Ergebnis gesprochen von "DOUGLAS R PRATT" in Alle Kategorien

In the early years of World War II, Germany shocked the world with a devastating blitzkrieg, rapidly conquered most of Europe, and pushed into North Africa. As the Allies scrambled to counter the Axis armies, the British Eighth Army confronted the experienced Afrika Corps, led by German field marshal Erwin Rommel, in three battles at El Alamein. In the first battle, the Eighth Army narrowly halted the advance of the Germans during the summer of 1942. However, the stalemate left Nazi troops within striking distance of the Suez Canal, which would provide a critical tactical advantage to the controlling force. War historian Glyn Harper dives into the story, vividly narrating the events, strategies, and personalities surrounding the battles and paying particular attention to the Second Battle of El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the war that would be described by Winston Churchill as "the end of the beginning."

David K. Stumpf demystifies the intercontinental ballistic missile program that was conceived at the end of the Eisenhower administration as a key component of the US nuclear strategy of massive retaliation. Although its nuclear warhead may have lacked power relative to that of the Titan II, the Minuteman more than made up for this in terms of numbers and readiness to launch - making it the ultimate ICBM.

This work takes listeners to two countries ravaged by World War II, Poland and Japan, recounting the wartime experiences of teenagers Bogdan and Seiko. Bogdan’s family abandoned its home in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and fled to Warsaw, where Bogdan fought for the Polish Home Army in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. During this brutal conflict, as Poles tried to oust occupying Germans, Bogdan sustained severe injuries, and after the Germans crushed the Uprising, he endured seven POW camps. On the other side of the globe, in Hokkaido, Japan, Seiko’s country went to war against the U.S.

From the joyous communal connections fostered through shared auditory experience to the devastating impact of noise pollution in the deep sea, musician and author Damon Krukowski urges readers to reconsider the significance of sound and its role in both our personal and collective well-being. He looks despairingly at how the multipronged efforts of urban dwellers to mitigate city noise have led to increased isolation, loss of community, and a sense of physical detachment from one’s surroundings.

In Balloon Ace: The Life of an Early Airpower Visionary, historian Charles Dusch reconstructs Louis Bennett Jr.'s lost legacy. Advocating for a national aviation reserve years before the writings of "Billy" Mitchell, Bennett created a state aerial militia in 1917, complete with supporting airbases and an airplane factory. When the US Army refused to accept his unit, a frustrated Bennett joined the Royal Air Force to fight on the Western Front, destroying nine German balloons and three aircraft in a matter of days before he himself was shot down.

Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company's top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854-1894), "A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men." Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw "was one of the worst and most dangerous" because "he never knew what fear was."

The long view of the path to the Civil War, as charted through the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras in this book, reveals the critical fault in the nation’s foundation, exacerbated by slaveholding expansionists like Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, and Douglas, until the house they built upon it could no longer stand for two opposite ideas at once.

In A Constitutional Culture, Adrian Chastain Weimer uncovers the story of how more than a hundred years before the American Revolution, colonists pledged their lives and livelihoods to the defense of local political institutions against arbitrary rule.

In Frontier Country, Patrick Spero addresses one of the most important and controversial subjects in American history: the frontier. Countering the modern conception of the American frontier as an area of expansion, Spero employs the eighteenth-century meaning of the term to show how colonists understood it as a vulnerable, militarized boundary. The Pennsylvania frontier, Spero argues, was constituted through conflicts not only between colonists and Native Americans but also among neighboring British colonies.

John B. Denton was an orphan in frontier Arkansas who became a circuit-riding Methodist preacher and an important member of a movement of early settlers bringing civilization to North Texas. He was a participant in the first missionary effort to bring Methodism to Texas, answering a call from William B. Travis to bring Methodists to the new republic

Before the widespread popularity of automobiles, buses, and trucks, freight and passenger trains bound the nation together. The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience explores the role of local frontline workers that kept the country's vast rail network running.

A year after John Bradstreet’s raid of 1758—the first and largest British American riverine raid mounted during the Seven Years’ War (known in North America as the French and Indian War)—Benjamin Franklin hailed it as one of the great “American” victories of the war. Bradstreet heartily agreed, and soon enough, his own official account was adopted by Francis Parkman and other early historians.

In the years following the Revolutionary War, the young American nation was in a state of chaos. Citizens pleaded with government leaders to reorganize local infrastructures and heighten regulations, but economic turmoil, Native American warfare, and political unrest persisted. By 1784, one group of North Carolina frontiersmen could no longer stand the unresponsiveness of state leaders to their growing demands. This ambitious coalition of Tennessee Valley citizens declared their region independent from North Carolina, forming the state of Franklin.

At the center of American history is a hole—a gap where some scholars’ indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the true story of the American Midwest. A first-ever chronicle of the Midwest’s formative century, The Good Country restores this American heartland to its central place in the nation’s history.

John C. Frémont was the most celebrated explorer of his era. In 1842, on the first of five expeditions he would lead to the Far West, Frémont and a small party of men journeyed up the Kansas and Platte Rivers to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. At the time, virtually this entire region was known as the Great Desert, and many Americans viewed it and the Rocky Mountains beyond as natural barriers to the United States.

Engines of Empire tells the story of the complex relationship between Victorians and their wondrous steamships, following famous travelers like Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Jules Verne as well as ordinary spectators, tourists, and imperial administrators as they crossed oceans bound for the colonies. Rich with anecdotes and wry humor, it is a fascinating glimpse into a world where an empire felt powerful and anything seemed possible if there was an engine behind it.

Cottonwood and the River of Time looks at some of the approaches scientists have used to unravel the puzzles of the natural world. With a lifetime of work in forestry and genetics to guide him, Reinhard Stettler celebrates both what has been learned and what still remains a mystery as he examines not only cottonwoods but also trees more generally, their evolution, and their relationship to society.

Colonel Pat Proctor’s long overdue critique of the army’s preparation and outlook in the all-volunteer era focuses on a national security issue that continues to vex in the 21st century: Has the army lost its ability to win strategically by focusing on fighting conventional battles against peer enemies? Or can it adapt to deal with the greater complexity of counterinsurgent and information-age warfare?

Although Lincoln’s adult life as president, statesman, and savior of the Union has been well documented and analyzed, most biographers have regarded his early years as inconsequential to his career and accomplishments. But in 1920, a group of historians known as the Lincoln Inquiry were determined to give Lincoln’s formative years their due. Abe’s Youth takes a look into their writings, which focus on Lincoln’s life between seven and 21 years of age.

David Forsyth recounts the life of Eben Smith, an integral but little-known figure in Colorado mining history. From Smith’s early years and his labor in the mines, to his rise to prominence as an investor and developer, Forsyth shows how Smith used the mining and milling knowledge he acquired in California to become a leader in technological innovation in Colorado’s mining industry.