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Author: Brian Van Reet Publisher: Lee Boudreaux Books ISBN: 0316316156 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
It is April 2003. American forces have taken Baghdad and are now charged with winning hearts and minds. But this vital tipping point is barely recognized for what it is, as a series of miscalculations and blunders fuels an already-simmering insurgency intent on making Iraq the next graveyard of empires. In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines: Cassandra, a nineteen-year-old gunner on an American Humvee who is captured during a deadly firefight and awakens in a prison cell; Abu Al-Hool, a lifelong mujahedeen beset by a simmering crisis of conscience as he struggles against enemies from without and within, including the new wave of far more radicalized jihadists; and Specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who goes along with a "victimless" crime, the consequences of which are more awful than any he could have imagined. Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat. "The finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American"-Wall Street Journal, 10 Best Novels of the Year "An electrifying debut" (The Economist) that maps the blurred lines between good and evil, soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished.
Author: Brian Van Reet Publisher: Lee Boudreaux Books ISBN: 0316316156 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
It is April 2003. American forces have taken Baghdad and are now charged with winning hearts and minds. But this vital tipping point is barely recognized for what it is, as a series of miscalculations and blunders fuels an already-simmering insurgency intent on making Iraq the next graveyard of empires. In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines: Cassandra, a nineteen-year-old gunner on an American Humvee who is captured during a deadly firefight and awakens in a prison cell; Abu Al-Hool, a lifelong mujahedeen beset by a simmering crisis of conscience as he struggles against enemies from without and within, including the new wave of far more radicalized jihadists; and Specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who goes along with a "victimless" crime, the consequences of which are more awful than any he could have imagined. Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat. "The finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American"-Wall Street Journal, 10 Best Novels of the Year "An electrifying debut" (The Economist) that maps the blurred lines between good and evil, soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished.
Author: Andrew Cockburn Publisher: Verso Books ISBN: 1839763655 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Why does the United States go to war?—a leading Harper’s commentator on U.S. foreign affairs searches for answers. A withering exposé of runaway military spending and the private economic interests funding the U.S. war machine—for fans of Rachel Maddow and Democracy Now! America has a long tradition of justifying war as the defense of democracy. The War on Terror was waged to protect the West from the dangers of Islamists. The US soldiers stationed in over 800 locations across the world are meant to be the righteous arbiters of justice. Against this background, Andrew Cockburn brilliantly dissects the true intentions behind Washington’s martial appetites. The American war machine can only be understood in terms of the private passions and interests of those who control it—principally a passionate interest in money. Thus, as Cockburn witheringly reports, Washington expanded NATO to satisfy an arms manufacturer’s urgent financial requirements; the US Navy’s Pacific fleet deployments were for years dictated by a corrupt contractor who bribed high-ranking officers with cash and prostitutes; senior Marine commanders agreed to a troop surge in Afghanistan in 2017 for budgetary reasons. Based on years of wide-ranging research, Cockburn lays bare the ugly reality of the largest military machine in history: as profoundly squalid as it is terrifyingly deadly.
Author: Alexander Robinson Publisher: Applied Research and Design Publishing ISBN: 9781940743486 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Once the third-largest lake in California and among the world's greatest sources of dust, for decades the dried Owens Lake was merely a footnote to the most notorious water grab in modern history. Now, the desert lake has been reassembled--not refilled--to redeem its lost value without returning Los Angeles's main water supply. In The Spoils of Dust, this bargain redemption and its surprise conjuring of an extraordinary landscape, is the backdrop for investigating contemporary relationships between landscape architecture, engineering, and perception. The Promethean terrain makes legible the frameworks we use to reinvent nature in the Anthropocene, revealing itself as a monument to the prismatic modes by which we know landscapes today. Almost by accident, this has made select landscape values the linchpin for major water resource decisions, thrusting landscape architecture into a consequential position. Answering the challenge, the book concludes with a speculative atlas and robotic tool for an imaginative and advanced approach to dry lake design.
