Author: Moritz Thomsen
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295969282
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation--including his own--and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have madeLiving Poora classic. "Hilariously funny at times, grimly sad at others and elavened with perceptive insights into the ways of the people and with breathtaking descriptions of the Ecuadorian landscape."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Living Poor; a Peace Corps Chronicle
Author: Moritz Thomsen
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295969282
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation--including his own--and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have madeLiving Poora classic. "Hilariously funny at times, grimly sad at others and elavened with perceptive insights into the ways of the people and with breathtaking descriptions of the Ecuadorian landscape."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295969282
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation--including his own--and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have madeLiving Poora classic. "Hilariously funny at times, grimly sad at others and elavened with perceptive insights into the ways of the people and with breathtaking descriptions of the Ecuadorian landscape."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The Farm on the River of Emeralds
Author: Moritz Thomsen
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
My Two Wars
Author: Moritz Thomsen
Publisher: Steerforth
ISBN: 1586421476
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Moritz Thomsen’s My Two Wars describes the great battles in his life – one against a rich, tyrannical father; the other against anti-aircraft gunners over Germany in 1943 and 1944. It was completed shortly before Thomsen’s death, and with it he concluded the story of his unusual life. In this posthumously published masterpiece he returns to his youth growing up in a wealthy Seattle household with the father he despised, and goes off to war in Europe as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force. In his introduction Page Stegner calls it “the best narrative account ever written of an imperfect and fragile human soul caught up in the air war over Germany.” But it is Thomsen’s other war – his lifelong and monumental battle with his father – which begins and ends the book and makes My Two Wars one of the most outrageous and memorable father-and-son stories ever told.
Publisher: Steerforth
ISBN: 1586421476
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Moritz Thomsen’s My Two Wars describes the great battles in his life – one against a rich, tyrannical father; the other against anti-aircraft gunners over Germany in 1943 and 1944. It was completed shortly before Thomsen’s death, and with it he concluded the story of his unusual life. In this posthumously published masterpiece he returns to his youth growing up in a wealthy Seattle household with the father he despised, and goes off to war in Europe as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force. In his introduction Page Stegner calls it “the best narrative account ever written of an imperfect and fragile human soul caught up in the air war over Germany.” But it is Thomsen’s other war – his lifelong and monumental battle with his father – which begins and ends the book and makes My Two Wars one of the most outrageous and memorable father-and-son stories ever told.
The Lower River
Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547746504
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
A taut, tense, darkly suspenseful novel about a man who flees to Africa after his marriage falls apart, only to be caught up in a precarious situation in a seemingly benign village.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547746504
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
A taut, tense, darkly suspenseful novel about a man who flees to Africa after his marriage falls apart, only to be caught up in a precarious situation in a seemingly benign village.
River Town
Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062028987
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is “a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be. “This touching memoir of an American dropped into the center of China transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal “This is a colorful memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer who came away with more understanding of the Chinese than any foreign traveler has a right to expect.” —Booklist
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062028987
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is “a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be. “This touching memoir of an American dropped into the center of China transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal “This is a colorful memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer who came away with more understanding of the Chinese than any foreign traveler has a right to expect.” —Booklist
Hurricane Street
Author: Ron Kovic
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617754528
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The author of Born on the Fourth of July delivers “a harrowing, poignant telling of the American Veteran’s Movement and its members’ struggles” (Manhattan Book Review). In the spring of 1974, as the last American troops were being pulled out of Vietnam, Ron Kovic and a small group of other severely injured veterans in a California VA hospital launched the American Veterans Movement. In a phenomenal feat of political organizing, Kovic corralled his fellow AVM members into staging a sit-in, and then a hunger strike, in the Los Angeles office of Senator Alan Cranston, demanding better treatment of injured and disabled veterans. This was a short-lived and chaotic but ultimately successful movement to improve the deplorable conditions in VA hospitals across the country. Hurricane Street is their story—one that resonates deeply today—told by Kovic in the passionate and brutally honest style that led to over one million sales of Born on the Fourth of July. “Another raw exposé on the cost of war . . . The book is an unflinching anti-war declaration, written in blood and the sweat of too many haunted nights by a Vietnam Marine Corps sergeant who later opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” —Los Angeles Times “A deeply moving account of the struggle of Vietnam veterans to hold politicians accountable to the maimed warriors they sent into harm’s way and then abandoned.” —Robert Scheer, author of They Know Everything About You “An impassioned and timely memoir about the 1974 American Veterans Movement that will strike a chord with veterans and their families today.” —Publishers Weekly, Top 10 Pick for Spring 2016
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617754528
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The author of Born on the Fourth of July delivers “a harrowing, poignant telling of the American Veteran’s Movement and its members’ struggles” (Manhattan Book Review). In the spring of 1974, as the last American troops were being pulled out of Vietnam, Ron Kovic and a small group of other severely injured veterans in a California VA hospital launched the American Veterans Movement. In a phenomenal feat of political organizing, Kovic corralled his fellow AVM members into staging a sit-in, and then a hunger strike, in the Los Angeles office of Senator Alan Cranston, demanding better treatment of injured and disabled veterans. This was a short-lived and chaotic but ultimately successful movement to improve the deplorable conditions in VA hospitals across the country. Hurricane Street is their story—one that resonates deeply today—told by Kovic in the passionate and brutally honest style that led to over one million sales of Born on the Fourth of July. “Another raw exposé on the cost of war . . . The book is an unflinching anti-war declaration, written in blood and the sweat of too many haunted nights by a Vietnam Marine Corps sergeant who later opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” —Los Angeles Times “A deeply moving account of the struggle of Vietnam veterans to hold politicians accountable to the maimed warriors they sent into harm’s way and then abandoned.” —Robert Scheer, author of They Know Everything About You “An impassioned and timely memoir about the 1974 American Veterans Movement that will strike a chord with veterans and their families today.” —Publishers Weekly, Top 10 Pick for Spring 2016
The Last Train to Zona Verde
Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 061883933X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
The world's most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 061883933X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
The world's most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.
