Author: K. B. E. E. Eimeleus
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150174741X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
K. B. E. E. Eimeleus was ahead of his time with his advocacy of ski training in the Russian armed forces. Employing terminology never before used in Russian to describe movements with which few were familiar, Skis in the Art of War gives a breakdown of the latest techniques at the time from Scandinavia and Finland. Eimeleus's work is an early and brilliant example of knowledge transfer from Scandinavia to Russia within the context of sport. Nearly three decades after he published his book, the Finnish army, employing many of the ideas first proposed by Eimeleus, used mobile ski troops to hold the Soviet Union at bay during the Winter War of 1939–40, and in response, the Soviet government organized a massive ski mobilization effort prior to the German invasion in 1941. The Soviet counteroffensive against Nazi Germany during the winter of 1941–42 owed much of its success to the Red Army ski battalions that had formed as a result of the ski mobilization. In this lucid translation that includes most of the original illustrations, scholar and former biathlon competitor William D. Frank collaborates with E. John B. Allen, known world-wide for his work on ski history.
Author: William D. Frank
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780875808048
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: William D. Frank
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 1501756974
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 411
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Book Description
Nowhere in the world was the sport of biathlon, a combination of cross-country skiing and rifle marksmanship, taken more seriously than in the Soviet Union, and no other nation garnered greater success at international venues. From the introduction of modern biathlon in 1958 to the USSR's demise in 1991, athletes representing the Soviet Union won almost half of all possible medals awarded in world championship and Olympic competition. Yet more than sheer technical skill created Soviet superiority in biathlon. The sport embodied the Soviet Union's culture, educational system and historical experience and provided the perfect ideological platform to promote the state's socialist viewpoint and military might, imbuing the sport with a Cold War sensibility that transcended the government's primary quest for post-war success at the Olympics. William D. Frank's book is the first comprehensive analysis of how the Soviet government interpreted the sport of skiing as a cultural, ideological, political and social tool throughout the course of seven decades. In the beginning, the Soviet Union owned biathlon, and so the stories of both the state and the event are inseparable. Through the author's unique perspective on biathlon as a former nationally-ranked competitor and current professor of Soviet history, Everyone to Skis! will appeal to students and scholars of Russian and Soviet history as well as to general readers with an interest in skiing and the development of twentieth-century sport.
Author: Peter Shelton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743253531
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303
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Book Description
Few stories from the "greatest generation" are as unforgettable -- or as little known -- as that of the 10th Mountain Division. Today a versatile light infantry unit deployed around the world, the 10th began in 1941 as a crew of civilian athletes with a passion for mountains and snow. In this vivid history, adventure writer Peter Shelton follows the unique division from its conception on a Vermont ski hill, through its dramatic World War II coming-of-age, to the ultimate revolution it inspired in American outdoor life. In the late-1930s United States, rock climbing and downhill skiing were relatively new sports. But World War II brought a need for men who could handle extreme mountainous conditions -- and the elite 10th Mountain Division was born. Everything about it was unprecedented: It was the sole U.S. Army division trained on snow and rock, the only division ever to grow out of a sport. It had an un-matched number of professional athletes, college scholars, and potential officer candidates, and as the last U.S. division to enter the war in Europe, it suffered the highest number of casualties per combat day. This is the 10th's surprising, suspenseful, and often touching story. Drawing on years of interviews and research, Shelton re-creates the ski troops' lively, extensive, and sometimes experimental training and their journey from boot camp to the Italian Apennines. There, scaling a 1,500-foot "unclimbable" cliff face in the dead of night, they stunned their enemy and began the eventual rout of the German armies from northern Italy. It was a self-selecting elite, a brotherhood in sport and spirit. And those who survived (including the Sierra Club's David Brower, Aspen Skiing Corporation founder Friedl Pfeifer, and Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman, who developed the waffle-sole running shoe) turned their love of mountains into the thriving outdoor industry that has transformed the way Americans see (and play in) the natural world.
Author: Maurice Isserman
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN: 1328871436
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
The epic story of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, whose elite soldiers broke the last line of German defenses in Italy's mountains in 1945, spearheading the Allied advance to the Alps and final victory.