Author: Jesse Eisenberg Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc. ISBN: 0802191398 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 113
Book Description
A powerful play about wealth, narcissism, and entitlement: “Eisenberg writes funny, but he is also a real storyteller—moody and dangerous and even loving.”—Newsday Nobody likes Ben. Ben doesn’t even like Ben. He’s been kicked out of grad school, lives off his parents’ money, and bullies everyone in his life, including his roommate, an earnest Nepalese immigrant. When Ben discovers that his grade school crush is marrying a straitlaced banker, he sets out to destroy their relationship and win her back. The Spoils is a deeply personal and probing comedy written by Jesse Eisenberg—Academy Award-nominated actor, playwright, and contributor to the New Yorker. “While Ben would surely say The Spoils is all about Ben, Mr. Eisenberg has seen fit to surround his leading narcissist with characters who live and breathe and react independently...His clever, frantic dialogue assumes an irresistible authenticity.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times (NYT Critics’ Pick)
Author: Robin Waterfield Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199931526 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
A gripping account of one of the great forgotten wars of history, revealing how Alexander the Great's vast empire was torn asunder in the years after his death
Author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Publisher: Public Affairs ISBN: 1610396626 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
"It's striking how many of the presidents Americans venerate--Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, to name a few--oversaw some of the republic's bloodiest years. Perhaps it's because they looked out for important political causes. Or maybe they just looked out for themselves. This ... book puts some of America's greatest leaders under the microscope, [positing that] their calls for war, usually remembered as brave and noble, were in fact selfish and convenient"--
Author: Linda Lee Chaikin Publisher: Moody Publishers ISBN: 1575675536 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Can love survive when dreams divide? Rafe Easton rescued an abandoned baby from certain death on a forbidden island. Now that courageous act could cost him his pending marriage and his reputation. The Hawaii of 1891 is not untamed as it was when the first missionaries arrived, but the dangers haven't disappeared. Power, wealth, and ambition still drive the affairs of the island life, and Rafe Easton is poised to win big on all three--except for one thing. The woman he loves is walking away from their promise of life together on account of a baby boy . . . and the forsaken people of the island he came from. For her part, Eden Derrington must choose between her father's lifelong dream of curing leprosy, and a life of privilege with the man she's loved since childhood. Will Rafe wait for her while she serves alongside her father? And what if she herself falls victim to the dreaded disease that took her mother many years ago? Set against the backdrop of tropical paradise, revolutionary intrigue, hidden motives, and deadly secrets, The Spoils of Eden sheds light on Hawaii's colonial era and the men and women whose sacrifices yielded such unexpected results.
Author: Henrietta Lidchi Publisher: ISBN: 9781526139207 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, this volume combines approaches from material anthropology, imperial and military history to shed light on the acquisition and appropriation of objects during British colonial warfare. The authors offer a nuanced view of how the amassing of objects was governed and understood within military culture.
Author: Seth Hettena Publisher: Macmillan + ORM ISBN: 1429917113 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
Randy "Duke" Cunningham was an ace fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor. He came back from battle as Vietnam's most famous pilot—a Navy hero in an unpopular war. In his political life, Cunningham was an eight-term United States representative who never lost an election. So how did this powerful politician, one of the Vietnam War's most highly decorated pilots, become the most corrupt congressman in U.S. history? In 2005, Cunningham shocked the nation by pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, fraud, and tax evasion. A federal judge sentenced him to more than eight years in prison, the longest sentence handed down to a member of Congress in 40 years. And even as Cunningham was led, weeping, to prison, investigators continued to uncover a deep-rooted scandal, reaching the cozy nexus between Congress and lobbyists, military contractors, the Defense Department and the upper ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Cunningham's bribes were seemingly endless. They included a yacht, a Rolls-Royce, and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of antiques. Defense contractors flew him aboard private chartered jets to luxury destinations, picked up the tab at expensive restaurants, and paid for his daughter's graduation party. In total, he collected at least $2.4 million in five years, a series of acts unequaled in the long, sordid history of congressional corruption. An ongoing investigation is even exploring allegations that prostitutes were hired by Cunningham's associates to entertain the congressman. His corruption and that of his cohorts was a decisive factor in the 2006 elections, as Democrats retook control of the House for the first time in more than a decade. What led a man who showed such strength and resolve in battle to show such moral weakness later in life? Had he become a prisoner of greed or was he manipulated by others far more cunning than he? What happened to Randy Cunningham? In Feasting on the Spoils, Hettena offers a probing look at deception and avarice. He paints an unforgettable portrait of a life publicly unraveled, and of a man for whom the mysteries—and the history of fraud—only seem to deepen.