Yemen Chronicle
Author: Steven C. Caton
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1466807733
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
A report like no other from the heart of the Arab Middle East In 1979, Steven C. Caton went to a remote area of Yemen to do fieldwork on the famous oral poetry of its tribes. The recent hostage crisis in Iran made life perilous for a young American in the Middle East; worse, he was soon embroiled in a dangerous local conflict. Yemen Chronicle is Caton's touchingly candid acount of the extraordinary events that ensued. One day a neighboring sheikh came angrily to the sanctuary village where Caton lived, claiming that a man there had abducted his daughter and another girl. This was cause for war, and even though the culprit was captured and mediation efforts launched, tribal hostilities simmered for months. A man who was helping to resolve the dispute befriended Caton, showing him how the poems recited by the belligerents were connected to larger Arab conflicts and giving him refuge when the sanctuary was attacked. Then, unexpectedly, Caton himself was arrested and jailed for being an American spy. It was 2001 before Caton could return toYemen to untangle the story of why he had been imprisoned and what had happened to the missing girls. Placing his contradictory experiences in their full context, Yemen Chronicle is not only an invaluable assessment of classical ethnographic procedures but also a profound meditation on the political, cultural, and sexual components of modern Arab culture.
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1466807733
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
A report like no other from the heart of the Arab Middle East In 1979, Steven C. Caton went to a remote area of Yemen to do fieldwork on the famous oral poetry of its tribes. The recent hostage crisis in Iran made life perilous for a young American in the Middle East; worse, he was soon embroiled in a dangerous local conflict. Yemen Chronicle is Caton's touchingly candid acount of the extraordinary events that ensued. One day a neighboring sheikh came angrily to the sanctuary village where Caton lived, claiming that a man there had abducted his daughter and another girl. This was cause for war, and even though the culprit was captured and mediation efforts launched, tribal hostilities simmered for months. A man who was helping to resolve the dispute befriended Caton, showing him how the poems recited by the belligerents were connected to larger Arab conflicts and giving him refuge when the sanctuary was attacked. Then, unexpectedly, Caton himself was arrested and jailed for being an American spy. It was 2001 before Caton could return toYemen to untangle the story of why he had been imprisoned and what had happened to the missing girls. Placing his contradictory experiences in their full context, Yemen Chronicle is not only an invaluable assessment of classical ethnographic procedures but also a profound meditation on the political, cultural, and sexual components of modern Arab culture.
A Savage War of Peace
Author: Alistair Horne
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 628
Book Description
The Algerian war was at once the last of the old-style "colonial wars" and the archetype of horribly savage new conflicts - undeclared wars between old and new worlds - waged successfully by urban terrorists and country-based guerrillas against crack modern armies. In eight years, more than a million Algerians died and an equal number of Europeans lost their homes. It was a tragedy rife with lessons Americans had to learn all over again in Vietnam. As the Third World continues to make its aspirations felt, and established political powers continue to maintain an order they must struggle to impose, the story of Algeria's fight for independence stands as model and prophecy. A SAVAGE WAR OF PEACE is the definitive history of that prophetic war.
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 628
Book Description
The Algerian war was at once the last of the old-style "colonial wars" and the archetype of horribly savage new conflicts - undeclared wars between old and new worlds - waged successfully by urban terrorists and country-based guerrillas against crack modern armies. In eight years, more than a million Algerians died and an equal number of Europeans lost their homes. It was a tragedy rife with lessons Americans had to learn all over again in Vietnam. As the Third World continues to make its aspirations felt, and established political powers continue to maintain an order they must struggle to impose, the story of Algeria's fight for independence stands as model and prophecy. A SAVAGE WAR OF PEACE is the definitive history of that prophetic war.
The Last Full Measure
Author: Richard Moe
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
ISBN: 0873517393
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
The definitive history of the First Minnesota Volunteers in the Civil War.
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
ISBN: 0873517393
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
The definitive history of the First Minnesota Volunteers in the Civil War.