The Last Battle

Download The Last Battle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439127018
Total Pages : 749 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Last Battle by : Cornelius Ryan

Download or read book The Last Battle written by Cornelius Ryan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

The Last Jews in Berlin

Download The Last Jews in Berlin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1497689384
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (976 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Last Jews in Berlin by : Leonard Gross

Download or read book The Last Jews in Berlin written by Leonard Gross and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller: The true story of twelve Jews who went underground in Nazi Berlin—and survived: “Consummately suspenseful” (Los Angeles Times). When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately one hundred sixty thousand Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than five thousand remained in the nation’s capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to one thousand. All the others had died in air raids, starved to death, committed suicide, or been shipped off to the death camps. In this captivating and harrowing book, Leonard Gross details the real-life stories of a dozen Jewish men and women who spent the final twenty-seven months of World War II underground, hiding in plain sight, defying both the Gestapo and, even worse, Jewish “catchers” ready to report them to the Nazis in order to avoid the gas chambers themselves. A teenage orphan, a black-market jewel trader, a stylish young designer, and a progressive intellectual were among the few who managed to survive. Through their own resourcefulness, bravery, and at times, sheer luck, these Jews managed to evade the tragic fates of so many others. Gross has woven these true stories of perseverance into a heartbreaking, suspenseful, and moving account with the narrative force of a thriller. Compiled from extensive interviews, The Last Jews in Berlin reveals these individuals’ astounding determination, against all odds, to live each day knowing it could be their last.

Last Visit to Berlin

Download Last Visit to Berlin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9789655751499
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (514 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Last Visit to Berlin by : Ruvik Rosenthal

Download or read book Last Visit to Berlin written by Ruvik Rosenthal and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One woman's decision. The fate of an entire family... Berlin, 1933. Erich, a Jew, and Hilde, a Christian, are a young couple, the parents of Yvonne, and owners of a small book publishing firm. With Hitler's rise to power and the persecution of Jews, their lives are destroyed in an instant. The Nazis burn their books and, fearing for their lives, the family is forced to escape to Holland. The many hardships, however, tear the family apart when Hilde chooses to return to Germany together with Yvonne, leaving Erich, who immigrates to Palestine. Will he ever see his family again? The Last Visit to Berlin is a saga that spreads over one hundred years in the lives of the members of the Freyer family. The novel follows the most difficult moments the family went through. It tells the story of the tragic destiny suffered by generation after generation in Germany and in the Land of Israel, reliving their shattered beliefs and documenting their stubborn insistence on living a good life under the shadow of memories and loss." -- back cover.

A Wall of Our Own

Download A Wall of Our Own PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469655098
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Wall of Our Own by : Paul M. Farber

Download or read book A Wall of Our Own written by Paul M. Farber and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Berlin Wall is arguably the most prominent symbol of the Cold War era. Its construction in 1961 and its dismantling in 1989 are broadly understood as pivotal moments in the history of the last century. In A Wall of Our Own, Paul M. Farber traces the Berlin Wall as a site of pilgrimage for American artists, writers, and activists. During the Cold War and in the shadow of the Wall, figures such as Leonard Freed, Angela Davis, Shinkichi Tajiri, and Audre Lorde weighed the possibilities and limits of American democracy. All were sparked by their first encounters with the Wall, incorporated their reflections in books and artworks directed toward the geopolitics of division in the United States, and considered divided Germany as a site of intersection between art and activism over the respective courses of their careers. Departing from the well-known stories of Americans seeking post–World War II Paris for their own self-imposed exile or traveling the open road of the domestic interstate highway system, Farber reveals the divided city of Berlin as another destination for Americans seeking a critical distance. By analyzing the experiences and cultural creations of "American Berliner" artists and activists, Farber offers a new way to view not only the Wall itself but also how the Cold War still structures our thinking about freedom, repression, and artistic resistance on a global scale.

The Collapse

Download The Collapse PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465064949
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Collapse by : Mary Sarotte

Download or read book The Collapse written by Mary Sarotte and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.

