerns about job security, jealous rivalries, and profound friendships, and questions about the meaning of life. Wisnom ushers us into a world where magic was commonplace, where the gods spoke to you in dreams, and where the secrets of the universe were revealed through puns—taking us to the heart of what it means to be human. Offering a close look at a major historical landmark as well as a readable account of the world’s earliest civilizations, The Library of Ancient Wisdom lays bare the ideas, hopes, fears, and desires that survive on humble clay.

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  Turning Points - The Role of the...

  Ambassador Thomas J. Corcoran,...

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  Details how the US State Department attempted, and failed, to save South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression and the powerful domestic political influences that ultimately led to America's defeat. 
   
   
   
  Ten years after the end of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, a career Foreign Service officer, Thomas J. Corcoran, set down in writing his thoughts on the history of US State Department policy during America's involvement with South Vietnam. Like many Americans of his generation, he was perplexed by the failure of America to achieve its goals in South Vietnam. As an ambassador and with over thirty years of diplomatic experience—beginning in 1948 when he was assigned to Hanoi and involving other postings in Southeast Asia—he brought to his analysis a long and rich personal experience with events in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 
   
   
   
  The result is a thoughtful, objective, and well-researched study that chronicles the key policy decisions made by the US State Department throughout the entire period from 1945 to 1975; decisions that ultimately led to the first war lost by the United States. In his extensive study, Corcoran does an excellent job of exposing many of the myths and falsehoods found in orthodox histories of US involvement in Vietnam.

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