Unlike other American astronauts, Virgil I. «Gus» Grissom never had the chance to publish his memoirs. Killed along with his crew in a launch pad fire on January 27, 1967, Grissom also lost his chance to walk on the moon and return to describe his journey. Others went in his place. The stories of the moon walkers are familiar. Less appreciated are Grissom's contributions. The international prestige of winning the Moon Race cannot be underst ...
Al Capone, George «Machine Gun» Kelly, Alvin Karpis, «Dock» Barker—these were just a few of the legendary «public enemies» for whom America's first supermax prison was created. In <i>Alcatraz: The Gangster Years, </i>David Ward brings their stories to life, along with vivid accounts of the lives of other infamous criminals who passed through the penitentiary from 1934 to 1948. Ward, who enjoyed unprecedented access to FBI, Feder ...
In the late spring of 1718 near the village of Pozarevac (German Passarowitz) in northern Serbia, freshly conquered by Habsburg forces, three delegations representing the Holy Roman Emperor, Ottoman Sultan, and the Republic of Venice gathered to end the conflict that had begun three and a half years earlier. The fighting had spread throughout southeastern Europe, from Hungary to the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese. The peace redrew the map o ...
During the decades of empire (1870–1914), legendary heroes and their astonishing deeds of conquest gave imperialism a recognizable human face. Henry Morton Stanley, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Charles Gordon, Jean-Baptiste Marchand, and Hubert Lyautey all braved almost unimaginable dangers among «savage» people for their nation’s greater good. This vastly readable book, the first comparative history of colonial heroes in Britain and France, show ...
Dave Ross (1871-1943) and George Ade (1866-1944) were trustees, distinguished alumni and benefactors of Purdue University. Their friendship began in 1922 and led to their giving land and money for the 1924 construction of Ross-Ade Stadium, now a 70,000 seat athletic landmark on the West Lafayette campus. Their life stories date to 1883 Purdue and involve their separate student experiences and eventual fame. Their lives crossed paths with U.S. Fi ...
Established as a Jewish settlement in 1909 and dedicated a year later, Tel Aviv has grown over the last century to become Israel’s financial center and the country’s second largest city. This book examines a major period in the city’s establishment when Jewish architects moved from Europe, including Alexander Levy of Berlin, and attempted to establish a new style of Zionist urbanism in the years after World War I. The author explores the interpl ...
In the late nineteenth century in Europe and to some extent in the United States, the Jewish upper middle class—particularly the more affluent families—began to enter the cultural spheres of public life, especially in major cities such as Vienna, Berlin, Paris, New York, and London. While many aspects of society were closed to them, theater, the visual arts, music, and art publication were far more inviting, especially if they involved challengi ...
In May 1938, Hungary passed anti-Semitic laws causing hundreds of Jewish artists to lose their jobs. In response, Budapest's Jewish community leaders organized an Artistic Enterprise under the aegis of OMIKE Orszagos Magyar Izraelita Kozmuvelodesi Egyesulet (Hungarian Jewish Education Association) to provide employment and livelihood for actors, singers, musicians, conductors, composers, writers, playwrights, painters, graphic artists, and ...
2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Biography.Ben Hecht had seen his share of death-row psychopaths, crooked ward bosses, and Capone gun thugs by the time he had come of age as a crime reporter in gangland Chicago. His grim experience with what he called “the soul of man” gave him a kind of uncanny foresight a decade later, when a loose cannon named Adolf Hitler began to rise to power in central Europe. In 1932, Hecht solidified his leg ...