In the garden of beasts

Download In the garden of beasts PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0307952428
Total Pages : 466 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis In the garden of beasts by : Erik Larson

Download or read book In the garden of beasts written by Erik Larson and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the 'New Germany,' she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance - and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

Walking in Berlin

Download Walking in Berlin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262539667
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Walking in Berlin by : Franz Hessel

Download or read book Walking in Berlin written by Franz Hessel and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English translation of a lost classic that reinvents the flaneur in Berlin. Franz Hessel (1880–1941), a German-born writer, grew up in Berlin, studied in Munich, and then lived in Paris, where he moved in artistic and literary circles. His relationship with the fashion journalist Helen Grund was the inspiration for Henri-Pierre Roche's novel Jules et Jim (made into a celebrated 1962 film by Francois Truffaut). In collaboration with Walter Benjamin, Hessel reinvented the Parisian figure of the flaneur. This 1929 book—here in its first English translation—offers Hessel's version of a flaneur in Berlin. In Walking in Berlin, Hessel captures the rhythm of Weimar-era Berlin, recording the seismic shifts in German culture. Nearly all of the essays take the form of a walk or outing, focusing on either a theme or part of the city, and many end at a theater, cinema, or club. Hessel deftly weaves the past with the present, walking through the city's history as well as its neighborhoods. Even today, his walks in the city, from the Alexanderplatz to Kreuzberg, can guide would-be flaneurs. Walking in Berlin is a lost classic, known mainly because of Hessel's connection to Benjamin but now introduced to readers of English. Walking in Berlin was a central model for Benjamin's Arcades Project and remains a classic of “walking literature” that ranges from Surrealist perambulation to Situationist “psychogeography.” This MIT Press edition includes the complete text in translation as well as Benjamin's essay on Walking in Berlin, originally written as a review of the book's original edition. “An absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance.” —Walter Benjamin

In The Garden of Beasts

Download In The Garden of Beasts PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1446464504
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (464 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis In The Garden of Beasts by : Erik Larson

Download or read book In The Garden of Beasts written by Erik Larson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-08-31 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A compelling tale... a narrative that makes such a brave effort to see history as it evolves and not as it becomes.' SPECTATOR Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the times, and with brilliant portraits of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Himmler amongst others, Erik Larson's new book sheds unique light on events as they unfold, resulting in an unforgettable, addictively readable work of narrative history. Berlin,1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago, has to his own and everyone else's surprise, become America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, in a year that proves to be a turning point in history. Dodd and his family, notably his vivacious daughter, Martha, observe at first-hand the many changes - some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent - that signal Hitler's consolidation of power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the Nazi party, his increasingly concerned cables make little impact on an indifferent U.S. State Department, while Martha is drawn to the Nazis and their vision of a 'New Germany' and has a succession of affairs with senior party players, including first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as the year darkens, Dodd and his daughter find their lives transformed and any last illusion they might have about Hitler are shattered by the violence of the 'Night of the Long Knives' in the summer of 1934 that established him as supreme dictator . . .

Gay Berlin

Download Gay Berlin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307473139
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Gay Berlin by : Robert Beachy

Download or read book Gay Berlin written by Robert Beachy and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of Randy Shilts Award In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts—the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries—exploring and educating themselves and the rest of the world about new ways of understanding the human condition. In this fascinating examination of how the uninhibited urban culture of Berlin helped create our categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, Robert Beachy guides readers through the past events and developments that continue to shape and influence our thinking about sex and gender to this day.

Leaving Berlin

Download Leaving Berlin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 147670466X
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Leaving Berlin by : Joseph Kanon

Download or read book Leaving Berlin written by Joseph Kanon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Notable Book * Named one of NPR and Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year * The acclaimed author of The Good German “deftly captures the ambience” (The New York Times Book Review) of postwar East Berlin in his “thought-provoking, pulse-pounding” (Wall Street Journal) New York Times bestseller—a sweeping spy thriller about a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Berlin, 1948. Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment—to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder? Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.

To Save a City

Download To Save a City PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781603440905
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (49 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis To Save a City by : Roger G. Miller

Download or read book To Save a City written by Roger G. Miller and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-21 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following World War II, the Soviet Union drew an Iron Curtain across Europe, crowning its efforts with a blockade of West Berlin in a desperate effort to prevent the creation of an independent, democratic West Germany. The United States and Great Britain, aided by France, responded with a daring air logistical operation that in fifteen months delivered almost three million tons of coal, food, and other necessities to the people of Berlin. Now, drawing on rare U.S. Air Force files, recently declassified documents from the National Archives, records released since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the memories of airlift veterans themselves, Roger G. Miller provides an original study of the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift was an enterprise of epic proportions that demonstrated the power of air logistics as a political instrument. What began as a hastily organized operation by a small number of warweary cargo airplanes evolved into an intricate bridge of aircraft that flowed in and out of Berlin through narrow air corridors. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, a stream of airplanes delivered everything from food and medicine to coal and candy in defiance of breakdowns, inclement weather, and Soviet hostility. And beyond the airlift itself, a complex system of transportation, maintenance, and supply stretching around the world sustained operations. Historians, veterans, and general readers will welcome this history of the first Western victory of the Cold War. Maps, diagrams, and more than forty photographs illustrate the mechanical inner workings and the human faces that made that triumph possible.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Download Berlin Alexanderplatz PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 9780826477897
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (778 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Berlin Alexanderplatz by : Alfred Döblin