Author: E. John B. Allen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
"The first full-length study of skiing in the United States, this book traces the history of the sport from its utilitarian origins to its advent as a purely recreational and competitive activity." "During the mid-1800s, inhabitants of frontier mining communities in the Sierra and Rocky mountains used skis for many practical reasons, including mail and supply delivery, hunting, and railroad repair. In some towns skis were so common that, according to one California newspaper, "the ladies do nearly all their shopping and visiting on them."" "But it was Norwegian immigrants in the Midwest, clinging to their homeland traditions, who first organized the skisport. Through the founding of local clubs and the National Ski Association, this ethnic group dominated American skiing until the 1930s." "At this time, a wave of German immigrants infused America with the ethos of what we today call Alpine skiing. This type of skiing became increasingly popular, especially in the East among wealthy collegians committed to the romantic pursuit of the "strenuous life." Ski clubs proliferated in towns and on college campuses and specialized resorts cropped up from New England to California. At the same time, skiing became mechanized with tows and lifts, and the blossoming equipment and fashion industries made a business of the sport." "On the eve of World War II, as the book concludes its story, all the elements were in place for the explosion in recreational and competitive skiing that erupted after 1945."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Franci Rabinek Epstein
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525507221
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
The engrossing memoir of a spirited and glamorous young fashion designer who survived World War ll, with an afterword by her daughter, Helen Epstein. In the summer of 1942, twenty-two year-old Franci Rabinek--designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws--arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labor camps in Hamburg, and Bergen Belsen. After liberation by the British in April 1945, she finally returned to Prague. Franci was known in her group as the Prague dress designer who lied to Dr. Mengele at an Auschwitz selection, saying she was an electrician, an occupation that both endangered and saved her life. In this memoir, she offers her intense, candid, and sometimes funny account of those dark years, with the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Franci's War is the powerful testimony of one incredibly strong young woman who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and survived.
Author: Neal Bascomb
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544368061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 423
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Book Description
From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Hunting Eichmann and The Perfect Mile, a World War II spy adventure set in Norway that draws on top-secret documents and memoirs of the saboteurs. In 1942, the Nazis were racing to complete the first atomic bomb. All they needed was a single, incredibly rare ingredient: heavy water, which was produced solely at Norway’s Vemork plant. Under threat of death, Vemork’s engineers pushed production into overdrive. If the Allies could not destroy the plant, they feared the Nazis would soon be in possession of the most dangerous weapon the world had ever seen. But how would the Allied forces reach the castle fortress, set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth? Based on a trove of top-secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skis, perilous survival in the wild, Gestapo manhunts, and a last-minute operation that would alter the course of the war. “Riveting and poignant . . . The Winter Fortress metamorphoses from engrossing history into a smashing thriller . . . Mr. Bascomb’s research and, especially, his storytelling skills are first-rate.”—Wall Street Journal
Author: Chris Van Dusen
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 081187981X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 37
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Book Description
One winter morning, Mr. Magee and his little dog, Dee, head out bright and early to learn how to ski. But what begins as a pleasant day in the snow quickly goes downhill when a run-in with a curious moose sends them flying through the air and hanging above an abyss! How will Dee and Magee find their way out of this snowy situation? Chris Van Dusen, the creator of Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee and A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, has crafted yet another fun-filled adventure for Magee fans old and new.
Author: Bode Miller
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 1588365069
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
“I don’t master the mountain, I master speed.” Coming from Bode Miller, this isn’t boasting, it’s just the way he lives: fast, honest, and wide open. In this candid book, the two-time Olympic medalist and champion skier shares his story, the secret of his success, and his philosophy of life. Born and raised “off the grid”–without electricity or indoor plumbing–in the cabin built by his father in the woods near Franconia, New Hampshire (pop. 850), Bode is unconventional to the core. The strong values of his simple upbringing, where he and his family had to “invent, grow, or carry in” all the essentials have made Bode unique among today’s top sports stars. Bode’s approach to life is straightforward: “Get a plan, stick to it, and trust your instincts . . . and almost anything is possible.” And practically since birth, the iconoclastic Bode has been achieving the impossible and laying down tracks for others to follow. He revolutionized his sport by adopting new and crossover technologies, such as “shape” skis. He drives his tradition-bound European rivals to distraction, skiing and winning by instinct. His outsider status, killer smile, and outspoken yet laid-back persona have earned him a reputation as the Michael Jordan of skiing. Men’s Journal named Bode the second greatest athlete in the world. And in the 2005 season, Bode may have moved up a notch by becoming the first American to win the Overall World Cup Alpine championship in twenty-two years. In short, he is the kind of person everybody wants to know and hang out with. In a book loaded with insight, good humor, and eye-opening stories about the world of competitive skiing, Bode, as always, holds nothing back.