Download or read book Berlin Alexanderplatz written by Alfred Döblin and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) studied medicine in Berlin and specialized in the treatment of nervous diseases. Along with his experiences as a psychiatrist in the workers' quarter of Berlin, his writing was inspired by the work of Holderlin, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and was first published in the literary magazine, Der Sturm. Associated with the Expressionist literary movement in Germany, he is now recognized as on of the most important modern European novelists. Berlin Alexanderplatz is one of the masterpieces of modern European literature and the first German novel to adopt the technique of James Joyce. It tells the story of Franz Biberkopf, who, on being released from prison, is confronted with the poverty, unemployment, crime and burgeoning Nazism of 1920s Germany. As Franz struggles to survive in this world, fate teases him with a little pleasure before cruelly turning on him. Foreword by Alexander Stephan Translated by Eugene Jolas>

Checkpoint Charlie

Download Checkpoint Charlie PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1472130561
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (721 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Checkpoint Charlie by : Iain MacGregor

Download or read book Checkpoint Charlie written by Iain MacGregor and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'As convoluted and deadly as the plot of a novel by John le Carre, but all too real' Daily Mail, Must Reads 'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West divide that poisoned Europe for almost half a century, [MacGregor] has made an important contribution to the history of our times' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Captures brilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the wall - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited' Jon Snow A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the city throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union that contains never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.

Berliners

Download Berliners PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 0593428374
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (934 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Berliners by : Vesper Stamper

Download or read book Berliners written by Vesper Stamper and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting story about the rivalry between two brothers living on opposite sides of the Berlin wall during its construction in the 1960s, and how their complicated legacy and dreams of greatness will determine their ultimate fate. A city divided. A family fractured. Two brothers caught between past and present. Berlin, 1961. Rudi Möser-Fleischmann is an aspiring photographer with dreams of greatness, but he can't hold a candle to his talented, charismatic twin brother Peter, an ambitious actor. With the sudden divorce of their parents, the brothers find themselves living in different sectors of a divided Berlin; the postwar partition strangely mirroring their broken family. But one night, as the city sleeps, the Berlin Wall is hurriedly built, dividing society further, and Rudi and Peter are forced to choose between playing by the rules and taking their dreams underground. That is, until the truth about their family history and the growing cracks in their relationship threaten to split them apart for good. From National Book Award-nominated, critically acclaimed author-illustrator Vesper Stamper comes a stark look at how resentment and denial can strain the bonds of brotherhood to the breaking point.

The Elephant Gate

Download The Elephant Gate PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781483933900
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (339 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Elephant Gate by : Curtis Christopher Comer

Download or read book The Elephant Gate written by Curtis Christopher Comer and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-03-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forcibly taken from family in his native homeland, young Siam grows up a prisoner in Hitler's Berlin. There, with others like him, he struggles to comprehend the depravations he is forced to endure while behind bars. When the air war finally reaches the Nazi capital, Siam's faith is tested as those he loves die and he spirals into a deep despair that threatens to destroy his spirit. This is the true story of Siam, "the Last Elephant in Berlin."

Submerged on the Surface

Download Submerged on the Surface PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1785334565
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (853 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Submerged on the Surface by : Richard N. Lutjens, Jr.

Download or read book Submerged on the Surface written by Richard N. Lutjens, Jr. and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1941 and 1945, thousands of German Jews, in fear for their lives, made the choice to flee their impending deportations and live submerged in the shadows of the Nazi capital. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence and interviews with survivors, this book reconstructs the daily lives of Jews who stayed in Berlin during the war years. Contrary to the received wisdom that “hidden” Jews stayed in attics and cellars and had minimal contact with the outside world, the author reveals a cohort of remarkable individuals who were constantly on the move and actively fought to ensure their own survival.

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

Download The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476777438
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by : Joshua Hammer

Download or read book The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice** To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (The Washington Post) from the author of The Falcon Thief. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door. “Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (The New York Times Book Review) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (The Seattle Times), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.